I have a memory from my time as a wedding photographer of one Anglican Priest who always used today’s reading about the vine in his ‘words of encouragement and challenge.’ to the couple.

He always began by saying that he had been pruning his trees that morning.  After a number of weddings I began to wonder if he had any fruit trees left after such constant pruning.

That indeed is the danger of the vine metaphor because humanity has a nasty habit of strengthening their comfortable ‘in’ group by pruning out those who they see as different.  That’s perhaps not surprising because much of our popular entertainment is about doing good by getting rid of the bad guy.  Putting troublesome youths in boot camps is much easier and cost affective than feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and loving both friend and stranger as ourselves.

Not surprisingly therefore faith-based groups set out to oppose people and lifestyles different to their own, but they also purify their own ‘in’ group by pruning out difference.  That gives power to leadership and in turn opens the temptation and opportunity for leadership to exploit the group for their own gratification or profit.

By some strange coincidences my recent TV watching has involved watching ‘Escaping Utopia’ about the Gloriavale community, ‘Testify’ a drama series about a family run evangelical church which had a brutal murder in the first episode and new sins in each episode. 

Then we had ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’ which was about a purely secular corporation that preferred to prune out its loyal independent postmasters  rather than admit its computer programme was faulty.  All this while Destiny Church was vandalising rainbow crossings. 

So, in frustration I abandoned the television and picked up a Robert Galbraith novel which I had purchased in the middle of last year, called The Running Grave. 

As Robert Galbraith is actually J.K. Rowling I hoped there would have been a bit of magic to free me from depressing television.

But the coincidences continued.  The two detectives were investigating an interfaith cult focused on fraud, mind-bending, sex and murder. 

All these stories involved pruning away people with alternative worldviews and lifestyles to make the core group feel secure but also vulnerable to exploitation.  The magic of stories asked the question if exploitation and profit was perhaps the motive for creating the cult or sect in the first place. 

That was neatly highlighted in a piece of dialog in ‘Testify’ where the head paster tells his youth-paster to stop trying to rescue lost souls and trans gender youth from the streets because it upsets their more conservative and regular giving members. 

But the vine metaphor is about the interconnectedness of Christians rather than exclusion.  Any pruning needs to be a self-discipline that removes any inclination to exclude others or to exploit others.

Like any tangled vine the interconnection within the Christian community is complicated.  Not only are Christians connected to each other they are also connected to Christ. 

Another helpful feature of the metaphor is that vines produce unexpected results.  Anybody who has ignored the small ivy plant that a blackbird has unthinkingly planted, where it has grown unnoticed until it requires four trailer loads of tangled vine to be taken to the tip, has learned that vines easily get out of control. 

Of course, the vine in the metaphor is likely to be a heavenly cultivated grape vine that is carefully pruned to remove the growth that does nothing but rob the fruit of nourishment.  Furthermore, fruiting branches are pruned at the end of the season to encourage the re-growth of even more fruiting branches.

But all metaphors have limitations so we should not be trapped into excluding church members who are different.  The vine metaphor is about growth and nourishment not excommunication. 

The pruning in the metaphor is best understood as cultivation of this metaphorical vine rather than any slash and burn policy that indulges our inclination to exercise judgement on God’s behalf.  

But we should not abandon the seed carrying blackbird I mentioned earlier because that can be a metaphor for our Acts reading.  The seed of the vine carried to new soil by a chance encounter. 

Philip meets the Ethiopian slave who, as a non-Jew, had been to Jerusalem to worship.  This was a person that, despite his enthusiasm for a relationship with God, was unacceptable to the Judaism of his time because of race and a damaged body.  However, Philip baptises the Ethiopian eunuch into what had begun as a Jewish revival movement and was evolving into the Christian Church.  

We are told that the Holy Spirit confirmed the Ethiopian’s baptism.  That not only confirmed Philip’s acceptance of him but confirmed the acceptance of diversity into what was becoming the Christian Church.

This reading also brings us back to the wider understanding of the vine metaphor as we see the network spreading from Philip, one of Jesus’ disciples, to a person of influence within the Ethiopian empire.  The first disciples may well have preferred a nicely domesticated Jewish grape vine that they could prune and control.  But in Philip’s serendipitous meeting with a gentile the Spirit Bird plants the seeds of the emerging faith in new fertile soil. 

Remember the bird that plucks the fruit off the rampant ivy and plants it where it can smother another fence in someone else’s garden.   The Ethiopian Church is a very old church that developed in spite of being cut off from Rome and the West by the Ottoman Empire.

It is a great example of the Spirit’s independence of human structures and the Christian Faith’s disregard of race and ability to adapt to diverse cultures. 

The vine metaphor however stresses that such diverse churches are still fruits of the same Spirit and connected to the Christ vine which in turn is within the vine of divine mystery. 

It is through the vine that spiritual nourishment flows and it is that flow that produces fruit.

The reading encourages us as individual Christians and as a parish to care for the vine as a vintner would care for the grapes that produce unique and highly prized wine. 

As Christians together we must cultivate each other and the readings give a clue as to how that might happen.  Those first disciples were cleansed by the words Jesus spoke to them (John15:3) and so we cultivate each other through the reading and expounding of scripture. 

The Gospels give us the words of Jesus and in sharing those words, and the words that nurtured Jesus, we find their meaning for our time and place.

Vines are living organisms so just as Philip reinterpreted the scripture for the Ethiopian, we in turn expound the scripture for our time and place.

In that process understanding that is no longer relevant is pruned away and new and relevant understanding that will bear fruit is encouraged.

But the reading goes deeper into the vine metaphor and stresses the connectedness of the vine.  We are to abide in Christ and he in us.  Without the vine, branches cannot bear fruit and the passage urges us to recognise that, without Christ, we cannot bear fruit. 

However, that connection must be more than a loyalty to fallible human hierarchy or ecclesiastical order and discipline. 

No matter how vinelike human hierarchy might seem there is always the option for the cancerous growth of corruption or the protection of a corporate brand at the expense of people’s lives.

The vine, the branches, the connection to each other, and indeed the fruit, must be ‘in Christ and of Christ.’  In some mysterious and miraculous way we are called to live within the resurrection of Christ and be Christ to others.  It is not just in proclaiming the resurrection but in being the resurrection we will bear fruit.

This finally brings us to ask this metaphor what it means to bear fruit.

We have touched on the ivy’s fruit that the blackbird plucks from the vine and deposits seeds in other people’s gardens.  Many Christians see this as the only fruit necessary.  To plant new churches both deliberately, or as Philip did in our Acts reading, serendipitously through unexpected meeting and opportunity.

However, if we read past the gospel text proscribed for today, we find Jesus saying in verse 9&10, As the father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father’s commandments and abide in his love. (John 15:9&10).

So, we see that the abiding in Christ that makes us part of the vine is love, the sap that flows through the vine and nourishes the branches is love, and the fruit is love.  Part of living in Christ is keeping Christ’s commandments but if we read right through this long farewell speech we will discover that the commandments are also love. 

Certainly, love of God and love of neighbour as the Hebrew Scripture proscribes.  But Jesus well and truly expands the understanding of love to include enemies and in this speech stretches love further to be a love that lays down one’s own life for the sake of others.

The fruit of the vine metaphor is love.  The fruit may well have seeds that find new fertile ground and grow new expressions of the vine.  But it is the fruit not the seeds that is the primary focus of any vintner and so it is with Christ. 

We are part of the Christian vine.  We are fruitful as we live in Christ and Christ lives in us.

The fruit of that resurrection relationship produces a yield of love which is the wine of loving transformation.

The essence of a new humanity.

“Tears, Doubts, Peace” (John 20:19-31)

Our passage this morning is the familiar “Doubting Thomas story”.  Thomas is one of the lesser-known disciples with the exception of being singled out and remembered as “the one who doubted.”  At this point, the disciples have drawn together and are in hiding after the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus.  They have been spending their time behind locked doors, and are waiting for whatever may happen next.  They too, had been filled with fear and doubt after the crucifixion, until Jesus appeared to them.  At this point, they have seen Jesus and are elated.  But Thomas hadn’t been there.  

How many times have we heard someone say “Don’t be such a doubting Thomas” and doesn’t it always seem to come with a stern look that means stop asking questions and just take my word for it.  To be a doubting Thomas in today’s world is not a good thing.  It means one is unduly skeptical, a kind of killjoy, or even a royal sourpuss. 

Poor Thomas has been much maligned over the years, and how often do we fail to see the courage he had to speak his doubts, the honesty he had to state what he needed, and the amazing declaration that he makes as he says “My Lord and My God.”

I’d like to look at his transformation again see in what ways our lives are like Thomas’s, how we can learn from his actions and how Jesus responds to us all. 

My main point will be this; Jesus seeks to encounter us no matter where we are in our lives, no matter where we are in our journey of faith, in spite of all our questions and doubts.  He longs for us to find our own faith and discover him as our Lord and God.  Honest questions of faith and even open doubts are not always indications of faithlessness, but can be open doors for Christ to meet us. 

Turning to the first part of our passage we read, “But Thomas was not with them” It is not said where Thomas was or why he was not with the others when Jesus appeared.  It may have been that Thomas was out doing errands or doing reconnaissance in the city.  Any number of things may have distracted him and kept him from being in the community of faith. 

(I think about all the Sunday Church services I have missed only to have friends tell me how great it was and how I should have been there the pastor gave the best sermon of his life and the choir finally sang in tune and why wasn’t I THERE? Well sometimes there are times that we chose to be away and it can be for any number of reasons.  Some perhaps better than others. )

I think from what we know of Thomas from elsewhere in the Gospels that perhaps his absence was something more than bad timing.  I think Thomas was a much more inward disciple.  Separating himself from the others may have been his way of dealing with Jesus’ death.  There is no doubt that Thomas loved Jesus.  He was prepared to die with Jesus in Jerusalem. The others wanted to flee but he was ready to set his face on Jerusalem and travel with Jesus.

He was most likely out grieving on his own, choosing to turn inward to find answers for himself as to what had happened.  There are most certainly times in life where solitude can be refreshing and a way to restore ourselves.  But there is a difference between being at one with God and ourselves, and being alone.  

He may have left the others and said “I just want to be left alone for a while-I can take care of myself” Withdrawing and hiding with his pain. In this way, Thomas reminds me of many of the Stoic Scandanavians  I knew in Midwest. I think there still is a philosophy of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps and not troubling anyone else with your problems as a way of life. 

Many people do not want to be vulnerable with their troubles or think that it can do any good to share their problems; it will just bring somebody else down.   It does take a kind of courage to say I can’t come up with all the answers myself, and be open and vulnerable with others. 

And imagine feeling as Thomas did, feeling so low, and then to hear the news that Jesus is alive would sound like a cruel hoax, certainly too good to be true.  They say, “We have seen him” and he says “I haven’t”  Thomas thought he knew how the story of Jesus ended, but now Easter brings another ending. Easter changes everything.  The others are moving to an Easter faith and Thomas still has “pre-Easter eyes”.  Thomas says honestly, “Until I see I can not believe.” 

“Seeing is believing.., or I’ll believe it when I see it” are at many times good policy.  But sometimes one must believe in order to see.  I think that something, some thread of belief or memory, or hope brought Thomas back to the life of faith.   Whatever the reason, he came back to join the others. 

He came back and yet he is painfully honest.  The others tell him, don’t grieve, and be glad we have seen him!  He could have trend to accept their word and attach his hopes to their experience and their story but he cannot do so and still be true to his faith.  “I can not believe” He could have joined the celebration, withholding his lingering doubts and banishing them to silence, but what would have become of him?  And his faith? Surrounded by others telling him what sounded too good to be true he makes a bold statement of what he needed for him to believe. 

In Luke we see that the others doubted Mary as she reported to them what she had seen.  “Idle gossip” they said.  It was not until he appeared to them that they believed.   At first Thomas is asking for no more than what the others experienced seeing Jesus.   But then does go further and ask to put his hand in the side that was wounded. 

Thomas says what he means and means what he says.  He is not going to express a belief that he does not truly feel.  I think each of us also needs to have our own personal experiences that we hold as part of our faith.  What kinds of experiences do we hold to supply evidence for our faith?  We speak with the greatest conviction, and are most convincing to others when we speak of our own experience.  When we speak what we truly believe, or what we truly question or even fear.  In sharing this with others we are the most honest and I think the most whole.  It is not a complete faith to hold oneself to the faith of our parents and grandparents, we need to make faith our own in some way.

Someone else most certainly can help us by sharing their faith and saying here is how I experience my faith and my doubts.  It truly is in community that we will find answers, each of us have our own individual relationship to God and yet we are all members of the family of God and it is truly blessed to live together in peace, sharing the peace of Christ.  We can remind and reassure each other of truths we know, but sometimes lose sight of when we are alone.

If we question –  it is then – that Jesus has a door to respond.   Isn’t it often the darkest moments of doubts and pain that brought out the most immediate times of joy. 

What times in life are we so aware of God’s Presence that we would cry “My Lord and My God!”  Thomas’s faith is very real to him and it is something alive that he thinks about, wrestles with. This makes it subject to honest questions.  

Look what happens.  It is within a community of faith that he finds his answer.  Jesus does say come put your hand here!  The text does not say that he did, he certainly could have.  But he did not have to, now his doubt was washed away, he was back in the fellowship of those following Christ and he was in the honest place of crying out My Lord and My God.  He goes from the depths of doubt to the celebration of certainty. 

Jesus responds to Thomas’s pain and aloneness with a word of Peace. “Peace be with you” Shalom.  Jesus does not scold him but gives him a chance to have his questions answered.  Go ahead put your hand in my side, do not doubt.  I don’t think he did.  I do think he needed to. 

And the rest of Jesus words are a blessing to us and to the church that has come after.  We have not seen the resurrected Christ and yet we believe. This belief is a blessing.  Yet there will be doubts, there will be times of uncertainty, and the message is clear.  Stay within the circle of faith. Seek answers to your questions.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God.   If our hearts are seeking God, no question will distance God from us. God will responds saying “Peace be with you”  “Believe” 

Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29

This psalm alternates between the first person singular and first person plural.  Given that the psalm is celebrating a military victory and deliverance from the surrounding nations, it seems most likely that the first person section involves the king, or another representative person, speaking on behalf of the people, making this arguably one of the royal psalms in Israel.^[1] The psalm belongs to the feast of Tabernacles with verses 1-4 being a thanksgiving of the people while 5-21 are an individual thanksgiving and 22-29 contain a mixture of motives.^[2]  The psalm is performed at the temple gate so Jesus may just be joining the procession that was going to the temple for a festival.

Mark 11: 1-11

This is a very well know story where differences in the different Gospels are not always noticed.  Morna Hooker appears sympathetic to the idea that the people crying Hosanna were part of the procession that Jesus was joining, but also points out that it was normal to walk into the city, so in riding any sort of animal makes some claim of authority.^[3]

Myers on the other hand focuses on the gospel writer’s motives and notes that Mark would know that the image of a march on the city amid Davidic acclaim would have connected his first readers with a military procession.  Myers in fact says that the procession recalls the military entry of the triumphant rebel leader Simon Maccabaeus into Jerusalem, ‘with praise and palm branches.’

But the story is expressly anti-military and comes close to a satire on military liberators.  There is also an anti-urban bias in Mark.

Garments are thrown on the animal and on the road, along with straw cut from the fields.  Myers sees this as a contrast to the urban elite as the rural crowd bring straw as their only gift and weapons.^[4]

Sermon

Today’s gospel reading is one of the well-known stories and as such has been dissected, analysed and enacted year after year.  It makes a telling contrast between the crowds that shout hosanna and then those who shout crucify him. 

It is not hard to find a contemporary example of such reversal of mood.  Dame Jacinda Ardern was re-elected prime minister of the first single party majority government since MMP began.  However, when some of the efforts to control covid were inconvenient for some people folk not only marched on parliament but camped in the grounds, set fire to the children’s play equipment and wanted to execute the prime minister.

They were of course a different group to those who voted the government into office and, as Dominique Crossan points out, those who waved the branches for Jesus and those who called for Barabbas may not have been same crowd either. 

Another scholar Ched Myers suggests that this Palm Sunday procession, quoted in all four canonical gospels, recalls the military parade of the triumphant rebel leader Simon Maccabaeus entering Jerusalem, ‘with praise and palm branches.’

The Maccabean Revolt defeated the Greeks and briefly restored Israel as an independent state under the short lived Herodian dynasty.  Herod the great began the restoration of the temple which went on for more than 60 years, some of which was after his death. 

Therefore we should watch the construction of the new stadium and the rebuild of the Anglican Cathedral with interest.

But just like the Ardern Government the Herodian dynasty did not meet everyone’s expectations.  Some of the lack of stability was attributed to the fact that Herod was not a descendant of David.  Therefore several groups expected God to call out someone with the appropriate genealogy and send heavenly warriors to support him. 

Some of those groups started terrorist action to remind God of the divine responsibility.  As a result Herod asked for military aid from the Romans. 

Roman aid was enthusiastically supplied at the usual price. Complete loss of sovereignty, taxation and unrestricted trade access for the Roman Empire.

According to some historians the Jewish peasants were worse off.  But collaborators and the Jewish ruling class got good roads, running water, a sewage system and sports stadiums.  Whether they wanted it or not everyone got better security. 

Just as Simon Maccabaeus had led a parade into Jerusalem to show they were now free of foreign domination, Roman officials paraded into Jerusalem to show everyone that they were now under the protection of the greatest military power the world had ever known.  Many people would have felt secure in that knowledge.

In our time there is about to be a presidential election in Russian.  Apart from the reality that opposition candidates seem to have limited life expectancy most of the poorest of the poor in Russia will vote for Putin because he delivers security.  Poverty stricken people often feel that if there is any change it could make their life worse. 

That yearning for stability is reinforced by massive military parades.  In Russia, as in North Korea and China, military parades, not only tell the world not to mess with them, but also reinforce the feeling of security among the least secure of their own people.

Banning gang patches and getting tough on crime have a similar aim.

Protest marches are very similar to parades but, rather than support the government of the day, they tend to demand change.  One of my regrets is that I didn’t take part in the anti-apartheid marches.  In fact, I didn’t take part in any protests until I moved to Hamilton and the Rev Alan Leadley told me to.  But I can’t remember what it was about. 

Since coming back to Christchurch I have been, at the encouragement of my MP, to a couple of protests about affordable housing. 

Apart from celebrating sporting achievement I think New Zealanders are better at protest marches than parades that affirm the status quo.

One of the most famous was on the 13^th of October 1975 the land march led by Whina Cooper arrived at Parliament and presented a petition signed by 60,000 people to Prime Minister Bill Rowling.  That hikoi, which marched from the far north of the North Island, was to protest ongoing M?ori land alienation.  It moved through the North Island, staying with people and sharing meals in various maraes along the way giving hope and gathering supporters.  Media interest grew and the h?koi arrived in Wellington in the full glare of the national media.  After a memorial of rights was presented to Rowling, about 60 protesters set up a M?ori embassy in Parliament grounds.  A final bit of public place theatre to hammer home the message.

But it caused less destruction and inconvenience than the more recent anti everything encampment.

The gospels focus on the final march of Jesus into Jerusalem but Mark, Matthew and Luke all structure their gospel narrative as a relentless march from Galilee to Jerusalem.  A healing h?koi from the province of the most marginalised to the centre of power, staying with people in various villages, sharing meals in people’s homes, offering hope and gathering supporters.

When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethpage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘go into the village ahead of you and immediately as you enter it, you will find there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it’. (Mark 11:1,2)    

In that action Jesus was setting up his final bit of street theatre, similar to the Maori Embassy on parliament grounds.  As he lead the parade into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey Jesus staged an acted parable, the non military messiah on a beast of burden rather than a horse of war.  His script comes from their scriptural tradition, first from Zachariah:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!

Lo your king comes to you;

triumphant and victorious is he,

humble and riding on a donkey

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

(Zachariah 9:9)

When Matthew tells the story he misses the parallelism which is such a feature of Hebrew poetry and tries to get Jesus riding two donkeys.

Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. (Matthew 21:2)

But the passage from Zachariah is poetry and the parallel structure repeats a line with slightly different words.  So the king is riding a donkey in one line and the following line makes the point that it is a young donkey by calling it the colt of a donkey. 

Mark does not make that mistake and has the crowd chant from our Old Testament reading, Psalm 118.  This is a hymn of approach sung or chanted by pilgrims approaching Jerusalem so Jesus may just have been part of the crowd going to the Passover. 

Equally Psalm 118 was an appropriate song to sing as part of Jesus’ acted parable just as there would have been songs and haka as Whina Cooper’s H?koi arrived at Parliament. 

There are any number of meanings we can draw from this Palm Sunday story but seeing it as a piece of public theatre designed to bring Jesus’ message to a wider public certainly does justice to the way Mark, Mathew and Luke construct their gospels.  A march of healing and hope from Galilee to Jerusalem.

Along the way there were sermons preached, demons cast out, people were healed, and outcast brought back into the community.  Jesus and his disciples shared meals and hospitality with people on the journey.  When the crowds followed him into a deserted place Jesus somehow managed to stage a great open-air picnic where, not only did everyone get fed but there was a symbolic twelve baskets left over.

Once the march reaches Jerusalem in Mark’s Gospel Jesus and the disciples go into the temple.

I can just picture Jesus and his disciples checking out the venue of an even greater event in much the same way as a sports team or a music group might check out the stadium as soon as they arrive.  I don’t know how many times I have arrived at a conference the evening before the event and gone and had a bit of a look at the venue before going to dinner. 

In verse eleven Mark is telling his readers ‘That procession into Jerusalem was pretty special but just you wait till tomorrow’s episode for some real public theatre that challenges the way the temple exploits the poor’ 

Jesus checks out the venue at the end of today’s reading then in verse fifteen to seventeen he attacks the merchants and the money changers and brings home the whole focus of the long protest march.

Jesus comes to Jerusalem, not as a military king riding a white stallion but as the servant leader riding a peasant’s borrowed donkey.  Nevertheless, Jesus assumes the authority we all have, which is to challenge injustice where we find it.

This is the week before Easter and we are all aware that Jesus will suffer the consequences that so many people suffer for opposing unjust systems and regimes. 

But next Sunday, Easter Day we remember that the Jesus march moved beyond his death and can still affect our world today.

In an unexpected twist, that is the hallmark of all good short stories, when the authorities of the time reacted to oppose the Jesus protest, they guaranteed an ongoing march of change that delivered healing and hope at donkey pace for centuries to come.

The gospel journey is more a protest march than a parade.  A h?koi of hope that not only demanded and demonstrated change for Jesus’ time but has inspired change for all time.

Each and every Palm Sunday, we are called to make our life journey as part of Christ’s transforming parade.  

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[1] http://hwallace.unitingchurch.org.au/

WebOTcomments/LentA/PalmSunday.html

[2] A.A Anderson Psalms 73-150 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Erdmans, London: Morgan & Scott, 1972) p.118

[3] Morna Hooker The Gospel according to St Mark (London: A&C Black, 1991)pp.255-257.

[4] Ched Myers Binding the Strong Man (New York: Maryknoll, 1988) pp. 294-297.

“To the Test”  (Mark 1:9-15)

I love the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.  I was reading from an old book of them the other day and took a particular delight from the first page.  In the very first Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, Calvin’s dad is working on the car.  Calvin walks up in a safari hat and says, “So long, Pop! I’m off to check my tiger trap! I rigged a tuna fish sandwich yesterday, so I’m sure to have a tiger by now!” His dad replies, “They like tuna fish, huh?” As Calvin walks off, he says, “Tigers will do anything for a tuna fish sandwich!” The final frame shows Hobbes (the tiger), hanging by his foot from a tree, munching on a tuna fish sandwich.  He says to no one in particular, “We’re kind of stupid that way.”

Each day we are tempted to be less than God created us to be.  Every time we choose what is the easiest path for us without thinking about how much more is possible.  Whenever we grab for the tuna fish when we really know better.  We get caught in the trap of temptation and we too can say “We’re kind of stupid that way.”

Our society scoffs at temptation.  Oscar Wilde said, “I can resist anything but temptation” and “the easiest way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” Temptation is trivialized because we believe ourselves self-sufficient.  We know and we decide what’s best for us.  I think we trivialize sin when we think of it as merely an error in judgment.  Sin is rejecting God’s hopes for us.  We think of temptation as the acceptance of evil when it is far more often the rejection of courageous good.  We are so used to choosing what is easiest that becoming what God wants us to be –  doesn’t even seem like an option.

Today is the first Sunday of Lent.  And while Presbyterians don’t really emphasise rather as the time when  people “give up” something for God.  When I was younger, I was always a little confused by this season.  It sounded to me like church people had borrowed something from God and now it was time for them to give up what they had been “Lent”.   One person turned to another and asked, “what are you going to give up for Lent, white or dark chocolate?”

Some will always try to see little they can get by with, with their faith.  But the season of Lent is one of the richest and most meaningful times in the whole church year.  Lent can become a meaningful pilgrimage of faith in which we are to be prepared and repaired in our souls in anticipation of Easter.  If we choose, it can be a time for reflection, repentance, and renewal, three essentials of spiritual growth and vitality.  That is an invitation, and another way to look at it, our test, – what will we do this season. 

Lent can be a time of grace, a time to begin again with God.  For truly, no one is so far from God that they are not welcome again in the family of faith.  Sometimes people think that they are beyond hope; that their faith is too small and their spirits too dry and their sins too great for even God to give them another chance.  But in Lent God searches for us, and brings us back into the family of God.

That being searched for and being found, that coming back changed, is a sojourn.  Each one of us is on a path with God.  Journeying is an oft used image to describe the changes we Christians encounter in our lives as we come to see God in new ways.  We say we are moving, that things are not static and unchanging. 

In Jesus’ journey, and on our journeys, we will enter times of bewilderment and temptation.  There are times of being in the wilderness.  But it is in the wilderness that we come to see the depth and power of God’s covenant promise to each one of us.

Just before this time of temptation, Jesus heard the words “you are my beloved son” as he came up out of the water at his baptism.  It was only after he goes into the wilderness that he will really know what it means for him to be God’s son. 

It seems like quite a jolt for Jesus to go from the ecstatic moment of baptism, to then being thrown out into the wilderness.  The Greek is quite clear about this, that Jesus was not simply in need of a spiritual retreat and he should go and spend sometime enjoying the woods.  He was thrown out into the wilderness by the same spirit that assured him he was God’s very own.  So even Jesus, especially Jesus, is subject to the testing and temptations of what God is calling us to do and become.

Consider Jesus’ journey to this point and look at our on lives.  How often do we feel that one moment we are on top of the world, and we can see everything clearly, and then something comes crashing in and we are tested with some personal crisis, or financial problem?  Or overwhelming doubt?  How often do we find our selves shaking our heads and wondering how things could have changed so quickly?  In the Jordan, Jesus realized that God has chosen him to be the Messiah, the promised one.  In the wilderness, he comes to see what that means, and what the “true messiah” must be and do.

In the wilderness, Jesus faced not so much an external foe as a set of internal expectations, hopes that he may have had as to what it meant to be God’s chosen.  There are all sorts of things he could have done with power that God had entrusted him with.  What would he do with his ability to heal, cast out demons, and also with the knowledge that to be God’s son would mean to die on a cross?  What would he do with all that?  How would we handle such power and such a call.  He had to wrestle with this, before he began his ministry.  He had to come to understand God’s promise, God’s covenant that was being made new through him.

This is an important idea for us in faith.  The testing was not something to be avoided, but something to stand up to.  A desire to avoid temptation led people into lives of self-imposed exile and seclusion.  To live is to face temptation or testing on a daily basis. We’re alive we know that, and we know that we’re not alone.  Our faith assures us of that.  As Jesus is not alone with his temptations, he is attended to by angels, messengers who minister to him and will help him realize his true course.  We are not alone in the midst of our tests.  That is the covenant we have with our God.  Our God will never forsake us.

Some will imagine that the wilderness is optional, only for those who are extra serious about their faith and willing to journey out into the wilds.  But it is a call to all Christians.  Without the wilderness, there is no joy of celebration.  The fact is we can not have an instant Easter.  We can’t just show up on Easter morning and shout that Christ is risen!  And expect to be able to enter into the celebration of the resurrection.  If we haven’t reflected on the void in our lives that cries out for God, if we haven’t looked into the disappointing meagerness of our souls.. then we will never really be able to celebrate the good news that death is defeated by life.  In short to miss the wilderness is to stand at a distance and look unmoved upon the greatest moment and miracle of all eternity.

As we begin this season of Lent, reflecting on our own covenant relationship with God, we look for signs to remind us that God has promised to remain faithful – even when we were faithless.  God has promised to be with us in the wilderness and in the chaos of this world.

As Jesus went through the wilderness he had a great deal to give up.  Can we give up our unattainable expectations of ourselves, others and God?  Can we give up our need of having to always be in control?  Can we give up our hardened hearts for ones of flesh?  Can we give all this up to the Lord who promises to take all these things and make them new and give them back to us?

That is the promise – this is what our faith is about.  It is to be willing to go into the wilderness with the spirit and to face all that life sets before us and all that is within us, and to stand firm with the promise that God will never forsake us. And then, and only then, will we be able to see that gift of grace, the never failing promise that comes to us.  This Lent let us look for those moments, receive them as grace and discover a richness of being emptied.  Lent can be a time of grace.  How much of ourselves will we bring to this season? How far into the wildness will we allow ourselves to go?  AMEN.

“Quiet Time”  (Mark 1:29-39)

I’ve got something of a silly question to begin with, has anyone experienced a “snow day”?  (Collect answers)  A snow day is when you were supposed to go to school or work, but then Mother Nature says SURPRISE!  (Now you have to change your plans!)  I love to op shop and I have come across a couple of books, the great snow storm of 1992 and the even greater storm of 2011.  Look at all these pictures, they are really impressive. snow on New Brighton Beach and downtown.   Now, where I come from, these books could be called “Tuesday” and “Wednesday”.   (My family has been sending pictures of the latest snow storms in the Midwest.)  

I did get to experience a “snow day” not too long ago when I caught on the wrong side of Burkes pass last winter and we had to cancel the worship service in Fairlie.  It felt weird, I was all prepared and ready to lead service, it was going to be the best sermon ever, it was communion Sunday, and it all got called off.  Instead of being at church, I sat by a fireplace and looked out the window at the beautiful scenery and read a book.   If a snow day comes, we are forced to change our plans.  For some, this is a burden, it requires a different set of chores – like shoveling.  For others, a day like that comes as a gift, proving a quiet spot – a break from the expected routines and it presents a strange, and possibly wonderful, time to be still. 

While “snow days” can’t be scheduled, or planned on, we do plan on taking vacations, (or even as a country New Zealand seems to say let’s all plan to slowdown from mid-December to mid-January.)  Have you ever noticed that sometimes a planned vacation can feel exhausting?  It takes a lot of work to get away from our work. Some of us struggle to know how to relax. For others, it is difficult to just sit, doing nothing, and simply being quiet, and for others, they go on their getaway and take everything with them: all the noise, all the commotion, all the music, all the clothing, all the stuff. They pack all their burdens in their suitcases and drag them along.   Sometimes we need to take a vacation after we return from the vacation.

Mark begins by reporting a “typical day” in the life of Jesus-it is actually one of his first days “at work” as Mark would tell the story.   Jesus teaches in the synagogue, casts out a demon, ruffles the feathers of a congregation, and cures a fever. Then he has a meal, served by the very person that he healed. Word spreads all over Capernaum. Friends tell their friends. Children tell their parents. By nightfall, the whole city is jammed around his door, says Mark.  It must have been exhausting.  We can understand why Jesus slips away for some quiet time, can’t we?

He goes to a quiet place and gets away from everybody and everything (even if just for a short while). Then he prays. We can applaud him for tending to his self-care. If he retreats for a bit of silence, the getaway promises to restore his soul or recharge his battery. No question that he needs some time away from all the activity. No question that even Jesus needs a “snow day” – or a “snow evening”.

All of us know about this feeling of fatigue. Life can be tiring and we yearn for some rest. There is physical exhaustion and mental weariness. We hear from the scriptures that Jesus was fully human, just like us. What that means is he got tired just like us.

After a hard day of doing the God’s work, he spends time in communion with God. After laboring long and hard on the Sabbath, he takes a Sabbath – and he prays. At the center of all his ministry of healing, teaching, and miracles,  Jesus pauses to speak to God, to listen for God, and to be still. 

In the story we’ve heard today, it sounds like we have a glimpse of the human side of Jesus: he’s tired, he’s worn out, he’s taking some time for prayer. Jesus knew that he needed help. He knew that he could not live in this world without God. If he was forever going to be giving out, he must sometimes be taking in. If he was going to spend himself for others, he must spend time spiritually refreshing himself. Jesus knew that it was not humanly possible to accomplish all that he needed to accomplish every day of his life in his own strength alone. He also knew that he didn’t have to. Not when the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise God, his loving Father was ever present, ready to provide, whatever he needed, whenever he needed it, however he needed it. All he had to do was ask. The Bible says we have not because we ask not. If we ask, we will receive.

I think that preacher is on to something. That is why this scene from Jesus’ life is more than an escape. It is more substantial than a quick trip away.

It doesn’t last long. In fact, it lasts only for one sentence. It lasts only for verse 35. In the very next verse, Simon Peter hunts for Jesus and says, “Hey, you really impressed them. Everybody is hunting for you.” And that’s why Jesus gives his unusual reply: “Let’s get moving then. There are a lot of places where I need to preach and heal.” He has discerned the work of God is not about winning popularity contests. It is about getting on with the challenges God has set before him. He worked that through in the quiet, lonely place.

It strikes me that this kind of prayerful clarity is rare. He goes to a quiet place, and his prayer is for a purpose. It is not merely for spiritual refreshment, but for guidance and direction. It’s not merely filling the tank but steering the car. “God, why am I here?” Not merely asking what others expect of me or reflecting on what I want to do. It’s asking: What does God put before me today?

So, the Gospel text today calls us in two complimentary directions: be still and get to work. Listen to God and care for others. Pray in such a way that our souls are replenished and engage the pain of the neighborhood. It is both-and, a rhythm of contemplation and action. In the name of Jesus, they belong together.

There is a balance between what we do and what we refrain from doing. Hard work invites us to rest our bodies and tend our souls. Prayerful silence clarifies our purpose and reanimates our efforts. The spiritual life is an engaged life, rooted in God and directed toward others.

So, take advantage of our reflection and prayer time today. Lean back into the arms of a God who offers to restore our souls. Listen for the whispers of grace, and trust God will equip us for every challenge. And after you say Amen, open your eyes and look around. We are called to serve a world of need. That is why God granted moments of prayer and rest. And when we get right to the heart of it, selfless service to others is the reason we are here.  Where to?  What’s next?  AMEN.