Six short Good Friday reflections on the sounds that punctuate Christ's Passion (based on John 18 and 19).
1) The sound of a voice shot through with eternity
2) The sound of a new day sung into being
3) The sound of the first ‘Barabbas’
4) The sound of no response
5) The sound of new body
6) The sound of an attended body
Read MoreThe mighty acts of God lead us not to haughtiness but humility, not grandiosity but generosity, not isolation but interconnectedness. The mighty acts of God – however accurately they might be characterised as a rescue – do not pull us out of the community, out of neighbourhoods, out of humanity but draw us in gratitude, enmesh us is in reliance, and ground us in love. Remembering the mighty acts of God’s liberating salvation told stirringly across the gamut of Scripture open our hearts and homes to one another, they make of us neighbours. The gifts of God cannot be hoarded, cannot be tucked away for safekeeping, they pour out and are shared or they are burned up at dawn.
Read MoreThis is the third in a series on The Trinity and the Christian Life. Exploring how thinking and speaking of God as Triune impacts the way we approach central aspects of the Christian life. In this post, The End.
Read MoreWhile employing a range of visual imagery and literary form, our readings share similarities in the overarching nature of the end they await. Each, in their way, stresses the intimacy and fullness with which we will be swept up in the life of God. Whether it is resting in the very house of God, living in a city in which God is its light, temple, and fellow resident who we will see face-to-face, or the promise that God will in some way be fully in all things – all these texts point to an intimate experience with the full, unveiled Triune God. They point to life with (even in) God.
This is the second in a series on The Trinity and the Christian Life. Exploring how thinking and speaking of God as Triune impacts the way we approach central aspects of the Christian life. In this post, Mission.
Read MoreRevelation reflects God’s missionary nature - it has a purposive and reconciling quality - revealing God’s turn toward us, God’s being for and with humanity. God is the one who reveals, and in doing so reveals Godself as being committed to the establishment of a people and the flourishing of the world. The Trinity is a missionary God.
This is the first in a series on The Trinity and the Christian Life. Exploring how thinking and speaking of God as Triune impacts the way we approach central aspects of the Christian life. In this post, Redemption.
Read MoreJust as the Triune God is known as Creator and Sustainer of all things, so the Triune God is the one who redeems. The redemptive activity of God is part of who God is, as Triune. So rather than salvation being solely the activity of the Son at Calvary – Scripture testifies to the ongoing redemptive work of God expressed as companionship, deliverance from evil, restoration, forgiveness of sins, and the establishment of a new community in which the work of God continues.
A reflection on John 20 for a church dispersed.
Read MoreFor a split second she had a glimmer of hope, perhaps Jesus’ body just had been laid elsewhere, she asks the gardener if he moved her Lord, if so she will tend to the body. It is such a small request, surely if this man has any heart he will grant her this mercy.
“Mary.”
She hears her name. She hears his voice. He has risen. In the calling of her name the voice reaches out to touch her heart, and it is explodes with joy. Where she had asked for the smallest of mercies she has received the greatest of gifts: an encounter with her friend, her hope, her Messiah, her “Rabbouni!”
A sermon on John 9. Image: Christ Healing the Blind Man, Sebastiano Ricci.
Read MoreTalking about sin is important, being able to - as a community - name and resist those forces, actions, and attitudes that alienate individuals and communities from the love of God, which obscure our standing before God (either over-elevating or denigrating people) is a proper work of the church. But that is a far cry from what is happening here (and what happens too often in our churches). What is happening here is that “sin”, as a label, is wielded like a sledgehammer to determine who is in and who is out, who deserves blame and who acclaim, who is heard and who is silenced, who are loved and who are spurned - this use of sin and blame resembles far more the divisive activity of the enemy than the works of God which seek to make and keep human life human.
The claim that “the first social task of the church is to be the church” (Hauerwas) is a typical of postliberal ecclesiology. This paper argues that this ecclesiology (built also on related claims that the church is a culture, and doctrine is a cultural-linguistic system) replicates colonial models in its missionary movement, insulate the church from external critique, and abstract the church from the encounter with God and in-breaking of the kerygma. The social task of the church needs to be found beyond itself. This is made possible by understanding the church as a missionary community, who, echoing God’s act for us in Christ, express its faithfulness to the Triune God through solidarity with the world. Engaging the world as participants of God’s rectifying act to make and keep human life human.
Read MoreGod acts to release people from bondage. But this is not some abstracted releasing, the word implies another actor is in play. Pharaoh held Israel in bondage, the Accuser held this woman in bondage - God’s liberative acts are acts for us and against another. Sabbath, then, is a time where we take stock of our lives, our communities, our world and seek to see that which is out of line with God’s will, that which is in opposition to God’s creative, liberative, and restorative work. When we come to such a state of awareness we draw near to God so we may be better postured for what God has released us for: participation in the making right of all that is wrong, every day of the week.
Sabbath is about learning what it is that God demands. We must learn to rest: it is not all up to us, and our worth is not found in our productivity, or busy-ness (This is why it can be helpful to think of days beginning at night, with rest, than in the morning, with work. Rest is not something we earn from our labour, it is a gift given to us, just because we are human, and it is from that place that we then turn to our labour). We must learn to organise our communities in a way that lets others rest - especially those who work jobs with less security, or those who have to work multiple jobs just to meet basic needs (this is why I am passionate about the campaign to keep Boxing Day a public holiday - the combination of Christmas and Boxing Day serve as the only time of the year in which people could be guaranteed two consecutive days off - those at most risk of losing that are the vulnerable). We must learn to let the earth rest - to let fields and fuels rest by being ready to relinquish the privilege of “everything now” (my daughter has eaten watermelon almost every day of her life, and while I am thankful for the option when all else is failing, it is also concerning that we have structured our society in such a way that a seasonal fruit is available all year round). Learning Sabbath is also bout learning Jubilee; Sabbath is about the justice and equality that comes through the redistribution of land, the setting free of slaves, the wiping clean of debt so that people will not be stuck in cycles of poverty, so that disparity in wealth, health, and opportunity will not be enshrined and past on across the generations. Sabbath is about learning to be a people whose lives are shaped by God and God’s reign - where the lowly are lifted up and mighty cast down, the last are first and first are last, where the poor are blessed and so too the peacemakers, and where the banquet halls will be filled with those who are never on anyone’s guest list.
Image credit: Barbara Schwarz OP, 2014
Read MoreIn facing temptation Jesus shares in this most universal, though most unfortunate aspect of the human condition. The deep solidarity of the Incarnation goes this far, indeed further; because Jesus is the one able to resist temptation even to his death.
This sermon explores why scenes of temptation have so long captured the artistic imagination, and asks why Matthew crafted his temptation narrative to mirror his Passion account, and how that communicates the good news of deliverance from the powers of sin and death.
Read MoreElizabeth Johnson has written a superb, constructive, and accessible work of Christian Dogmatics. In Creation and the Cross she develops a theology of accompaniment, demonstrating the depth of God’s mercy and the consistency of God’s redemptive work, marked by solidarity and grace. God’s creating, accompanying, and redeeming work reaches wider and deeper than humankind. The whole of creation in its life and death, suffering and joy, is swept up by/in God.
I offer some thoughts on why it might be the best book of 2018.
Read MoreOn rehearsing arguments in the shower and a God whose business is resurrection.
Read MoreJoseph has remained open to seeing and experiencing the love and hope and presence of God in all things - even the darkness of the gallows. He held fast to his belief that God can bring life out of death, that what others meant for harm God was able to turn to good.
Joseph theologically interprets his story – what you had meant for evil God worked for good – Joseph stays open to the fact that God can bring life out of death; that God can pull off a resurrection. Now it is important to note that Joseph did this work for himself. He does the work to see God in the twists and turns of his own painful journey. It is not for us to impose this kind of reading over another’s life, lest we end up like Job’s friends, chased off by the hurricane of God.
Advent calls us to look forward. Place not your trust in the deception of human progress but the coming judgment and righteousness of God. This sermon was delivered at Leichhardt Uniting Church on the first Sunday of Advent 2018. “O my God, in you I trust”
Read MoreThe story of Rizpah and the anointing at Bethany demonstrate how our care for the bodies of the dead, those approaching death, or those burdened by the existential deaths our society deals in, is a way of reflecting the careful attention paid to our bodies by a God who formed the human body out of the clay of the earth, who knits us together in our mother’s womb, and who will raise us bodily in the resurrection. (image: Rizpah by George Becker)
Read MoreAmidst all the political drama of the story of David, it is this act of grit, performed by a grieving mother, that is commended as moving the heart of God.
This post develops a proposal for a role of doctrine in a post-Christendom, global church. It explores writings by George Lindbeck and Kevin Vanhoozer, arguing their contributions restrict the potential for translation through calls to unity. To move forward I engage the function of doctrine, drawing on James H Cone and Ellen T Charry. They show doctrine needs to be transformative, meeting people in their contexts and drawing them into the mission of God. Finally I examine the potential of the role of doctrine as translation; a process empowering both the renewing and rebirth of past expressions of doctrine, and the emergence of entirely new forms built on the endless array of communal and individual experiences of God.
Read More“Doctrine should do something. It should compel the Christian, drawing them into, or sustaining them through, the struggle for liberation and freedom for the oppressed.”
In Scripture naming has a transformative power, it often reflects an encounter or expectation. This post explores four scenes involving naming (Moses and the burning bush, Hagar and El Roi, Jacob becoming Israel, and Simon becoming Peter).
Read MoreFor we who encounter God, we too receive a transformed name – not necessarily in a literal sense like Peter (though that is the case for some) – but our name, our identity, our history and future is transformed by being conformed, swept up, in the life of Christ, in the history and future of God. We don’t lose our particularity, any more than Peter did, but we are drawn into the mystery of God and sent on God’s way – sent on the way of God who hears the cry of the oppressed, and sees the abandoned.
This was a sermon I preached at Leichhardt Uniting Church on November 9, 2017, the Sunday after it was revealed that Australia had voted YES in the marriage equality postal survey. It had been a gruelling campaign, and even though this was a very positive result, the pain caused to the LGBTIQ community was not instantly washed away. Leichhardt had been very active on the YES side of the campaign and had been wonderful in the many varied ways they supported the LGBTIQ community throughout these past months. The sermon explores Nehemiah 8: 1-12 (the reading of the Law of Moses to those returned from exile) and the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25: 14-30). The first reading demonstrates that in Scripture we have the ability to hear our humanity read over us, an affirmation of our status as created, loved, and liberated - an affirmation that moves the assembly to tears, a beautiful counter to their years in exile where they were dehumanised and oppressed. The Parable of the Talents is a commonly misread text, and thus demonstrates the way Scripture can be culturally accommodated to support systems and structures that bind rather than free.
We must continually examine the affect Scripture has on our life. Is it something that reminds us of our humanity – of our neighbour, our strangers, our enemies humanity. Does it remind us that what God says about us it the truest thing about us, and what God says is we are loved and welcomed and called to a new way of living… Does it subvert the world as it is with an image of the world to come – a world creating, reconciling, and redeeming… Or, does it fall into thoughtless patterns where it becomes a way of setting boundaries, a way of propping up cultures of individualism, patriarchy, heterosexism, exploitative economics, colonialism, and so on… Without frequent reading in a community committed to liberation and in a movement to the margins these risks increase.Read More
If I were writing a book about my work as a chaplain it could be suitably titled All The Things I've Tried That Failed. In this post I search for a different way of measuring my (our) participation in the mission of God. Exploring Moses, who the Lord knew face to face; Paul, who came in gentleness; and Christ, who set the bar at love - there's a way of 'measuring' the Christian life that subverts and redeems all manner of downward slanting graphs.
To love God and love neighbour is to be drawn beyond ourselves and our own interests – it is, first, to seek fully and forever after a God who is both entirely beyond and within. It is to praisefully devote ourselves to the hidden and invisible God who we can know intimately. It is to experience and allow ourselves to be transformed by the Spirit of fire, without being consumed, without forfeiting agency. It is, second, to seek fully and forever after the interests of our neighbours who cannot be contained, controlled, or categorised. It is to joyfully commit ourselves to their flourishing and liberation, affirming their humanity as made in the image and likeness of God. It is to experience and allow ourselves to be converted by these encounters, without ever losing the confidence that who we are, as fearfully and wonderfully made, is, when coming to rest in God, enough.Read More
When the post-exilic community hear the Law of Moses read aloud they are moved to tears, what a thing to be reminded of your humanity after living amidst a dehumanising system/society. This piece explores James Cone, Slave Spirituals, Kendrick Lamar, and Sia as examples in this lineage of speaking humanity over the oppressed. It also asks what does it mean for me to be reminded of my humanity in a system designed to celebrate it above all else.
It is in the Law that they hear their humanity spoken over them. In the Law that they hear that they are created in God’s image, created for freedom not bondage, and that God is for them and not on the side of their vainglorious oppressors. What a thing that must be, when for 70 years you have heard (and witnessed) nothing but the opposite. What a thing it must be to hear that you are known, valued, and a person when the society around you has demonstrated their belief, in no uncertain terms, that you are lesser, disposable, a non-person.Read More
My series on James Cone's Black Theology and Black Power continues. This post comments on chapter 3 "The White Church and Black Power".
From the chapter:
If the real church is the people of God, whose primary task is that of being Christ to the world by proclaiming the message of the gospel (kerygma), by rendering services of liberation (diakonia), and by being itself a manifestation of the nature of the new society (koinonia), then the empirical institutionalized white church has failed on all accounts.Read More
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