Category: Major Festivals (page 2 of 2)

The solemn Maundy Thursday foot-washing ritual reminds us that in humility the purposes of God are established. It is a potent symbol of servant leadership.

One of Dermot Doogan’s delightfully irreverent songs is entitled “Bishop for a Day”. Some of the words go :

There’s just one other thing that must be said : in the Church there are the leaders and the led.

I’m the bishop, don’t forget it; know your place, you won’t regret it.

You’re the arms and legs and feet, but I’m the head.

The words remind us of the long-established human tendency to power and privilege at the expense of human well-being, or of the purposes we are appointed to fulfil. We see examples

in :

• efficiency drives in corporate life which make thousands redundant, destroy basic dynamics of trust and commitment within an organisation, and often make short-term gains at the expense of the long-term well-being of both company and community
• the current (1999) scandals in the Olympic Games hierarchy, where people seem to feel that the appointment to a position of responsibility is really a ticket to privilege and all manner of perquisites and freebies
• in the Church today I detect at times a neo-authoritarianism in some of the clergy – one on TV the other night, for example, who said that because he was the Rector he had the power to tell people what was going to happen, and did not need to follow normal procedures of decision-making and financial approvals
• our collective abuse of the environment, despoiling God’s gift to us in Creation. The words of a Canadian Indian challenge us in this regard : “This land fed us all even before the white people came up North. To us she is like a mother that brought her children up”.

In contrast to such abuses of human power, Jesus offers us a different paradigm:  “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”. From this develops a concept of leadership as service. The servant leader is not one who seeks to exercise power over others regardless of the impact upon them, but rather uses his/her power to achieve the well-being of others, and to work in partnership with them for the well-being of the whole.

Tonight’s service in which we re-enact the action of Jesus in washing the feet of his disciples symbolises this concept of leadership as service. We call today Maundy Thursday : ‘Maundy’ comes from the Latin ‘mandatum’, which means ‘command’. Jesus said: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

The act of foot-washing symbolises the unity which loving service engenders between all members of the Body of Christ, and ultimately the unity of all living beings, and the earth itself. It also foreshadows Christ’s coming death on the Cross, for the purpose is the same – to show the humble and sacrificial love of God for us, and to call us into the same love for others.

The life of Jesus, and this symbolic act of foot-washing, reminds us that power is not something to be held on to at all costs, or to be used to lord it over others. Rather power is to be shared so that it empowers others, gives life to others, helps others find true fulfilment as sons and daughters of God, and to reach that wholeness which God wills for all.

At the 1998 Lambeth Conference there was a moving drama as the reds fought the greens symbolically with swords and staves. One by one different members fell to the ground “dead”. After some minutes the lights went down and it was “night”. Only two of the actors remained alive – one red and one green. They put down their weapons and settled down to pass the night. One had matches and lit a fire. The other had food which the two shared together. They talked for most of the night, sharing their own lives and background, talking of family and friends, expressing their hopes and dreams for the future. When “morning” came they leaped up, reached for their weapons and prepared to continue the battle. But they were strangely disempowered, and at last one said to the other : “My brother, now I have heard your story I can no longer fight you”.

The drama and its message was particularly powerful because it was set in the context of the Genesis story where Jacob wrestles with God’s angel at the ford of Jabbok, and says : “Truly, I have seen God face to face”. Next day Jacob has the fearful task of going to meet Esau to make amends for stealing his elder brother’s birthright. Jacob approaches Esau with manifold gifts in reparation, but finds Esau already surrounded by great riches and in a mood to forgive his penitent brother and be reconciled. Jacob, overcome with emotion by this unexpected forgiveness, says to Esau : “My brother, to see your face is like seeing the face of God”.

Here we discern the deep essence of the Maundy Thursday drama. We know that divisions between those of us who think ourselves to be “up and running” and those we consider “down and out” are entirely superficial, for truly the experience of Christ’s love is shared freely with all. We discern also that when we truly know one another, including those from whom we feel most deeply estranged, we are set free to forgive and to be reconciled with all the brothers and sisters God gives us as neighbours. Our attitude to others becomes one of self-giving love, willing to wash their feet as Christ washed the feet of his disciples.

This truth lies at the heart of the Maundy Thursday drama, and we see it lived out again with deeper sacrifice as we contemplate Christ on Good Friday’s cross. May it be in the same spirit of Christ’s boundless love for others, and in fulfilment of his Maundy, or mandate, that we humbly wash the feet of others, and graciously accept their washing of ours.

To Discuss

1. In a world where humility is often construed as weakness, how can we serve others without being seen as a doormat?
2. In what ways might we “wash the feet of others” in our personal relationships, workplace and community?

On Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, we ponder the nature of evil and our own complicity in it. Includes the Cardinal’s deeply chafruned dialogue from the film The Mission.

In the winter of 1981 New Zealand sustained one of the longest periods of civil discontent since the waterfront strike 30 years earlier. Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, contrary to the advice of the Commonwealth heads of Government, had invited a Springbok rugby team to play a two-month series in New Zealand. Throughout this time Kiwis were treated to daily  news stories of demonstrations, police in riot gear, rolls of barbed wire around football grounds,  blocked roadways, military support, and pitched battles with protesters.

In Wellington one day I was part of an unauthorised protest march from the Town Hall to the Headquarters of the Rugby Union. We gathered on a crisp but bright winter’s afternoon, lining up in a column in the middle of the road, and chatting pleasantly with colleagues as we waited for the march to start. While our opposition to apartheid in South Africa was the very serious reason that brought us together, there was nonetheless a relaxed and somewhat euphoric mood abroad. Then suddenly, and I do not even recall how it happened, we were surrounded on each side by a solid and very menacing line of police. The euphoria vanished, replaced by uncertainty and fear of what lay ahead of us, and I felt myself challenged within to weigh very carefully the consequences of what I was about to do.

That incident in 1981 provides an insight as to what it might have been like for Jesus’ disciples in the events we recall this Holy Week. Palm Sunday was a day of relaxed and joyful euphoria as they entered triumphantly into Jerusalem, and yet that mood quickly vanished. The hostility of the crowds, and the menace of the Jewish authorities and Roman soldiers, struck fear into their hearts. All Jesus’ followers deserted him and fled. The crisis that Jesus’ mission provoked had now come to a head: people had to choose where they stood.

Jesus had a clear purpose in coming to Jerusalem. He came first to establish his Messiahship. He had chosen the time and place carefully, in accordance with the prophecies that the Messiah would appear at Passover at Jerusalem. He entered the city, not inconspicuously like a pilgrim, but boldly on a donkey and in accordance with Zechariah’s words (9.9) : “Your king comes to you triumphant and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey”. Dashing the hopes of those who were looking for a Messiah to overthrow Rome, Jesus made it clear that His kingdom was one of peace, not military might (Zech 9.10 : “He shall command peace to the nations”).

Jesus also brought to a head the deepening conflict between himself and the Jews. A Jew himself, Jesus nonetheless was a threat to the religious establishment of his day, challenging laws that over-rode human need (for example, healing people on the Sabbath); challenging those whose commitment to wealth, security and status made them blind to the truth of God in Christ; and, by reaching out to those who knew they were poor, upsetting those who felt themselves superior to such lowly souls.

Now this long-standing conflict erupts. The Pharisees and chief priests take council (John 11.47), alarmed by the fact that “the whole world has gone after him” (12.19), and Caiaphas advises that “it is better that one man should die than have the whole nation destroyed” (11.50). The hour of decision has come, and everyone – the Jews, the crowds, the Romans, Jesus’ friends and disciples – must now choose where they stand. Luke records (19.41, 42) that Jesus wept over the city because it “knew not the things that made for peace”, and failed to perceive the ultimate significance of his coming.

Today’s Scripture readings spell out what scholars are tending to call the meta-narrative of Jesus’ suffering. A meta-narrative really means the big picture, the plot, the framework which gives understanding to life and events, and to God’s relationship with humankind. The part of the meta-narrative we focus on today is that which helps us understand that in life the powers of evil in the world are lined up against the love and truth of God, and that now in the crucifixion and death of Christ we see that fundamental conflict lifted up for all to see in every age and place. In Jesus’ death we see that not only the Son of God, but all who are sons and daughters of God, become bearers of the pain evil inflicts, suffering and even dying in consequence. But in Jesus’ death and Resurrection we also see how that suffering is redemptive, transforming the lives of men and women who put their trust in Him, and changing for good the face of communities and nations.

In Isaiah 50 we read of a Servant who is to come in whom this pattern of suffering and redemption will be clearly seen. In Philippians 2 St Paul declares that in the humility and suffering of Christ, that which Isaiah foretold has come to fulfilment. In Matthew 27 we read the narrative that locates Jesus’ suffering and death in a specific time and place.

Later in the week we will focus on other aspects of the Passion, but today let us consider the nature of evil as we see it in Jesus’ time, and in our own. It seems to me that evil is promoted by three categories of people : those who actively promote it, those who can be talked into it, and those who stand by and let it happen. In Jesus’ time it was the religious leaders of the day who constituted the “promoting evil” group; Pilate was one who was talked into it against his own better judgment, not to mention his wife’s advice; and the crowds fell either into the “talked into it” group or the “stood by and let it happen” one.

Who constitutes those groups in our own times? In 35 years of ministry I have not found any in the first group in the Church, but I guess many of us would feel there are times when we have been talked into things against our better judgment. Certainly I can think of times when competing loyalties and pressures have caused me to grudgingly go along with some course of action I have not been innerly persuaded of. And I have no doubt that all of us have at different times allowed evil to flourish by standing by and taking no action, be it amongst family, friends or colleagues, or in the face of more wide-ranging social issues such as reconciliation with indigenous peoples, the sufferings of ordinary Iraqis from international sanctions, or policies and practices in corporations and communities where we live and work.

Complicity with evil is depicted in that very powerful movie “The Mission”. Set in 1750 in Argentina and Paraguay, it traces the conflict that had arisen between the colonial powers of Portugal and Spain on the one hand, and indigenous local tribes on the other. As ever, a dispute had arisen as the colonial powers sought to dislodge the local peoples from their land. In this dispute the Catholic hierarchy had aligned itself with the colonial powers, while Jesuit missionaries were deeply engaged with the local people promoting education, health, agriculture, housing and Christian formation.

The Jesuits were not passive and, as the dispute deepened,  a Cardinal was sent from Rome to investigate and report. He was deeply torn between loyalty to his European church masters, and his awareness of the inherent goodness and right of the work of the Jesuits. Indecisive in his ambivalence, he stood by as the military embarked on a campaign to burn indigenous villages and kill the priests and indigenous peoples. When the military rampage was over the Cardinal, torn by guilt, called the military commanders in and said :

Cardinal :  And you have the effrontery to tell me this slaughter was necessary?

Commander 1 : I did what I had to do, given the legitimate purpose which you sanctioned; I

                           would have to say Yes.

Commander 2 :  We had no alternative, your eminence; we must work in the world; the world

                             is thus.

Cardinal :  No, Senor – thus we have made the world……thus have I made it.

Later in the day the Cardinal wrote a report to the Pope, ending in these words : “And so, your Holiness, your priests and your people are dead, and I am alive. And yet in truth it is I who am dead, and they who live”.

I believe that evil triumphs more through complicity than design. Let us this Holy Week reflect upon our own complicity with the evils of our day, whereby we swell the numbers of those who crucify Christ.

To Discuss

1. Who would you see as a modern day Jesus (man or woman), and would be the forces that led to this person’s death?
2. What situations are there in today’s world where people might be suffering or dying because of our own silence or inaction?

Captivities of the body, mind and spirit find hope in the coming Messiah

Comfort, comfort ye my people. Advent is the time when our hearts are lifted by Handel’s Messiah, and those moving words from Isaiah 40.3 we have heard today:

Prepare ye the way of the Lord; every valley shall be lifted up,

and every mountain and hill made low; and the rough places plain.

Isaiah prophesied in the 8thC BC in Judah and Jerusalem, but today’s reading is from what scholars refer to as 2^nd Isaiah, 160 years later in 539BC, the year Israel’s 48-year captivity in Babylon was ended when Cyrus of Persia overthrew Babylon. It was a time of high hope for the exiled Jewish people, with the expectation that they would soon return to their homeland, which they did. The experience of the exiles captures the Advent theme of captivity and hope:

The glory of the Lord shall be revealed. Get ye up to a high mountain and cry:

‘Here is your God’, who will feed his flock like a shepherd.

We think of manifold captivities today:

• In places like Nigeria, and Gaza, Iraq and Syria, Afghanistan and the Sudan, the sufferers from Ebola. Where is hope for God’s afflicted and innocent people?
• In Aotearoa – the captivity of homelessness, poverty, children and parents living stunted lives deprived of the wherewithal to give kids a robust and confident start in life. Where lies hope?
• Personal captivity of age, loneliness, illness, bereavement, loss of a job, breakdown in a relationship, lives devoid of meaning and purpose, or an uncertain future. Where is hope?
• And there is the captivity of the comfortable, the captivity of complacency, self-satisfaction, which allows 65%of Kiwis to believe the poor have only themselves to blame. God comforts the afflicted, but afflicts the comfortable Are we among them? Is there hope for us also?

Advent is a time to reflect on our own captivities, past and present. What have been, or are, the times of captivity in our lives? And how did they end? Or do we wrestle with them still? I well recall some times in my life when I have felt up against a vocational brick wall – feeling I had come to an end of the job I was in, but seeing no way ahead. But new things emerged in a way I was not expecting, and which I can only see as the grace of God.

All our hope is quite simply in the Lord: The Lord comes with might, proclaims Isaiah, and Mark echoes the theme in his opening Gospel words. Mark spends no time on Jesus’ genealogy, or the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. He cuts right to the chase announcing the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God. And he follows up with those words of Isaiah: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

At once John the Baptist appears in the wilderness, calling the people to a baptism of repentance, of turning again to the Lord.  John was a striking figure:

Clothed with camel’s hair, a leather belt around his waist; eating locusts and wild honey.

John did not dress in fine clothes or dine in rich palaces, but stripped away worldly pretensions to better proclaim his message. There was a mood of expectation as people from the whole Judaean countryside and Jerusalem went out to him. Captives under the occupying Roman regime and rapacious landowners and tax-gatherers, they flocked to the desert in hope of liberation. And baptising them in water, John pointed to One who was yet to come:

One who is more powerful than I, One who will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.

John’s baptism in water was a baptism of repentance, but Jesus’ baptism in the Spirit would draw people into direct communion with God. The Saviour, the ultimate source of all hope, was near. Here centrally and deeply is the source of our hope: our communion with the living God, mysterious, other than us, yet present in the fullness of light and love, hope for all people.

Rowan Williams has said that in prayer he feels attended to. Not the prayer of words, but prayer found in silence, stillness, waiting, opening ourselves to God’s spirit that fills us. When nothing around us seems clear, here is our hope, God who is light in our darkness, strength in times of weakness, One always present so that we are never alone.

But for those who enjoy the captivity of the comfortable, God offers a different path to freedom, a path that follows in the way of John the Baptist and Jesus, standing with the last, the least and the lost. I have kept the words of a poem I read from this pulpit in 1971. New in the role of industrial chaplain I was preaching at the annual Civic Service, attended by Mayor Sir Dove-Myer Robinson, and local body leaders. Rewi Alley, a Kiwi who spent 60 years of his life in China as an educator, writer and advocate for the workers, was revisiting his homeland and wrote this poem, Auckland:

Weekend, and comes the sound of motor-mowers clipping neat lawns street after street.

And in gardens fig trees, lemons and grapefruit bear richly, a myriad flowers throw out their fragrance…

And people speak of world problems as though such were no pressing concern of theirs;

go on thinking that more and more prosperity is just around the corner and that the end of life is just to be comfortable and happy, protecting their children from hardship.

… no sea so blue as that of Auckland, no gulls whiter, no youth more straight-limbed and eager, and truly no place where challenge is greater for the new Oceania to be.

Rewi Alley was a member of the China Communist Party, and his words are prophetic, a challenge to break the bonds of captivity. To that challenge, Isaiah adds the word of promise that the Lord will be with the people to break the bonds and bring new hope. And John speaks of the One who is to come, the One in whom is the hope of humankind, the chosen one who baptises with Holy Spirit.

In Advent we await in hope the coming of that One, Jesus the Messiah, who calls us to join in the work of liberation. And we wait recalling the words of our Gradual hymn, remembering that:

the slow watches of the night also belong to God; that already on the hills the flags of dawn appear;

 the dawn of the day when justice shall be throned in might; when knowledge hand in hand with peace shall walk the earth abroad; the promised day of God.

St Matthew in the City, Auckland; 7 December 2014

Science and religion, interpreting scripture, contemporary challenges to faith linked to Jesus’ three temptations. Quotations from Rewi Alley, Jonathan Sacks and Michael Curry.

Thomas Hardy ‘God’s Funeral (c.1910, look up online) – a chilling poem then – as science and reason undermined traditional religion, and now – the same forces compounded by materialism and self-serving attitudes.

Archbishop (of Armagh) James Ussher in 17C calculated from scripture that the world was created around 6pm on 22 October 4004 BC  (see AV bible timeline).

Contrast Charles Darwin (Galapagos – NZ 1835) whose Origin of Species (1857) suggested not only an earlier date (13.7b years ago), but whose theory of evolution undermined a divine creation.

Three responses:

• Reject religion and adopttheism/ humanism
• Hold the line: Bible right!
• Weave religious truth with science

Those same responses today.  We need to weave faith within the context of 21C life.

KEY POINT: we must distinguish literal from symbolic interpretations. If we don’t:

• We become irrelevant (NB:Genesis 1 is not science or history)
• We miss the critical meaning -Gen 1 speaks of wholeness of creation, God at centre, our role as stewards

Gospel, Luke 4.1-13: Temptations of Jesus. A familiar story: you could argue whether there is really a devil, or whether the devil could put Jesus on top of the temple, and in the process miss the whole point. For the record:

• Spirit of evil, not evil spirits
• Story clearly symbolic, not literal

The three temptations: v. relevant today

• Stones/bread – materialism
• Kingdoms of world – power
• Jump from temple – fame by spectacular but superficial feats, rather than obedience to God.

Note Jesus’ responses: Not by bread alone; worship/serve only God

Relevance today

• 25% children live in poverty
• Foodbanks see growing demand
• Parents in despair – work hard
• 2^nd highest prison rate
• Majority of people generous as indivs but not for policy change
• “what’s in it for me?”
• Tweak round edges, no major change to make a difference

Rewi Alley (1973): Weekend, and comes the sound of motor-mowers clipping neat lawns street after street. And in gardens fig trees, lemons and grapefruit bear richly, a myriad flowers throw out their fragrance… And people speak of world problems as though such were no pressing concern of theirs; go on thinking that more and more prosperity is just around the corner and that the end of life is just to be comfortable and happy, protecting their children from hardship.

Politics driven by these attitudes – power wealth and fame. Supported by radio/TV hosts who pander to the superficial attractions of the Good Life to the superficial populist majority. In the 2020 USA presidential election only Bernie Sanders named clearly the priorities of poverty and the inequality between the wealthy few and the struggling masses on the margins.             

A quotation from Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence, a book by Britain’s former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. “The old marriage of religion and culture has ended in divorce. Today the secular West has largely lost the values that used to be called Judeo-Christian. Instead it has chosen to worship the idols of the self: the market, consumerism, individualism, autonomy, my rights, and whatever works for you. The golden calf of the self has been raised by the Children of Israel in the wilderness again.”

Bishop Michael Curry Presiding Bishop TEC, USA) added: “I think he’s right. And that golden calf, that idol of the self, may well be the most destructive reality in human society. Self-centeredness, selfishness, call it what you will, frankly is a cancer that can destroy us all and that left unchecked will destroy the planet.”

Road to the Cross: in popular speak we say ‘many are being crucified in society today’ – meaning many are suffering through poverty generated by a self-centred majority.

But true crucifixion, theologically, is the suffering experienced by the prophets who speak truth to power, by those who give of themselves in compassion for others, who name injustice, who give of their substance to help those in need – all who walk the path of Jesus and pay the price of rejection, unpopularity, loss of job or career, hatred and even death. This is the true road to the Cross: taking costly steps that make a difference in the lives of others. Bishop Michael Curry again: “Religion is completely and totally about the love of God and love of neighbour. And if it is not about love, it is not about God. “Love, the love of God, is about the sacrifice of self-centred interest for the good of the other, for the good and the well-being of others, for the common good. That’s the love of God.”

READING : Exodus 3. 1-12

The wilderness can be a scary place, but it is a place shot through with significance for followers of the living God. Here in today’s reading Moses, tending Jethro’s sheep, comes to Horeb (Sinai), the mountain of the living God. He turns aside to see the great sight of a bush which is ablaze with fire, yet is not burned up. He finds himself standing on holy ground, encountering the God who lives, who calls him to deliver his people from the bondage of Pharaoh.

Years later those people in pilgrimage through the wilderness come to Sinai again. Moses goes up the mountain and again encounters the living God, who this time calls the people into a covenant relationship based on the ten commandments of the Law.

Jesus’  pattern also was to withdraw himself regularly from the crowds in order to meet with God in a lonely place, to find holy ground where he might listen to his Father’s voice.

Some years ago an American Franciscan sister, Joan Puls, wrote a book with the insightful title Every Bush is Burning. Taking the concept of the burning bush she challenged us to see every person, every relationship, every event, and every space as a place where the living God is present. Holy ground is found not only in desert wilderness. God encounters us in all of life, and every place is made holy by the presence of God.

As we embark upon our Lenten pilgrimage in 2005, may we look for God in the bustle of life as well as in the quiet spaces. Let us allow God to burn in us, and may we burn as witnesses for the One who lives.

A question for reflection :  Where in my life do I encounter the living God? And how may I encounter God in my relationships with others?

A prayer (adapted from A New Zealand Prayer Book) :  O God, you are the God of sunrise and sunset; of mountains and valleys, grass and scree; of kauri and pine, dolphins and kahawai; of kiwi and sparrow and tui and hawk; of Maori and Pakeha, women and men. May we encounter you afresh in every person and place, and know that the whole world belongs to you, and that we are both the sheep of your hand and your disciples in the journey to which you call us. Amen.

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul, EPIPHANY 9.1.22

Epiphany cards tend to get mixed up with Christmas cards. The Epiphany cards are the ones about the three kings, or the three wise men. I always love the one from a feminist perspective: Three wise men? You must be joking!

Epiphany or 12^th night was last Thursday. The word means manifestation, and in the church calendar is the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, the gentiles being all those races beyond Israel, you, me all races in every age.

Jesus’ mission was primarily to Israel, but always with the wider universal mission to all people, which followed from Pentecost.

Today’s Gospel says the people were waiting expectantly, standing on tip-toes, as one preacher said. It was a time of disillusionment, dissatisfaction with the existing order which did not satisfy.

And so in Peter Cornelius’ moving carol, three kings come from Persian lands afar, following a star, and bearing gifts of gold, incense and myrrh for the new-born king…

What was the start? Astronomers speculate about Halleys comet (11BC) or the Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn (7BC), but both dates seem a little early. Whatever, a bright light led the travellers on to Bethlehem.

The kings, or magi, were from the gentiles, on a spiritual pilgrimage to find new life in Christ.

In 1927 T S Eliot wrote his very evocative poem. The Journey of the Magi. In that year he also became a British citizen and an Anglican, and church-warden in his local London parish. Let’s read a few lines.

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.

There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet….

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill.

And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon.
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory….

All this was a long time ago,
were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?

There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt.
I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this
Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us,
like Death, our death…
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.

This is a powerful poem for a people disillusioned, dissatisfied, looking for something new. It is true of every generation, of you and of me. Maybe we have lost our purpose in living, or feel the deadness of grief or a broken relationship.

Maybe we find that materialism no longer satisfies, or that hedonism and silken – silken girls bringing sherbet has lost its fun.

But the magi found spiritual rebirth in Christ. They found Jesus as the midwife of a new birth. Any birth can be painful as we let go of the old dispensation with all the idols we cling to.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has asked : “What difference would it make if I believed I am held in a wholly loving gaze which saw all my surface accidents and arrangements, all my inner habits and inheritances, all my anxieties and arrogances, all my history, and yet loved me wholly with an utterly free, utterly selfless love

And what difference would it make if I let myself believe that each person around me is loved and held in the same overwhelming, loving gaze, and that this love made no distinctions of race, religion, age, innocence, strength or beauty?”

That is the message of Epiphany, that God loves us utterly, warts and all, and that that same love holds everyone else with the same intensity so that we are driven out to love everyone with the same love with which God loves us.

The carol of three Kings concludes: gold, incense, myrrh thou can’st not bring: offer thy heart to the infant king; offer thy heart.

A Collect for Epiphany: Jesus, light of the world, let your star shine over the place where the poor have to live; lead our sages to wisdom and our rulers to reverence. Hear our prayer for your love’s sake. Amen

     *      *      *

Spiritual & Ethical Insight

Whatever else 2012 will be, we know already it is the year of the American presidential election. As two republican candidates slugged it out in the recent South Carolina primary, headlines proclaimed one to be experienced in serial and open marriage, and the other to be good at minimizing his tax obligations. Voters seemed to feel the latter was more serious than the former, but will there be a reversal in Florida?

In terms of American foreign policy, a recent commentator distinguished between presidents who engage in wars which have no justification other than serving the national interest, and  squander thousands of human lives and huge financial resources, with presidents whose foreign policy has broader global objectives of building a world where international teamwork, justice and freedom are the outcomes. 

Another feature of the American political scene is that it seems driven more by ideologies than by a flexibility that focuses on what works best for those in need. Debates about health, housing or education degenerate too quickly into ideological warfare about the role of government vis-à-vis individual freedoms, or the levels of taxation and public provision. The poor are forgotten.

By contrast we see people of huge wealth such as Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates who give away vast tracts of their income to assist those in need. These are not just philanthropists: they are also strong advocates for policy changes that will improve the lot of the poor both at home and abroad.

All these same dynamics play out, of course, in New Zealand: what we see writ large on the American scene should give us clues as to what look for here.

All of which has a direct connection with today’s Gospel (Luke 2.22-40) when Mary and Joseph bring the infant Jesus to be presented in the temple. Three times it is mentioned that this is in accordance with the Law, so that Jesus is seen to stand fair and square in the Jewish tradition. Jesus’ presentation as the first-born male is linked to the purification (today we call it thanksgiving) of the mother after childbirth. The Law required an offering of a lamb and a turtle-dove or pigeon. In the case of the poor, however, a pair of the pigeons or doves could substitute for the lamb. Jesus and his family thus stand very much with God’s poor. It is thus clear that Jesus’ mission stands clearly in the Jewish tradition: “to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with one’s God (Micah 6.8).

And now we come to Simeon, that old man, righteous and pious, to whom it had been revealed by the spirit that he would not see death before seeing the Lord’s messiah. Three times it is said that the Holy Spirit guided him to recognize the messiah in the infant Jesus. We sing Simeon’s song at choral evensong as the Nunc Dimittis: Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation for all people”.

So Luke sets it out unequivocally that Jesus stands in the Jewish tradition and in fact fulfils that tradition as the long expected messiah, God’s chosen one for the salvation of the world. The fact that he is to be both a light to the gentiles as well as the glory of God’s people Israel foreshadows the universal nature of Jesus’ mission, and ours.

Then to underline it all we hear the endorsement of Anna, the prophetess who had “grown very elderly, never left the temple grounds and worshipped night and day with fasting and prayer”. She arrived at the same time as Simeon, praised God and “kept speaking about Jesus to all those waiting for the liberation of Israel”.

But what is the salvation which Jesus brings? There was a time 1000 years earlier when under Kings David and Solomon Israel had been like a modern-day Singapore – a small nation at the crossroads of international trading routes, and thus having huge wealth and political influence. But those days were long gone. Successive attacks by large nations such as Babylon and Persia had reduced Israel to vassal status. In Jesus’ time the once-proud nation had been reduced to a small and peripheral colony of the Roman Empire.

For some the Lord’s salvation meant throwing off colonial oppression and restoring the nation’s status of 1000 years before. To those who thought thus Simeon’s words to Mary would have been unwelcome, that “this child will cause the fall and the rise of many within Israel” and “a sword shall cut through your soul”. Simeon is saying that far from the messiah bringing on the good times once more, Jesus will be a source of division, and grief. The path he is destined to tread will lead to the Cross, but from his suffering and death will come salvation for all.

Jesus’ reign is not to be measured in terms of national wealth, power and status, but rather in terms of Mary’s words in the Magnificat: “God has pulled down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent away empty” (Luke 1. 52,53).

The key feature in today’s Gospel is the perception by all the key players as to God’s ultimate purpose. Mary and Joseph saw it; so did Simeon and Anna. They were all steeped in the tradition of their faith. Simeon and Anna spent the days of their old age in prayer and fasting and study of the scriptures. They saw clearly the nature of salvation, and the cost that often accompanied it. They could recognize by the spirit that Jesus was God’s messiah, by whom everything else in life had to be measured.

Which brings us back to where we started with the American presidential election: that in every age it is the vocation of the Christian to be so clear in our vision of God’s purposes that we can see, speak and act prophetically in critique of the world around us. In every nation there are those who see it, whose spiritual and ethical vision is 20/20, and others who don’t. And to be honest, there are bits of each in each of us.

Through our life of prayer and study of the scriptures, you and I need to have that 20/20 vision of Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna, and be the prophets of our own times.   

Lord, Change the World, Beginning with Me

S0me years ago we awaited the dawn of a new millennium. There was much debate :

• which year was it : 2000 or 2001?
• who would see the sun up first? (like this year, too damp to see)
• all eyes on NZ for effect of Y2K bug
• calls for a new order of global peace.

Perhaps we weren’t too surprised little changed :

• not long till 9/11 set off a whole new conflagration in Afghanistan and Iraq, with terrorist attacks in many countries, some uncomfortably close to us eg Indonesia
• Bob Geldof and the Make Poverty History campaign, and the campaign to cancel debt, remind us of the grinding poverty of many, a poverty which could be fixed with a fraction of the money spent on armaments
• Climate Change the new global agenda
• inter-religious debates, some with violent overtones (eg Danish cartoons)
• modernist attacks on Christianity, claims that now the Church was trying to muscle in on Christmas, Richard Dawkins and The God Delusion.

In the words of the Christmas carol : Yet with the woes of sin and strife, the world has suffered long; beneath the angel-strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong. lChristmas reminds us that into this world where. maybe it all seems too hard and hopeless, and we are wearied and disillusioned with the effort, the boundless energy and love of God in Christ springs always fresh into our lives and our world. Our readings this morning speak of the images of youth :

• 1 Samuel 2, 18-20, 26 :here is the young boy Samuel whom his mother Hannah had dedicated to the service of the Lord, and living at the Temple with the ageing priest Eli : his mother brought him a little tunic each year. Samuel grew in stature and in favour with God and people
• Luke 2. 41-52 : this story linked to that of the boy Jesus, aged 12, making the journey to Jerusalem with his parents, sitting among the learned ones of Judaism, listening, asking questions, offering insights so that they were amazed at his replies.

It is the spirit of youth that counts, God’s spirit of compassion that brings a lasting justice and peace that encompasses every living creature on Earth, and the Earth itself. That spirit can be alive in older members of the community, and unformed in the young : age is no determinant.

Christmas reminds us that the power of God is found in weakness and humility, not in displays of military, financial or political power.  This became clear in Vietnam, and again in Iraq and Afghanistan : overwhelming military muscle can be defeated by small-scale insurgent groups that vanish into the bush or the urban network. In democracies politicians lose power as public opinion turns against them. As it is said, where the people lead, the politicians will follow.

It comes back to us, to follow in Jesus’ way of a love that warms rather than compels. We have challenges to face in this country : the poverty of many, the violence in our homes and community, the challenge of a changing climate.

But I am heartened by :

• the recent service of awards of the Order of St John – ambulance drivers, rescue workers, first aid instructors – people giving their time and skill, in risky situations
• Oxfam gifts : for $100 the metal from a Kalashnikov is turned into hoes and sickles, for $2500 a tank; Goats for peace, $50.
• social workers, teachers, police, church agencies, all on the front line in the efforts to bring enhanced life to people on the edge.

The Church has no need to be defensive of its truth or witness : it is evident to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

We also need to deal with our own internal poverty. Mother Teresa reminds us that “sometimes the rich are much poorer; they can be lonely inside, and always wanting something more. The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread”.

And Mary, as she listened to her son, Jesus, “stored these things in her heart”. As we come to 2007 we know that we too can store the truth of Jesus in our hearts, and let that truth change our lives, and God’s world.       

The things that move us deeply are embodied perfectly in the Christ child whose birth we celebrate this night.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting old and soft in the head, but I find myself with tears in my eyes more than I used to. I feel deeply moved when I watch the sufferings of millions from war, poverty and natural calamities. How long can hope and courage last? The tears speak of the intense love which as human beings we have one for another, a divine love seen in a baby in a manger.

And I think of a little girl who was assaulted and how people from all over New Zealand had swamped her with Christmas gifts- so many that her parents were now sharing them with other sick children in the hospital. The generosity of Jesus moves us to reach out to others.

Like those young people today who dream of a better world where people care for the earth and for each other, and go out with Greenpeace, or move to the poorest parts of Africa where they act as doctors, or teachers, or agricultural mentors, often putting their own lives at risk in the process. And let’s not forget older people who likewise follow such visions and dreams in their compassion and work for justice.

I am moved also when I watch and listen to young mums and dads, and grandparents too, talking to their kids, as they take them around town. Here one generation is passing on Jesus’ love and wisdom to the next.

And I can be moved by the generosity and goodness of others, or by the richness and beauty of life and nature which surround us.

Now if you connect the dots you can see easily why deep feelings are a very Christmas theme. Because the things that move us most are embodied perfectly in the Christ child whose birth we celebrate this night. His nature was one of love and compassion; he stood with the poor and the outcast; he responded generously and unstintingly, and challenged the untruths of institutions and the fickleness of the powers that be, eventually dying on a cross. All this was possible because he walked closely with God at the heart of life.

Love, faith, prophetic courage, sacrifice, justice, peace – such are the things that make up our spiritual DNA; they are timeless in nature, a timelessness captured by the words of tonight’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word; the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. These things have always been. In Jesus the divine building blocks of human life are there for all to see.

His was a light that illumines our darkness: ‘The light shines in the darkness’, says John, ‘and the darkness has never overcome it’.

After that it becomes a question of discernment. Can we see the light in our midst? Can we make it part of our life so that we live the divine truth revealed to us? Many of the people of Jesus’ time could not see it, or would not. John again: ‘he was in the world, yet the world did not know him’.

‘But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born not of flesh, nor of human will, but of God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of God’s only son, full of grace and truth’.

     *      *      *

All manner of things shall be well.

In Christian thinking the word ‘saints’ was applied to all members of the Church. A saint was someone set apart, or consecrated in the service of God, and through our baptism all of us are saints. But in time the word came to be used for just the great saints, like St Peter, or St John, so the Church decided another day was needed for all the rest of us. That day was called All Souls Day. Each year All Saints Day is observed on 1 November, while All Souls is on 2 November, and hence it is on the latter day (or close to it) that we gather as we do this evening to remember all souls, and especially those closest to us as members of our family.

All of us here tonight carry in our hearts the soul and spirit of someone close to us, and probably of several people close to us whom we have lost over the years. For many that loss is very recent, and at funerals this year we have joined in this cathedral, or at St Mary’s or St Stephen’s, to commend those souls that have been dear to us into the hands of God. For some the memory is longer and yet still fresh. I remember each year my brother Michael who died of an illness aged 33 : that was over 30 years ago, and yet there is still a gap in our family circle. I never find conducting a funeral to be routine. Every person and every family is unique. Yet the death of one in another family brings to the surface deaths in our own. We are reminded of our shared humanity, and also our shared mortality. We grieve not only for the one who has died, but also for that part of our own life that has died as well.

Yet while grief is a reality we all know, our mortality is also the gateway to those things in life that are of supreme importance, things that give us comfort in the present, and hope and strength for the future. Let me mention four of them :

First, we are reminded of those things that truly matter in life. In days gone by when funeral eulogies were often very stiff-upper-lip, a suited male would recite the salient points of someone’s public life, like a CV in retrospect. Those public features of someone’s life still gain a mention, and properly so, but today eulogies are usually of a different kind. They are delivered by family members and friends, often by children and grand-children, and not at all stiff-upper-lip but often with tears and laughter and in informal style. And the thing that stands out in the midst of them all is the central importance of family ties, and family love, and the times that were spent not in public office but at the beach together, or over a meal or at a birthday party – the things that are common to us all, often taken for granted, things that don’t cost money but are a priceless part of being human. Mortality reminds us of a gift too precious to lose.

Second, a death often evokes within us a sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves. One of the old hymns of the Church has the line “Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away” (and daughters too). In one sense that sounds very pessimistic but I find a stronger meaning to it. To officiate in a cathedral like this, and more particularly in St Mary’s, is to have a sense of the great sweep of human history. There are photos and memorials of our ancestors, as you find in a Maori meeting-house, but more important is the spirit of timelessness, of eternity, of a great over-arching drama in which each of us plays a part. Each of us in turn receives life. Each of us has the gifts and opportunities specific to our day and age. Each of us has a vocation to play our part in the service of others. Each of us gives life to others and in turn we give our own life up having played our part. We give our loved ones up, recalling the words from Wisdom 3. 1, 9 : “ The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God;…. those who trust in God will understand truth; the faithful will abide with him in love. Grace and mercy are upon his holy ones”. We may understand ‘holy’ here in the same way as all saints, and all souls. Our life although mortal, has a purpose. We have a place in God’s abiding purpose of love.

Third, mortality speaks to us of the support we find in loss that comes from the love of family and friends. The lifetime experience of love is especially real to us at the time of parting. To experience love is to experience God, for God is not some remote and abstract entity. God is love. Human love is the expression of a divine love that never leaves us comfortless. In the night-time of grief, when the loneliness and loss seem too hard to bear, we reach out to one another, and find comfort from each other, just as God reaches out to us and surrounds us with a love that will not let us go.

And finally, mortality speaks to us of the presence of God, one in whom we can trust as we look to a future that seems empty and uncertain. Faith does not provide answers to all our questions and anxieties about the future. Rather our faith lies in knowing that we travel with God, so that whatever the future will bring it will be all right. We have different images of God, but for me the most powerful is that of God as spirit, as we heard in the reading from John 3 this evening. Here Jesus is saying to Nicodemus that those who are born of the spirit are like the wind : you know not where it comes from, or where it goes. But the wind, the spirit of God, carries us, and wherever it puts us down will be OK. That is faith, to know that God’s spirit lifts us and sustains us, however empty life at times may feel.

On a plane the other day my fellow passenger told me of his experience at two funerals, one for his office secretary, much younger than he, the other for his father. He said he came away from each funeral with an incredible sense of lightness, which he defined as feeling that in spite of the loss everything would be all right. It wasn’t that he didn’t grieve; it wasn’t that he didn’t feel the loss; it wasn’t that he felt life would just be business as usual. He knew he would feel the pain of those deaths, yet at a much deeper level he had this feeling that in the overall scheme of things, all would be well. Those latter words were also used by the 14^th century English mystic, Julian of Norwich, who affirmed that “all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well”. Not words of superficial comfort, but words of a deep conviction about the abiding presence of the love of God, a love that is with us in life and in death, mediated to us by family and friends, yet finding its source in a spring of compassion that encompasses all people in all times.