holy week and easter sermons 2016 -...
TRANSCRIPT
ST JAMES’ ANGLICAN CHURCH,
KING STREET, SYDNEY, NSW
____________________
HOLY WEEK AND
EASTER SERMONS
2016
____________________
By The Reverend Canon Dr James McPherson
THE REVEREND CANON DR JIM McPHERSON
Jim was born in Sydney in 1946, and – apart from a year at the University of Virginia
– was educated at UNSW, eventually being awarded his PhD in Pure Mathematics
(1970). He married Marcia (also in 1970) and they moved to Canberra where Jim
lectured in Pure Mathematics at ANU.
They were parishioners at All Saints’ Ainslie when Jim answered the call to leave
ANU and prepare for ordination; he graduated BTh (Hons 1) from the Australian
College of Theology and was deaconed and priested in 1978. After curacy at St Paul’s
Manuka, he was awarded a Lucas-Tooth Scholarship and completed his MLitt
(Durham) with a thesis on Ecological Theology in the World Council of Churches’
discussions from 1966-1979.
They returned to Canberra in 1982 and Jim was Rector of Giralang (1982-87) then
Kambah (1987-1991), as well as lecturing theological students in Old Testament at St
Mark’s Library. While at Kambah, Jim edited AIDS and Compassion (published by
St Mark’s, Canberra, 1998). In 1991 Jim was appointed Principal of St Francis’
Theological College, and Residentiary Canon of St John’s Cathedral, Brisbane (1992-
99).
Jim joined the staff of St James’ in 1999 as Director of Ministry to the St James’
Precinct and the Legal Profession. In 2001 he was appointed Rector of Granville and
became a member and later President of Anglicans Together; in 2008 he and Marcia
left Sydney for Maryborough (Diocese of Brisbane). Jim retired from Maryborough
in 2014.
Jim and Marcia have four children and five grandchildren (all living in Brisbane).
Jim has published scholarly articles in Pure Mathematics and later in Theology; he
also had several early poems published in St Mark’s Review. In 2008 he was
Distinguished Academic Visitor at Vaughan Park Anglican Retreat Centre in
Auckland, and as a result of a conversation in a dinner queue, resumed writing poetry
under-cover until he was prepared to risk showing his poems to others. Since then he
has published To Tease Our Knowing (2014; Foreword by Archbishop Phillip
Aspinall).
Jim’s poetry and theology generally draw on his parish ministry experiences (eg
nursing homes), nature (he grew up near Galston Gorge), academic
science/mathematics, biblical scholarship, as well as systematic theology and personal
events/experiences.
Jim’s second poetry collection is now well under way. He has published on the
Vaughan Park website (Moments/Poetry), The Eagle (magazine of St John’s
Cathedral), Anglican Theological Review, as well as St James Parish Connections.
During this sermon series, Jim explored the concept of “wacky wisdom” (inspired by
Paul’s bold contrast of God’s foolishness with human wisdom in 1 Corinthians 1.18-
31); also exploring as a subtheme (Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday) the way the psalms
connect to the other set readings. “Wacky wisdom” explores the sort of Alice in
Wonderland topsy-turvy Maurits Escher inside-out world of Christian faith.
The theme prayer for the series was that of Charles de Foucauld (below).
Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916)
Father, I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures –
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.
All sermons
© The Revd Canon Dr Jim McPherson
Mount Coolum, Qld
2016
PALM SUNDAY
Luke 19.28-40 [of the Palms]; 22.14-23.56
This Holy Week I’ll be exploring the theme of “Wacky Wisdom” – probing the ways
God not only confounds us but also positively confuses us with totally unanticipated
reversals that defy common sense. It’s a sort of Alice-in-Wonderland topsy-turvy and
Maurits Escher inside-out world where nothing is as it seems …1
But: Why? Why “wacky”?; why explore?
Most Australians have the basic idea that Christmas and Easter are religious festivals
somehow connected with Christianity, though with scant historical or spiritual
knowledge of whatever Christians claim makes these festivals worth celebrating –
really, our society’s baseline Christianity is at best token. By “token”, I mean “god”
is the sidelined supernatural patron who bankrolls our lifestyle and privileges and
keeps our troops victorious, but otherwise is merely a stick-figure god irrelevant to
most of life’s real issues (until an emergency provokes us to turn back and press the
magic button for divine support).
The Jewish-Christian God has always been more complex, and more challenging. As
Israel learned the hard way, our God is independently-minded … They learned, to
their cost, that God works to God’s own standards and purposes that jarred against
society’s “common sense”. Paul coined the stunning expression “the foolishness of
God”, contrasting it with the wisdom of the learned; when you contrast it also with
“common sense”, you get (I hope!) a sense of what I mean by “wacky wisdom”.
The more we can plumb the deeps of God’s wacky wisdom, and know of God’s work
in our world all askew, the better disciples we will be and the better agents for God’s
overriding and all-consuming purpose, “the Kingdom of God”.
Palm Sunday allows us an opening glimpse: at the way our living is distorted and
skewed by death, making us easy prey to fear. Yet humanity at its best (whether or
not religious in any way) bears abundant witness to human ideals and hopes beyond
death’s power to thwart …
*****
The Palm Sunday question is this: what is going on? In my brief and unpromising
Sunday-School career, I remember Palm Sunday as noticeably different, with the
pageantry of Jesus the rightful king triumphantly entering his domain.
1 Maurits Escher (1898-1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who played with architecture, perspective and impossible spaces (Ascending and Descending, Print Gallery) as well as illusions (Drawing Hands) – an “inside-out world” indeed! He shows us “that reality is wondrous, comprehensible, and fascinating” (http://www.mcescher.com/about/biography/).
It’s no longer that simple. In today’s terms, Jesus was a religious extremist, a security
risk. This fiery preacher from the north (notorious for uprisings led by would-be
messiahs) was on the watch list. The Pharisees viewed him suspiciously; the
Sadducees found him inconvenient because they wanted to keep on good terms with
the Romans; Pilate the career politician was desperate to maintain peace in this remote
and notoriously troublesome province.
An army of occupation, like Rome, needs informers and spies, secret police and
dungeons and torture chambers … Whatever procession there may have been, it had
to be small enough to be under the radar. Otherwise, Jesus would have been
immediately arrested.
People living under oppression tend to develop a distinctive and subversive humour.
The oppressed get the joke, which is told in such a way that the oppressors don’t cotton
on; it’s a cat-and-mouse game, with the jokester’s life at stake.
Then I was alerted to this passage:
Every year, the Roman governor … would ride up to Jerusalem [from Caesarea
Maritima] to be present in the city for Passover. [He] would come in all of his
imperial majesty to remind the Jewish pilgrims that Rome was in charge. They
could commemorate an ancient victory against Egypt if they wanted to. But real,
present-day resistance (if anyone was daring to consider it) was futile.2
With Pilate’s anticipated arrival in Jerusalem for Passover in mind, Jesus is mocking
Roman pomposity and power; Pilate would come in a stretch limo; and pomp; and
high security!
For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, Jesus has a joke at Rome’s expense. Except
it’s no joke.
*****
I use the term “joke” deliberately. For me, humour has become key to my
understanding of Palm Sunday. Not the trifling humour of slapstick, but the serious
humour of the deepest clowning.
What does “have a joke at Rome’s expense” mean? It means to make Rome look
foolish, which Jesus does by parodying Rome’s way of “keeping the peace”. Like all
oppressive regimes, keeping the peace means keeping it on Rome’s terms, using the
power of death to enforce compliance. Crucifixion was Rome’s much-feared
2 Quote from essay by Debie Thomas, “The Clown King” (for Palm Sunday 2015), http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/index.shtml (citing the work of Borg and Crossan The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus' Last Days in Jerusalem.)
degrading penalty for the non-Romans who defied Roman might, and every citizen of
Israel knew it and feared it.
See how Death corrupts our conduct?
But there is a resilience to the human spirit, and a defiance that’s built on a wacky
wisdom that spurns the common sense approach of saving your life by doing
“whatever it takes” no matter how low it takes you.
A modern example. Tiananmen Square, 5th June, 1989. The Chinese military had by
then forcefully suppressed the student-led democracy protests; then, a lone man stood
in the immediate path of a column of moving tanks. The lead tank manoeuvred to get
around him, but he kept shifting position to relentlessly obstruct the tank's progress.
The photographs and movie footage have since been hailed as iconic for twentieth-
century journalism.3
I am NOT saying this man was a “Christ-figure”; I am saying he draws our attention
to the priority of humanity and human dignity over superior death-dealing force. Many
others have done the same, down the centuries.4 The wacky wisdom they heroically
express makes it clear there are some (whether religious or not) who passionately
regard humanity and human dignity as priceless treasures to be defended even at the
price of degradation and death.5 They will not be held hostage to fear of death.
This has helped me see more deeply into Palm Sunday.
1. Jesus’ parody parade, as social-political protest, mocks Rome’s power and
those who cower before it;
2. he enters David’s City as rightful heir to David’s throne; but
3. he enters to inaugurate a Davidic kingship not founded on coercive power
with enforced compliance, but on a mutuality between king and people,
between citizen and citizen, all alike answerable to God and to each other for
the common good and dignity of all;
4. Jesus embarks on this journey fully aware that his life is at stake;
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man; see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989#June_3.E2.80.934:_Clearing_the_Square; to date, there is no reliable information about the man’s identity or fate. 4 Laurence, deacon and martyr in third century Rome, with his quip that the motley crowd (the poor, the crippled, the widows, the orphans and other unfortunates) were indeed “the treasures of the church” when the city authorities had been after the silverware and bank accounts;http://www.abbey.ampleforth.org.uk/the-community/our-patrons; Dutch revue artist Johan Buziau, living under Nazi occupation, who showed the distinctive humour of the oppressed by walking onto the stage
carrying an enormous portrait, after which he said Uncle Herman gave me a portrait, but now I don't know what to do with it. Hang it or place it against the wall. A reference to the hated Luftwaffe leader Herman Goering, also a very thinly disguised reference to a choice of execution.
5 The movie equivalent may be seen in Charlie Chaplin’s movie The Tramp (1920) and Buster Keaton’s Saphead (1923), both comedies in which the hero perseveres against all adversities, with an inner stillness and strength unfazed by misadventure, circumstance, and perhaps even death.
5. although his call is both too perilous to pursue yet too compelling to deny,
Jesus has absolute confidence that God will vindicate his faithfulness; so
finally
6. Palm Sunday leads us directly to Death’s defeat as shown in Jesus’
Resurrection.
*****
On this Palm Sunday – Easter morning journey, I invite you to keep an eye on the
news and everyday events, and ponder these two questions prayerfully:
1. how does the fear of death shape our everyday living (individually, socially)
and distort our “common sense”; and, in reverse,
2. how does the wacky wisdom of Resurrection hope make a difference to your
everyday [including your own dying]?
Wacky wisdom goes against all common sense; it’s the wisdom you start learning
once you loosen Death’s grip on your thinking and doing and praying … May you
begin to glimpse and deepen the wacky wisdom Christ opens out for us.
My poem Circus Maximus was subsequently published in the April/May edition of
Parish Connections, p24; I have included it below for completeness’ sake:
CIRCUS MAXIMUS
Palm Sunday
The troupe’s bravura sets us all on edge
and holds us captive to our fear of death;
we’re pinned, white-knuckled, clinging to our seats:
can’t bear to watch, can’t bear to look away.
The clowns invite us to a different world,
beyond the tyranny of mortal dread;
unfazed by failure, circumstance or death
they bumble, stumble, fall, and rise again.
Like Keaton’s Saphead, Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp,
and Tank Man, silent at Tiananmen;
like Laurence with his “treasures of the Church”
and Jesus with his parody parade;
such wacky wisdom stuns the worldly-wise
who rule by death because the dead don't rise.
© the Revd Jim McPherson
Mount Coolum, Qld
18 February 2016
MONDAY IN HOLY WEEK
Isaiah 42.1-9; Psalm 36.5-11; Hebrews 9.11-15; John 12.1-11
Although I will primarily be following the theme of Wacky Wisdom for the great days
of this extraordinary week, I thought for the “lesser” days I would pursue a slightly
different course. I want to focus on the psalms, because I think we tend to mangle
them in our liturgical practice, despite our high and principled view of them; and
because they prove such rich resources.
I begin with a hypothetical: imagine yourself subject to exile, and allowed to choose
one book; but only one book!6
I would choose the Psalms.
Why not the gospels? They’re a luxury the very first Christians did not have available;
they found their spiritual treasures in the Psalms instead; by the time Luke’s Gospel
was written, the disciples returning from Emmaus were taught by Jesus from “the law
of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms”.7 Second, the psalms are primarily prayers
and/or invitations to worship; so I can pray, and I can join albeit remotely in worship
as an absentee-participant; the Psalms would be my choice.
The Psalms address God in all the trials, joys, exigencies, confusions, uncertainties,
hopes and triumphs that life brings (rather, thrusts upon us). Mostly they are
devotional, but some are written raw. One is particularly notorious: the ending of
Psalm 137:
8 O daughter of Babylon, you that lay waste:
happy shall he be who serves you as you have served us;
9 Happy shall he be who takes your little ones:
and dashes them against the stones.
Horrific, admittedly. But listen to what one of my priest colleagues wrote to me a few
years ago:
Vengeance psalms: In Melbourne, I sat with a Sudanese family and heard their
story (somewhat sanitised, I suspect). These people had seen their children shot.
Praying Ps 137 changed for me that day. Having this psalm as 'Holy Writ' is
deeply pastoral for such a family; knowing they can voice what they think and
6 This was the premise of a BBC program which began in the 1940s and was popular for decades, except the option was eight “desert island discs”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Island_Discs ; guests were also provided with a complete Shakespeare and either the Bible or some other religious/philosophical work. Although I thought there was a parallel program called Desert Island Books, but found no trace … 7 24.44; this highlights the important witness the Psalms provided for Christian claims/apologetic, at a relatively early stage in Christian history.
feel to God and not be condemned is a significant step in their grieving. When
Ps 137 appears in the lectionary for MP, I now say the lot.
*****
Liturgical churches (Anglicans, Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox etc) use the psalms
as a response to the first reading (mostly from the Old Testament). The lectionary
which guides our APBA practice declares that
The psalm is a congregational response and meditation on the first reading, and
is not intended as another reading.8
Somehow this failed to make it into APBA’s rubrics, and so our practice has been
distorted, to this extent: because it’s not “another reading”, we voice it together (or a
choir sings it), so it becomes something we collectively say/hear; so far so good. But
more often than not, we don’t explore the connection (or even suspect any
connection!). I think we are the poorer for it.
*****
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday we have the first three of The Four Servant Songs from
Isaiah – who suffers deeply, and whose sufferings many Christians have seen
prefiguring Jesus’ sufferings (we have the fourth Servant Song on Good Friday, with
Psalm 22 in response).9
This evening’s psalm portion begins at v5, with vv1-4 describing the character of the
wicked; we begin with the character of the Lord (thereby losing the force of the
contrast), expressed in prayer to God (Your righteousness …). Notice the first reading
has God speaking; we through the psalmist’s words speak to God in response; but
these could also be appropriate words for any faithful and obedient servant suffering
at the hands of the wicked in any day or place. Because of God’s unfailing/enduring
kindness, and righteousness like the strong mountains, justice as the great deep –
because of all these, the faithful find refuge “under the shadow of your wings”; just
as Jesus spoke of a hen wishing to gather her brood under her wings.10
And look at the images John’s Gospel echoes: the river of delights, and the well of
life [rivers of living water]; in your light we shall see light [I am the light of the world].
In a way, that “light” image is key to this “response”. A lovely image in its own right,
used here as the turning point of the psalm in its movement from “transgressors” in
8 The Revised Common Lectionary (1992), §12. 9 There has always been debate about the anonymous Servant’s identity: an individual, or Israel collectively as a nation? Surely, we can allow either; or both; and allow them to foreshadow Jesus’ sufferings as well. Good prophecy and good poetry admit such latitude of interpretation. 10 Luke 13.34, cf 2 Esdras 1.30.
general, to the qualities of God known by faith, to the bounty and blessings God
bestows on “the children of men”, then (suddenly) to: us (in your light, we see light).
The closing verse is utterly and urgently personal: rescue me! This connects to the
Servant Song at several levels. Notice how the deep qualities of God correspond in
both; note the contrast between the Servant’s task of opening the eyes of the blind,
and the psalmist’s confident seeing; notice how the psalmist prays for rescue while in
the Servant Song God assures the Servant’s success in God’s appointed mission …
I suggest this is where we come to the “raw” of mission and discipleship. Called by
God; whose purposes never fail even though we his servants sometimes nearly capsize
the ship and/or jeopardise our lesser more local mission calling; called despite our
fearfulness and unpromising spiritual qualifications … Where’s the stabiliser? In the
qualities of the God who has called us, the fuel God provides, and the hope with which
God sustains us. “With you is the well of life; and in your light we shall see light.”
Into the gospel reading. Mary shows her own wacky wisdom by anointing Jesus,
extravagantly, and against all the taboos of her day; and Jesus homes in: “she bought
[the ointment] for the day of my burial …”
Mary knew what was going on; she had seen the vultures circling after the raising of
Lazarus. Here, for love’s sake, she helps graciously support and sustain Jesus in the
rigours of his vocation.
Who do you know – facing opposition, ridicule, dejection, despair – for their
faithfulness, their outspoken concern for God’s justice compassion righteousness and
kingdom – whom you can lovingly encourage and support in your own private prayers
(and when possible, conversations)? This portion of Psalm 36 suits admirably; by
praying it for them, you can anoint and support them in their God-given task.
TUESDAY IN HOLY WEEK
Isaiah 49.1-7; Psalm 71.1-14; 1 Corinthians 1.18-31; John 12.20-36.
Following “wacky wisdom” (inspired by tonight’s Epistle); and pursuing a sub-theme
of how the psalm connects …
The connections are rich! Psalm 71 reflects on the second Servant Song but also
foreshadows the Gospel. In a way, it all hinges on the expression “fearful warning”;
the rest of the psalm is otherwise fairly conventional, even formulaic …11
“Fearful warning”? The BCP had “I am become as it were a monster [unto many]”;
NRSV has “like a portent”. A poet translator has “example” with the comment that
the underlying Hebrew word generally has positive connotations (“portent”, “sign of
divine power”), so moves away from negative interpretations like “byword” and
“object of mockery” [and, “monster”].12 I like “example”; though I cannot rule out
“portent”, because it suggests something momentous in store and prefigured by the
psalmist as exemplar.
Although we finish with v14, the psalm turns and (unusually for psalms which pray
for help) focuses on praise …
To the Epistle: to proclaim and defend the Christian faith, Paul and all the other early
Christians had to find some logic to Christianity’s most bizarre and scandalous fact:
that Jesus was crucified. Crucifixion, in the Roman Empire, was notoriously the most
dishonourable and despicable death; the capital punishment for slaves, pirates, and
enemies of the state, fearfully demonstrating Rome’s power and powerfully deterring
sedition. How could anyone seriously claim that one so executed was God’s
ambassador to humanity, and Saviour of the World, when the divinity who sent him
couldn’t even protect his ambassador! Can you blame anyone for walking away from
such foolishness? Hence Paul’s seemingly bold expression. But isn’t each person
crucified “a portent to many”? A byword? An object of mockery?
To the Gospel: as I said last night, Martha knew what was going on, and how the
vultures were circling after Jesus raised her brother Lazarus from the dead. John’s
Gospel now foreshadows the next phase, the global dimension to Jesus’ ministry –
resonating with the second Servant Song, “I will give you as a light to the nations, that
my salvation may reach to the end of the earth”. Jesus recognises the significance of
the Greeks’ approach – this is the final phase, and he is deeply, existentially troubled
to the core of his being.
11 James L Mays (1994) Psalms (commentary in the Interpretation Series) compares 71.1-3 with 31.1-3; also 71 vv6 & 12, cf 22 vv10 & 11 respectively. 12 Robert Alter 2007, The Book of Psalms.
Look at verses 10-13 of the psalm – although they are set in the context of the
psalmist’s “time of old age”, they match beautifully with Jesus’ current situation:
My enemies speak against me:
and those that watch for my life conspire together, saying,
`God has forsaken him:
pursue him, take him, for there is none to save him.'
Be not far from me, O God:
my God, make haste to help me.
Let my adversaries be confounded and put to shame:
let those who seek my hurt be covered with scorn and disgrace.
As for me, I will wait in hope continually:
and I will praise you more and more.
Then Jesus – deeply, existentially troubled to the core of his being – is divinely
comforted. Then he goes into hiding (the light of the world is temporarily unseen, and
no longer shines in the darkness); from here on, his own circle of disciples are his only
company, it seems, until his arrest and all that follows.
*****
Back to the Servant Song. Notice the Servant’s sense of failure: “I have laboured in
vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the
Lord, and my reward with my God”. That’s the psalmist’s trust as well; self-evidently,
this was Jesus’ absolute confidence in “the Father who sent [him]” (a favourite
expression in John’s Gospel).
Which brings me back to wacky wisdom. Though many saw Jesus’ execution as a
sure sign of his abject failure, and good reason for many to condemn him as fraud,
bogus, impostor, and incontrovertible proof that God had nothing at all to do with him
… God works to a different wisdom that surpasses our common sense and all that we
value so highly. Even, as I suggested on Palm Sunday, even our own physical life …
I close with two illustrations from the natural world; one is really close to home, one
north of the Arctic Circle. I have written two poems ostensibly about turtle hatchlings
and the Barnacle Goose, both of which highlight a perilous wacky wisdom evident in
the life cycle of some species; both have been published online.13
On our local beaches at Coolum on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, we have turtles
nesting; mostly Loggerheads, some Green. My interest in turtle hatchlings was
sparked by an evening at Mon Repos, near Bundaberg, several years ago (though we
didn’t see any that night). So my first poem is titled Hatchlings.
13 Hatchlings http://www.vaughanpark.org.nz/?sid=709; Barnacle Goose http://www.vaughanpark.org.nz/?sid=774. Both poems © the Revd Jim McPherson.
HATCHLINGS
tottering
in all except resolve
those who’ve only known
the inner life of egg
begin
their sandy trek
as if in embryo
they’d sensed
the breakers’
far off pounding
beckoning
to stake their lives on life
My second is based on the nesting habits of the Barnacle Goose – which I only
learned of through David Attenborough, who filmed it. They nest above water, in
craggy sites beyond reach of the Arctic Fox. The parents fly down to the water and
call the goslings down for food – except at this point they have down, but not
feather sufficient for flying.
If they don’t jump, they starve …
BARNACLE GOOSE
The Call
hatched onto the craggy
and precipitous, the gosling
hears its mother call
from the vertiginous below:
too perilous to heed
too compelling to ignore
Two powerful parables of discipleship, and of obedience to call …
WEDNESDAY IN HOLY WEEK
Isaiah 50.4-9a; Psalm 70; Hebrews 12.1-3; John 13.21-32
Following “wacky wisdom”; and pursuing my sub-theme of how the psalm connects
Tonight we have the Third Servant Song, and note the increasing intensity and
desperation as we approach Good Friday. The Servant listens to God’s instruction, in
order to relay it faithfully and accurately to others; yet for his pains, encounters
vigorous physical opposition, including spitting in the face; “pulling out the beard” is
not only painful, but as serious and contemptuous an insult as spitting in the face.14
Yet the Servant patiently endures …
Here we see the Servant’s resolve, built on confidence in God’s protection. And we
see defiance: Who will contend with me? Who are my adversaries? Come on! Because
God is on my side … and will vindicate me at the last, while they fall by the wayside
and are forgotten.
Speaking frankly, in one way it all seems too straightforward, too – dare I say? –
“perfect”. But Psalm 70 humanises it and explores the reality of suffering for
obedience’s sake, from the inside. It’s a heartfelt plea to God from inside the anguish,
the humiliations, and the pain.
Interestingly, it does not shriek for vengeance, or even retaliation (you pull out my
beard, may God so do to you and more also); it’s not physical in any way. The
psalmist’s enemies are to be shamed and confounded and disgraced; while the
psalmist holds out for swift deliverance, confident in God’s eventual vindication.
Jesus took this one step deeper, on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not
know what they are doing.”15
*****
John’s Gospel shows its own wacky wisdom: paradoxically, Jesus is glorified by his
humiliation. Judas leaves, and in its most poignant and powerful brevity, records that
“it was night”. This is the time given over to the forces of darkness; the light of the
world will shortly be extinguished by death … If God has been glorified in him [as is
indeed the case, Jesus being son of man and light of the world], God will also glorify
him in himself (a reference to Jesus’ bodily resurrection glory).
Perhaps, in whatever time Jesus could snatch for praying, the last few lines of Psalm
70 might have been on his lips:
14 2 Samuel 10.3-5 records just such an insult to David’s envoys. 15 Luke 23.34 – though the sentence itself is absent from some of the most ancient authoritative manuscripts; cf the martyrdom of Stephen, Acts 7.60.
Let all who seek you be joyful and glad because of you:
let those who love your salvation say always, “God is great”.
As for me, I am poor and needy:
O God, be swift to save me.
You are my helper and my deliverer:
O Lord, make no delay.
This is where the Epistle follows through, although the lectionary lost its nerve …
“We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses” – which I misunderstood for years,
as people who were keeping an eye on me to see what I did and how I responded to
different challenges and temptations. But no, these are the witnesses of chapter 11,
whose lives are cited as witness to their faithfulness in their different circumstances,
and who now surround us as a supportive cloud in our pilgrimage; their witness is to
God’s faithfulness and deliverance, to encourage us in the same. If you like, they lived
the psalm, embodied it and exemplified it, for our strengthening and steadfastness. So
“Consider him [Jesus] who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so
that you may not grow weary or lose heart.”
Then our lectionary drops the bundle; it should continue into the next verse: “In your
struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”
This is the wacky wisdom of Palm Sunday: to stand for faithfulness to God even when
your life is at stake, and not be so intimidated by death that we abandon God to save
our skins. Consider him …
And here’s another wacky wisdom, which I hinted at in a footnote to Monday’s
sermon.16 Through the psalms, we can voice prayers on behalf of those too
traumatised to pray. The same principle applies here: through the psalms, we can voice
the prayers of our faithful brothers and sisters around the globe who at this very
moment are too traumatised, too preoccupied with survival, too distracted by fear or
grief or anxiety to voice anything coherent except to scream …
16 One is particularly notorious: the ending of Psalm 137:
O daughter of Babylon, you that lay waste: happy shall he be who serves you as you have served us; Happy shall he be who takes your little ones: and dashes them against the stones.
Horrific, admittedly. But listen to what one of my priest colleagues wrote to me a few years ago:
In Melbourne, I sat with a Sudanese family and heard their story (somewhat sanitised, I suspect). These people had seen their children shot. Praying Ps 137 changed for me that day. Having this psalm as 'Holy Writ' is deeply pastoral for such a family; knowing they can voice what they think and feel to God and not be condemned is a significant step in their grieving. When Ps 137 appears in the lectionary for MP, I now say the lot.
That is, through the psalms we can voice prayers on behalf of those too traumatised to pray.
I wrote this poem about praying the psalms, and offer it to you:17
THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW
The psalms are God’s compendium of prayers –
all drawn from life, to voice life’s tantalus,
till God’s unhindered reign resolve it all.
So when I set myself to pray a psalm
the Spirit who inspired its ancient words
will help me know myself within its frame;
yet also search for resonance between
the psalmist and myself, to amplify
until the psalm can thrive again in me;
the Spirit searches round the living earth
for all whose everyday drives them to seek
expression and relief beyond themselves;
and gathers us into the living psalm
as treasured pulse within the Father’s heart
until the Father’s yearning is fulfilled.
17 Publ 2014 in my collection To Tease Our Knowing, p 30.
MAUNDY THURSDAY
Exodus 12.1-4 (5-10) 11-14; Psalm 116.1-2, 11-18; 1 Corinthians 11.23-26;
John 13.1-17, 31b-35.
This Holy Week I’ve been exploring the theme of “Wacky Wisdom”, and probing the
ways God not only confounds us but also positively confuses us with totally
unanticipated reversals that defy common sense. It’s a sort of Alice-in-Wonderland
topsy-turvy and Maurits Escher inside-out world where nothing is as it seems …18
Ash Wednesday, as priest, most of my ordained life I have eye-balled people I know
and love, smeared ash on their foreheads, and repeated the solemn injunction:
Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. I find that very moving.
Tonight we end this phase of Lent, with another deeply moving physical contact: foot
washing. These solemn physical contacts are the only ones specially inserted into our
Eucharistic practice; they are distinctively Lenten.
The ash is smeared on your forehead and mine, in the shape of a cross; the symbol of
death recalling the means of Jesus’ execution, being recalled precisely because of his
resurrection. Ash Wednesday claims its own Easter. But the footwashing? We only
have John’s Gospel, and John writes with a distinctively different slant.
*****
John’s account of the Last Supper breaks startling new ground; it is radically different
from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. I find it the most spiritually and emotionally intense
account we have; because we are in it – there present; whereas in the synoptics we
can read about those who were there, from the comfortable safety of distance …
Tonight’s reading. In Peter, in the unidentified “Beloved Disciple”, in Judas even, we
see ourselves. It’s not that John’s Gospel draws us in as a spellbinding story; instead,
it tells this Supper story in such a way that draws us back into then, and extends that
“then” into tonight’s “now”. Each sub-story is a here-and-now reality; it all unfolds
in a way that helps us see (1) this is every Eucharist; and (2) we were present –
enfolded into – the very first Eucharist: even then.
Turn this inside out. It means that with the footwashing and the Eucharistic elements,
we are not re-enacting an historic event of nearly two millennia past; instead, we re-
enter it, and appropriate it new and fresh into our lives. In a way, this is the wacky
wisdom of the Eucharist (and the footwashing that initially accompanied it), that
defies all common sense as far as time is concerned; they are beyond all “time” as we
know it, who live under the tyranny of death.
18 See note 1, Palm Sunday.
*****
Jesus is fully aware of all that is going on, all that’s at stake. “Having loved his own
who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” Not gritting his teeth until it’s all
over, where “the end” is his death; the NRSV has done us no favours here: “he loved
them to the very uttermost, the furthest extreme, the absolute limit”.19 That love breaks
all his previous records, with only one final extremity until its consummation:
willingly surrendering his life for “his own”.
Then Jesus, “knowing that he had come from God and was going to God”, knowing
his betrayer was right there amongst them – these are his compass bearings – got up
from the table, readied himself, and began to wash everyone’s feet.
Apparently there’s no parallel in ancient literature for any person of superior status
voluntarily washing the feet of an inferior.20 Jesus’ action is stunning, counter-
intuitive. Except for his own injunctions about the greatest being least; and about
becoming “like little children” ie nearly at the bottom of the social scale. Tonight
Jesus exemplifies and embodies his own wacky wisdom, in yet another of his many
reversals of society’s customs and values.
Notice also: John doesn’t tell us that Jesus washed Judas’ feet, though of course he
did; nor what it was like for Jesus to wash those feet for Judas’ comfort and dignity,
while still concealing Judas’ guilty secret [Jesus was willing to go through with it if
Judas was], all the time knowing that shortly those feet would again be dusty from his
path towards betrayal?
Nor do we know how Judas responded to Jesus washing his feet. We know Peter’s
response: he seems to be zealously guarding his master’s status. Don’t be deceived by
Jesus’ seemingly mild response to Peter; it is just as brutal as his earlier “Get behind
me, Satan” – if I cannot serve you in a simple physical thing, I cannot serve you in the
deeper matter of forgiveness; and if you cannot handle my reversal of status, will you
later rely on status to defend yourself? I wash you, or you leave; now. Poor Peter! But:
he stayed.
*****
The “Beloved Disciple”. Perplexing … As they recline at the Supper, Peter is too far
away from Jesus to ask who his betrayer is, and signals the Beloved Disciple (next to
Jesus) to find out; Jesus’ action identifies Judas unmistakably, but neither the Beloved
Disciple nor Peter take any preventative action. Why not?
19 Brendan Byrne, Life Abounding. A reading of John’s Gospel (2014), 228, suggests “the end” is achieved at 19.30, “It is finished”. 20 Byrne, 229. Note also, though, the startling reversal in Luke’s gospel, commending the watchful slaves the master finds alert when he eventually returns, who will then “have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them” (12.37).
Step back a moment: the anonymous Beloved Disciple was reclining next to him, but
John’s Gospel uses the same expression here (in Greek) as was used of Jesus’ eternal
relationship with the Father (chapter 1): “It is God the only Son, who is close to the
Father's heart, who has made him known.”21 That is, the Beloved Disciple is “close
to Jesus’ heart”, in a position of extraordinary and enduring intimacy …
Theologians and historians have had no success in identifying this disciple, whose
anonymity allows a symbolic interpretation beyond whatever his historic role at the
Supper. Not merely a fictional invention by the author, but with sufficient historical
credibility to inform the gospel’s content and witness; yet sharing such closeness to
Jesus of Nazareth that (as one commentator put it), he could function “as the point of
insertion for later generations into the heart of the saving events told in the gospel”. 22
This is actually a venerable rhetorical technique in Israel’s sacred history, as far back
as Deuteronomy, which cherishes the notion that all Israel was present (if only in their
forebears’ loins) at the decisive founding events of Israel’s nationhood, namely
Exodus and Sinai.23
*****
So we step outside of time as we know it, historic time; into the elastic time of God’s
burgeoning Kingdom. We do not re-enact some of our most sacred tradition for
historic verisimilitude or feel-good “spiritual” sentiment … Instead, we were there,
and re-enter and re-engage through tonight’s footwashing and Eucharist, and God
willing will faithfully and reverently re-enter in many footwashing and Eucharists to
come.
I close with a poem; the final line refers to the eighth day of our seven day week; that
will have to wait for Easter morning!
ANY WHERE
the bonnet of a car in Mount Ginini’s mist, a cathedral or
a homestead, or beside a hospice bed when time and breath
are short; even inside cinder block and razor wire; any where
is where enough for us well-meaning clumsies hungering
after more than scroggin for The Track, who gathering brave
his Triduum to feast upon the fullness of his empty tomb;
and feasting find ourselves – each one – as the Beloved Disciple
gathered and in-folded to the hem of his eighth day24 21 1.18, eis ton kolpon tou patros – 13.23, en to kolpo tou Iesou. 22 21.24 credits authorship of the gospel to the Beloved Disciple; cf also 19.35. See Byrne’s discussion, pp 4-6. 23 Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses 871f. See also, differently, Margaret Pamment, The Fourth Gospel’s Beloved Disciple, The Expository Times, September 1983, vol. 94 #12:363-367 24 Published online at http://www.vaughanpark.org.nz/?sid=657, 2015. Mount Ginini is about 1
GOOD FRIDAY
Isaiah 53.1-12; Psalm 22.1-11, 14, 18-20; Hebrews 10.16-25; Psalm 25.1-10;
John 12.23-36, 31-33; John 18.1-19.42
This Holy Week I’ve been exploring the theme of “Wacky Wisdom”, and probing the
ways God not only confounds us but also positively confuses us with totally
unanticipated reversals that defy common sense. It’s a sort of Alice-in-Wonderland
topsy-turvy and Maurits Escher inside-out world where nothing is as it seems …25
Palm Sunday, I used the imagery of deep clowning to describe Jesus’ “parody parade”,
and Maundy Thursday I focused on how liturgically and spiritually God’s time curves
back to fold us in; Easter Vigil there will be more on wacky time (the eighth day of
our seven-day week). All of which suggests that God doesn’t play by our rules …
My term “wacky wisdom” was inspired by St Paul’s daring expression “the
foolishness of God”. I hadn’t even questioned it, until nearly thirty years ago one of
my children asked me why my bookshelves contained a book with a title insulting
God.26
Paul was struggling to articulate the seemingly reverse-and-upside-down nature of
grace and God’s modus operandi: fools grasp what the wise scorn. We have this
enigmatic reversal in Jesus’ own teaching and practice: the Beatitudes are a list of
successes for the most unlikely and unpromising; add the footwashing (last night); we
even see it in the Suffering Servant. God doesn’t work to our common sense because
it is inadequate to contain or describe God’s purposes.
To proclaim and defend the Christian faith, Paul and all the other early Christians had
to find some logic to Christianity’s most bizarre and scandalous fact: that Jesus was
crucified. Crucifixion, in the Roman Empire, was notoriously the most dishonourable
and despicable death, for slaves, pirates, and enemies of the state; it showed Rome’s
power and powerfully deterred sedition. How could anyone seriously claim that one
so executed was God’s ambassador to humanity, and Saviour of the World, when the
divinity who sent him couldn’t even protect his ambassador! Can you blame anyone
for walking away from such foolishness?
If you followed my train of thought on Palm Sunday, you would see that in Jesus and
various others (religious or not) some things are so important and fundamental to our
human identity that some dare risk life itself to confront them: Tank Man at
Tiananmen Square; Laurence (deacon and martyr); Paul the former Saul (who had to
be directly confronted by the living Jesus); and Jesus himself.
25 See note 1, Palm Sunday. 26 John Austin Baker, The Foolishness of God 1970.
*****
The big question: What was really going on, that original Good Friday? John’s
Passion makes Jesus’ royal dignity abundantly clear: (1) the high-level talks, between
the governor and the king; (2) Jesus’ kingship is “not of this world”, a statement utterly
beyond Pilate’s comprehension; and (3) the royal quantity (50kg of myrrh and aloes)
Nicodemus brought for Jesus’ burial.
Second, the venom, the hostility and hatred of the day; Mel Gibson’s 2004 movie The
Passion of the Christ vividly depicted its physical brutality; but there was an
emotional/spiritual venom to it all as well. One writer suggested Jesus
became/becomes – the physical focus of our inner disappointment and anger at life
and therefore at God who has failed us.27 I suggest, further, that some of the religious
leaders’ anger was because they could not connect the God Jesus proclaimed, and
Jesus’ actions allegedly inspired by his “god”, with all that they had learned of God
and expected of God; Jesus’ “God” broke all the written/unwritten rules of what
Israel’s God should do and be. Jesus’ own wacky wisdom was simply too dangerous
…
Third, we demean the day and diminish Jesus’ own personal suffering, when we see
it as Jesus merely signing the ransom cheque for our salvation in his own blood. His
“sacrifice” was acceptable precisely because he had known no sin, “a lamb without
spot or blemish”; which means his sacrifice was his whole life, from the unique single
cell of his conception through to his dying breath.
Spiritually, the stakes are higher for Jesus and for the Satan/Adversary than at any
other time of his incarnate life. The Satan was no mere spectator; instead, launching
a full-scale last-ditch intense do-or-die assault, in the hope that Jesus could perhaps
be goaded into sin, thereby aborting God’s whole redemptive project, with the Satan
eternally victorious … So I see the cross as Jesus setting the benchmark for steadfast
courageous faithfulness unto death; and setting the (baptismal) hallmark for his own.
In the sacrament, he gladly feeds us with his body and blood as the needful sustenance
for our living his life into the circles and contexts of our own; for his sake.
We sinners will never know or experience even half the measure of Jesus’ strenuous
combat on our behalf. Perhaps just a tiny glimpse, sufficient hint, to help us praise
him all the more …
Fourth, Psalm 22. Mark and Matthew both have Jesus cry from the cross, “My God,
my God, why have you forsaken me?”28 I imagine if I were dying and all I could croak
27 “In Holy Week of all times let’s admit the truth that deep inside ourselves we have carried, sometimes at least, an enormous resentment and anger against God – or, if it’s easier to say it, against life. That is what boiled around Jesus Christ as they lifted him up on the Cross. “It’s God they ought to crucify instead of you and me.” It was God we crucified that day.” John V Taylor, Weep Not for Me (1986, Geneva, WCC), 24. 28 Mark 15.34, Matthew 27.46; contrast Luke 23.46.
out was the first line of a hymn, those in the know would recognise I was directing
them to the whole of it and not merely the only line I could voice. I invite you to read
the psalm again, with that in mind …
See how it describes the extreme suffering of one who trusted God, but … Now, in
extremis, the psalmist prays “O Lord, do not stand far off: you are my helper, hasten
to my aid …”
Then, swiftly and dramatically, it changes key: “I will tell of your name to my brethren
… he has saved my life for himself …This shall be told of my Lord to [a people yet
unborn], that he; has; done it!
I find the Prayer of Charles de Foucauld expresses this brilliantly; eucharistically fed,
we gladly and with full trust offer ourselves into God’s tenderness for whatever God
may call us to. As we come to Jesus’ table, let us offer ourselves – again – “without
reserve, and with boundless confidence”.
EASTER DAY
Easter Vigil – Lighting the New Fire
Genesis 22.1-18; Exodus 14.10-31, 15.20f; Zephaniah 3.14-20; Romans 6.3-11;
Matthew 28.1-10
May you know the peace and joy of the Risen Christ, this day and all your days.
This Holy Week I’ve been following the theme of “Wacky Wisdom”, and exploring
the ways God not only confounds us but also positively confuses us with totally
unanticipated reversals that defy common sense. It’s a sort of Alice-in-Wonderland
topsy-turvy and Maurits Escher inside-out world where nothing is as it seems …29
We began with Palm Sunday, and I invited those present to explore just how deeply
death and our fear of death shapes our living; how Death can confidently call our
bluff, any time and every time, almost without exception.
Now, Easter Day, we have to admit Jesus’ resurrection was an absolute ambush,
despite his efforts at preparing his disciples and despite his own raising others from
death to life; we see this in each of the four gospels.30 Death has us hoodwinked.
*****
To return to the topsy-turvy inside-out world of faith, try this: how about the eighth
day – of our seven-day week? It’s a very early Christian liturgical concept, which I
stumbled onto by accident only to find it has radically transformed my thinking and
understanding.31
Remember, Saturday is the Sabbath, the seventh day of the weekly cycle built on
God’s six days of creation followed by one of rest (Genesis 1). In our society Sunday
is now the day of rest – by decree of the fourth century Roman Emperor Constantine;
that’s how it became Christians’ main worship day.32
Until Constantine’s decree, “the eighth day” was the distinctively Christian worship
“day” (or night). Jesus had risen not on the Sabbath, but on “the first day of the week”,
thereby beginning his risen life over which death has no dominion; the early Christians
then made Eucharist on the eighth (in-between) day as (1) the confession of his
29 See note 1, Palm Sunday. 30 Matthew 28.17, cf “Doubting Thomas” John 20.24-29; Mark 16.8 (such a natural human response!); Luke 24.37-43. 31 Alexander Schmemann (1966) Introduction to Liturgical Theology ch Two; see also Gordon Lathrop (1993), Holy Things), 38-40. The relevant passage from Schmemann is available online at http://jbburnett.com/resources/schmemann/schmemann_intro-2-8th-day.pdf. 32 Until Constantine’s decree, neither the Jewish nor Roman calendars observed Sunday as a worship day.
resurrection and (2) the sacramental imbuing of his faithful ones with his resurrection
life. Jesus’ resurrection day (day one of creation in the Genesis framework) represents
the first day of the new creation, its opening salvo and its joyful dawn birdsong. Notice
how today’s Gospel begins: “After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was
dawning…”; so now the victory has been won, and the eighth day – God’s new
creation – is at last under way.
The eighth day is not like the proverbial baker’s dozen, an extra for good measure;
it’s called the eighth day because it opens towards what cannot be reached simply by
more days like those of our customary seven-day weeks; after Saturday darkness, the-
first-day-of-the week dawn (Sunday dawn) opens out toward the day beyond days, the
climactic last day of God.33
This is pre-eminently the logic of the New Creation, which doesn’t fit comfortably
inside the old; but as we struggle to live the new creation’s life inside our own sinful
frames, we have to wrestle with expressing the New Creation in the current framework
of the Old … with only uneasy and partial success. But here we are! Creatures of the
new creation outside of time, straining within time and within the old creation; guided
by the Holy Spirit, and commissioned by grace and by baptism for the New, Perfect,
Complete, Glorious Kingdom of God!
Which is why we need to reaffirm our baptismal commitments and strengthen our
resolve – as we will this morning. And again and again and again, as we need to …
When I understood how the eighth day stands outside the routine week and awkwardly
aligned with it, then the idea of a Vigil Eucharist on a Saturday evening, and of the
Easter Vigil after sunset Saturday or in the pre-dawn darkness of Easter morning, at
last fell into place. For example, I understood the Exultet in a new way:
Rejoice now, all you heavenly legions of angels … for the King who comes with
victory, let the trumpet proclaim salvation. Sing with joy, O earth, illumined with
this celestial radiancy: and enlightened by the eternal King of glory, believe and
know you have put away the darkness of all humankind. So likewise let our
Mother, his holy church, welcome the bright beams of light shed upon her …
and again:
That night is come, whereby all that believe in Christ upon the face of all the
earth, delivered from this wicked world and out of the shadow of death, are
renewed by grace, and are made partakers of eternal life. That night is come,
wherein the bonds of death were loosed, and Christ harrowing hell rose again in
triumph.
33 “The week is related to time. The eighth day is outside time. The week stands within the sequence of days, the eighth day has nothing coming after it, it is the ‘last one’. The week involves multiplicity; the eighth day is one …”Schmemann, p62, quoting L Bouyer; see also Lathrop 39-40.
Later citing Psalm 139: “The night is as clear as the day: then shall my night be turned
to day.”
*****
So here we are, trying to express the inexpressible – the resurrection, the risen life of
Christ, the radiant glory of the full dawn of God’s Reign – in our own fragile everyday
living, desperately needing God’s grace ourselves and God’s forgiveness every week
for our sins of omission and commission of the week just past; someone quipped once
that Christianity is all beggars telling other beggars where to get bread..
Of course the task is beyond us! But that’s the wacky wisdom seek to learn: to see
outside the everyday, the routine, the confines of common-sense on the one hand and
death on the other, to penetrate by grace into what God’s love has done for us, to enter
the baptismal life and renew our baptismal determination time and time again, re-
making the promises and relying on God’s forgiving love.
God doesn’t save sinners to live indolent lives in a harp-filled heaven; God saves
people made in God’s image to help in furthering the work of God’s kingdom on
earth; our deficiencies and actual sins are certainly our problem, but nothing that God
cannot counter, nor remedy … and when in the Lord’s Prayer we pray “Your kingdom
come”, we touch the focus of all God’s hopes in us and for the whole creation.
Those who’ve journeyed through Holy Week here have been using the Charles de
Foucauld prayer (“Father, I abandon myself into your hands ...”); it is a lovely, deep!
prayer of self-offering ignited by the self-offering made known to us in Jesus’
incarnation.
As we strive conscientiously to offer our selves to God, “without reserve and with
boundless confidence”, my experience suggests we begin to find and feel the force of
his resurrection: that we are held and treasured by God in a love beyond the reach and
power of Death.
Christ is risen, Alleluia!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!