Readings, Amos 7:7-17 and Luke 10:25-37
Image, Emma Amos, Untitled (1962)
 
Let’s ask one of those classic questions we ask when reading the Bible: where, or who, do you think you are in the story? There are seven people: the teacher of the law, Jesus, the injured man, his attackers, priest, Levite, and Samaritan (and perhaps a donkey if you're so inclined). To whom do you relate?
 
In many ways we have been taught to place ourselves in the role of the Samaritan – or at least to see our role as aspiring to be like the Samaritan. An understandable tendency since, Jesus ends the parable with the command: go and do likewise. At the heart of discipleship is the love of neighbour, as so, we as disciples, are called to be like the Samaritan: hearts welling with compassion, devoting our time and material goods to alleviate the suffering of others even if they are very different to ourselves and have no way of repaying our kindness.
 
This is a good goal to fix before us. However, we can run into trouble if we fix ourself in that role, if we, like the classic Actor-Director of the local theatre company, continue to cast ourselves as the heroic lead and never the one in need of help (let alone as a villain).
 
Because who we relate to in the story is not fixed. At different points in our life, we might relate to most, if not all, of these players. Like the man attacked, we have probably all been someone who needed a neighbour, needed care and support in a difficult time and perhaps found it performed by an unexpected person. Likely, we have all had a moment like the teacher of the law where we have wondered how far our responsibility for care extends, who exactly we need to prioritise as an object of our love. Perhaps you have found yourself in the position of Jesus, helping to teach someone the importance of treating others as we’d like to be treated, challenging parochial approaches to charity and justice. If we are honest, I’m sure we can all name times where, like the Levite or the Priest, we have averted our eyes, quickened our step, or rationalised our decision to not stop and help. And if we are really honest, we may look back at moments in our lives where we have knowingly caused harm, where we have taken unjustly, where we have been cruel.
 
And if it can be true for us that we move between the various stars in the constellation of this story, then it can be true for everyone. That is to say, the story is a moving map of the world, as who among us does not, at some time, need a neighbour, be a neighbour, ignore a neighbour, create a problem for a neighbour, or discuss the ethics of neighbourliness. And the reason I am emphasising that it is not only us who move across the spectrum of roles in this story, is because it is the very act of fixing people in a role, in associating a person or community with a single role, while keeping ourselves centred as the Samaritan, that makes the very command of the story, go and do likewise, impossible.
 
A couple of weeks ago, Sureka Gorringe was here from UnitingWorld. She made the observation that mission and Christian aid has often been imagined in this kind of fixed relation. We are the Samaritan who show up to help our overseas neighbour who is in need. We don’t hear from them; we just decide on the path of care and move on. And while much of this was performed with compassion, and much of this addressed urgent needs, it does not, Sureka taught us, reflect the proper nature of the church. It ignores that the image of the body is one of interdependence – where there are no lesser members who can be ignored or cut off. Indeed, the church is made the body of Christ in the mutual giving and receiving of the Spirit’s gifts – no one is only given gifts to give, we are also to receive from one another. Too rarely, Sureka noted, has the Western church seen itself as the one requiring compassion and care from those typically cast as disadvantaged or needy.
 
Naomi Wolfe, a trawloolway woman, historian and theologian has made a similar point when considering her experience with this story in churches. She’s written* about the perpetual casting of Indigenous people as the voiceless victim in need of a good white neighbour. But this ignores the wisdom, testimony, and witness of Indigenous siblings in Christ – just as it ignores that in matters of justice in this land, the mainline church has played, at varied points, the role of bandit, Levite, Priest, and teacher of the law wondering who really counts as neighbour.
 
Assuming the fixity of our role as Samaritan, as the benevolent extender of compassion and justice, of the neighbour with rather than without, also risks closing ourselves off to the word of truth which brings repentance and freedom. Amos goes to the heart of his nation with the word of God’s judgment. But the Priest of Bethel says to the King of Israel:
Amos has conspired against you in the very centre of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words.
 
The word of God, given to the prophet, is unseemly to the priest and the king. It is not a prophetic warning but conspiratorial threat, it is not righteous judgment but words which taint the land and tarnish the nation. The prophet’s words are deemed to spit on the image of the people as the people of God, on the status of the city as sanctuary of the king, the temple as temple of the kingdom. So fixed is the view of the priest, king, and nation that they are the centre of God’s story, the agents of God’s agenda, that the words of the prophet, the words of truth, the words of warning, can only be received as a threat and their teller must be expunged: O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there.
 
We might hear echoes of these words in many times and places, where those who raise a word of critique against their society or nation are met with the rebuff, well if you don’t like it, leave. We might hear echoes of these words across the eons of the church where the call to reform has led to excommunication and persecution. We might hear echoes in these words in families and communities who claim calls to redress the past as conspiracies against the foundations of the house. We might hear echoes in the defensiveness of friends and loved ones who were unable to bear warnings about the perils of their chosen path.
 
And time and again these rejections, rebuffs, silencing, and accusations are the result of a fixed conception of the self (or the institution, community, nation) as the good guy. As one whose only role is Samaritan (or aspiring Samaritan). But the only one who is ever only in that role, the only one without need, the only one without error, the only one possessing only gifts to bestow is God. The church is foremost the church in repentance, in a posture of humility and confession, understanding that we have not always got it right, that we do need correction, that we do need, perpetually, to turn once more to follow Christ.
 
Because to follow Jesus’ command to go and do likewise, to inherit eternal life, to love our neighbour as ourself requires us to be more than just the Samaritan, it asks more of us than solely compassion and charity. To love our neighbour, to be part of the kingdom we need to allow ourselves to be loved, allow ourselves to receive help, allow ourselves to be shaped through relationship.
 
To repent and seek the kingdom means we have to be open to the truth, open to the word of the prophets, open to the judgment of God, and to do this we have to be able to consider the various roles we embody, and the various roles our church has played. We need to recognise the times we have been a neighbour, but also when we have needed, ignored, or mistreated a neighbour. We must resist the lure to justify ourselves, to consider our obligation to the law fulfilled and recognise that we – like everyone else – are never one thing to each other, even though we are always, and perpetually one thing before God: one who has been rescued by God from the power of sin and transferred into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
 
When we know ourselves first as the one rescued and in perpetual need of rescuing, we are freed to see the fluidity of our movement across the spectrum of this story, to receive the prophetic words of repent and repair, and to know that even if we have not always been a neighbour, the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit make it possible for us to change our role in the story.  

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* Naomi Wolfe, "Reading the Bible in Australia: A Place for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples," in Reading the Bible in Australia, Edited by Deborah R. Storie, Barbara Deutschmann and Michelle Eastwood (Wipf & Stock, 2024), pp. 30-31.

Readings, Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31 and Psalm 8
Image, Segment from The Holy Family with Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Bartolomeo Cavarozzi (1618)

What does it mean to believe in a Triune God? To confess the Holy Trinity? To live as though our God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? There are, of course, conceptual answers (more often than not teaching us what not to say: the Son is not created, the Father is not above the Son, etc), and they are important. A proper understanding of who Jesus is, or why the Spirit is sent at Pentecost requires the full picture of God as Triune.
 
However, while worthy of a sermon, this is not how I want to approach the question “what does it mean to believe in a Triune God” today. Instead, the sermon is: we glorify, recognise, and confess the reality of the Triune God in treating human beings as crowned by God with glory and honour, treating each person as one who the wisdom of God delights.
 
I’ve been reading a book on the Soviet dissident movement, called To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause (which would have been my toast to myself had I come out to preach on the conceptual answers to the question of the Trinity). The book centres the simple though radical choice these dissidents made: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people.
 
This serves as a guide for our own lives as subjects of the Triune God, citizens of the kingdom of heaven, living amidst worldly fracture, failure, and folly. That in a world of prejudice and discrimination, of abuse and neglect, of violence and war, of tyranny and despotism, of callousness and cruelty, we live as those who believe God cares for the human person. To confess the reality of the Triune God is to live in God’s reality. And in God’s reality, God is mindful of and cares for the mortal, has crowned the human with glory and honour. To glorify the Triune God is to defy the worldly appearance of things and live as if each person has really, truly been made little lower than a God.
 
To live “as is,” is not to live in blinkered delusion, but to awaken to incongruity. It is to wake and see where in the world people are treated as if they bear no crown, no divine image, no holy delight. The most recent Peninsula Living was delivered which detailed the rising scourge of elder abuse across the Northern Beaches (and across the wider State). Stories such as this create a clash between the world as it is and the world as it should be, a clash between how the vulnerable are too often treated in the world, and how they are viewed by God. And this clash acts as a spark, it ignites us to act, advocate, organise and pray so that the as it should be gains ground in the world. 
 
On the global scale, we see the humanitarian crisis spiralling out of control in Gaza. The blocking and destruction of international aid by Israel, their strategies of starvation and deprivation added onto direct military strikes, are enabled and empowered by their own (and much of the wider world’s) decision to classify a population not as little lower than a God, but far lower than human dignity, rights, and compassion. The cataclysmic death toll is enabled and empowered by the ability to look at some people not as crowned with glory and honour, not as a site where Divine Wisdom delights, but as an inhuman problem to be extinguished or expelled. Again these heart wrenching stories spark a clash within us, they create an undeniable incongruity between the world as it is and the world as it should be, about the human as seen through a sinful, worldly vision, and as they are seen by God.     
 
More intimately, we might connect this to last week’s message about the Spirit bearing witness with our own that we are children of God. God has crowned us with glory and honour, making us little lower than a God, and this creates a clash of incongruity with our own negative self-talk, which would seek to place us several rungs lower on that ladder.
 
We believe in the Triune God by not settling for the vision of the world as it is. We believe by  rebelling against the worldly categorisation and treatment of our fellow human beings as anything lower than what God has determined us to be. Because as the reading from Proverbs stresses, it is this relationship to the human that defines the nature of our God.
 
In language reminiscent of the prologue of John, the figure of Wisdom is described as being set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. Narrating God’s ordering of the primordial creation, Wisdom declares Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. It is writings such as these that resourced the development of the doctrine of the Trinity in the early church. But again, the emphasis today is not on the conceptual articulation of the Trinity. Rather, we find the emphasis in the following verse when Wisdom declares, and my delights were with the sons of men. Wisdom, who was with God when there were no depths, finds delight with the sons of men. Like the opening of John, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and lived among us.
 
There is always a directionality, or focal point, for the figure of Wisdom or Word: to be among us, to be for us, to live and delight with us. While it is established that these figures are with God from the beginning, pivotal in the act of creation, the emphasis is not on their relation in an idealised pre-human eternity. Rather the emphasis is the movement toward the human, the decision to be with and for us. The emphasis is that God, who established the clouds above, the mountains below, and the limits of the seas; God for whom the moon and the stars are the works of Their fingers; should be mindful of human beings, that God should care for mortals, and make them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honour. Who God is, from the beginning is the one who is turned toward the human. God is only and always a God for us. A God who has elected in freedom to be our creator, redeemer, and sustainer. Who is the Triune God? The one who crowned us with honour and glory. 
 
As Julian of Norwich wrote, I saw that God never began to love mankind; for just as mankind will be in endless bliss, fulfilling God’s joy with regard to his works, just so has that same mankind been known and loved in God’s prescience from without beginning in his righteous intent… For before he made us, he loved us. (Showings)
 
What does it mean to recognise this Triune God and live faithfully in this reality? It is to recognise ourselves and our fellow human creatures as those God is mindful of, and in turn be mindful of them. To recognise ourselves and our fellow as cared for by God, and in turn care for them. To recognise ourselves and our fellow as crowned by God and in turn treat each other as crowned. It is to live as dissidents to the world of sin and death, to the world as it is, and instead to live as free citizens of the kingdom of God; world as it should be. We live as those who see and consider neighbours and strangers with the dignity, respect, and love that befits God’s own care. We live as those who are troubled by the incongruity between the all-too-common worldly denigration of the human creature and seek to rectify this out of a robust vision of God’s as it should be. In doing so we believe in the Triune God as the one who in absolute freedom, and from without beginning answered the question of divine identity simply in being mindful of us, and in being mindful, loving us.

Readings, Acts 2:1-21 and Romans 8:14-17, 26-27
Image, Roman Barabakh (Ukrainian, 1990–), Descent of the Holy Spirit, 2017. 
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Much is to be made of the external propulsion of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The scene is dramatically public. The domesticity in which the story begins is blown open by a force of eternity pouring out on flesh. The day begins with the disciples in a house, perhaps in prayer or enjoying a meal, and then suddenly – what a word – suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind.
 
Naturally, a crowd gathers. Perhaps one of the few universals is that if there’s a spectacle we’re going to idle on by (we slow to this day to glimpse a car crash or house being demolished). Here a crowd gathers, but not only because of a general curiosity in spectacle, but because they hear a bunch of Galileans speaking in myriad tongues. A crowd from across the region remark: how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 
 
As I said, dramatically public. The external reality and impact of the coming of the Holy Spirit then as now is central to the Day of Pentecost. It is with the Spirit that the disciples can now follow Jesus’ command to be his witnesses in all the earth. It is with the Spirit that the gospel is now able to be proclaimed in all tongues, to find soil in all cultures. It is with the Spirit that the church can be filled with divine power to continue Christ’s work in the world. It is with the Spirit that we can become the body of Christ through the giving and receiving of the Spirit’s gifts. It is with the Spirit that we can bear the good fruit of the kingdom. All of these dimensions of the Spirit’s life in the church point to the truth that the Church is a body that is sent. That the church’s concern is not simply its own life, but the world which Christ loved and for which he lay down his life. The Spirit makes us a public-facing people, called do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
 
All this is rightly marked and celebrated at Pentecost. But Paul reminds us today, that there is an inner dimension of the Spirit’s animating life, a pastoral dynamic of the Spirit’s mission.
The Spirit we have received, Paul remarks, is not one which provokes us to fear, but is a spirit of adoption. When we pray, our Father, as we do each week, it is the Spirit making this possible. In these words (offered not only in our weekly corporate prayer but any time you call on the name of God in hope) the Spirit bears witness with our spirit about the most important thing about us. The Spirit bears witness with our own to that most beautiful, most soul affirming truth: we are children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. The Spirit weaves us into the family of God. Waltzing with our own spirit, joining voice in song, we and the Spirit cry, Abba! Father! and it is so. We become who we have been made to be: children of God, co-heirs with Christ. 
 
But such a truth can be difficult to swallow. It can be hard to see ourselves as part of such a family, to say of ourselves: I am a child of God. We might well be able to say it of almost anyone else, but of ourselves surely it can’t be true. There are all kinds of reasons we might harbour these misgivings. Perhaps our experience of crying out to an earthly father or mother was not met with the kind of care and attention for the analogy to hold much water. Perhaps the prejudices of society have communicated that we were not fearfully and wonderfully made but lesser, aberrant, ugly. Perhaps our struggles and affections were cast as beyond the interest or acceptance of God. Perhaps the circumstances and sorrows of our life have led you to feel far more alone than adopted. Perhaps other names you have been named, spoken in authoritative tones, have made a deeper imprint on your identity than the name child of God. None of these are easy to shake, they cannot simply be waved away or quickly overwritten. It is tragic. What’s the old line, a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has finished tying its shoelaces. The truth that we are children of God can be a slow truth to learn, and it can suffer setbacks. But for this reason we have the Spirit. Because when we do not know how to pray as we ought, when we do not feel able or ready to cry out Abba! Father! like children of God, it is the Spirit who helps us in our weakness. It is the Spirit who intercedes with sighs too deep for words, so that even if we cannot see ourselves as a child of God and co-heir with Christ, God does.      
 
Over the past month and a bit, various members of our community have shared songs or hymns that have shaped and sustained their faith. I have my own today to accompany this message. Julien Baker, a singer-songwriter from Tennessee wrote Rejoice in 2015, she was twenty at the time. The song, like much of her catalogue, wrestles with her experience of addiction, the death of friends, and the negative animosity toward her sexuality she experienced in her church. Despite the raw openness with which she gives voice to these wounds, woes, and wrongs, the song searches for and proclaims a ruddy hope. As she sings,
Give me everything good, I'll throw it away
I wish I could quit, but I can't stand the shakes
Choking smoke, singing your praise
But I think there's a God and He hears either way
I rejoice and complain
I never know what to say
 
Like the psalmist who sings, Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Baker proclaims in the face of her mistreatment at the hands of the church, in the face of her own mistakes, in the face of her frailty: I think there’s a God and They hear either way.* This is the Spirit bearing witness, that even when we do not know how to pray, even when we do not know there is someone to pray to, the Spirit groans and God hears either way. 
 
And because of this spirit of adoption, Baker is able to sing my favourite line: Lift my voice that I was made. I was made. There is perhaps no more important foundation on which to build a life. You were made. Fearfully and lovingly made. Who you are is not a mistake. Against the forces of sin and death which would say that some people are not made, are not children of God, that some people must hide, apologise, or assimilate some fundamental part of themselves, Baker lifts her voice against these forces to bear witness with the Spirit that she is a child of God. 
 
At the close of the song, Baker proclaims that the God who hears her, knows her name and all her hideous mistakes. But at this point she does not fall back into fear. For she has not been given a spirit of slavery to fall back into the bounds of earthly prejudice or limitation, but a spirit of adoption to say that she is heard, and if heard made, and if made, then a child of God. A child who, despite and amid the complaint, doubt, failure, and rage, might still sing, defiant and holy:
I rejoice, I rejoice
I rejoice, I rejoice 
 
((At this point in the sermon we listened to the song))
 
This Pentecost, may the Spirit lend voice to your rejoicing and complaining.
This Pentecost, may the Spirit comfort you with the truth that you are heard even when you have no words.
This Pentecost, may the Spirit remind you that you were made.
This Pentecost, may the Spirit bear witness with your own that you are a child of God.
This Pentecost, may the Spirit be a place of freedom.
 
This inner place of truth and freedom beats back worldly falsity and fraud. And it is out of this depth of love and understanding that the work of proclaiming the good news in all corners of your heart and your world begins. Out of this well-spring of trust may you find fresh words and deeds to tell out the good news of God’s grace. With tongues sparked to life by the warming of our hearts, may we find those bound by earthly lies and herald good news: where the Spirit is there is the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

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* In more contemporary performances of the song, Baker changes the Divine pronoun as reflected here.

Readings, Acts 1:1-11, Ephesians 1:15-23
Image, Girolamo Nerli, The Ascension (1887)
 
The ascension feels a bit like the poor second cousin of church days. We do a lot for Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost, but how do we mark the ascension? There’s not even that much great art about it, it’s mostly feet in clouds. Perhaps this points to a deeper question that goes unanswered: why should we celebrate the ascension?
 
We know why we celebrate Christmas – the long-awaited birth of Emmanuel, God with us. We know why we mark Good Friday – the death of Christ as act of solidarity and salvation. We know why we celebrate Easter Sunday –the resurrection of Christ and gift of new life. We know why we celebrate Pentecost – the sending of the Spirit and birth of the church. What is left to add to this story? What piece of the puzzle, we wonder, does the ascension add? 
 
At one level, the ascension, like those other special days, reveals the identity of Christ. That is to say, the ascension teaches us that the one born of Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, who rose again on the third day bringing the dead and the lost into the reign of grace, that this same one has now been seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And God has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church. That is to say, the one who washed the feet of his disciples and laid down his life for the world, has been given all authority over heaven and earth, and his reign of grace shall know no end. Whatever Christ has promised, we can trust, because he has been given the power and authority to accomplish all things.
 
The Ascension is also the forerunner to sending of Spirit. Out with his disciples, in the moments before he ascends, Jesus instructs them to remain in the city until the Spirit’s arrival. Since the horizon of his death drew near, Christ has been promising his disciples that while he will depart, they will not be left alone. The promised coming of the Spirit is inextricably linked with the going ahead of Christ. This shift, from the embodied and singular presence of Christ to the intangible though intimate presence of the Spirit is what is required if the Christian community, the Church, the Body of Christ, is to witnesses to Jesus in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. The resurrected Christ might have been able to appear and disappear with a certain mystical wonder, but he remained as he was before the cross: bound bodily in one time and place. Such was the necessary nature of the incarnation. But following the resurrection – as we have seen these past weeks – the story is shifting from the story of Christ to the story of his followers taking up his work. For this to occur they, like Mary in the garden, can cling to him no longer. They must step out and follow in his way. And yet, Christ shall not leave his friends alone. And so even as they go forth without his immediate, bodily presence in their midst, they are accompanied by the Spirit, who will provide what they require for the task at hand.
 
In this sense, the ascension ensures the freedom and maturity of the Christian community. We all know that dynamic, perhaps in a workplace or social setting, where a question is posed: ‘how should we respond to this proposal’, or’ would you like to order dessert?’ And we pause. Instinctively our bodies turn toward someone whose opinion or authority we trust or observe. Perhaps we give that kind of wide-eyed look to a spouse trying to read their minds or signal that the decision is theirs. Or perhaps we look to a superior in the workforce to gauge their interest. Imagine just how much more entrenched such a practice of deferral would be for the disciples of Jesus. One imagines that anytime a problem or opportunity presented itself there would be a kind of tense silence as they glanced toward Christ. It’s Jesus after all, you’d be silly not to at least check your idea was on the right track.
 
For the church to have proper freedom for its own creative and contextual response to the gospel it needed to be sent. To have the chance to mature as disciples, we need to live in an age of prayer and discernment. To be a true community, the church must retain Christ as its head, but needs to become co-dependent on all members of the body, sharing and relying on the gifts of the Spirit. The ascension, as much as Pentecost, makes the church possible: the first sends out the church to find their way along The Way, the second sends the Spirit to ensure we do not rely only solely on our own power and wits.    
 
And finally, the ascension teaches us about the Lord’s Table, the sacrament of communion. At this table we dispense and partake of the body of Christ. At yet the church has long been in dispute over who can properly preside at the table and who can receive. Must the presider be a priest, if so, what kind of person can be a priest? Must the person receiving be baptised, confirmed, in a state of grace? Much thought given to what it would mean if someone unworthy, unrepentant, or unbelieving partakes or presides at the table, whether it would corrupt the table, the congregation, Christ? In response, many churches have sought to tighten the operating bounds of the table of grace, taking possession of Christ’s body and with it the authority to dispense or withhold it. But the ascension reminds us that Christ’s body is not in our possession. The disciples, staring at the sky, had to be reminded that he’s been taken from you into heaven. Christ is present at the table; indeed, he is our host, but in his presence, there is also an unpossessable absence.
 
This has two, perhaps paradoxical implications. One is to inspire humility, the other courage. The church does not possess the ascended body of Christ, instead we have been put under his feet. We do not possess the power to say, yes you can come to the table, no you can’t… nor to say that only a particular kind of body (white, male, straight, able-bodied) is the appropriate priestly body to preside. But in this humility also comes courage. Because like the disciples given the freedom to strike out and discover what it means to be a Christian in the confidence of Christ’s promise and the Spirit’s power, we are called to dispense and partake of Christ’s body with all confidence. To share and receive Christ’s body with all hope, trusting that as Christ’s own act it will work to bring glory to God and peace in our hearts.
 
In the ascension we recognise the towering authority of Christ. Above all other claimants, Christ reigns alone. In this we take courage to step out in boldness and creativity as his disciples trusting in his power, presence, and promise. In this authority, we also understand our limits: limits which teach reliance (on the Spirit and one another) and limits which teach humility. Both of those lessons are learnt at this table. This table of grace which reminds us of our need to be fed and sustained by the body of Christ, which we do not possess, and so do not control. We learn, as it is expressed in the Basis of Union, that the Church is able to live and endure through the changes of history only because its Lord comes, addresses, and deals with people in and through the news of his completed work. That is to say, the church lives as the body only because Christ, our head, shows up, time and again, to fill all in all.

Readings, Rev 21:22-22:5, Acts 16:9-15, and John 14:23-29
Image,  Lydia, Silvia Dimitrova (2009)

Over the last few years I have been reading, in fits and bursts, the Les Rougon-Macquart series of novels by French author, Émile Zola. Zola’s novels are set in France’s Second Republic and capture the way cataclysm, societal upheaval, and cultural and economic change can afford people a chance to make themselves anew. The limits of just how daring this new can be, and the various misfortunes that befall both protagonist and their relations in its pursuit are all part of the novels’ enthralling world. What Zola captured of course, is not a novel invention. Shifts and movements in society can create cracks in former impenetrable walls allowing individuals to forge a new path, change their fortunes, re-write their stars. And usually, the bigger the upheaval, the greater the potential for ascent, which provokes the question about what the upheaval Christ’s resurrection makes possible, when the reality of new creation breaks forth in the subjects of his kingdom?
 
We are going to consider this question through the figure of Lydia. In a manner similar to Tabitha some weeks back, the textual details for Lydia are scant, but dense. Some of what we have retains a level of speculation based on historical research, other aspects are gleaned from a close reading of Luke’s account in conversation with Paul’s letters.
 
We can begin with her name, which may not really be a name, at least not in the sense we are familiar. Lydia (the woman) was from Thyatira, which was a city in a place called Lydia. To be named after a place was a practice often associated with slaves – who may be named this way not out of affection, but utility. It is a way of dehumanising and enforcing, at the base layer of identity, a gap in status and worth. There’s a similar occurrence in the Old Testament, with Hagar. Hagar, Sarah and Abraham’s slave, though from Egypt, is not an Egyptian name, but is the Hebrew for “foreigner,” “alien” or “sojourner.” She, like Lydia, is named in a way to distinguish difference and disregard, place rather than personhood.
 
And yet, if this is the case, by the time we reach the scene by the river, Lydia’s fortunes have turned around. We are introduced to Lydia as a dealer in purple cloth. Purple, we might know from our Advent godly play stories is a royal colour. It was a difficult dye to source and produce, making it exclusive. And, like most things that are exclusive, it was expensive. Lydia it thus appears, was a woman of some wealth. This fact is further emphasised by her ability to host Paul and his travelling companions at her house (alongside her normal household). Implying that not only her pantry but her house was large enough to accommodate them (and not only them, it turns out, because later in this chapter we will read that the emerging church in Philippi was meeting in her home).
 
But her fortunes have turned in another way. Whether or not she was at one point enslaved, she would of, at one point, been under the authority of father or husband. And yet, in this story there is no mention of such a figure. Lydia doesn’t check with anyone before inviting Paul to stay in her house, and the detail that it was her household that was baptised further emphasises her autonomy and authority in her home and business.
 
But there are further remarkable details in the character of Lydia. I mentioned before that she is described in the story as a worshipper of God (or God fearer in some texts). This is a term for a Gentile who worships YHWH, adhering to Judaism without being a full convert. This too I take as a sign of boldness, of Lydia’s capacity to strike out: to be drawn to and compelled by a religion, a people, a story other than her own and devote herself to it.
 
Perhaps part of her remaking came from having the Torah opened to her. To hear, as perhaps a former slave, named for a place, this holy text proclaim that we are all made in the image of God, that God freed the slaves in Egypt, that God is the protector of the orphan, the widow, and the foreigner, that God knows not only our name but the hairs of our head.
 
Or perhaps it was the story of Hagar that she found not only herself but her potential. Perhaps it was in hearing God meet Hagar in the wilderness and make a new life for her and her child in freedom that Lydia drew strength to transform her outer circumstances and inner sense of worth and capacity. Perhaps when she heard Hagar name God, The One Who Sees, she knew that here, with these people, in this story, she too was seen at last.
 
And then, here at the river, listening to Paul extol the gospel, the Lord opened her heart. Like the disciples walking to Emmaus, like the Ethiopian in the chariot, her heart is opened to see Jesus as the fulfilment and continuation of the story of God which has already renewed her life. In so doing, she is able to remake, or refashion, her life once more. She takes another risk (at this point she has perhaps made a habit of it), she invites Paul and his companions to stay, she listens to them, discusses with them, learns with them, and becomes the visible site of the emerging Jesus movement, the latent church of Christ in Philippi.
 
And risk is the right categorisation here. Paul will shortly be seized by crowds, stripped and flogged, and thrown in prison. We know from Paul’s letters this was not an isolated event for the apostles, nor for those leading and participating in these early house churches. So Lydia takes no small risk in joining this movement, in opening her house, in declaring this allegiance. She risks her business, the wealth and security it has afforded her to make a life so different from what it once was or might have been. She risks her household, she risks her autonomy and freedom. But such risks can be taken by those who know the love of God, and feel encouraged to pursue the call of Christ in the company of the church.
 
The resurrection of Christ upturns the world, we have returned to this point again and again since Easter. Not only does it defeat death and conquer sin, but in this act, Christ, the Good Shepherd, calls us by name and leads us into newness of life. And at the heart of this newness is the community of Christ we call the church. This community of disciples where the old dividing walls are not only cracked but broken down. In this community, the old hierarchies and designations: Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free are robbed of their power to assign worth and status. Instead, the church becomes a place in which we are all remade as disciples, as priests, as siblings. It is this kind of place that someone like Lydia – whatever her past – can exercise her gifts and leadership, remaking her life in the image of Christ as a blessing for her whole community.
 
And this is what distinguishes the kind of remaking the gospel makes possible, from what might more commonly emerge after other societal upheavals. The goal is not the forging of a self-sustained, self-aggrandised individual, but to be remade into a self-for-others. The goal is to let the depth of love and worth we find in God allow us to run the risks that come when we open our heart to the call of Christ and the need of our neighbour. This kind of remaking, exemplified by Lydia, made possible in the Spirit, is the kind we are all invited into. The shape of our story will be different to hers for all the obvious reasons, but the potential is shared. For the gospel she heard, the baptism she undertook, is the same as the one which opened our heart and led us to this household of God’s grace.
 
There is another, albeit brief lesson I want to tack on here. It is a reminder and encouragement to us all – that not only is our task this kind of remaking of the self in the image of Christ’s own generosity and grace, but it is to help one another do the same. It is to be, and continue to become a community that fosters, encourages, and nourishes others to be like Lydia. To create an ecosystem of support and safety that allows the remaking of the self in the image of Christ. A community which removes material hurdles, advocates against systemic disadvantage, that doesn’t cling to old names, roles, or limits, but believes that the Spirit has been poured out on all flesh and that we are the body of Christ in the very giving and receiving of the Spirit’s gifts. A community which celebrates and encourages one another in every glimpse of Christlikeness and neighbourliness in our midst. This we do, until the day comes when these remakings are perfected in the fullness of the new creation, and we live with God face-to-face, the light of the city in the age to come.

Readings, Acts 9:36-43 and John 10:22-30
 Image, Tabeakirche, Berlin
 
The general tenor of these weeks following Easter has been the shift in focus of the story, from Christ, to Christ’s followers taking up his work. We have seen, each week how the story of Jesus expands and unfurls into the story of the disciples, the church, at work in the world.
 
This week, things step up a notch. Because so far, the implication of this shift has been a bit oblique. Peter is told: feed my sheep, those in the upper room are entrusted the ministry of forgiveness, the church is commended as priests of God… all of this is open to interpretation, such as we might say the charge to carry on the work of Christ might be read rather symbolically. Naturally the distinction between Christ and the Christian demands such symbolism, that at best our works might gesture to Christ’s, be poetic interpretations of Christ’s work. Surely they will not be the works themselves, surely not repetitions.
 
Where Christ miraculously turned the few fish and loaves into a feast for the five thousand, Christ’s followers capture the spirit of this act through a general commitment to sharing and hospitality. Where Christ calmed the storm at the cries of his fearful friends, Christ’s followers offer words of comfort to neighbours tossed about by the metaphorical storms of life. And where Christ went to the bed of the young girl, recently deceased, and took her by the hand and told her to get up, Christ’s followers… well, what do we say here? Today’s story from Acts doesn’t imply any kind of symbolic or poetic interpretation of Christ’s example. Peter, for all intents and purposes, repeats (almost beat for beat) what Christ has already done. This story unsettles any simple or easy designations of what it means to follow after Christ, what the ceiling there is for our own continuation of the works of Christ. Because the lesson of this story in Acts (like others surrounding it) is fairly explicit: the power and commission belonging to Christ, now, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, belongs to his followers.
 
And yet, we aren’t all out and about raising the dead. Traditionally the church has dealt with this gap in a few ways. One is to stress that there is a distinction between the age of the apostles and the age of the church. The great works of the apostles (and included in this is their capacity to write the inspired texts of scripture) ends with them. When the generation of the twelve passes, the Spirit remains with the church, but does not operate in the same way, and so these kinds of mighty acts do not continue through the history of the church. They served a purpose at the time, testifying to the reality of the resurrection and allowing the fragile early Jesus movement to gain followers and legitimacy following the surprise death (and doubted resurrection) of its leader. Now, however, this testimony takes another form, through the witness of the scripture, tradition, and the church.
 
Another option is to say, yeah, more or less that’s true, however, there remain unique and special individuals whose lives take on an intensity of Christlikeness in such a way that in their profound humility and sacrifice they are able to perform remarkable works as witness to the power of Christ. These individuals, in certain traditions, will earn the moniker of Saint.
 
A third says there is no distinction between the generations. That the Spirit stills works in mighty and mysterious ways allowing Christians to perform acts of healing, deliverance, and prophecy. The reason that we do not encounter miracles of this kind is attributed to a lack of faith on the part of the church, a capitulation to secular powers of reason or practices of medicine. If there is a distinction between the age of the apostles and our own, so the line goes, it is not because of the Spirit changed, but the expectations of the church.
 
And a final tradition might say that the story we heard in Acts is a literary construction, itself a poetic or symbolic interpretation or repetition of an earlier story in the gospels. Its aim is not to convey a historical fact but a theological truth (which just so happens to be the main one we are focusing on this Easter season): Jesus’ followers are called to follow Christ by taking up his example in word and deed. The raising of the dead is chosen because this is the most marvellous and emphatic example. In this view there is no distinction in the age of the apostles and that of the church: we aren’t raising the dead, but neither did Peter. The point is to model the story of our lives on the story of Christ.  
 
All approaches have their virtues and shortcomings, and while some are more central in particular traditions than others, they are not wholly confined by such. Indeed, I would argue you could audit those gathered here today and we would find representations of all four positions (and probably some more I have not even named). And so perhaps, rather than trying to solve the problem through commending one position, we ask what might be learnt through them when we consider the broader question of this season: what does it mean for us to take up the work of Christ in our own life and community?
 
In the gospel reading, Jesus declares that as the Good Shepherd, My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. We belong, entirely to Christ. We cannot be separated from his love nor snatched from his hand. This is the great drama of redemption, Christ has shared all that was his by righteousness with us by grace. Or, as Saint Athanasius famously wrote in the Third Century: “God became man so that man might become god.” That is to say that in receiving the spirit of adoption, in being made one with Christ – sharing his death and resurrection – all that is Christ’s belongs to us.
 
The book of Acts stresses this again and again – all that is Christ’s belongs to his followers. Not only his commission, not only his message, but his power and potential. If there is any gap between the apostles and ourselves, it is not to be found on this matter. We are also those who have heard Christ’s voice and followed him. We are also those who cannot be snatched from his hand, we are also those given eternal life. We are also those who have become one with the Son who is one with the Father.
 
The question then becomes less about what Peter did, and instead what are we about to do. The life of the Christian is one of upturning and surprises. Just last week in our readings, Peter had gone back to fishing and needed to be beckoned to his task by Christ. Now he’s calling people back to life. And so, perhaps, if the story of Peter is to cause us a problem, let it be a new one: let it disturb and problematise the false ceilings we might put on our own lives as Christ’s disciples. Let it problematise the speed at which we might doubt the difference our community can make. Let it problematise the defeatism that accompanies narratives of decline and death of the church. Let it problematise any sense that Christ or his church has no more use for us. Because whatever the age may be, we have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd and have been asked to take up his work.  
 
And look, maybe we will only raise the dead symbolically – maybe the life we help restore will be a life of dignity where there was disregard, a life of potential where there was despondency, a life of community where there was isolation, a life of meaning where there was dismissal, a life of hope where there was dread. And if such symbolic acts of life-giving are all we are led to perform in the power of the Spirit and for the glory of Christ, well, that’s not too shabby a thing to strive for.

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Postscript. For an excellent study on the character of Tabitha as exemplary disciple, you can read this piece from Margaret Mowczko.

Readings, Acts 9:1-6 and John 21:1-19
Image, The Conversion of Saint Paul, Luca Giordano, 1690
 
We know there are many ways to be beckoned for a task, that our name can be called in myriad tones. And the sound of the name and the nature of the task sometimes run in paradox. The saccharine sweet, upward intoned ‘heeeey Liam’ is usually a precursor of some arduous, inconvenient demand. On the other hand, the recourse to a formal greeting in a familial setting, such as a parent calling out your full name (‘Liam Andrew Miller’) is a sure sign that the task you’re being beckoned to do is one you ought to have already done.
 
In today’s readings, two people have their name called by Jesus, beckoned into an important task. But let’s situate ourselves a little first. Last week we noted how the upturning of the resurrection signalled the shift from the story of Jesus, to that of his followers taking up his work in the power of the Spirit. We are being moved, in this season of Easter, toward the Day of Pentecost and the birth of the church. Last week, Jesus breathed his spirit and bestowed his peace upon his followers. Today (though these stories are some time apart chronologically) Jesus appears to and commissions two pivotal figures in the story of the early church: Peter and Paul. Though their beckoning could not be more dissimilar.
 
Peter gets breakfast on the beach, a stroll at sunrise, and his commission is graciously bestowed in a threefold way which symbolically erases his earlier threefold denial. In contrast Jesus blinds Paul, confronts him with the truth, and sends him off to be dealt with by someone else.
 
Now this contrast is understandable – we might even say earnt. Peter is despondent. There’s almost a reversion to childhood at play in Peter’s decision to go fishing. After everything he has been through these last years with Christ, he is seeking comfort in the familiar of his former life. Perhaps feeling unworthy after his threefold denial of Christ, perhaps feeling unready for the responsibility laid upon him as an apostle, perhaps unsure as to how any of this is going to work if Jesus isn’t there with him, he does the thing he knows how to do. It is in this posture, this place of emotional and spiritual turmoil that Jesus finds Peter. And so Jesus helps them with their catch, cooks some breakfast, and allows Peter to say again and again I love thee, while hearing again and again you are the one I have chosen.
 
Paul, on the other hand, is far from despondent, far from feeling unready for the task ahead. Triumphant and focused, he knows exactly who he is and what is required of him, and he is out on the road attending to business. Of course, this is the business of harassing, arresting, and even executing Christians. And so, Jesus does not appear at the soft light of dawn, but as the blinding light of judgment. Saul, the name booms from heaven, why are you persecuting me? And then, upon revealing his identity, Jesus simply tells Paul to get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do. No pastoral walk, no restorative breakfast, just blinding light, get up, and I’m handing your case off to someone else.
 
Now, I won’t get too flippant. The rest of this story, when Ananais goes to meet the one who has been persecuting his friends, and calls him brother Saul, is one of the more moving in Scripture, further testament to shift of focus to Jesus’ followers taking up to work of Christ in calling the unlikely into the movement and breaking down dividing walls of hostility. But nonetheless the contrast between these two stories, between the treatment of Peter (who had denied) and Paul (who had persecuted) is stark.
 
But perhaps we recognise that sometimes this is what is required. That while of course we wish to be beckoned by Christ in a manner similar to Peter’s – filled with tenderness and patience – if we are honest, there are times we need to be beckoned like Paul. Times when we need an indelicate wake up call to change our ways before we go on causing harm. These are, in their own ways, loving responses, both aimed to lead someone off a destructive path and into meaning and truth.
 
And just as these are both, in their ways, loving responses, it is also important to grasp, that despite the variance in tone and approach, Paul sees no distinction in these appearances. When he writes to churches defending his apostleship, he lists all the people Jesus appeared to (Peter among them) and then, in the same list, he names himself. The appearance of Christ might have been different; indeed we might question whether “appearance” is even the right word, but Paul sees no distinction. Jesus appeared to him and called him to be an apostle. He is not of another category, or a second-class, he simply is among those Jesus beckoned and commissioned. Which is not just a claim Paul invents for his own ends, it is consistent with Jesus’ own words spoken to Thomas: Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.
 
And this is where it comes to us, where the contrasting stories of Peter and Paul converge with our own. Some of us heard the beckoning call of Jesus in the dulcet tones of our parents and grandparents, or in Sunday school songs and household hymns. Some of us heard the urgent call of Jesus at our lowest points, a radical interruption of our self-destruction and self-loathing. Some can pinpoint the moment and recall the sound of his voice, for others it is more life a wave in the ocean – we can’t pick where it started we just know that at some point we were being carried by its momentum. There are no distinctions or hierarchies in the ways we were beckoned, and thus no ground for boasting or shrinking based on how and when Jesus called our name and led us into life. All that matters is that having been called we are now, all of us, disciples. Christ has made us his own and entrusted us with the work of the kingdom and the heralding of the gospel. We have one Lord, we have received one baptism and have become one priesthood. As we heard last week, when Jesus appeared to John on Patmos, he who loves us and freed us from our sins… made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father. And as a body of priests beckoned and commissioned by Christ, we are invited to the one table, to the one bread and one cup. For you and me, and all other Christians however we come to the table of grace come because of grace, come because of the invitation of Christ, which might meet us in radically different ways, but comes only ever from one source, Jesus Christ the living one.

Readings, Revelation 1:4-8, 17-18 and John 20:19-31
Image, Caspar David Friedrich, Easter Morning, ca. 1828–35. 
 
Last week at Easter we meditated on and celebrated the faithfulness of Christ and the mighty acts of God. We marvelled at Christ’s tender care of his friends, his mercy amidst trial and terror, his victory over death and the surprising upturning of his resurrection. The Easter weekend is the crescendo of the work of Christ and all he finished and made new.
 
Now today, in our first readings following Easter there is still much to marvel. Jesus appears to his disciples offering them his peace, and to Thomas offering his wounds, he is envisioned at the end of the age coming on the clouds in glory, and he appears to John with all care and tenderness, offering words of comfort and hope: Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive for ever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades. Yet, despite all this we also glimpse the turning point the resurrection proves. The turning point in the narrative of the New Testament, as we move from the story of Jesus to that of his followers, living in the age between his resurrection and return.
 
For in the gospel reading, when Jesus brings his peace and presence, he says also, As the Father has sent me, so I send you. The disciples, still reeling at his arrival in their locked room, are already receiving their commission. This shouldn’t come as a shock. Jesus didn’t exactly hide that his work would be continued by them - going so far as to say they would perform greater works than he. But perhaps they were struck by the rapidity. Perhaps they, like Mary in the garden, thought they would get to cling to their Teacher a little longer before being sent. But the resurrection is a rupture, a new age has already begun.
 
The words in Revelation also signal the shift. As John remarks in his doxological greeting which we borrowed in our call to worship: To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. The sentence moves quickly from the action of Jesus (who loves and frees us) to what this makes us (a kingdom and priests). The great action of Christ swiftly reveals its meaning upon our lives. The great shroud of death is barely pierced, the reign of Sin is only recently deposed, the depths of hell just now harrowed, and already priests are being called to serve. The stone is barely rolled away and already the word is entrusted to the mournful pilgrims: Christ has gone ahead of you, hurry along after him. 
 
Now you might be thinking, yes, of course, no real surprise there, that is Christianity after all… but we must not lose sight that this turn was not made without surprising a few passengers. That the great work should begin after Easter is hardly expected or inevitable. When Jesus ascended to the heavens after commissioning his disciples, they stay looking at the sky expecting him to come right back (likely with fanfare and angel armies precipitating the Day of the Lord when every knee shall bow). And yet, like at the empty tomb, mysterious messengers have to idle up to Jesus’ followers to remind them, hey, the work is only beginning, remember, as the Father sent him, so he is sending you.
 
The One who loves and frees us makes us a kingdom, makes us priests, and sends us out. We who are baptised into Christ’s death also share in his resurrection which means to receive his peace, his breath, his Spirit, his commission. We are entrusted with his message, bid to follow in his way, called to carry on his work to the ends of the earth and the end of the age.
 
But of course, we do not do this alone. The focus may have shifted to the action of Christ’s followers, but Christ has hardly exited the story. As we heard in John, he breathes out his spirit upon the disciples and as we shall celebrate in a handful of weeks at Pentecost the Spirit will descend upon all those who call on the name of the Lord. This Spirit, our advocate and counsellor, enlivens and accompanies us as we go forth in the name of Christ. The Spirit, our friend, pours out fruit and gifts, until the day of Christ’s glorious return.
 
The presence of the Spirit and the promise of Christ not only ensure that we are not alone as we carry on the work of the Kingdom, but also ensure that in so doing our labour is not in vain. That the work we undertake as part of the great work, that the acts of mercy, justice, grace, love, joy we endeavour in the image of Christ - the faithfulness we show to the gospel call - will not be in vain. Our labour for Christ (in whatever form it takes) will not be the thing that saves the world, it will not usher in the return of Christ, it will not bring the kingdom in its fullness, but it is nonetheless part of that story. Our labour (however much is it recognised or noticeable in our day) will be swept up on that day, vindicated and incorporated not only into the slow progressive labour of the church, but also the expansive, surprising, mysterious, and ultimately victorious work of the Triune God in history.
 
Easter Sunday unfolds into the Easter season, as the story of Christ unfolds into that of his disciples following after him in the power of the Spirit. And in this season we take up our part in the great work, sent by Christ as he first was sent into the world in love and service. And as we go forth in Christ’s peace and with his Spirit, we take heart, because like Christ’s own labour which was vindicated in the resurrection, we know that our own labour (even if it sometimes feels small, perhaps sometimes even futile) will also be vindicated on the great and glorious day when Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth comes on the clouds with the restoration of the cosmos trailing on his heels.

Readings, Acts 10:34-43 and Luke 24:1-12
Image, Maurice Denis, Easter Mystery (Mystère de Pâcques), 1891.
 
There’s this brilliant exchange in the film, Men in Black. For those who don’t recall, the film is about a bureaucratic agency which deals with the hidden alien population on earth. A new agent, made aware of the secret, asks why the government doesn’t just tell people about aliens, people are smart after all. To which the seasoned agent responds:
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the centre of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
 
It’s a line that has no reason to be that good. Without the alien reference it could be from Death of a Salesman. It expresses, succinctly, a profound and fundamental truth: our understanding and comprehension of the world around us is hardly fixed, and no one is immune to surprises that would upturn our worlds.
 
The Easter scene is one such upturning, a fundamental shift in the comprehension of the world. Those who go to Christ’s tomb hear the world-shaking, reality contorting words, Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Death, surely about as true an absolute as we have, has been undone. Christ is risen, he who died is not among the dead but out and about calling his friends to follow. So ludicrous is this claim, so contrary to what everyone knows, that when the women rush back to Jesus’ other friends with this good news, it is dismissed as an idle tale. Dismissed as the new agent in Men in Black might have dismissed a UFO sighting just 15 minutes ago. Indeed, the post-resurrection scenes in the gospels are a continued reversal of what everyone has known, as Christ gathers up his grieving and confused followers, demonstrating those beautiful words of John, Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The great upturning of Easter, is that not even death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
And it is this great upturning, this triumph of Christ’s victory, that Peter announces in Acts. It is easy to hear this speech as a kind of summation of what has happened and to conclude (borrowing some of Jesus’ famous last words) that it is finished. That Peter declares there was the great upturning of Easter and now the surprises are left behind, belonging to another generation. And yet, if we were to read on just a few more verses, we find the following: While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.  
 
Just when Peter thinks he has grasped the great upturning of Christ’s resurrection, he is witness to another foundational shift in his comprehension of the world. Because contrary to everything he knew, here he beholds the Holy Spirit fall upon the Gentiles. Contrary to everything he knew and was proclaiming about this new Jesus movement, contrary to everything he believed about clean and unclean, and what was required in order to covenant with God, he sees that Christ’s resurrection means something more still. Then Peter said, ‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptising these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’
 
Contravening the practices of the early Jesus movement, the Gentiles are baptised. For there is no distinction, Peter realises – they have received the same Spirit, just as we have. This, for those familiar with the story of the early church, is a fundamental turning point. Gentiles shall be able to take up their place in the emerging church of Jesus Christ, without first having to undergo circumcision and keep dietary laws. For the upturning of the resurrection, the surprise of the empty tomb, is not one and done. The resurrection continues to fundamentally shift the way Jesus’ disciples comprehend the world.
 
Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the centre of the universe. So says our seasoned veteran in black. After the Copernican revolution we know that the sun is the centre and the earth gently revolves around this point (I mean, we’ve all made a diorama or two in our time). And it is easy to approach such a proclamation as Peter’s and say, of course, it is finished, dust off our hands and move on. However, it is not the case. Because recently I saw this – admittedly terrifying – footage of what’s really going on beneath our feet. (Kind of makes you want to hold onto something)
 
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the kind of revolutionary upturning that keeps on surprising, expanding, and leading us into a new and remarkable comprehension of the world. For the resurrection is more than a fact. It is more than something which happened. The resurrection is the very inbreaking of the new creation. It is the foundational shift in reality where the world moves from being in Adam, to being in Christ. To know that Christ is risen, is to know that Christ is alive and on the move, leading us forward and upturning our world. To know the resurrection is to be led by the Resurrected One, out into the world, to see where the Spirit is at work, pouring out Their gifts.
 
To be a Christian living after the resurrection of Christ is to live with a possibility ever before us: imagine what you’ll know tomorrow. Imagine what the resurrection is making possible in light of what it has already made possible. Christ is risen, he is alive, and through the Spirit he bids us follow. And so while at Easter we look back to that first morning, and allow it to upturn and reshape what we know of the world, we also look forward. For then as now the living will not be found among the dead, and we follow a living God. A Living God calling us to participate in work which breaks down the dividing walls of hostility, proclaims freedom and jubilee, reconciles and restores creation, pursues justice and deliverance, demands solidarity and mercy, proclaims and pursues God’s peaceable kingdom. And like Peter, this work does not leave us undisturbed, rather it hurtles us on like a planet after the sun, asking us to remain open to wonder, surprises, grace, and love beyond perhaps our own imaginations, but not the imagination of our God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead.