Readings, Jeremiah 17:5-10 and Luke 6: 17-26
Image, Dora Chapman, Self portrait in brown hat, 1935

The ambition at the heart of much portraiture is to try and capture the human character of the sitter: their heart, their will, their history – in short, the fullness of the person. The aim is to evoke - through the many varied and studied choices – the fullness of the subject beyond simply a collection of shapes and tones. To ask and perhaps answer, who is this person, or even perhaps, delving further, what do we know of the human creature?

Because it is seldom the aspect we direct our primary attention, we can miss that the Bible contains astute and probing passages on human psychology and moral life. We tend to think first of the stories, or the proclamation of salvation, or the odes to God’s nature, but there is much concerning the nature of the human creature, our hearts, our will, our virtues and follies. Offerings, as it were, to Hamlet’s immortal question, what a piece of work is man?

Usually, my go to example of such is Paul’s famous quip: I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Who among us does not know this feeling, has not exclaimed years later in the car or shower, why did I do that? Who has not known the agony born of the gap between will and act, intention and execution?

But Paul also has, and I’ll use the King James here just to give it that appropriately Shakespearean flair: For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Does this not run at the core of so much poetry and psychology? We are mysteries to one another and ourselves, and who can know the things of Jock over here except Jock himself.

In another way, I’ve always felt Cain’s response to the Lord’s question: where is your brother Abel, I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper? Speaks to the habit of the guilty, to fight question with question. This is perhaps the essential dynamic of discourse between parents and their teenage children. Asked where they were the night before, the nervously guilty jump to their own questions: I told you yesterday? Don’t you trust me? Is this a police state? 

Or, speaking of teenagers, there’s that line in Ecclesiastes which comes to mind as I walk through the shops and see those younger than me reviving mullets and other fashion trends which were buried in obscurity for good reason: Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘see this is new?’ It has already been, in the ages before us. 

With all that established, today’s reading from Jeremiah offers another such contribution to the understanding of human nature and will.
More crooked is the heart than all things,
It is grievously ill and who can fathom it?

This is perhaps a bleaker view of humanity than we might usually operate with, but there are plenty of times it appears accurate. It is helpful to remember that the heart was associated less with emotion (as we might today, when valentine’s day decorations are a sea of red hearts). The emotions were in the gut, kidneys, or bowels (all of which are slightly more complicated to render in the window of a florist). The heart was the seat of understanding, the loci of the will. Jeremiah’s diagnosis is that there is crookedness (or deceitfulness) in our understanding/will. That something in our instinct is ill and lies beyond our understanding, beyond our ability to fathom. As the wise and noble Olaf the snowman remarks (paraphrasing this very passage in Frozen 2), who knows the ways of men.

For this crooked or deceitful heart is the site of snap judgments, instinctual reactions, and first impressions – all of which on further interrogation, we know can be faulty. Because while we might often be advised to trust our gut, go with our instincts, and don’t overthink it - this is often far from advisable. It is not to say there are never times to do this, as we rely on our instincts and gut reactions for a million micro-decisions across the day. But we ought to be wary of believing that our will, our instincts, are automatically good (or even neutral). 

For any thorough self-examination reveals our instant reactions are often those we would be uncomfortable speaking aloud. Prejudices, stereotypes, judgments can spring to mind as we walk behind someone in the shops, hear a voice over the phone, or read a story in the news. And after a second or two of contemplation we recognise these judgments as uncharitable, and without merit; vestiges of inherited scorn. Because why should we see the unhoused person and assume they are the architect of their struggle, see the crying child and assume they are product of ill-disciplined parents, hear the person detailing the difficulties of losing weight and assume lack of discipline, hear the testimony of the victim and wonder if they also ought to shoulder some blame? Well, it is as Jeremiah proclaimed: 
More crooked is the heart than all things,
It is grievously ill and who can fathom it?

The gospel is in many ways, the great rebuff against going with your gut, of trusting our instincts as naturally virtuous, our understanding as untarnished. For the gospel asks us to trust that the one crucified by the State was not some degenerate or miscreant, but saviour and messiah. The gospel asks us to trust that the one who was pierced and buried, has been raised and ascended. The gospel asks us to believe that the last will be first, and first last. The gospel asks us to believe that the mighty shall be cast down and the lowly lifted high. In today’s very passage, when Jesus begins his sermon on the mount, the gospel – in full contradiction of our common understanding and instinct – declares:
Blessed are you who are poor,
   for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
   for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
   for you will laugh  

Then, as now, common understanding and gut reactions attach wealth to personal virtue. The rich must be blessed, hardworking, noble, and trustworthy… the poor must be idle, shifty, cursed, and of loose morals. This is the deceitful will, the crooked heart, the corrupted understanding at the base of our instincts. Jesus overturns this time and again. Those who shall laugh are those we might see weeping and wonder ‘what have they done to improve their lot?’ Those who will be filled are those we hear ask for food and wonder ‘are they lying to me?’ Those who will inherit the kingdom of God are those we feel the flash of doubt when asked, ‘can they be trusted here alone?’
​
To be a Christian is to open our heart to Jesus. To ask Jesus into the crookedness of our hearts so that its ways might be made straight. To ask Jesus into the deceitfulness of our instincts so that it may be judged by the truth. To ask Jesus into our ill understanding and so that it may be made well. We open our hearts to Jesus so that we might learn how to question our gut, to question those snap judgments, hidden prejudices, and unspoken assumptions. We ask Jesus into our hearts so that what we will see in the face of another is the fullness of a portrait painted by God. What we see in another is not defined by our initial and faulty instinctual reactions, but we recognise a deep inner life, a full story, a complex and evolving mystery. But more than this, we see the person in front of us in the shop, or on the phone, or in the news as  a neighbour, made in the image of God, who deserves dignity, love, and service. We ask Jesus into our hearts because he can fathom it. Jesus can search the human heart and uproot that which does not serve us, or our neighbour, or God’s kingdom. We say, come, Lord Jesus: reform, reshape, and repair our heart, let not our will be done, but yours. 

Readings, Jeremiah 1:4-10 and Luke 4:21-30
Image, Margaret Adams Parker, Cherry Trees - In the Snow (Woodcut, 2007)
 
Jesus, having proclaimed that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him, sits down amidst his hometown congregation, who are amazed at his gracious words.
 
What a happy story, unless your Bible has subtitles, in which case you know this scene began with “The Rejection of Jesus at Nazareth” – and you’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Well, drop it does. Jesus begins to speculate that those among him will ask him for the wonders he performed in Capernaum. Which, one thinks, is fair enough. If he is claiming the Spirit of the Lord is upon him, then one is within their rights to presume he might do such works here, amongst those who raised him. But instead of performing signs and wonders, Jesus speaks on, and at the end of his little history lesson his hometown congregation, his neighbours and kin, attempt to murder him.
 
What is it in Jesus’ words that moves them from genial amazement to mob violence? Jesus recalls two stories from the scriptures. The first is that of Elijah who in the time of famine was driven by God not to one of the widows of Israel but to one in Sidon; and it was she (rather than one of their own) who experienced the miracle of God and kept the great prophet alive. The second is that of Elisha, who is not noted for cleansing any leper of Israel, but Naaman the Syrian.
 
Jesus invents nothing in either story. He merely notes details in their history which demonstrates that the care and activity of God’s prophets do not always conform to national lines, and that God’s own people have not always shown their prophets proper welcome. The widow of Sidon received and Naaman of Syria sought the prophet of God, while the homes of Israel’s own widows and the skin of Israel’s own flesh remained untouched.
 
Overtaken with rage the people drive Jesus out of the town in order to hurl him off a cliff. Why? Considering the two speeches Jesus offers in the synagogue the one claiming the words of Isaiah are fulfilled in their hearing seems far more incendiary than in his little sermon on Elijah and Elisha. And yet people can be sensitive about their histories. And while these stories are well known, Jesus upturns their easy retellings.
 
In our book club on Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional, we discussed a section where the narrator recounts the story of Saint and martyr Maria Goretti. In school she learnt the story of Maria as a young girl who refused to commit a mortal sin when her cousin sexually assaulted her. Maria was praised for the purity in her refusal and capacity to forgive her killer. As she gets older the narrator revisits the story and considers the untold aspects of the history. Before the fatal attack the cousin had tried to assault Maria twice, but she had been unable to tell anyone out of fear of getting into trouble or being presumed guilty. Told one way the story emphasises the virtue and grace of Maria, told another it reveals a systemic, cultural, and familial failure, which, if addressed, would have made Maria’s saintly virtue and grace unnecessary. As I grew older, the narrator reflects, I grew confused as to why martyrdom was never just called ‘murder.’  
 
History is never simply reportage of events as they happened. There is always interpretation, always choice and emphasis, always the bias and experience of historian and reader. And yet, we can cling to a particular telling of history as the thing itself no matter how many other tellings come across our path. This can be for histories big and small – family histories, histories of communities and institutions, the nation and world. The challenge laid to familiar tellings by different emphasises and interpretations can all to quickly be heard as threat and lead to dramatic efforts to silence their speaker.
 
This is the very issue many of God’s prophets faced. Exodus begins with a new Pharoah rising in Egypt who did not know Joseph and what he had done for the nation. Thus he resists and detests the words of Moses, who declared that the Hebrews were God’s people, and not Pharoah’s. Elijah was called a “troubler of Israel” when he opposed King Ahab’s worship of Baal, which forgot the history of God’s covenant and promises. Jeremiah feared reprisal and scorn for his prophetic duty to pluck up and pull down, knowing that those in power preferred a false peace over true charge. John the Baptist lost his head for reminding Herod that his family history rendered illegitimate his new marriage. Paul reproaches the Galatians for allowing false teachers to renege on the history of the early church’s inclusion of the Gentiles; remarking, have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? And Jesus, here as elsewhere, faced persecution and rejection for his reminder that his people’s ancestry would not preserve them from the judgment of God, or that Rome’s history of glory and splendour would not preserve it from being overturned by the coming kingdom of God.
 
The rigidity of our hold on history, our unbending commitment to a particular telling, can become a barrier to receiving the news that God is doing a new thing. Because a new thing is not only about opening the future, but receiving the past renewed. The New Testament is filled with the apostles wrestling with how the history of their people needed to be reinterpreted and reframed in light of the death and resurrection of Christ. The welcome of the Gentiles rests on a creative rereading of the scriptures which emphasised trajectories of openness of God’s history with the world. The Reformation was fought along many lines, key of which was the re-examining of history of the church in light of the conviction and experience of the Reformers. One might say similar things about so many of the church’s shifts along the lines of membership, ordination, and inclusion, which orbit consistently the question: is our history able to be read with a different set of emphasise, different interpretations, an openness that recognises God’s capacity to do a new thing?
 
The rigidity of the synagogue in Nazareth is all the more understandable as the new thing they were asked to receive was proclaimed by the son of Joseph the Carpenter. Jesus is right, it is much more difficult to honour and receive the prophetic challenge of those closer to home about histories closer to home. And yet when we shut down, and seek to shut up the messenger, we risk shutting down and shutting up the signs and wonders of the new thing God is doing. We risk viewing as wanton destruction and disregard what is actually the plucking up and pulling down that precedes the building and planting. This is not easy work, and we often feel unready, but the promise and hope to which we hold dear is that amidst the challenge of change we are not left alone nor flung out into a void of meaninglessness. God is with us, and God shall strive forward with us into a future both prepared and becoming. For the one who wrought such anger with his teaching, is also the one who has (for generation on generation) sustained and fed the church through the changes in history with his own word and body on the way toward the promised end.

Readings, Nehemiah 8:1-12 and 1 Cor 12:12-26
Image, William H. Johnson, Harlem Street with Church, ca. 1939-1940, 

If you think of your car, there’s probably three essential things you want it to do: steer, accelerate, and brake. Sure, it’s nice if it does other things, but if you have those three you’re a long way toward ‘car.’ Same with a fridge, you want it to open, close, and stay cold. Other fancy add-ons might be appreciated, but if it does those three, you have what can fairly be described as a fridge. Phones are trickier, because you want it to make calls and send messages, but the most important third thing is open to debate… from ads it would seem the camera, from my experience, maps.
When we come to the church, the body of Christ, I’m sure there’s a lot of ways you might parse the essential three things. The reformers often trimmed the definition of the church to the place where the word was rightly proclaimed and the sacraments rightly administered… so that’s two, maybe you add something about works of mercy. But thinking to yourself, if there were only three essential things the church could do, what would you want them to be? Of course, like air conditioning in your car, we all want the extras… but as an exercise (because I promise I’m not going to hold you to anything or use this as some mandate to rip down walls or rearrange furniture) what three things do you think are essential?
I’m going to offer three things drawn from our readings today. I’m not claiming they are set in stone, but you can make a fair argument for them. The three are: to rejoice with those who rejoice (and weep with those who weep), to honour the “inferior” members of the body, and to gather to hear the good news of God’s promises proclaimed and interpreted. 
The passage in Nehemiah recounts the experience of those who have returned from the Babylonian exile. Having begun to rebuild the city, they gather to hear proclaimed the story of God’s creation, covenant, and care and to have it interpreted in their midst. So overwhelmed are they by the beauty of what they hear, how this message of their worth and God’s love defies the experience of ruinous exile and occupation, that the people weep. But weep not, they are told, for this is a holy and joyful day – instead they are charged to rejoice: eat, drink and send portions for those who have nothing prepared. 
Like Kookaburra song waking the day, the proclamation and interpretation of God’s word is felt deeply and viscerally by those whose souls have waited for morning. Like the sound of running waters to a weary traveller, the sound of the torah poured out upon those who have suffered and yearned, leads to great rejoicing. But vitally, if the rejoicing is to mean anything it cannot be confined only to those with means to rejoice. Portions must be sent, tables extended, because if the people of God suffered exile together then they shall celebrate their return together. If the church is to be the body of Christ, a people who feel and respond to God’s word, we cannot go about like emotional islands. The body is one: the foot ought not tap a happy tune while the hand writhes in a vice. As Paul writes, If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it. This trait can set the church in contradiction to so much else, the willingness to change pace, to change tact, and move together. To be attentive and flexible enough to share burdens and joys together – to allow ourselves to be presumed upon by each other. We share in lows and highs together to make the former more bearable, and the latter more wondrous. 
But there is an additional emphasis. Both the Nehemiah reading and Paul’s letter stress the responsibility the body has to the weaker members, to those who do not have portions prepared, to those who in another kind of group or the wider society might be discarded or ignored as having little to offer. Paul writes, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect. God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member. We are not solely a people who share burdens and joys, but take efforts to ensure that the seemingly weaker members are honoured, respected, and entrusted with wisdom and responsibility. Those who in other places might be presumed too old, disabled, uneducated, or accented to meaningfully contribute to and shape the body are not only not to be disregarded, but we let the pendulum swing the other way and give them greater honour and respect. For in this we recognise the words of Christ who called the poor blessed, who entrusted the witness of the resurrection to the women, who identified himself with the imprisoned, the naked, the hungry, and the stranger.
The church can and ought to be known by a lot of things. But if there be only three could it not be a people who in yearning and hope gather together to hear the word proclaimed, who share one another’s burdens and joys, and who give honour and respect to those the world might treat as weak and dispensable. If we can do this, we will not only bring glory to God (by whose word we are made), but witness to Christ (whose body we are).
And if we can do this, we will also offer our neighbours something dazzling. A community in which you are valued, a movement in which you find meaning, a story in which you find hope. Value, meaning, and hope might be found in various places, but too often they are in short supply. We’ve seen, time and again, the vulnerable of our society, its so-called weaker or less honourable members, dismissed, denigrated, hidden from view, and asked to keep quiet. The elderly, the young, the migrant, the unemployed, the renter, the disabled, the Indigenous, the unhoused, the mentally ill, the victimised are regularly mistreated, suspected, exploited, disrespected, patronised, and minimised by our world which seems determined to pour out its honour on those already thought honourable, respect on those already deemed respectable, bestow responsibility on those appearing responsible. Hands and feet told there is no need for them, asked to simply be grateful for not being cut off entirely. Pushed further into the quiet of society’s hidden corners. Denied the opportunity to define and pursue lives of value, meaning, and hope.  
When we take seriously our calling as the body of Christ we offer a vibrant alternative to those who have experienced this kind of dismissal, an alternative for those of dashed hopes, muffled voices, and lone journeys. When we grab hold of these three markers of our churchly life together, allowing the Spirit’s gifts to flow freely amongst us, tending to one another in times of lamentation and jubilation, ensuring that those easily missed are highly prized, and opening our hearts to the good news of God’s love and our worth, then we shall see, find, and share value, meaning, and hope – three essentials to an abundant life.

Readings, Psalm 36:5-10 and 1 Cor 12:4-13
 
Today’s psalm gives us an image of God’s faithful, abundant, and delightful provision. God’s love is declared to provide shelter, light, food, and water. The very building blocks of our survival and flourishing, the very foundation of life itself:
How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
   All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the abundance of your house,
   and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
For with you is the fountain of life;
   in your light we see light.
 
The scriptures emphasise that creation is the good gift of God. Creation, lovingly formed, overflows with what we need to live abundantly and harmoniously together. Creation, as generous and thoughtful gift, brings forth what we need and in doing so, provides for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, worship and testimony to its Creator. When we feast on the abundance of fruits and vegetables brought forth from the earth, we are led to give thanks for the feast of abundance in the house of God. When we quench our thirst and are revived by cool waters, we are led to praise the one leads us to drink from the rivers of God’s delights. When we experience the comfort and safety of homes built from the stuff of the earth, we remember that all people may take refuge in the shadows of God’s wings.
 
But if creation is good and lovingly gifted, made to bring forth what is needed, then we are struck with the problem that large swaths of plant, animal, and human life are struggling to survive. But again, for those with eyes and ears willing to perceive, this struggle provides its own testimony. For the piles of food thrown away, the gallons of water wasted, the thousands of homes left empty, the increasingly rapid depletion of biodiversity lament and testify to human greed, apathy, and pride. Testify to fractured relations between us and the earth, one another, and God. Testify to the way our society insulates the privileged from the rhythms of place and the wisdom of others. Testify to our need to repent and reform in order to better love our neighbour and steward God’s creation.
 
Sundays like this in the life of our church serve multiple purposes. In part they are a response to the brave and faithful witness of Indigenous siblings in the church who ask us to stand with them in the journey of truth-telling, justice, and repair. In part they give us the opportunity to hear the truth, and seek in the truth not shame, but freedom and repaired relations. And in part they help us turn back to Christ, learn anew from members of Christ’s body, and recognise the interdependence of our oneness.
 
How might we learn with each other so that we might respond to the testimony of the earth? Sundays like this encourage us to remember that those from the cultures, traditions, and peoples formed by untold generations of relation and reliance on these lands, might teach us how to live better on country, how to better steward God’s creation in this place, how to better ensure that what God has provided is not squandered, hoarded, or forgotten, but delighted in, shared, and engaged with in God-honouring and neighbour-loving ways.   
 
Because God does not only provide the gift of abundant creation. God also provides the gifts of the Spirit shared through the body of Christ. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Whether Jew or Greek, slave or free we drink of the same Spirit who activates in the church gifts, services, and activities for the benefit of the body. Gifts are varied, fluid, mysterious, and poured out on all for all, without hierarchy or distinction.
 
The problem is that too often the church has done the very thing Paul warns against: telling certain members it has no need of them, nothing to learn or receive from them. It has developed and inherited worldly systems that determine who has wisdom, knowledge, and responsibility and who does not. And too often the have and have nots run along racial lines (just as they so often have run along (and been amplified by) lines of gender, class, or clericalism). And these worldly, sinful designations of have and have nots not only deny the biblical witness, not only blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, but rob us all of wisdom, practices, and knowledge poured out by God and developed through culture. And when we consider the specific question of how we walk on, relate to, and delight in the lands and waters, we see that such robbery is leading to ruin. Ruin to creation, to neighbours, and to ourselves. 
 
But thankfully, and this is one of those great Christian proclamations not only on Sundays such as these: it is never too late to make a change. Never too late to fling oneself onto Christ in hope. Never too late for the church to become more like the body. Never too late for the Spirit to work wonders through its members. For God’s steadfast love extends to the heavens, God’s faithfulness to the clouds. And the one who created all things in their goodness has promised, that despite human folly, we shall be saved. The earth and all that is in it will be restored, redeemed, rectified and made new. The day will come when waters, lands, and skies will sing once more undiminished and unrestricted of the glory of God and the right relations of all things in God’s light.
 
And being part of Christ’s body the church, being part of a people able to hear truth, mourn, repent, and believe the good news, means we do not need to wait until that final day for this restoration work to begin. Indeed, we must not wait. Instead, because we have received the gifts of the Spirit – poured out upon us for the common good – we get to make changes today. Every week there are increasingly disturbing news reports, increasingly disheartening findings… the odds feel stacked against the kind of dramatic upturning we require. But dramatic upturnings are what our faith is based on. And the good news, the really good news is that if we want to step out in search of just such an upturning, we do not step out alone. For we have the Spirit, we have its gifts, poured out on all to be shared and received with and by and from all. So, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we might yet learn from the old and new wisdom of others how to live together well in this place; relating to and delighting in building blocks of our survival and flourishing in a manner that gives testimony to the fountain of life.

Readings, Isaiah 43: 1-2, 5-7 and Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Image, Hiroshi Senju, Waterfall, 2016. ​
 
It was a happy accident that today’s baptism was rescheduled to the Baptism of Christ Sunday. Not only do we get to celebrate the baptism of --, but now we reflect on the baptism of Jesus. This is most suitable after all, for there is only really ever one baptism. For the millions of baptisms performed by Christians over two millennia simply share in Christ’s own baptism. And as we share in Christ’s baptism, we share in the words spoken over Christ by God: This is my beloved child. With you I am well pleased.
 
But what more might it mean to share in Christ’s baptism? When writing of the victory of Christ, Paul declares that Christ’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For we are baptised into Christ’s death, and if we share his death then we shall share in his resurrection. We walk with Jesus out from death into newness of life. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you have received a spirit of adoption… and if children, then heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.
 
Our baptism, which is a ripple of Christ’s own immersion, signifies the reception of this spirit of adoption. That what is Christ’s is ours, that by plunging into his death, we are raised into his life and glory. This act recognises that in Christ everything is made new. Old shames, old barriers, old designations are buried, and we walk in newness of life a sibling of Christ. It is not that those existing markers of our identity (be it culture, history, or relations) are obliterated, but they are viewed through the lens where the truest thing about us is that we are a beloved child of God. We are delighted in by the Divine not because of anything we do, but simply for being one formed and made in the life-breath of God. No one may assume superiority over another because of lineage, wealth, status, gender, race, or worldly esteem, for we are all of us beloved creatures: formed by, delighted in and called by God.
 
But we share something more. In the gospel accounts, Christ’s baptism signifies his emergence on the scene. Following his immersion in the waters, the heavens break apart, the divine blessing is announced, and Christ is immediately driven to the wilderness to face trial and temptation. Following his triumph there he bursts into action and begins of his ministry: heralding the coming kingdom of God, calling disciples, casting out demons, and restoring people to wholeness.
 
To be baptised into Christ is to proclaim and celebrate that we share in all that belongs to him. We share in Christ’s righteousness, his resurrection, his glory, divinity, and eternity. But we also share in his work, his commission and calling. We share in his work to proclaim good news, to restore to wholeness that which was broken, to bring hope where there was misery, freedom where there was oppression, justice where there was indignity, mercy where there was apathy, healing where there was hurt, restoration where there was fracture, neighbourliness where there was exploitation, community where there was isolation. Baptism signifies that the great virtues at the heart of our faith (mercy, charity, forgiveness, justice, love, grace, beauty) are what we get to devote our lives to because we share in all that is Christ’s. Works of this nature are what we perform gladly in response to the Spirit of adoption we have received. This is walking in newness of life.    
 
As our baptisms are – essentially – repetitions of Christ’s own, we seek to live lives that are (to the best of our abilities) repetitions of Christ’s own. For in his grace Christ has made what was his, ours – both the riches of his righteousness and the significance of his work. Such wonders are what rightfully belong to beloved children of God, co-heirs with the Son, in whom God delights.

Readings, Isaiah 60:1-6 and Matthew 2:1-12
Image, Eric Gill, Epiphany (1917)

I was reading Sarah Ruden's translation of this gospel passage earlier in the week, and she employs a beautiful sentence to describe the experience of the magi as they arrive at their destination.
           When they saw the star there, their joy was heaped on joy, in great abundance.
 
This is what it means to come into the season of Epiphany. Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Christ to all people, the revealing of Christ’s glory on earth, the initial signs, wonders, and testimonies that this is the Anointed One of God. For this joy can come upon us all when we spot the light of the world in the darkest of nights and realise that nothing can come between his light and our hope:   
           When they saw the star there, their joy was heaped on joy, in great abundance.
 
This is what it means to come into the story of God from the outside. The magi come from beyond Israel, from the lands of the East. They see the star, consult their tradition, and head off in pursuit of the new born king. In this they foreshadow the reception of Christ by the Gentiles after the resurrection, the grafting of those beyond the covenantal people, onto the vine of Christ. They are our forebears, our ancestors in faith, those who by the graciousness of God saw the signs and came to behold and adore Christ as king. We, like they, know the feeling when - though far off in the far country - we discover the presence of Emmanuel, God with us.
           When they saw the star there, their joy was heaped on joy, in great abundance.
 
This is what paves the path to the true reception of Emmanuel. It is joy and hope which drives the magi on their journey, motivates their desire to bow before the new born king; to bring their gifts and pay him homage. The story contrasts the magi’s joy with Herod’s fear and agitation, their openness and wonder, with Herod’s sly plotting. For Herod cannot receive news of a new king with any joy or hope, for his only joy and hope comes from what already is. There’s nothing more threatening than a new star to those wishing to centre the world on themselves. The season of Advent and Christmas prepare us to receive the Epiphany of Christ with joy and hope. For the arrival of Christ is unsettling, it cannot help but upturn our worlds. But we pray that with the help of Spirit and saints, we will be able to receive and respond to the heralding of the king not as Herod, but as the magi.
           When they saw the star there, their joy was heaped on joy, in great abundance.
 
This is what strengthens them to defy the orders of Herod, to disobey the law of the land, and leave without revealing the location of Christ. They encountered something more truer than true and this exposed the falsity, the paucity, and duplicity of imperial rule, of Herod’s request, of Rome’s benevolence. Joy fuelled their revolt, emboldened their resistance, screwed their courage to the sticking place so they might turn their backs on the will of an earthly king, to hold open the future to a heavenly one.
           When they saw the star there, their joy was heaped on joy, in great abundance.
 
This is what allows us to not cling, or batten down, but keep moving on by another road. Like the shepherds before them, the magi are led to the nativity and then return to their homes. As will be the story for so many to whom the glory of Christ is revealed, they are asked not to stay, not to cling, but to go back or go on. It is joy and hope, it is the posture of one receiving an unexpected gift, that allows us to hold loosely and trust that even when we depart by another road God is with us still. The magi did not need to remain at the house, and we do not need to cling to places and practices just because they were once a place where we felt near to Christ. We are able to go out by another road in the trust that the star’s light blesses the whole earth and we will feel its nearness in new and yet more wondrous ways.
           When they saw the star there, their joy was heaped on joy, in great abundance.

Readings, 1 Sam 2: 18-20, 26, Col 3:12-17 and Luke 2:41-52
Image, Nativity. Sawai Chinnawong, Acrylic on canvas, 32 x 37 (2004)
 
There have been many a hero, legend, or leader whose upbringing was entrusted (either willingly or by necessity) to the care of others. Romulus the founder of Rome, was raised (along with his brother) by a She-Wolf. Quasimodo was raised (not well mind you) by Frollo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Batman raised by his butler Alfred, Sleeping Beauty entrusted to the fairies, Charles Foster Kane handed over by his impoverished parents (sans beloved sled) to the rich Walter Parks Thatcher. In Star Wars children identified as possessing the power of the force were entrusted to the Jedi Order for their raising and training.  
 
Sometimes these children are entrusted because they are recognised as special, set apart as vital to the future of a community or the plans of God, their upbringing too important to be left to their family. They are shielded, sheltered, moulded and made ready for the day to come when they will be needed. Samuel clearly fits this mould. Miraculously born in a time of great need, he is set aside so as to hear the word of God, overturn the exploitation and hypocrisy of the community’s religious leaders, and lead the people to a fruitful future.
 
In narrating the story of Jesus, the gospel writers deliberately evoke the heroes of their scriptures. And it is clear that Jesus’ miraculous birth resembles that of Samuel (especially in Luke who has Mary sing a song in the manner of Hannah). And soon after his birth, Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the temple to make their offerings… and soon after that Jesus absconds from his family to remain at the temple to learn from the priests and the learned of the day. If you’re an initiated, active listener, hearing this gospel proclaimed in the shadow of the stories of Samuel, you might be thinking, ah, yes, Jesus is going to stay at the Temple. This is the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, his upbringing must naturally be entrusted to the priests, he must grow in wisdom, stature, and favour in the household of God, the Temple, nearer my Lord to Thee.
 
But that doesn’t happen. Jesus is not like Samuel. He is not entrusted to the care of the Priests; he does not grow with God at the Temple. Despite these early stories evoking this possibility, Jesus returns to Nazareth with his family, it is there and with them that he increases in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour. What do we make of this?
 
At Christmas we stress Jesus Christ is Emmanuel, God with us. We celebrate that in Jesus, God took on flesh and walked among us. That in Jesus we have a saviour familiar with our struggles. It is the immediacy of Jesus’ presence, the humility and mundanity of his earthly life, the identifiability of his tent beside our own, that makes the foundation of our faith and discipleship. And while there are those among us who have been raised by grandparents, aunts, uncles, family friends, adoptive parents, or any combination of such, I’ll hazard none among us were raised by priests, none grew tall in temples. Had Jesus, it would certainly have qualified the claim God with us, would have diminished the truth that he had really walked among us. Think of that early hymn preserved by Paul in the letter to the church in Philippi,
Christ Jesus
who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.   
Would this not read slightly differently if, while emptying himself, Christ carved out a privileged upbringing amongst the community’s religious leaders within his Father’s house?
 
Jesus, like the bulk of his fellow humanity before and since, was not cloistered as a child, but raised in community among family. It was here he learnt of God and God’s way, here he practiced his faith, here he learnt to navigate challenges big and small, particular and universal while seeking to remain integrous to one’s values and responsible to one’s neighbours. And as those who follow after Jesus, we do the same. Christians are made in the power of the Holy Spirit and then formed in community. We increase in wisdom, stature, and years together as the church.
 
And it is for this reason that Paul’s words in Colossians are so important. As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another… forgive each other; [and] Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts... Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.
 
Christ (whose upbringing was not entrusted to the Temple, but to his family and community) in turn entrusts the upbringing and formation of his followers to the church (the new family/community made in his name). We are all set apart, chosen and commissioned, and so help raise each other. Through the fruit of the Spirit, the teaching of the Word, the wisdom of tradition, the delight of worship, the practicing of virtue, and the outpouring of love we create an ecosystem where we increase together in wisdom and in years, in divine and human favour. An ecosystem where we (like Christ before us), learn to listen to the word of God, rejoice in God’s wisdom, follow the Spirit’s promptings, and cloth ourselves in love.
 
Christmas, I remarked on the Day, is a beginning. What it launches continues to this day, but it does so not in isolation or insulation, but in communities, with families, friends, and strangers, seeking together what it means to respond to the presence of God, with us still.  

Readings, Psalm 96 and Luke 2:1-20 
Image, Bassmi Ibrahim, Awareness 30, 2014.
 
Christmas is such a long season of increasing anticipation (and perhaps rising stress) that sometimes you feel that when the day comes, you blink and miss it. You may have had the experience, when, after the excitement of the morning with presents, well wishes and church and the midday rush around to see family and prepare lunch, that all of a sudden, its 2pm and everyone is getting ready to nap. Surely after all the events, all the decorations, all the planning it should last a little longer. I remember last year, I popped into Woolies at 5pm on Christmas Eve and they were already taking down the tinsel, Christmas hadn’t even dawned and the signs of its approach were going in the bin.
 
I wonder if sometimes you’ve felt that with Christmas at church too? That you’ve come hoping that well-loved carols and readings should do something more. Perhaps you’ve come in Christmases past with the hope that the service might provide a long-sought sense of peace or long-elusive answer, that it should shake off that sense of weariness or grief, break down that wall of animosity or estrangement, only for the service to begin and end, and as pleasant as it may have been it didn’t achieve what you’d hoped and prayed.
 
Mary might understand this feeling. The months preceding and weeks following Jesus’ birth are filled with anticipation, wonder, and miracles. Angels visit, Shepherds barge in, Wise Ones trail behind, and Mary treasures these moments in her heart. Then, for 30 or so years, not much happens. The balloon deflates, the daily grind of parenting takes over, and one wonders if the memories of this birth get tinged with some disappointment, some doubt, some emptiness? Wasn’t so much more promised? Will it amount to much in the end?
 
There’s no simple or easy response to this experience. Perhaps all we can offer is the hope and truth that Christmas never ends. We’ll be back here next year and the one after. And even when this church isn’t here there’ll be another church and another remembering and celebrating the birth of Christ. Because Christmas is a beginning, not an ending. Mary eventually witnessed the awaited time when Jesus commenced his ministry, announced the coming kingdom, called disciples, and made a new family in his name. She saw him take up (in surprising and mysterious ways) the promises of God and the hopes of the people. Those things treasured in her heart may have laid dormant, subject to pangs of doubt, but the day came when they broke open the world with radiant hope. The coming of the Christ Child is a beginning and what began is ongoing; for Christ is Emmanuel, God with us, then as now.
 
The good news of great joy is that Eternal Word of God took on flesh and walked among us, and in the power of the Spirit walks with us still. And like Mary we treasure and ponder these words in our heart. They may not always do what we want, may not always blow back the cobwebs or bring about the end of the tunnel, but neither do these words depart or diminish. The birth of Emmanuel means God is with us: no more or less on Christmas morning as Christmas afternoon, no more or less today than tomorrow, no more or less in a Bethlehem cradle than a Forestville church, no more or less when we feel the fiery warmth of his presence than those seasons of doubt, despair and emptiness. The presence and promise of Christ is the great consistent; it the good news of great joy that is not only anticipated and remembered at Christmas, but shapes each day of our lives. For Emmanuel is the well of living water from which we draw to sustain and shape our participation in Christ’s ongoing and unceasing labour of hope, justice, mercy, freedom, and love.   

Readings, Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Luke 3:7-18
Image, Pierre Bonnard, The Lamp (1899)
 
The joy of Advent is a social vision. Which is interesting as the general movement of this season seems to be one of retraction. In that we move from a large, fluctuating and even malleable circles of contact to one which is increasingly small and closed. Early December is filled with the large social events: Christmas parties with colleagues, end of year celebrations with community groups and schools, festivals and frivolities with neighbours and strangers. But as December moves along, and Advent gives ground to Christmas, these larger events make way for the family. And while the family may grow, the others diminish, until we reach the point of Christmas Day, which is so often a day reserved for the family.
 
Now this is not everyone’s story. Indeed, if you come here on Christmas morning, you’re guaranteed to see at least a few people who aren’t your family. And many have rich household traditions of opening their home to those who don’t have a place set elsewhere. But this is by and large the image of Christmas we are presented in the broader culture. The joyful picture of the big family around the bountiful table is the prominent motif in advertising and entertainment. Such is its prominence, that one of the primary icebreaker questions of the season is, are you going to see family over the holidays?
 
However, what ought provoke our consideration as Christians, is that Advent and Christmas concern the arrival of Christ, and the arrival of Christ (whether in humility as an infant, in glory on the Day of the Lord, or today in the least of these) is surrounded by strangers.
 
The Nativity scene may centre baby, mother and father, and they would have likely been surrounded by and tended to by extended family who offered them welcome and care. And yet, the narrative pays this no mention. Instead, shepherds, wise ones, and angels flood the scenes. Even as the gospel of Luke progresses the stories concerning Jesus’ infancy and childhood all revolve around strangers offering blessings, prophecies, or wisdom. In Matthew, the Holy Family quickly become refugees and must sojourn in a strange land.
 
Zooming out further, the words of prophecy that capture our Advent hope – whether they be from Zephaniah or John – direct our attention to those outside the nucleus of society. On the Day of the Lord, God promises to save the lame and gather the outcast, and to prepare for such a day John teaches the people to share coats with the cold and food with the hungry. The importance of such outward looking care of the least is amplified by Jesus’ reminder that our reception of his approach between his resurrection and return mirrors our reception of stranger, the hungry, the lonely, and imprisoned.
 
All this to say, Advent readings and Christmas stories pay little attention to the family lunch, but have much to say about the strangers and outsiders. Indeed, the imperative placed before the people of God to prepare for the coming of the Messiah is to open and expand our circles of care, concern, and connection, such that old boundaries are broken down and new relations formed. As Jesus himself instructs, When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. The resurrection, mind you, will only ratify such subversive guest lists. For how often does Jesus describe the banquet of the kingdom filled with surprising table guests, gathered from the alleyways and highways.  
 
The question this leads us to then is, how much does our Christmas season reflect this outward, expanding, and shifting circle of connection, care, and concern? Are we moving through this season in such a way as to be drawn into a stranger’s orbit, or welcome new bodies into our own? How closed are the edges of our circles? How set is the guest list of our hospitality? I’m not decrying the enjoyment and prioritising of time with one’s immediate and extended family at or around Christmas. There is no betrayal in this being part of what comprises the joy of the season. Again, implicit in the story is the family and community gathered around Mary and Joseph, welcoming the birth of Jesus with great joy. And yet, with the details we have, these readings question of the ever-increasing mythos of this season as one of “family and food.” In doing so perhaps they help us guard against the cultural captivity of Christmas which wants to close the circle of our focus on family ties. Instead, John, Zephaniah, and those robust Nativity scenes allow us to see the wider and expanding story of strangers not only in the story, but in our own lives this season.
 
For having seen we become better prepared for the coming of Christ, better prepared for the arrival of the Messiah; ready to offer cloak and food, welcome and care, dignity and love to those who may not bear our name, but bear the image of the Lord. And in doing so we increase the joy of the season. Because without diminishing the joy found at the family lunch, the circle is widened, opened toward the surprising joy of the other. For these acts of mercy, hospitality, solidarity, and friendship not only provide a different story and greater joy for those cast outside the monopolising image of “family and food,” but – significantly - it grants us foretastes of the kingdom to come and leads us into the presence of Christ, and what greater tidings of comfort and joy could we hope to find in this season than that.

This third week of Advent fills us with joy, as we draw ever closer to the celebration of Christmas and take to heart the good news of great joy that broke into the world with the Son of Man. May this joy permeate our hearts and shape our actions, as we seek to follow in the stead of the one whose circle of concern spans out across the world, securing for us not only a seat at the banquet table, but a room in the household of God.

Readings, Mal 3:1-4 and Luke 3:1-6
Image, Pablo Gargallo, The Prophet (St. John the Baptist) (detail), 1933.​
 
Luke precedes his introduction of John the Baptist with a list of the main political players of the time. At one level we could attribute this to Luke’s desire to produce an orderly account that establishes the historical context of his gospel. But even if that is one of his primary motivators, this list of rulers also helps establish a fundamental Advent confession: the Prince of Peace is born into a time of violence.
 
Although, that is not how Tiberious, Pilate, Herod, and Phillip would have seen it. We are right on the cusp of the beginnings of Pax Romana, the celebrated time of peace and economic growth in the Roman Empire which allowed its borders and population to swell. Empires tend to view themselves as the great securers of peace, defenders of freedom, and champions of order, and Rome was no outlier. However, as historians point out, the exalted Roman peace was the fruit of unprecedented military violence.[1] It relied on rigid social hierarchies, on coercing marginal and diverse communities to conform to hegemonic values and practices, and continued subjugation of those communities’ denied citizenship and status… communities such as the one into which John and Jesus were born.
 
Luke makes clear, John is preparing a way for Jesus (the Prince of Peace) to enter into this very specific, highly flammable time of contested visions of “peace.”
 
Many of us are likely starting to think about how to keep the peace at Christmas. Whether that be at big family gatherings where you can foresee unhelpful comments or outright conflict, or perhaps preparing to regulate the big, swinging emotions of overwhelmed and out of routine children, or perhaps you’re planning how to get through all the additional errands, tasks, and expectations that pile up in the coming month.
 
In many such cases, peace can be quickly reduced to avoiding conflict, letting sleeping dogs lie, and papering over. Peace can be conflated with serenity, where we trade off inner turmoil for external acquiescence. Perhaps you’ve considered letting go of a tradition, or expectation, but are worried it might produce disappointment. We can all be tempted to decide that the thing that will make for peace this Christmas, is the status quo – even if that’s not really working for us, even if we dread it – we so want to keep the peace.
 
Now this isn’t a sermon about how to manage any of that. You know the specifics of your situation and how you wish to navigate the dynamics that lie ahead. What I am drawing attention to is the varying ways peace can be conceived. That it is easy to reduce peace to not making waves, not upsetting the status quo, of going along to get along. And while I drew these examples from the intimate and domestic, it applies also to the political and social. For how often are protests labelled disruptions of the peace? How often are those who advocate for freedom cast as risks to order and security? How often are those who stand up in the face of indignities decried for their violence?
 
And yet, when we consider Jesus, the one for whom the paths are made straight, the one born of Mary into the domain of these Roman rulers, what kind of peace does he bring? Jesus says it best himself, I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. The peace that Jesus provides is not one satisfied with smoothing over the status quo, is not ready to acquiesce to social, political, and religious norms of power and service, is not occupied with being a model second-class citizen, happy with the security of subordination.
 
No, the peace of Jesus, like the peace of his kingdom, is one that takes umbrage with the false peace of empire, with the spotless veneers placed over so much fear and exploitation. Like Jeremiah before, Jesus is a prophet who denounces those who say peace, peace, when there is no peace. Peace comes through confrontation of the powers that be. Peace comes only through the establishment of a new kingdom, a new reign, a new creation in which the old ways will be judged and we shall all be refined and reformed to live together in ways freed from fear, exploitation, injustice, and indignity.
 
Jesus is the Prince of Peace who sees the unacknowledged firmament of conflict and violence that supports Rome’s imperial splendour, and if we wish to take our place as John did, as Advent voices crying out prepare the way, then we need to be ready to do the same. Ready to recognise when we enjoy peace at the expense of others. Perhaps that’s the political peace and economic prosperity that comes through the abandonment of global neighbours suffering under the yoke of tyranny or the ravages of climate change. Perhaps that’s a plausible family peace that comes through the subtle silencing of those family members whose grievances and experiences are consigned to baskets labelled ‘better left unsaid’ or ‘not the time or place.’ To be followers of the Prince of Peace asks us to name a false peace, to confess the false benefits we have reaped, dismantle old orders and build something new. A something (we hope and pray) that reflects the kingdom Jesus came to announce and promises to again to bring in its fullness. Because this work of seeking an honest and liberative peace is one of those places we see the salvation of God. For it is this, in its perfection and completion, which Advent teaches us to hasten and wait.
 
At Advent we celebrate, that some 2000 years ago, the word of God came to John and he announced the coming of the Prince of Peace into the midst of Roman rule. And the reason we celebrate it, is that despite that Prince’s death at the hands of those charged to keep the peace, that Prince and his kingdom could not be contained by death, nor by imperial norms and purposes (however much, sadly, they have been tragically intertwined and enmeshed since then). The Prince of Peace could not be contained by death, nor silenced by empire, and in this we take courage to follow in his way, risking confrontation and truth, in pursuit of the peace which surpasses all understanding but brings with it justice, joy, and love.   


[1] https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/tom-holland-roman-empire-pax-romana-military-violence/102960376