Readings, Exodus 17:8-13 and Isaiah 65:17-25
Image,  John Everett Millais, Victory, O Lord! (detail), 1871
 
The story we heard from Exodus follows shortly after the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea. The people, recently freed, are beginning what they hope will be a short pilgrimage through the wilderness on the way to the mountain of God and then the promised land. Cracks, though, are already showing. Despite having witnessed the plagues in Egypt, and the parting and crashing of the sea, the people have begun to grumble: Is the Lord among us or not?
 
Thankfully for them, the Lord is among them, and the Lord provides. Bread and quails have fallen from heaven, water has been struck from a rock. The people are being fed from the hand of God; their daily necessities provided by the one who has promised to be theirs.
 
Then Amalek came and fought with Israel. To ensure that beleaguered and belittled Israel might survive, Moses stands atop the hill with the staff of God in hand – the very staff by which he bested Pharaoh, the staff which touched the sea and made it part, touched the rock and drew water. The staff given to Moses as a sign that God is with him and the people, about to reach out with a mighty hand to free them. This Moses shall hold aloft, so that once again God will act to secure the fledgling nation.
 
But here the story takes a fascinating turn. Because essential to this story of God’s extraordinary power, is the very ordinariness of human weakness. Mixed in with the seemingly supernatural ability of this gesture is the question of human limit. We simply cannot keep our hands above our head all day. Moses’ aged body will not allow it… it doesn’t matter how profound the moment, the human body is a vulnerable one.
 
Moses’ hands grew weary; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; so his hands were steady until the sun set.
 
I love this image, the failing Moses, exhausted and aching, propped up by a rock, arms held in place by those in his trust. It’s one of those beautifully paradoxical Bible stories. One of those stories which defy the heroic, the epic, and instead casts a picture of vulnerability, limit, weakness, and care.
 
Because there’s a more glorious way to tell this story. Where Moses, the intrepid, singular hero, stands alone aloft the mountain, and, with steely grit and rippling muscles seals the fate of the war. Channelling the very strength of his God, he triumphs with maybe just a few dramatic beads of sweat crossing his handsome brow.
 
Instead, we have another addition to the strange and uncharacterizable picture of Moses, of biblical heroism, and of godly leadership. For Moses, we know already from Exodus is a paradoxical figure – the baby saved from death who grew up in a palace, but also the murderer who was forced into decades of hiding. The man called forth by the blazing bush, but also the one whose doubt in his own speaking abilities was so entrenched that God had to relent and let him take Aaron to do the talking. The one who stood arms aloft and parted the Red Sea to bring his people to freedom, is now here requiring his own arms to be held in place to secure their safety. In the very next chapter this will continue. Moses’ father-in-law comes to visit and watches how Moses is stuck all day solving every petty squabble and has to tell Moses to teach the people to solve their own problems, and appoint judges to share the burden: What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone.      
 
The Torah proclaims Moses as a prophet without rival: Never since, the closing words of Deuteronomy ring out, has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unequalled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform. But what today’s story teaches us, alongside all those nifty paradoxes, is that even a man such as Moses has limits, limits which require not only the goodness of God, but the care of community. Moses’ health, his thriving, his survival resembles our own in its contingency. Moses is great, and he is vulnerable and dependent.
 
This is a vital message on a day such as today where we are thinking about men’s health and care, and in the coming weeks as we enter the 16 Days Against Gender Based Violence. The crisis of gender-based violence, the so-called epidemic of male loneliness, the increasing and concerning radicalisation of young men, the lack of dialogue about men’s health physical and mental, so much of this stems from rigid gendered expectations and stereotypes. Stems, that is, from expectations of what it means to be a man, to be masculine. Expectations that are rigid, restrictive, and ultimately destructive (not only for the self, but for others). Sadly, these kind of rigid expectations and aspirations take root in the church as well; where a kind of godly masculinity is espoused, touting the supremacy of men as leaders who are strong and controlled (and perhaps controlling). And yet, as with Moses, time and again the Bible defies a kind of heroic masculinity that is self-sufficient, strong, and stoic, invulnerable and individualist. In its place is the valorisation of service, the requiring of humility, the glorifying of weakness, the celebration of compassion, the commending of vulnerability, and the recognition of our reliance not only on God, but others. To be human, and in particular to be human within the church is to be given to others in mutual dependence and care, to be both giver and receiver of grace and gifts, to be a helpmeet to one another and the earth.    
 
And we needn’t solely glean this lesson from the figure of Moses, or other human leaders in Scripture. Because we find the same example in Christ, the exemplar of the human. Limit and vulnerability mark the life of Jesus. Jesus is entrusted to the care of others. Jesus’ body grows weary, and others will come along (whether it be to anoint his head or carry his cross) to care for and sustain him. Indeed, one of the great, dismaying failures that Jesus experiences is when he is facing an approaching battle and asks his friends to stay awake and pray with him, but – unlike Aaron and Hur – they fail, and sleep through his agony.
 
Jesus’ heroics, such as they are, also fit more in the mode of Moses’. His wonders are hardly herculean, but are acts of healing, feeding, compassion, stillness and peace. For God’s vision of flourishing, of future shalom and abundance – as we heard in today’s reading from Isaiah – is communal. In the new creation, far from being enforced, the so-called natural divisions and boundaries fade away, as wolf and lamb feed together. The picture of heavenly glory and peaceful new creation is not one where we become more self-sufficient, but more harmoniously intertwined with one another, creation, and God.  
 
The reminder then, whenever we start to think about health and flourishing, is to remember that in the Christian picture of the world, we are never called to be self-sufficient, never asked for individual heroics, never taught to hide or shun vulnerability. We are never asked to go it alone. We are made a body with one another, called to fold one another to our hearts, and hold each other up – weep with those who weep, rejoice with those who rejoice. Even when Moses possessed the staff of God, this incredible symbol of divine power - this is shown to be too heavy to hold on his own. Here on the battle field, as with the broader governing of Israel, his task will only be accomplished if it is shared. His greatness is contingent on hearing the words of wisdom: you cannot do it alone. Like Moses, all of us have God, an ever-present help in times of trouble, but we need to also have each other, particularly if we are to live into the vision of God’s flourishing kingdom where we shall know full and fruitful lives in community before God.

Readings, Lamentations 3:19-25 and 2 Timothy 1:1-14
Image, Study for 'Painting with white border’ (1913) Vasily Kandinsky

Since 2022, this Sunday has been designated in the Uniting Church calendar, “UCA Older Persons Sunday.” A Sunday allowing us to reflect “on what it means to be a faith community of people who are continually ageing.” As the rationale notes, “We are all together in this ageing transition process; we are all slightly older than we were at breakfast time this morning. Some of us are experiencing faster ageing transitions than others, which can be uncomfortable, disorienting and hard to accept. This has implications in our church community for education, planning and pastoral care. As the people of Jesus Christ, we need to consider and prepare as a church community for the life-long transition called ageing.”
 
The Assembly provides possible readings for this service, instead of what is provided in the lectionary. However, I didn’t feel we needed those today, as this section of the Second Letter of Timothy celebrates well already, “what it means to be a faith community of people who are continually ageing.” Recalling your tears, the letter writer declares of Timothy, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.
 
Faith here is a living thing, shared amongst and across the generations, weaving together the people of God as the body of Christ. Paul, reminded of Timothy’s sincere faith (as well as his palpable emotion) longs to see him again to be filled with joy. But in remembering Timothy’s faith, he also brings to mind those the faith lived in first – Timothy’s grandmother Lois and mother Eunice. This living faith moves through this constellation of people and so even when they are apart, or even when they are gone, it breathes and beats in new bodies.
 
Back when we were preparing to host Campfire at the Kirk the team came here for a meeting, which happened to overlap with a women’s fellowship meeting. It was great because it allowed the two groups to meet and talk. And I got to see folks like Mary, Gwen, and others sharing about the Sunday School/kids ministry of the Kirk and how the rooms were used, and how many kids were here, and where they used to take them when there was spill over, all while we were talking about how to use these rooms for a whole different group of kids, a whole different program, a whole new generation. What a witness to the living faith being shared across and amongst the generations, weaving together the people of God, making two distinct programs one shared ministry. The same faith, the same heart for kids, the same joy, beating in new bodies, all of it a reminder of the goodness of the Lord.
 
The goodness of the Lord which, through the Spirit and the saints preserves the church across time. Even when programs cease or shift, even if ministries move or merge, even if churches close or consolidate, the faith, our faith, is a living faith; not bound or diminished by any of these changes, but carried on in hearts and minds taking new forms and new voice rekindling the gifts of God. It is our trust and hope in the power of the Spirit and the livingness of faith that equips the church community for the lifelong transition called aging.
 
However, while we celebrate the faithfulness of God, whose steadfast love never ends and whose mercies never cease, we also recognise with the stated rationale of today, that aging can be hard and disorienting. Sometimes it feels like it happens all at once, sometimes it feels like time ravages some more than others. Sometimes, in the words of Philip Roth, “old age isn’t a battle; old age is a massacre.”  
 
And this reality, this feeling, this hurt, is not something to run away from or hide. Denial and sugar-coating only isolates those already struggling. For this reason, the act of lament takes on vital importance. The words we heard read from Lamentations 3 are filled with hope, but it is a hope that comes amidst and through honest lament. Because before we reached today’s words, this is what we find:
I have become the laughing-stock of all my people,
   the object of their taunt-songs all day long.
He has filled me with bitterness,
   he has glutted me with wormwood…
my soul is bereft of peace;
   I have forgotten what happiness is;
so I say, ‘Gone is my glory,
   and all that I had hoped for from the Lord.’
This kind of lament should not be confined to our scriptures alone, but allowed to find voice in our individual and collective piety and prayer. We need to be able to lament the pain (physical and spiritual), the harm (emotional and social), the injustice and indignity that afflicts the aging. There are ample causes for lament –royal commissions have exposed the systemic and profound abuse and neglect that has occurred in aged care facilities, research has detailed the increasing amount of elder abuse perpetrated by families, and we would have here today a profundity of stories of quiet dismissals, subtle denigrations, and decreased visibility. The bitterness, pain, and fear this evokes needs to be given voice in the community and before God in order to form the community into one which is able to bear one another’s burdens, share one another’s tears, and stand together in the struggle for justice and dignity. It is honest lament which allows for the truthful proclamation of hope in the community of struggle (as opposed to the cheap optimism of shiny happy people).
 
Because it is only after those verses of lament that the reading reaches this moment:
But this I call to mind,
   and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
   his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
   great is your faithfulness.
The call to hope and faith, the call to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord, can only be made with integrity if we have allowed each other to give voice to lament, and if we have proven ourselves a people of refuge and dignity for all members. At this point the word of hope, the promise of Christ, the immortality of the gospel can be broached as a testament to the living faith which cannot be crushed, not even by death (let alone the little deaths of societal disregard or bodily limit).  
 
But the reason for this movement is not based only in the structure of Lamentations. Christ himself did not live his life in one mood (he wept and raged as much as he rejoiced and gave thanks). And so the church as the body of Christ must not live in one mood. To be a faith community of those continually aging involves both the thanksgiving for the sincere faith we see living from one generation to the next, and the lament for the pain and heartbreak that befalls our elders (particularly that which is inflicted through social neglect or injustice). Without hope we have despair, but without lament, we have ignorance, and the church as the body of Christ, an aging faith community, can give into neither of these temptations.
 
In the end, like Lois, Eunice, Timothy, and Paul, we must guard the calling of Christ for each other. Guard the good treasure of faith entrusted to [us]. For this was given in Christ before the ages began. And just as it cannot be denied to the young for their youth and supposed inexperience, it must not be denied or presumed diluted because of age and supposed diminishment. As a body made up of many (indispensable) members, we make room for the truth and look at one another as sites of sincere, living faith. A faith which is ever moving and growing, which, through the power of the Holy Spirit beats and breathes in our bodies. This faith (which is first and always Christ’s faith) shares in the immortality of the gospel and thus will continue to live in the community of the faithful, until the fulfilment of time, when Christ who abolished death, appears again, bringing the restoration of all things on his heels.  

Readings, Psalm 71 and Luke 13:10-17
Image,  Thomas Schaidhauf, Christ Heals the Crooked Woman (c. 1780-1800)
 
Some months ago, members of the congregation shared about songs or hymns which shape and sustain their faith, songs from which they draw comfort, meaning, and hope. I’m sure many of us have these kinds of songs, or if not songs then passages of scripture, which are part of the story, part of the pastiche which leads us here to worship. That is to say, that we have, deep in our heart, songs and stories which have taught us something about God, and having come to believe this thing about God, we come to this place where we worship and learn about God together. And this, I contend, is no different for the woman who comes to the Synagogue in today’s gospel reading, who I want to suggest, with no evidence other than to know it is possible, is led to the synagogue because of Psalm 71. We heard the psalm read, but it might be good to also hear it sung. (Hymn 40 The Lord is near to all who call)
 
Let us imagine this woman on her way to the Synagogue, likely not an easy task – neither physically, as she has been suffering from this crippling spirit for eighteen years, nor perhaps spiritually or emotionally. And yet she makes her way to the synagogue with these words of the psalm on her lips:
For you, O Lord, are my hope,
   my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
Upon you I have leaned from my birth      
We can believe she would know something about leaning on another to rest, to steady, to persist. It would perhaps serve as a fecund image for her relationship with God, her reliance on God’s grace and promise. In hope and trust she moves toward the household of God.
 
But as she does, she starts, perhaps to get some of the familiar pangs of anxiety, and gives them voice in these verses:
I have been like a portent to many,
   but you are my strong refuge.
We know that at times people suffering from prolonged maladies, ailments, or disabilities could be seen as portents; signs of sinfulness, wickedness, curses, or calamity. Perhaps this had been suggested to her in the past as a reason for her prolonged suffering. Perhaps she has been made to feel less than holy, less than welcome. It might not have always been this way, but perhaps, over time, she came to experience derision or disregard. And perhaps when the place became less of a refuge, the feeling of God as refuge took on all the more resonance. Or perhaps even if she experienced nothing but understanding and compassion from her community, she may nonetheless suffered under the lowering of expectations, of the quiet dismissal of her capacity that can afflict many in our communities who are seen, either because of disability or age, as unexpected to contribute. And in the face of the good - though patronising – will of others, she filled her heart and mouth with the plea:
Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
   do not forsake me when my strength is spent.
 
And at this point she appears in the synagogue and in our story, and at this moment, and the yearning of the psalm infuses once more with her own,
O God, do not be far from me;
   O my God, make haste to help me!
Little does she know just how near God is to her this day, little does she know that help is here. Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus, the Word made flesh, is teaching in this very synagogue this very day. And he sees her. Quite unable to stand up, but nonetheless here, and Jesus sees her and calls over to her. This whole time the words of God swim in her mind and cascade off her lips, and now the word of God calls back, Woman, you are set free from your ailment. The God of her refuge and hope, who she pleaded to be near to her, is here with her. Laying his hands upon her, she immediately stood up straight and began praising God, perhaps, drawing once more on the words of this psalm:
My lips will shout for joy
   when I sing praises to you;
   my soul also, which you have rescued.
All day long my tongue will talk of your righteous help
 
And yet, in the midst of this joy, in the wake of this wonder, in the afterglow of this glory, the leader of the synagogue, [was] indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath. Talk about letting the air out of the balloon. There’s an interesting little detail here, the leader of the synagogue is noted to have kept saying to the crowd his complaint. Kept saying, paints the picture of a kind of glum persistence, perpetually interrupting what is undoubtedly a moment of revelry. We might imagine him going from group to group trying out his little line, or looking for quieter moments to interject, getting louder and louder, incessant in his insistence that this blessing is a crisis.
 
I wonder what, in this moment of praise and joy, the woman feels as she hears this persistent complaint. Well (perhaps surprising no one at this point) there’s something in the psalm which might have come to her mind:
Let my accusers be put to shame and consumed;
   let those who seek to hurt me
   be covered with scorn and disgrace.
It turns out this is the very thing that happens. For following Jesus’ response to the leader of the Synagogue, Luke reports, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing. Rejoicing, perhaps following the prompting of the woman, with the words of the psalm:
My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,
   of your deeds of salvation all day long,
   though their number is past my knowledge.
I will come praising the mighty deeds of the Lord God,
   I will praise your righteousness, yours alone.
 
As I said at the beginning, I have no evidence for the significance of this psalm to this woman other than to know it is possible. But if not this psalm it could well be another, or perhaps some word of the prophets, or story from scripture where God delivered people from suffering. But the point, in the end, is not simply to infuse this story with backstory, not simply to connect petition with psychology. Rather it is to commend the sustaining strength that can come from weaving into our life the words of Scripture. The hope we can find in tucking our life into the passages of God’s word. The meaning we can make when we can bring to mind God’s promises or the prayers of God’s people, in our own moments of need. The Basis of Union, our movement’s founding document, “lays upon its members the serious duty of reading the Scriptures” because in the scriptures we, like the woman coming to the synagogue, find in its pages the songs, prayers, stories, and promises of God which can help lead us to this place, to this people, where we might once more hear the call of Christ which raises us up, and sparks great rejoicing for all the wonderful things Christ is doing.  

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, Isaiah 50:4-9a and Luke 19:28-40
Image, Anslem Kiefer, detail from "Palmsonntag" (Palm Sunday). 2006
 
Let us consider these words from the prophet Isaiah, long associated with the figure and struggle of Christ:
I know that I shall not be put to shame,
he who vindicates me is near.
To hear these words on the brink of Holy Week carries some dissonance. For between the hosannas of today and our hallelujahs a week from now, Christ will undergo a great deal intended to put him to shame. He will be stripped naked in public, assaulted, tormented, mocked. He will be dressed ironically in robes, adorned with a crown of thorns. Even his object of execution – the cross – will bear the inscription King of the Jews, designed to display the discrepancy between Christ’s supposed delusion and grim reality. Christ’s crucifixion and the abuse preceding it is a punishment aimed as much at humiliation as execution – the snuffing out of dignity as the snuffing out of breath. And yet, we hear these words, I know that I shall not be put to shame, he who vindicates me is near.
 
How do we contend with this discrepancy? Let us consider the gospel passage of the day. Let us picture the scene, cloaks and palms strewn about, the hosannas shouted aloud, the donkey and the itinerant preacher the centre of this hubbub. Jesus’ detractors are nervous what such a demonstration might mean for all of them. After all, if this display of the supposed arrival of a new king gets the Romans nervous enough it is going to end bad for all the Jews of the region. ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!’ can sound a lot like the cry of insurgency in the ears of an occupier. So some Pharisees press in and implore Jesus, Teacher, order your disciples to stop. To which Jesus most memorably replies: I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.
 
It’s a killer line. Naturally we can take it as a kind of poetic effusion, a non-literal turn of phrase that communicates the frenzy of this moment and the impossibility of reeling in such joy. We can take it as a proclamation in line with many a psalm, where rocks, hills, oceans, and stars sing out the glory of God. Creation knows the hands, breath, and voice that formed it and worships in its way… the rocks, Christ alerts us, are just begging for an opportunity to join this triumphal moment as the one with God since the beginning moves amongst them.
 
In the context of today’s question, the discrepancy raised by the question of shame, these words of Christ might teach us something about vindication. Perhaps we might apply the words of Isaiah to the experience of Christ, because in acknowledging the readiness of the rocks, Jesus conveys his belief that the whole force of the cosmos bends toward this moment, the whole weight of creation sings his victory. Perhaps Jesus knows that even if his followers fail (or perhaps better, knows that when his followers fail) something primordial will pick up the slack. The rocks, Christ declares, know the score. They would cry out if the people fall silent, because they know that even if people fail, God will not.
 
For it is not the failure, betrayal, desertion, and abuse of the people that would put Christ to shame. The only thing that could is if he were failed, betrayed, or deserted by the one he calls Father. And the only way he could be failed by the one he calls Father is if Jesus Christ were crucified for his words and ministry, and was not raised again. For if that were the case he would be put to shame, he would not be vindicated. Shame would be heaped on his head like coal and all the mocking reverence of the crown of thorns and entitled cross would prove the last word.
 
The resurrection of Christ is often referred to as God’s great YES. For where the world sought to say no to Christ – to his message, his way, his hope, his challenge – God, in raising Christ from the dead says Yes. Yes, the resurrection proclaims, yes, this is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, this is my Son the beloved, this is the Anointed One. Yes, the resurrection proclaims, yes, the kingdom of God is like seeds and shepherds, it is a place where last are first, and poor are blessed. Yes, the resurrection proclaims, yes, true greatness is known in service, true love in laying down one’s life, true power in peace-making. In the Yes of the resurrection God vindicates the life and ministry of Jesus ensuring that who he was, and what he inaugurated, cannot be put to shame.
 
And so we can say of Christ the words of Isaiah, I know that I shall not be put to shame, he who vindicates me is near. And we can say this even while acknowledging the humiliating torture, abuse, and mockery Christ will face in his passion. Because the vindication of Christ is not obliterated by the fact that he faces attempts to put him to shame, just as our own vindication as beloved children of God, made in the divine image, is not obliterated or marred by the humiliations, abuses, violence, and mockery which we have and may face on account of the cruelties of the world. Because the vindication of Christ is the act of God which reveals such mockeries and abuses as lies, the act which denies them the last word.
 
The vindication of Christ is the confession that the torturer does not get to define the worth the tortured, the tormentor does not tell the truth about the tormented, the abuser isn’t right about the abused, the judges of the world do not pass final judgment on the worth of a soul. For in the breaking of the tomb, the conquering of death, the resurrection of the body God vindicates Christ, and in Christ vindicates all of those the world has unduly sought to put to shame, all those it has stripped and scorned, pierced and punished, killed and buried. For this is, at least in part, what it means to share in Christ’s resurrection. It means to share in Christ’s vindication, and if we share in this, we can also claim those words of Isaiah for ourselves, we can say for ourselves the words Christ may well have held close in his hour of need: I know that I shall not be put to shame, he who vindicates me is near.          
 
Stand strong friends, even when the things we have held dearest and fought longest for appear to be shamed, scorned, and abused by the cruelty and ugliness of the world: the author of life is writing the story, God commands the final word. The things of God shall not be put to shame, the one who vindicated Christ will vindicate what is Christ’s, for God is near.

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.

Reading, Job 38:1-11, 34-41, 40:1-9 
Image, John Ross, The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. (1960)

 
Last week, Job, stricken by calamity, demands God answer his complaint. This week, God answers Job out of the whirlwind. In between the story of Job is broken into a series of speeches. Job’s friends make cases for why misery has befallen Job. Most work along a logic that since the wicked always receive just punishment at the hand of God, Job must actually be wicked. To which Job counters with two points: 1) defending his blamelessness, and 2) reminding them that by and large the wicked receive no punishment, no justice in this life: They spend their days in prosperity and in peace they go down to Sheol. They say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We do not desire to know your ways.’ So, Job contends not only am I not wicked, but even if I were that would not be enough to establish that this is why I suffer, since it doesn’t seem like God has much interest in bringing justice upon the wicked.
 
Time and again Job’s friends offer accounts for what has happened (accounts, we shall come to see, will be condemned by God as false speech) and time and again Job rebuffs their words and demands God answers him directly. Again, this is a testament to that fierce, determined faith Job exemplifies (which we discussed last week) one which is unwavering in its belief in God’s sovereign power and in his own right to demand God front up.
 
And so, eventually, God appears. This is the first time we have seen God in the narrative since the two early wagers with Satan, and the first time that Job has beheld God since all this began. It is important to remind ourselves that the story of Job is not history or journalism, but a poem, a fable, a parable. A story constructed in order to address the reality of human suffering, of the incomprehensibility of evil and woe. So how does God’s answer from the whirlwind do that?
 
One of my favourite contemporary novelists, Garth Greenwell, opens his new book, Small Rain, this way: They asked me to describe the pain but the pain defied description, on a scale from one to ten it demanded a different scale.
This is kind of like what God introduces into the story, a different scale. Instead of arriving to tell Job, look, here’s what happened… all the angels and I were hanging out, and then Satan came in, and well, one thing led to another... Or, coming and saying, look, Job, your friends are right, you sinned in your heart on April 16, 4062, and thus everything that has befallen you has been justified… Or, coming to say, look Job, I know you’re upset, but this is the reason bad things happen to good people… instead, God appears in a whirlwind and says,
Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
 
Talk about a different scale? Job has been asking God to give account and God shows up and says, I’m the one asking the questions here: Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Not the most pastoral approach, indeed, rather accusatory. It is almost like if your new fridge was faulty and you called to get it returned and when you said, listen, everything at the back is freezing, the person on the helpline said, I’m sorry, were you there when I invented ice?!?
 
This moment was brought vividly to life in Terrance Malick’s film, Tree of Life. Early in the film a mother learns of the death of her son, and she utters, in desperate grief, Lord, did you know… where were you… what are we to you… answer me… and at this request the film goes back to the beginning of all things. In a near fifteen minute sequence it works its way slowly through the creation of the cosmos, the first creatures to populate the seas, the emergence and collapse of dinosaurs, only then it returns to the family. What this says is the only way to approach the questions born of this personal loss is to tell the whole story of creation. We are but part of this story, the story of all things which unfolded at the hand of God. Where were you, the mother asks, to which God responds, everywhere.
 
Many have deemed this is an unsatisfactory response. That God’s assertion of an eternal knowledge which trumps all temporal concerns is insufficient in the face of immediate, personal, unjust suffering. Job, it appears, does not find it wanting. He remarks at the end of God’s address, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know… Therefore I recant and reconsider concerning dust and ashes. Job is sufficiently awed, his grievances transformed and any right to further speech given up.
 
But even if we don’t share Job’s position (nor his eventual reversal of fortune), we might still consider the whirlwind. Because maybe there is no satisfactory response to the problem of incomprehensible suffering to be found anywhere else? Perhaps the point is to change the scale, and thus change the perspective. Because whether or not we have or may grasp a reason, suffering occurs, catastrophes happen, loss and grief are inevitable. As we say in the funeral prayers:
Give us grace in the face of the mystery of life.
Give us the wisdom that says:
‘Even if our questions were answered,
even if we did know why,
the pain would be no less,
the loneliness would remain,
and our hearts would still be aching’.
 
And so perhaps, this swirling reminder of the majesty of God’s eternal presence, power, and provision give comfort. The gap between us and God, the finite and infinite, the created and Creator offers a new scale. The speech of God offers us a reality where there is something over, under, and around all of history’s inscrutable, scattered moments. But not just a random something, for when we take the testimony of the whole of Scripture, then we see that the something (or better someone) over, under, and around all the things that we can and cannot see and comprehend is the God who is love. The one who heard the morning stars sing is also the one who hears the cries of the oppressed and acts with a mighty hand. The one who knows when the mountain goat gives birth is the one who found the slave girl Hagar and her child in the wilderness and helped her survive. The one who numbers the clouds is the one who stood between the accused woman and those bearing stones and numbering sins. The one who can draw the Leviathan out of deepest ocean is the one who descended unto death in order to triumph over the grave and lead us to newness of life.
 
Not a flap of a wing nor a blink of an eye has occurred without God. And while this does not diminish the pain of loss, the grief of suffering, or our rage against evil, it does offer us something. A different scale, another way of thinking about the pain of the world. So much that might feel without reason, might appear without logic, might defy comprehension, might instead occur within the world and history God creates, sustains, and redeems. These moments are thus not, ultimately, without meaning, not ultimately random, not ultimately finished… each takes place within a bigger meaning, a bigger story, one which has always and will ever continue to unfold within the sphere of God’s interest and love.
 
This, as I have said from the start, does not solve everything (perhaps, for some, it solves nothing). But the story of Job is not set out, I believe, to do that. The whirlwind offers a picture of reality in which God is present. It offers a way of living where history’s many moments of violence and catastrophe are not the final, unaccountable word, but remain open to the redemptive and restorative activity of God. This doesn’t mean we must accept all things as they are – we, like Job, can bring our charges before God, and we must act upon the earth to seek justice, peace, and restoration. But the whirlwind offers us a foundation on which our faith and activity might rest: that while much lies beyond us, nothing lies beyond God, and in this there is hope, because God is love, and love never ends: it makes all things new.

Readings, 2 Samuel 11:26–12:13a and Ephesians 4:1-16
Image, Nathan's parable of the ewe lamb (1965-1968), Oskar Kokoschka

We pick up, in Samuel, where we left off last week. There attended to David’s abuse of Bathsheba and assassination of Uriah; actions predicated on the assumption that David was able to act not only with impunity, but without discovery. And yet, as the Johnny Cash song tells, You can run on for a long time, But sooner or later God will cut you down
 
The thing David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. Nathan, perhaps considering the most effective tactic of confrontation, weaves a fable and David walks into its moral trap. You are the man! Nathan declares when David’s outrage reaches its boiling point over a stolen lamb. It is satisfying to see David condemn himself for the evil he has performed, and yet, it is not enough that David’s conscious should be pricked, or that he buckle under the weight of guilt. For the harms done cannot be undone; and surely blood calls out for blood.
 
Thus sayeth the Lord: the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah to be your wife… I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbour, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.
 
Last week I drew the comparison between the unbridled villainy of the actions of King David and those of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Here, keeping with literary allusions, the punishment allotted by God rivals the poetic, ironic twists of a Greek Tragedy. For the very crimes David thought he hid, shall be reversed upon him in the light of day – and all shall see the displeasure of the Lord poured forth upon the king.
 
David, struck by fear and guilt, exclaims in confession: I have sinned against the Lord! This is where the lectionary ends the reading. Punctuating the story with David’s admission of guilt, and desperate plea that the judgment of the Lord might be lifted off his house. If we end the reading here, accompanied as it is with the psalm of confession attributed to David, a certain selection of avenues for proclamation and the lessons open before us. Consolation in the nature of God who does not excuse the sins of kings, commendation of the prophet speaking truth to power, remembering the importance of confession and hope of restoration.
 
But while this is where the lectionary cuts off, this is hardly where the story ends. For if we read on beyond David’s cry of confession, Nathan responds: Now the Lord has put away your sin, you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die.” David’s own life is spared, his humiliation and downfall averted, and yet, the Lord was scorned, and so the child born of David’s transgression will perish. The child becomes ill by the hand of the Lord. David fasts and weeps, pleads and prays, but the Lord hath spoken, and the child dies.
 
Then David rose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes. He went into the house of the Lord, and worshiped; he then went to his own house; and when he asked, they set food before him and he ate. Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while it was alive; but when the child died, you rose and ate food.” He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me, and the child may live.’ But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” Then David consoled his wife Bathsheba, and went to her, and lay with her; and she bore a son, and he named him Solomon. The Lord loved him.
 
Here, is where the story ends. And how, we might wonder, does this change the way the word is proclaimed, and the lessons we learn?
 
In this telling, the story centres something of a council, where, God’s prophet meets with God’s king to deliver God’s judgment. The punishment is adjusted upon David’s contrition, and is accepted by David as lamentable, but justified. And yet, who is not in this council? For the child might be born of David’s sin but he came from Bathsheba’s womb. The reading pays no attention to her feeling. Is she even aware the sudden illness which strikes life from her child has come from God to punish the crime committed against her and her husband? Nor is there any consideration of the child himself, as one knitted together by God in his mother’s innermost parts. Indeed, the narrator seems to present the death of the child and the subsequent birth of Solomon as a resolution; a fresh, clean, new beginning. The child born of sin is dispensed (and with it any residue of David’s transgression), which paves the way for a child who the Lord might love. In this story all things orbit David and God; their actions and feelings the only ones considered both in the crime and its punishment. As David himself makes clear, he has sinned against God alone.
 
We are left, again, with a pretty dire image of King David (but that’s not too troubling, since we reached the same last week). More troubling is this image of God who took the child because God had been scorned by David’s deed. If last week, the story of David provided a chance to lament and learn from the ways the church has longed for kings and excused and legitimatised the abuses of its all-too-worldly leaders, then this week we might also learn from and lament the times our church and society has modelled its image of crime and punishment in such retributive binaries. When we have believed blood cries out for blood, prioritising punishment of the individual over the health of the community. The story as we read it, affords us a chance to learn from and lament the times in which violence against women has been “addressed” by men coming together to punish the defilement of their honour, rather than considering what justice would mean for the victim-survivor.
 
These are not insignificant lessons, for they reflect the stress of the Ephesians reading where unity of the body of Christ is known through a democratic appreciation of the whole. For the church is not marked and defined by the privileged few, but there is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. Each have been given a gift, which, while differing in detail does not differ in value. All gifts belong to Christ and each is given to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. We cannot function and flourish as the body of Christ while those whose voice (so often written out of our scriptures and traditions) remains silenced in the church.
 
This is part of why the Uniting Church holds that all people, regardless of gender, sexuality, culture, or language are fit to be ordained, preside over the table, proclaim the word, and sit on its councils. For baptism is the all-inclusive sacrament by which we are initiated into the church in the name of Christ. The church is the whole people of God, who are brought through the waters of new life in Christ, sustained on the way by Christ’s body and blood. The body is formed by no less than this whole people, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped. And when each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. It is for this reason we practice consensus decision making as the church, and for this reason we seek to be governed by non-hierarchical councils. These steps represent the yearning to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
 
And, finally, as the people of God considering the full story from Samuel and the reading we heard from Ephesians, we are reminded again that the Uniting Church lays upon all its members (not just those who preach) the serious duty of reading Scripture. Readings like ours today ask for such seriousness. Part of what it means to read scripture seriously is the requirement to consider images of God set one against another. To reflect on the differing (sometimes divergent) imagery, language, and teaching in the Bible. To locate them amidst their cultural worldview and, considering our own, search out and prize those images which herald good news. Now this is not simply an Old Testament vs New Testament dichotomy. All parts of scripture can proclaim the truth in love, and all are capable of reflecting cultural captivity and human limitation. Here, today, the serious duty of reading scripture asks us to consider which image of God best reflects what we love when we love our God. Is it the one who takes the innocent child of a father’s sin, or the one who takes captive captivity itself? It is not that there aren’t truths of God and the world found in both, as we have seen already. But we might confess that one proves a firmer foundation for the church’s doctrine, one more richly teaches the truth in love, one better helps us grow up in every way into Christ. It is through this serious reading that we are drawn, not only nearer our God to thee, but to those in our communities whose place in the story, whose value in the body, has been diminished, denigrated, forgotten, or forsaken. For it is here that our efforts to maintain the unity of the Spirit and bond of peace most reflect the one who descended even into the low parts of the earth so that all shall know the freedom and gifts of God.

Readings, 2 Sam 11:1-15, Ephesians 3:14-21
Image, Girl Sitting Alone in the ‘Sea Grill,’ a Bar and Restaurant (1943/1989) Esther Bubley

In this story, King David rivals Shakespeare’s Richard III for unbridled villainy. And like so many stories of depraved abuses of power, it strikes an ominous note from the beginning. In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle… David remained at Jerusalem. This is not unintended irony, something is amiss. Remember, when a youth, David volunteered to face Goliath alone. Now when kings go out to battle, David stays home. Not only is he avoiding responsibility, it hints, narratively, at the potential for trouble. For if all of Israel have been sent out to war, who remains in the city to oppose the whims of the King? The picture the narrator paints is one of King David, a man alone, in a city of women.
 
And David spies one such woman, Bathsheba, benignly attending to the banality of bathing. It is notable that the reason David is able to play the voyeur is because he lingers in the king’s house – raised above the rest – and from this perch he is able to look down. Spying something he likes, and sensing no possible opposition, refusal, or discovery, David sends for Bathsheba and (as the text euphemistically states) lies with her. I stress euphemistically here, because like the heading assigned to this reading in many Bibles (“David commits adultery with Bathsheba”), this language elides the abuse, obfuscates the unequal power dynamic, and seeks to make neat the ugliness of this scene familiar to far too many who have been called into the office or home of a superior and realised that there is no way to say no without risking their safety, security, or livelihood.
 
Tragically for Bathsheba, the violence does not end on this day. For Bathsheba falls pregnant, and suddenly David discovers that his act is perhaps somewhat more discoverable than he believed. Should Uriah return after a season of war, he will discover Bathsheba pregnant and all eyes will fall upon the one man in town with power and opportunity.
 
David devises a plan. He calls Uriah home from the front, urging him, go down to your house and wash your feet. Which, speaking of euphemisms, is a common one for sexual intimacy. However, to David’s shame, Uriah refuses. While David has no problem sleeping in a palace, Uriah will not rest under his roof while his comrades spend their nights in tents. David tries again, this time plying Uriah with wine in the hope that alcohol might shake his commitment to abstinence. Yet even drunk, Uriah has more integrity than the king. With no other cards to play, David betrays Uriah to his death, ordering him to be abandoned on the frontlines, to die far from the bed he refused, the wife he loved, and the city he served. Condemned by his king to die in a moment of confusion wondering why everyone drew back while he walked on. When news of his death reaches Bathsheba she makes lamentations, after which, David brings her once more to his house – making her his wife, and the unborn child his own.
 
Our domestic violence work has exposed us to too many heart wrenching stories not to find here parallels of male entitlement, coercion, and abuse. The Me Too movement has exposed too many stories to not find parallels in a man weaponizing power to gain gratification without paying heed of the consent or discomfort of the object of his desire. It is far too late in the day to try and soften the edges of this story, to euphemistically distract from its monstrosity, to rush to excuse, forgive, or forget. For to follow such a path does little to honour the past, and less to protect the future.
 
It is no accident that David’s actions recollect the warning issued to Israel when they demanded a king. A king, God forewarned, will take your sons to be his soldiers, your daughters to be his perfumers and cooks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king. The people were not put off, demanding a king so that we may be like other nations, and because (ironically enough) a king shall go out before us and fight our battles.  
 
I bring up this warning not to imply anyone in the story deserved their treatment, or that David should receive a pass since this is just what kings do. Israel’s desire to be like other nations represents a failure in their calling to be a people set apart to be a witness to the other nations. Far from longing to be a simulacrum of worldly nations, Israel’s call was to witness to what is possible when a people order their lives as subjects to the God of freedom. In just the same way, when the church longs for kings, we too fail to live up to our calling to be a community created and sustained by grace. When we seek to secure our identity and survival in individuals and systems of human power, we invariably lose our way as a people who follow a crucified messiah. When we long for a power that conforms to the way power is distributed and demonstrated in the world, then the vulnerable and marginalised in our community will invariable bear the harm that such power tends to yield. For the impulse to bestow sovereign authority and protect the reputation of leaders, clergy, or past pillars of the community lies beneath so much of the reprehensible abuse scandals that have caused irreparable harm to individuals, communities, and the church itself.
 
And so we ask, how do we avoid such an impulse? Avoid creating environments where all-too-worldly power might be given divine blessing to act without fear of opposition, refusal, or discovery? It is not as simple as willing. Israel asked for a king because they suffered under corruption from within and threats from without, they asked that they might secure their survival and flourishing in the land God promised. So too the church has longed for, empowered, and excused abuses of power because it has looked and quivered at its precarious place in the world as a pilgrim people, whose very life depends on the arrival of Christ and his sustaining grace. All this to say, if we’re going to resist the appeal of worldly power, it will not happen by accident, we must act to be rooted and grounded in love.
 
For it is only with deep roots in love, firmly grounded in the Spirit’s power, that we become secure enough in our calling as the church to resist the lure of worldly power. Too much harm has been hushed away because we feared the church was not strong enough to survive the scandal. But if we devote ourselves to the collective work of tending to roots and grounding ourselves in love, we might be able to trust that telling the truth about David, let alone the truth about those who have come after, will not bring us down but set us free.
 
The truth sets us free to place our trust and identity not in the corrupting power of mortals, but the generous life-giving power of God. This is why we gather and go. To tend to the roots and clear the ground we pray, we approach to the table of grace, we build up each other in love and good deeds, we visit each other and place our calls, we serve food and talk over morning tea, we set flowers and sing praises, we listen to scripture and hear the word proclaimed, and we go forth in grace to love and serve the world, to learn from others and form coalitions for the common good. And we do this (and much more) again and again and again because this is how roots grow deep. To ground ourselves in Christ’s love as the sole power which secures our identity and shapes our life cannot simply be decided (for the lure of worldly power is just too strong). It must instead be determinatively pursued together through spiritual practices, fellowship, and the work of justice, listening, and truth-telling. It is by this that our inner being will be strengthened with power through the Spirit, by this that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, by this we are filled with the fullness of God, and by this that we are rooted and grounded in love. 

Readings, 2 Samuel 7:1-14a and Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 
Image, Christ in the Wilderness – the Hen, Stanley Spencer (1938)

We begin with a question: When someone – in a state of stress or exhaustion – exclaims something surprising, is that a moment of unguarded truth or do we note the external factors and assign it as ‘out of character’? If, at the end of one of those weeks, I am walking through the house and trip on an errant toy left in the middle of the kitchen, and I reactively exclaim “how can anyone live with such slobs!” Is this a moment revealing my true feelings long hidden away? Or is this simply stress searching desperately for one point of blame and doesn’t reflect my actual feelings? Perhaps as pain temporarily blocks conscious considerations unconscious truth slips through, it may be out of character, it may surprise even me, but does it nonetheless reveal unguarded truth?
 
There’s clearly no uniform answer. Sometimes it is one, sometimes the other, and likely we discern this based on our relationship and experience with the person. It may be that we realise, that while this isn’t an accurate expression of their beliefs, it names a simmering frustration which should have been articulated earlier. In such cases the flashpoint provides an opportunity, through apology and honesty, to address unspoken issues.
 
Jesus is regularly tired in the gospels. He routinely seeks places to rest either alone or with his disciples. And yet, time and again he is hounded by the crowds, let down by his friends, challenged by opponents, and pressed to move on. And sometimes Jesus grows frustrated. Sometimes Jesus chastises his disciples, bemoans the crowds, and upbraids his opponents. I take some comfort in this… it really does emphasise that Jesus was fully human. That Jesus really experienced the full gamut of what it is to pitch a tent in the midst of the human experience. It is Jesus’ exasperation and exhaustion as much as anything that proves the great line from Hebrews:
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.
 
In the same breath, I take comfort in what emphasises Jesus as fully divine. That even when his rest is cut short by crowds following him from place to place, Jesus looks on them and has compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. This comfort is only amplified in the final verse of our gospel reading:
And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
 
Such is the power of Jesus’ divine nature. Whatever he might be feeling in these moments, whatever day he might be facing, whatever toll might be paid by his mortal flesh and finite patience, his nature is such that even the fringe of his cloak can be make us well. Like the haemorrhaging woman, reaching for his cloak in the crowd, Jesus’ lifeforce and divine power bursts forth without decision. He does not need to know who has approached for their approach to be rewarded. Jesus, as fully God, simply is compassion and healing, simply is consolation and joy, simply is the light and life of the world, simply is love. Even moving into his presence moves us into the presence of love, light, life, joy, consolation, healing and compassion. There is no hidden nature, no truer feelings repressed beneath the surface, no ulterior motives lurking out of sight. Jesus is life, Jesus is freedom, Jesus is salvation, and this is revealed not only in the compassion displayed for the needy crowds at the end of a long day (for this could just be the proof of saintliness, of an exemplary display of human compassion). No, the nature of Jesus as hope and healing for a weary world is revealed in the restoration and salvation that occurs simply through his presence as Emmanuel (God with us). It is this divine nature which flows through Christ to the world without even needing him to turn his gaze, that proves the following verse of that Hebrews passage:
Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
 
We get pretty adept, as humans, of knowing when to approach others to ask a favour. And the more we know a person the better we are at reading the signs of their mood and sensing the tactical moment to approach. We may even cultivate these moments: quietly moving in the background to remove points of stress, biding time from one request to another, or striking when the iron is hot off our own benevolent favour granting.
 
This may be a necessity of human relations, but this is not the relationship of the flock to the shepherd. This is not how it is for the Christian and their High Priest. Because though the human Jesus - bound by the limits of appetite and sleep - grew weary and frustrated, the risen Christ is the ascended one. And if the weary Jesus saw the crowds and was moved by compassion, how much more may we trust the loving response of the one who has now been given all authority over heaven and earth? If Christ, who as Incarnate had no place to lay his head and yet proved time and again to be rich in love, how much more will the one who sits on the throne of heaven pour forth compassion and tenderness for those who approach his presence? If the fringe of his cloak could heal, how much more restoration might be known through the unbound presence of the cosmic Christ?
 
This is the good news: since we know that even when tested and tried Jesus could not give up on those who reached out for help, how much more might we trust in the ascended and unencumbered Christ who is by nature simply the full force of compassion, faithfulness, peace, and love. There is nothing contradictory to be revealed, however many toys we leave out. Christ simply is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, calls us by name, and leads us into life.