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

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

Reading, John 11:17-40
Image, Resurrection of Lazarus, 12th century.  St. Katherine's Monastery, Sinai
 
When I was first studying the gospels at college, much was made of the scene where Jesus asks his disciples, who do you say that I am? And Peter’s answer: You are the Messiah, is the first great Christological confession made by one of Jesus’ followers. Jesus is rightly identified, his significance emphatically observed. In Matthew’s account, Jesus even remarks that the profundity of Peter’s response was only possible because the Father revealed it to him. The scene is the great payoff of the first half of the gospel. Jesus’ wonders have brought the reader to the question: who is this man? And Peter gives them the answer.
 
This scene, however, essential as it is to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is not in John. To be sure Peter makes an essential confession in John 6 when – after the difficulty of Jesus’ words turn many away – Peter responds to Jesus’ question do you also wish to go away? With, Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God. Despite this, today’s scene with Martha feels a more proper equivalent of the scene where one of Jesus’ followers reveals him as the Messiah.
 
But before proceeding with that scene, let us consider another appearance of Martha’s. Last week’s sermon on Mary of Bethany included Martha’s scolding of her sister. And while we noted Jesus’ defence of Mary’s choice of the better part, what we did not observe, which must be attended now, is how Martha addresses Jesus. For even if her request was misguided, her recognition of who was before her was just as accurate as Mary’s.
 
Lord, do you not care… begins Martha’s petition. And that “Lord” is important. For since so very few so grasp the identity of Jesus during his lifetime, very few use this term of address. Alongside Martha we find, Elizabeth, John the Baptist, Peter, a leper, a Centurion, James and John. And just because Martha errs in her request, doesn’t diminish the significance of her right naming of Christ (indeed, James and John name Jesus Lord, as part of their request he rain down fire on a village that didn’t receive them).
 
Martha’s ability to recognise and rightly name Jesus is carried into the story we heard in John’s gospel. In grief (and grief is overwhelmingly the emotion that shrouds this whole scene) she comes before Jesus and says, Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died. Again we note her use of the term Lord, and with it a recognition of Jesus’ power to heal. But, as she continues, she reveals further understanding of Jesus’ unique relation to God. But even now I know that God will give whatever you ask him. Martha recognises Jesus’ intimacy with the Father, from whom he was sent.
 
What is important to realise is the way these this qualification follows quickly on the heels of Martha’s lament. If in one breath she confronts Jesus with her grievance, with the next she affirms his capacity to give them a new future. This stands in contrast with her sister, who comes to Jesus with the same lament, Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died, but then falls silent. It is not that her lack of speech brings condemnation on her, by contrast Jesus is moved by her weeping to his own, however, it is because Martha’s speech continues, that space is opened for a richer dialogue between her and Jesus.
 
Jesus responds, Your brother will rise again. Martha, displaying her faith, affirms what she believes Jesus is saying, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. But at this point, Jesus clarifies his meaning, and reveals to Martha more of who he is, and has come to do: I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?
 
Do you believe this is but another shade of who do you say that I am or do you also wish to go away. Fundamentally each ask: from what you have seen and heard, what are you willing to confess. And Martha confesses, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world. Like Peter she makes the profound confession, and recognises the significance of Jesus beyond anything heretofore confessed. Just as in the other gospels this moment proves a turning point, a hinge on which the narrative shifts its attention toward Christ’s entry in Jerusalem and the cross which awaits him.
 
There’s a terrific line in the Stephen Sondheim musical, Merrily We Roll Along. The show’s protagonists, having just performed a song at a party, are asked by their host to sing it again. One seeks to decline, while the other insists that they sing, saying “Charlie they loved it, they thought we were great.” “You want to know what true greatness is?” Charlie retorts, “knowing when to get off!”
 
Pessimistic as it might sound, usually the longer things go on the more chances there are for missteps. The exuberant glory Peter experiences through the commendation of his Christological confession is short lived. For when Jesus teaches that what it means for him to be the Messiah is to be handed over to suffer and die, Peter rebukes Jesus. For this act, Peter (who moments ago apparently received direct revelation from God) is identified by Jesus as Satan, tempting Jesus from the path of God. Peter has to leave that scene thinking to himself (as we all have at one time or another) why didn’t I just stop talking!
 
The scene with Martha also continues on long enough for her to misspeak. Despite her confession that Jesus is the Messiah, and her hearing Jesus say your brother shall live, when Jesus asks the crowds to remove the stone from Lazarus’ tomb, Martha interjects: Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days. Like Peter not comprehending that Christ’s Messiahship will lead to his death, Martha does not grasp that since Jesus is the resurrection and the life, her brother will rise today. Understanding that Jesus is the Messiah doesn’t necessitate comprehending all that this implies.
 
What do we learn then, from Martha? The first is we can get it wrong. Like Martha, each Christian is able to speak one sentence filled with wise and profound reflections on the nature and significance of God, and then speak a second which completely misses the mark. We are all of us theologians (in that we think and reflect on God and the world in relation to God) and all of us are prone to misspeaking (often in a way common to Peter and Martha, by downplaying or dismissing the surprising and mysterious character of our God).
 
The second lesson is better, which is that the first lesson doesn’t matter all that much. Whether it is Peter trying to get in the way of Christ’s mission, Martha doubting the power of Jesus’ resurrection life, or Mary stopping short of asking Christ for anything, none of this changes who God is and what God is up to. Jesus’ response to Mary’s silence and Martha’s confusion is the same – he raises Lazarus from his tomb.
 
We do not have to get our speech right about God in order for God to move toward us in love and call us into the work of creation, restoration, and reconciliation. For God’s nature is love, and God’s call is undeterred by human folly. We give thanks that no human blunder can overcome the purposes of God. We can overstay our welcome, singing way too many songs and it won’t change God’s affection for us, nor our calling to follow in Christ’s stead.
 
Which means that learning to recognise and reflect on the nature of Christ, to enter into dialogue with Christ and seek to speak rightly of God is not a means toward an end. It is not that getting the right words in the right order unlocks God's affection or action. No, it is an end in itself. For theology, the sublime thought on God, is its own joy, comfort, and delight. To reflect on how to shape our lives as God’s ambassadors of reconciliation is its own way of entering deeper into the mystery of God. To learn how to proclaim, in our own idiom, Christ as Lord is to luxuriate in the wellspring of life. Martha demonstrates that even when we don’t get it perfect, recognising the significance of Christ, opens up wonders of dialogue and devotion that draw us nearer the resurrection and the life.

Readings, Luke 10: 38-42 and John 12:1-8
 
In 1973 the National Gallery of Australia purchased Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles, for A$1.3 million dollars. At the time, this was the highest price paid for any American work of art, and the most spent by an Australian gallery on a single work. As you can see from the headline above, it wasn’t a universally celebrated purchase. Conservatives decried this as an out-of-touch extravagance – a small fortune for some drips and drops. While some progressives grumbled that the new gallery should prioritise purchases from Australian artists.
 
Over time, however, the purchase proved popular. It is the most viewed piece in the gallery, and is now valued at something like $500million. Interestingly, in 2016, when its worth was appraised at a mere $350M, Victorian Liberal Senator James Paterson suggested selling it to pay down the national debt. A call widely decried even by members of his own party, reflecting the paintings contemporary status as a national treasure. However, even if this shift in opinion were not the case, the controversy points to the tension that can emerge when efficiency is played against aesthetics, when an experience of beauty is asked to justify itself in economic categories. 
 
Twice a devotional act of Mary of Bethany is challenged by someone invoking the language of practicality and economy. Her decision to sit at Jesus’ feet, awash in his wisdom, is challenged by her sister Martha who insists that her presence would be more impactful in service and hospitality. Then, Mary’s decision to lavish Jesus’ feet with perfume is challenged by Judas, who insists that her present would be more impactful as charity to the poor.
 
Putting aside Judas’ intentions, which were not entirely philanthropic, what is interesting about these tensions is that they are not black and white, not clear cut good and bad. For the scene with Martha follows the parable of the Good Samaritan which contrasts the apathy of religious leaders, with the hospitality and care of the Samaritan. Martha is performing the very act of welcome that the disciples and Jesus rely upon in their mission. She is a forerunner to the diaconal ministry established in the book of Acts. In short, she is doing what has already and will continue to be celebrated as the proper posture of a follower of Jesus.
 
Similarly, across the teachings of Jesus his urging of the wealthy to give what they have to the poor are legion, the commendation of the widow’s offering is prominent, and the way into the kingdom of heaven for the rich is poetically narrow. So, the instinct to redistribute to the poor what is undoubtably a luxury is hardly unchristian. It is the very attitude which will mark the idyllic picture of the early church where all things are held in common.
 
And yet, in both scenes, Jesus defends Mary. Her acts of devotion are applauded for displaying proper understanding of what is before her; that is, a proper vision of Jesus. To Martha, Jesus commends Mary’s capacity to see the one amidst the many, the better among the good. To Judas, Jesus commends Mary’s capacity to see the end amidst the middle, to cling close while time remains. Mary of Bethany is exemplary in these scenes not because devotion is always preferrable to service, nor is lavish ritual always privileged over charity. All of these are Christian virtues. No, Mary is exemplary for her ability to see what is required; an ability all the more precious given the ire (then, as now) that can be poured out on those who choose the less efficient, measurable, or immediate of these Christian virtues.
 
For today, perhaps more than any other era in the church (or, to modify that a little… more than any recent era in the western church) the decision to pour resources on either quiet or lavish devotion will quickly draw detractors. The decision to sit and listen, ponder and wonder, reflect and consider without being able to demonstrate the utility and purpose of such an act is already suspect and often diagnosed as naval gazing or speculative distraction… how much more so when there are meals to prepare and guests to welcome? So too the direction of resources to lavish and extravagant ritual and worship is already quickly met with cries of decadence and irresponsibility… how much more so when there are the hungry to be fed and the unhoused to be sheltered?
 
And yet as so profoundly put in the opening question of the Westminster Catechism, which asks (in the unfortunately gendered language of the time):
What is the chief end of man?
Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Quiet and lavish acts of devotion, such as those displayed by Mary, are indispensable means by which we glorify and enjoy God. They are indispensable from the life of the believer; indeed, they are indispensable from life. Even and especially in times such as these we need to empower and celebrate the quiet and the beautiful, the abundant and the meditative, the superfluous and the pretty. We shall not live by bread alone, but roses too.
 
Mary’s anointing of Jesus is an act of wanton abandon. She pours out an entire bottle of this most expensive perfume such that the fragrance fills the house. And as intense as this would have been, fragrances (even those as elaborate as this) fade. Over time the more mundane scents of the daily household would return, and no trace of this moment would be left. Hardly and effective or efficient act, entirely unable to be preserved or replicated. And yet we know that there is a profound link between the olfactory and memory. And so the act lives on, repeating itself through sense and memory. Indeed, in Mark’s version of this story, the virtue of the lavishness of this act of devotion is explicitly entrusted to the memory of the church, as Jesus decrees: wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.
 
And so today we remember Mary of Bethany, and learn from her example to see when the time is right for acts of quiet and lavish devotion even when there are legitimate needs at our door. In doing so we give thanks for Christians across the life of the church who have similarly turned their attention, time, and passions to bequeathing to the church beautiful, lavish, and superfluous things: music, gardens, art, fabrics, and rituals. And, at the same time, we lament that too often the inequalities in society and the church have prohibited so many from being able to glorify and enjoy God in quiet and abundant ways. We lament most acutely that so many of the beautiful and sublime gifts the church inherits were built with so much stolen labour, with so many stolen resources, and on so much stolen land.   
 
And yet we do nothing to redress this past if our response to such irreparable history is to give over completely to the vision of economic efficiency and pragmatic programming. What is needed instead is to order our lives together so that that chief end of humanity might be pursued by all. To say it another way, we learn to make room for ourselves and each other to see when it is time to simply sit at Christ’s feet in quiet adulation, or when it is time to pour out our gifts on Christ’s feet in lavish appreciation. There will always be more chances to serve and welcome weary travellers, to generously give to those in need. But if we clamp down and criticise every act of devotion that cannot quickly demonstrate its utility and impact, then we not only stifle the ways we might – in the present – glorify and enjoy God, but we rob the church to come of those wonderful gifts that might appear irresponsible, just drips and drops, but come to be received in the church’s memory as fragrances filling our rooms as signposts of the joy and wonder that come when we sit in the presence of Christ.

Readings, Song of Songs 8:5-7, 13 and Mark 16: 9-14
Image, Graham Sutherland, Noli me tangere, 1961. St. Mary Magdalene Chapel, Chichester Cathedral, England.


If you read enough fiction you’ll likely come across a book with a nested narrative, or nested narrator. That is, the story in the book is narrated by someone found within the book. Sometimes these are called matryoshka books, after the dolls, where further and further layers of narration are revealed. Frankenstein for instance, features the narration of Walton, who records the narration of Victor Frankenstein, who recounts the narration of his creation, who narrates his secret observance of a family. Recently, filmmaker Wes Anderson adapted Roald Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which begins with one character finding and then reading an essay written by a man who learnt to see through cards.
 
Layers upon layers, these books fold in on themselves, obscuring the authorial voice with which we began. It is an old device, used for many effects, not least of which is to undermine the trust of the reader, to remind us that this tale might just happen to be tall. And while a story like this elicits certain pleasures in questioning the veracity of the details which slips through the sands of multiple voices, it is another thing entirely to hear a story directly from one of your friends, a fellow disciple of Christ and say “nah, I’m not going to believe that.”
 
Mary Magdalene is a disciple of some significance in the latent Jesus movement. In the Gospel of Luke, she is consistently listed first among those named women followers and funders of Jesus’ ministry; signalling her leadership within the group. Her significance is heightened through the Passion narrative, where she (with some of the other women) remains near Jesus through his crucifixion and burial.
 
And then we reach the scene of the resurrection. In all the gospels Jesus appears first to Mary and the women. In Luke it is to a small group (with Mary Magdalene named first), in Matthew it is just two (Mary Magdalene and the other Mary), in Mark the young man proclaims Christ’s resurrection to Mary Magdalene, the other Mary and Salome, with an additional scene (which we heard) with Jesus speaking directly to Mary Magdalene. And in John it is Mary alone who sees the empty tomb and has the first encounter with the resurrected Christ, that beautiful, tender scene we read on Easter Sunday where she takes him for the gardener until he speaks her name.
 
And each of these encounters is accompanied with the commission to proclaim his resurrection to the other disciples, huddled away in fear. For this reason, Mary Magdalene has been decorated in the church as the “apostle to the apostles,” the one entrusted with the first easter message, the first Christian to proclaim Christ as the crucified and risen one. Like that figure in the Song of Songs, she is coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved. See, she comes, with Christ set as a seal on her heart, on her arm. See, she comes to them with love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. See, she who dwelt in the garden, Christ’s companions are listening for her voice…
 
And yet, like the narrator nested four-deep in a fantastical novel of tall tales, she is heard, but not believed. In Luke, the disciples treat the words as an “idle tale,” while in this longer ending of Mark, Jesus upbraids his disciples for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they did not believe those who saw him after he was risen.
 
It is a rather satisfying passage really. A little vindication of Mary’s authority and testimony, coupled with a scolding of those far too quick to dismiss her for telling them exactly what Jesus had told them would happen. Unfortunately, for Mary, what happened to her by the church to come was arguably far less kind and received no such direct rebuke.
 
Mary was quickly conflated with other unnamed women in the gospels (such as the sinful woman of the city who anoints Jesus, or the woman caught in adultery). This created a tradition whereby her demons are associated with prostitution and sexual sin. This image weaves its way into popular culture, where – whether in Jesus Christ Superstar or The Da Vinci Code – Mary’s significance is reduced to her erotic attachment to Christ. Sloppy as such scholarship is, its arguable her example was most debased not through any direct attack on her character, but in the systematic ostracising of women from the preaching and leadership of the church. What could be a more dismaying example of her denigration than the church’s efficient action to make the first woman apostle the last, ensuring that after one woman proclaimed this first easter Sunday message the rest should fall silent?
 
What might we learn then, from this second Mary in our series? Well, first, that like those nested narratives, the story of Jesus is – from the beginning – entrusted to human witnesses. His victory is entrusted to narrators of the gospel (apostles and disciples) who are not confined to any one group. From the beginning those called to proclaim the good news and lead the church are drawn from ranks spanning the categories of gender, class, age, and ethnicity. The story of the gospel is no more suited to one language, accent, or timbre, no better belonging to men than women, the free than the slave, the educated than the non, the one who believed because they saw than those who later heard. All who have encountered the risen Lord, are in turn sent to proclaim this good news.
 
And yet, at the same time, we cannot dictate the reception of our proclamation, nor what memory we leave. This does not excuse us from proclaim good news of great joy. We are each of us sent, simply to witness to the resurrection, and the reception of such witness is out of our control and so out of our concern – we simply trust that our calling is true, and Christ is risen. In this way, as is evoked in the refrain “let me hear it” from the Song of Songs, the primary audience of our proclamation is Christ himself: proclamation is doxological.    
 
We also learn, perhaps less from Mary as exemplar, as those around her as cautionary tales, not to clog our ears to the proclamation of good news by those we consider less fit to bear and deliver it. We must be on guard against prejudice, privilege, and preference which clouds our judgment and misguides our gut. This, I think, is of especial importance when we, like the disciples, are “mourning and weeping.” It is that much more difficult to hear the word of resurrection when we are struggling with the fact that something has died. So much harder to embrace the promise of new life when we are mourning that something which buried will not return as it once was. Words of new life, sightings of resurrection, glad tidings of great joy are proclaimed around the church, but if we are so consumed by narratives of death and decline, we find them too easy to disbelieve. Perhaps, sadly, we choose to disbelieve the word of resurrection because that would require us to admit something has indeed died, and that what comes in its place appears in a form at first unrecognisable.   
 
Mary Magdalene, like Mary the mother of Jesus last week, sets an example of discipleship. She followed Jesus through his life, remained with him at his death and burial, and returned to his tomb. And though she came to prepare a body for death and decomposition, she recognised the new life of the resurrection and reoriented her comprehension of the world, taking hold of her commission and rushing forth to proclaim the risen Christ to those in need of good news. She may not have been believed, and her memory might have been maligned, but in the end such shall fade away. For the disciple’s worth is found not in the esteem of the world, or even the church. Rather it is found in Christ, who meets us in the gardens of our mourning and weeping, our loss and woe, with love stronger than death, passion fiercer as the grave and commissions us to narrate him to the world:
O you who dwell in the gardens,
My companions are listening for your voice;
Let me hear it

Readings, John 2:1-12 and John 19:25b-30
Image, Benny Andrews, Portrait of Black Madonna (1987)

These are first and last great signs of Jesus’ glory in the Gospel of John, and his mother Mary is interwoven in both. Indeed, we might say not only interwoven, but – as is the case with the first – integral to its beginning, and – in the case of the latter – foundational to what will follow. But let’s go back further to find a starting point.
 
Mary is Jesus’ first teacher. Like many a parent, she teaches the child those basic things of life, the elemental building blocks of being a person. And like parents who live religious lives, she would have also taught Jesus things basic to the life of faith, wrapping the rhythms of their daily life around God’s stories, festivals, and rituals. She would have imparted and impressed those basic building blocks of being part of the people of God.
 
And yet, she was also a parent with a specific commission. She was called by God to bear the saviour of her people, to carry Emmanuel in her body and lead him into life. And she was entrusted to instruct Jesus in this commission, teach him what she had been taught, make his what she proclaimed in song while he grew in her womb. It is she who would have imparted those words of the shepherds she treasured in her heart, those words of Simeon that brought blessing and dread, those words of Gabriel which reoriented her life.
 
Who better than she, then, to prompt Jesus to act – to bring about the hour at which his ministry began, the hour at which his glory shall begin to be revealed. Who better than she, to issue the imperative by which followers of Jesus shall live: Do whatever he tells you.
 
Mary is thus not only a paradigmatic disciple – one who receives with vigour the command of God and allows it to reshape the direction of her life. But she exemplifies the task of Christian teaching and instruction; especially of the young. She takes up eagerly the task laid before her to instruct her child in the wisdom of God, and the task and commission laid before him. And she takes this on with such enthusiasm and authority that she can take the prerogative to come before the world’s redeemer and say, it is time to begin.
 
From this beginning, until the bitter end, she remains by Jesus’ side. We read in that upon the cross he looks down and uses a few of his remaining words to say to his mother, Woman, here is your son, and to the disciple he loved, here is your mother. And while we can be moved by this as an act of filial devotion, to remain there lessens the lesson on offer.
 
Jesus, in both these stories refers to his mother as woman, signalling not the unimportance of her relation to him and specific role in God’s plan, but pointing through to the most important role one can play: that of a disciple. Who are my mother and brothers, Jesus famously asks of the crowds, Those who hear the word of God and do it… and while this is sometimes read as a rebuke to those who would pay particular attention to Mary, we are better led to recognise that who among the gospels characters more perfectly performs the word of God than Mary the mother of Jesus?
 
Such a lesson is repeated elsewhere, where a woman shouts to Jesus, Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you, to which Jesus responds, Blessed rather are those who hear the word and obey it. Again, the lesson is not to find here a dismissal of Mary in the shaping of our faith, but to direct the eye at where that significance is found.* It is not, as if, Mary’s womb is blessed in abstraction, that the breasts which nursed Jesus are holy simply for that act. No, Mary is to be celebrated and emulated, chiefly because of those traits which we might replicate. It is not her womb that we aspire, but the example she sets as one who heard the word and obeyed. Who said to the angel, I am a servant of the Lord, and took the risk of bearing the world’s scorn, in order to bear God. Blessed is she who heard the word and obeyed, who taught the saviour of the world, and accompanied him as sign by sign he revealed his glory.
 
Which leads us back to the foot of the cross, and those last words of Jesus. Here Mary, while remaining Jesus’ first family is also first in his new family, created by the Word to be his body, the church, a further sign of his glory. She receives a Spirit of adoption from the one she birthed. A mother given to a friend, the beloved to a mother and in this they become family to each other – not by blood but by the Word, bound only by commission and obedience. It is in this same way that we are given to one another as family in baptism – siblings of Christ, and kin to one another.
 
Mary, unlike so many of the disciples, does not depart from Jesus, even when there is so much risk and grief. It is this discipleship which is recognised, the same discipleship she displayed when the angel came, practiced when she taught Jesus, and exercised when she told him to make new wine. It is this discipleship that makes her favoured, blessed, and worthy of calling into the new family of Christ. For it is this kind of discipleship by which the church shall extend into all the world preaching the spirit of adoption.
 
Her discipleship, which we call blessed, is at least part (if not the significant part) of what we take from the life and witness of the first Mary in this series. And if we are to attempt to emulate her example, we must draw on the same strength on which she drew. She, like we, become disciples in the knowledge of God’s presence and promise to look on us as favoured, lift up the lowly and fill the hungry with good things. The strength to stay by Christ’s side through the glory and the bloodshed is built on the trust in the great things God has done. The humility and grace to become a family established at the foot of a cross is fed by finding in the simple things a holiness most profound. In Christ we have received a spirit of adoption, made children of God, and when we consider what it means to live in light of this great joy and responsibility, we take as an example Jesus’ mother; who heard the word of God, bore him in her womb, led him by the hand, and followed him all the days of her life.

​--
*My thanks to Dr Ali Robinson for this insight.

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.