Readings, Psalm 8 and Luke 18:9-14
Image, Salvador Dali, Confession (1960) Woodcut 
 
We could make the case that, at least at first, the Pharisee in the parable does little wrong. His first line of the prayer, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, could, resemble a common refrain in the life of faith: “there but for the grace of God go I.” At the heart of our prayer life – particularly for those of us who have some material comfort, who are not looked at with derision by the pious and the privileged – ought to be a humility born of our understanding that should we have been dealt a different hand, it would be very easy for our life to be otherwise. If we had been born into a warzone. If we had been raised in a household of neglect. If we had been born into a marginalised community. If we had a bit more bad luck, a few less opportunities, a bit less positive reinforcement, a few less positive role models, a few more burdens laid on us too young. Any number of things, we admit, could have left us a lot less stability in the self and comfort in life, facing instead one ripe with struggles and sparse with choice. Such an admission is essential to our self-understanding and prayer, less we confuse and conflate worldly comfort and esteem with moral purity, and material struggle with character flaw and immorality. When we see neighbours and strangers struggling against the forces of the world, struggling with addiction, poverty, violence, and trauma, one could be like the Pharisee and pray, I thank thee God, that I am not as others are… not because we were so wise and goo, but because we got lucky.
 
Unfortunately, it seems this is not the way the Pharisee intends it. For in uttering the following: I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess – the Pharisee is claiming that the reason he is not like others is because of his piety, moral strength, religious devotion. He looks at what good has befallen him not as something which leads him to gratitude and humility, but as that which justifies himself before God (and in spite of others).   
 
In contrast, the tax collector benefits from brevity; a simple, true statement. Striking his chest, as many Christians still do today in the mea culpa, he says only: God be merciful to me a sinner. He considers no one else, nor seeks to evoke comparison with someone worse.
 
Clearly, this gets it right, he is the one who goes down to his house justified. Obviously, we would like to locate ourselves in his camp. But it is perhaps not so easily done – or, full admission – I do not find it easy. It takes a lot of trust to let this be the first, and perhaps only thing we say of ourselves. To resist all impulses to justify and equivocate, to slip in an addendum to our confession. Yes, Lord, I have sinned… of course, yes, a sinner I… but remember I didn’t do that thing, and this week I did less of the other… oh, and remember that good deed, that kind thought… and also, well I’m not like them.
 
It's not easy, we might say it is hardly natural. After all we’ve been taught to make a good impression – that even asked about our weaknesses in a job interview our answers are best couched as hidden strengths (work too hard, care too much, I can be a perfectionist, perhaps too ready to allow middle managers to take credit for my work). Are we willing to let this be the first, and perhaps the final thing said about ourselves in front of the mercy seat of God? To not seek judgment on a curve against the ‘real’ sinners but stand in the stark, unflattering light and recognise our absolute dependence on God? Not easy indeed.
 
And are we willing and ready to let this be the first and perhaps final word that is said of other things we would like to justify, those we would like to offer a few words to their credit to hopefully balance the scales or improve them by comparison? Because when we come to speak of Christians of the past, or the church in other times, there can be a real nervousness to let the sin be spoken, to name their misdeeds and attitudes as sinful. We can be quick to reach for those justifications again – yes, they did that, or yes, they were participants in that, or no, they didn’t speak against it, or sure, they profited from it, but they at least didn’t do… or they weren’t as bad as others… or how could they have known that it was bad?
 
But like ourselves standing in the courts of God, the church is first and foremost the church in confession. The church which understands all too well its propensity for falling prey to worldly value systems and the lure for power. The church is community seeking to turn back, to resemble more, to follow closer. And to be that we need to be willing to confess without reserve that while those before us handed on the beauty, wonder, and meaning of the message, they also fumbled, harmed, erred and require the mercy of God. 
 
Now, maybe you’ve been finding this a little bleak. A little morose to press again and again that, like the tax collector, we need to be ready to let the first and perhaps final word said about us (or the church) before God be have mercy on me, a sinner. Yes, we might recognise that this is vital in fostering humility, in keeping us from judging and condemning our neighbour, in reminding us of our dependence on the grace and mercy of God, and need to restore what has been broken. All that’s good, but is it good news? Well, this is a sermon, and what kind of sermon would it be if we did not proclaim some good news, and we begin to proclaim some good news with the words of Jesus that close out this parable: for every one that exalteth themself shall be abased; and they that humbleth themself shall be exalted.
 
You might have found yourself in a conversation at work, church, school, even around a family table, and there’s an opening for you to share something you’ve done of which you are proud, some achievement or milestone. You’re thinking about blurting it out, but are worried how it might come across, and then someone else says, “you know, Liam just did this cool thing…” “or Liam’s great at that, ask him.” And while there is nothing wrong with speaking up for ourself in a moment like this, sharing something we’re proud of or worked hard for, it feels great when someone does it for us, when someone else says more about us than we would have hazarded to say for ourself. And that’s where we come to the good news, because when, like the tax collector, we only hazard to say of ourselves, have mercy on me a sinner, this is not all that is said about us: for those who humble themselves will be exalted.
 
Christ has determined to be for us and for our freedom. Christ has chosen in grace to share with us all that was his by righteousness. In Christ’s victory we have not been given a spirit of fear in order to fall back into shame, but a spirit of adoption: we have been made children of God, siblings with Christ, co-heirs with the Son. We, who have been taught to pray for forgiveness, taught to seek mercy, are also those the psalmist reminds us have been made but a little lower than God, crowned with glory and honour.
 
In so many ways this sermon has gone in the wrong direction, speaking first about the need to confess with simplicity and brute honesty, and then only now about all that makes it possible. The better way to go is to say, because God has already said of us: beloved, child, redeemed, cherished, honoured, we are able to say: have mercy on me a sinner. Confession is only truly possible in the full reality of Christ’s generosity, grace, and love. Confession takes its proper place within the unfailing, unending love of God, amidst the delight and kindness of God. That is to say, if you are struggling with confession they trick isn’t to focus more on your sin, or wallow in your guilt. Rather if you are struggling with confession that fix comes through delighting further in God’s love and grace, focusing more on Christ's abundant care. For it is when we grasp that we have already received the spirit of adoption, already been brought in under the umbrella of grace, then we are able to come in freedom, trust, and confidence to the courts of God and offer our confession. Only in the knowledge that in Christ we have already been justified, can we resist the impulse to try and justify ourselves. We are able to offer the word of confession because we are already assured of forgiveness, we are able to be humble because we are exalted in Christ’s word of grace. We can say sinner, because Christ has already and will always say so much more wonderful and divine things about us, than we could ever possibly hope to muster.

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.  

Reading, Luke 11:1-13
Image, Mario Sironi, Untitled (Man opening door), 1932
 
I wonder if you can recall a prayer you were taught? Perhaps in church, or as a child, or elsewhere? I can recall the start of the bedtime time prayer I was taught by my parents as a child. Dear God, please surround this house, my dreams, and my thoughts – an understandable beginning for a child nervous of bad dreams or the dark, then it continued, and please help the people in Third World countries and the poor to get the things that they need. An appropriate move, from ourselves to the world… but over time, I can remember adding my own bit that came after this… and please help me to get the things that I want. Child Liam had aspirations of his own alright. He had prayed for the poor to get the things they needed, but then didn’t have many material needs himself… but there were things I wanted – a new cricket bat, for instance – and why shouldn’t God help me get that. You can see the need to be taught to pray, left to our own devices, it can take some squirrely twists.  
 
We spoke a couple of weeks ago, in reference to the parable of the Good Samaritan, that the characters we relate to in stories of the Bible can shift with time. As our own experiences accumulate, we come to have new things in common with the experiences of others in the story. This week, in coming to this very familiar passage, I had my own experience of new found identification.
 
Jesus, in order to illustrate his point on the willingness of God to hear and respond to our prayers, tells this little parable.
Let’s say one of you has a friend and comes to him in the middle of the night and says to him, ‘My friend, lend me three loaves, since a friend of mine has dropped in on me after a journey, and I don’t have anything to put on the table for him.’ So the other answers from inside by saying, ‘Don’t bother me! My door is locked already, and my children are in bed with me. I can’t get up and give you anything.'*
In past readings, I thought of the man in bed lacked hospitality; being either too lazy or committed to his cosiness to respond to the need of a neighbour. Reading it this time I have newfound sympathy for the man in bed. I very much now identify with the freezing terror that strikes a parent when any loud noise risks waking children only recently gone to sleep, I know viscerally the tension that comes over in the body when any wrong move could wake those dozing next to you. I can feel the stress of seeing sleeping bodies between you and the edge of the bed and know that the list of things able to motivate me to crawl delicately over a sleeping kid is infinitesimal.
 
And yet, to the chagrin of the man in the bed, Jesus details how, the sheer shamelessness of the one knocking overcomes all fear and bargaining and forces the man inside to climb over children and out of bed, to give his neighbour everything he needs. And this, Jesus explains is the point. That if the motivation we assign to a new parent scared to wake their child is not enough to refuse a persistent request, how much more likely and gladly would God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.
 
I used the phrase sheer shamelessness before. This comes from Sarah Rudden’s translation of the passage, and I like it because “persistence” feels a little too neutral to describe the actions of the knocking neighbour. Because there is a kind of brazenness, a distinct lack of good sense or respectability in hearing someone say, I can’t help you as I am in bed with my children and then deciding, you know that this situation calls for, louder knocking!
 
But sheer shamelessness is appropriate not only in discussing the behaviour but also in emphasising what Jesus is teaching us about prayer. That is to say that Jesus is instructing those in his care to pray to God with shamelessness. Jesus has just taught his followers to pray Our Father, that is to say, to pray for God with the boldness, intimacy, and directness of children speaking to a parent, to pray as those who are not only Christ’s followers, but as his siblings (co-heirs as Paul will later write). And having taught this posture of prayer, Jesus encourages us to pray not with timidity, not with respectability, not with the genteel politeness properly befitting a neighbour knocking on a door at night, but with the sheer shamelessness of one who needs not even consider the possibility of being turned away. Pray, Jesus says, in the spirit of a child who barges into their parent’s room at any hour of the night and hops up on the bed. Be shameless in your boldness and call out to the God of the universe as you would a loving parent.
 
Now readers of this passage have often got caught up on the line, For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. It’s a passage that can cause particular trouble and pain for anyone who carries the burden of unanswered prayer (no less cause havoc to a child thinking God should give him everything he wants). Does it not seem, that if the man would get out of bed to share some bread, God should not respond to our cries for healing, restoration, peace, and change? But the end of the passage makes clear what it is Jesus is referring to as the proper object of our asking, seeking, and knocking. If you are willing to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.
 
In teaching his followers to pray, Jesus instructs us to take up the boldness of beloved children of a trusted and generous parent and ask for the Holy Spirit to be poured out upon us. With the Spirit we receive the Spirit’s gifts, with the Spirit’s gifts we can bear the Spirit’s fruit, with the Spirit’s fruit we are prepared to hallow the name of God and seek first the kingdom of God, we are able to forgive sins and experience the forgiveness of God, we are able to persevere through trial and serve our neighbours in their own.
 
So friends, embrace the sheer shamelessness of those unconcerned with waking children, and pray with the boldness of beloved children of the Father and siblings of Christ, pray as those to whom the Spirit and her gifts shall never be withheld. In this posture we pray, and in this power we walk. Thanks be to God.   

--
* The Gospels, a new translation by Sarah Rudden (Modern Library, 2021). 

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

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

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

Readings, 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, 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, Psalm 130 and John 6: 35, 41-51
Image, Twilight in the Wilderness, Frederic Edwin Church (1860)

Let us consider the wilderness generation, those who received the manna from heaven and followed God for forty years. A generation passing away beneath the pillar of smoke by day, and fire by night. In one reading, this is a tragedy. Those who saw the sea part and sung the songs of deliverance on freedom’s shore, who saw the holy mountain and heard the covenantal promise, nonetheless display such distrust and division that they would never see the promised land. Sin destines them to wander until each member of that generation is buried in the dust. Only when the new census is taken, and not one name recorded at the mountain of God remains, shall the nation reach the promised land. Clearly a tragedy.
 
However, there’s another reading.* Despite their failings, and the judgment brought upon them by their mistakes, God, in steadfast love, gifts this generation an unparalleled privilege. For this generation pass their years receiving their daily bread from God. Each day the manna and the quail from heaven – never enough to store, but always enough to eat. Forty years as pilgrim people, freed from tomorrow’s worries: life in the benevolence of God. With the future all but closed off, they waded in the waters of God’s presence until their rest. What other generation has lived in such times as these, fed from the hand of God, falling to sleep beneath the stars of God’s creation and the fire of God’s presence? They may perish before seeing the promised land, but they lived within the nurturing sphere of God’s grace, a devotional walk, uninterrupted by the demands and distractions of daily life. In this reading the wilderness generation prefigure what John refers to as eternal life, that life lived fully attuned to the presence and promise of God, that life which begins now and reaches perfection in the age to come, that life of abundance which Jesus came to gift to all.
 
I am the bread of life, Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Jesus, proclaims himself this very present provision of God. His body descended from heaven to give eternal life, feeding a pilgrim people (as the Basis says) on the way to a promised end. The Christian yearns for a life like the wilderness generation, enveloped by God’s steadfast love and provision. For the church lives in the time-in-between, an Advent people proclaiming Christ’s resurrection while hastening and waiting for Christ’s return. We are those wait for the Lord, more than those who watch for morning. Of course, this future is out of our reach, belonging to God alone, arriving at an appointed time of which not even the angels are privy. Therefore, like that wilderness generation, we live in the perpetual now of God’s grace.
 
This is, in part, why Jesus teaches us not to store up treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume. Do not worry about your life, he teaches, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. The Christian is the one who considers the lilies of the field and in so doing learns to eat the bread of life which strengthens us to strive first for the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness.
 
Now I do not wish to imply that this kind of life is reached with ease. The wilderness generation did not achieve this state of perpetual intimacy with God’s daily provision out of their piety. Their life was gifted to them after their many errors. So too, we do not achieve sparrow like bliss through gritted teeth, we do not simply decide to stop worrying. These are gifts given out of God’s steadfast love, Christ’s abundant grace, and the Spirit’s freedom.
 
And yet, even though this kind of life cannot be gained by effort, we are called not only to wait, but to hasten. That is to say, while we cannot recreate the conditions by which we might learn to be like the lily, we seek to order the rhythm of our lives together to taste the living bread and seek first the kingdom of God. A rhythm, we might learn (in part at least) from today’s psalm… which begins in the depths. 
 
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
   Lord, hear my voice!
As so many prayers, we cry out when we find ourselves in the depths. Whether the grind of daily life, or those heightened moments of calamity, we begin when we are honest about our situation. Rather than plaster on an image of shiny happy people, we turn to God when we see where we are, acknowledge what has befallen us, and cry out. 
 
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
   Lord, who could stand?
Honesty begets honesty. If we can tell the truth about the depths of woe in our world, we can then tell the truth about our own depths. We can allow ourselves the introspection of Saint Paul, who spoke truly of the human condition when he wrote, I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. This honesty leads to the recognition that our hope is not ground in our possibility of perfection, but in God, in whom there is the forgiveness of sins and the possibility of renewal. 
 
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
   and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
   more than those who watch for the morning,
   more than those who watch for the morning.
We recognise the time in which we live: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. We place our hope in the Word as our soul waits for the Lord to come again in glory and wipe all tears from our eyes, beat the swords into ploughshares, and bring about the consummation of the age when God shall be all in all. 
 
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
   and with the Living God is great power to redeem.
Though we despair, though we sin and fall short of the glory of God, though we wait with anticipation for the day when only love remains, we do so with joyful confidence because out of God’s great love for the world, Jesus was sent not to condemn but reconcile all things to God. In this we know and trust, God’s great power to redeem. 
 
What is notable, is that even at the end of this psalm, even here with the promise of redemption, the psalmist remains in the time of anticipation, even, perhaps, in the depths. Like the generation living beneath the fire of God, they are, after all, still in the wilderness. Like the church today, we remain, after all, in the present age of sin and shame. All this occurs here – there is no account of a reversal of fortunes and little on earth that could be confused with heaven. And yet, in faith and hope we hasten and wait for the horizon where God shall come like the dawn, and a new morning shall break.
 
We do not have to reach the promised land of longed-for inward perfection in order to come and taste the bread of life. We do not need to drag ourselves out of the depths of our own making nor those of the world’s ills in order to experience the eternal life offered in Christ’s own body. We do not need to live with the lightness of the sparrow in order to consider the lilies. A doctor goes to the sick, bread is given to the hungry, and Christ comes to the weary. As our High Priest, familiar with our travails, Christ gives his body to us in our depths – for there is no depth he has not descended – so that we shall not hunger or thirst while we wait for morning. Instead, we are fed by Christ and clothed in God’s righteousness, in order that we may share what we have received with those fellow-travellers crying out from the depths, yet to see the manna in the wilderness illuminated by the fire by night.

* I owe this reading to Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg's Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers ​(Schoken Books, 2015)