Author: Gregory C. Jenks

Christ Church Cathedral Grafton 
13th Sunday after Pentecost 
30 August 2020 

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This is one of those Sundays when the lectionary offers more than one really attractive pathway for a preacher.

In the Old Testament reading we have the classic tradition of Moses encountering God at the burning bush while in the gospel we have Jesus calling on those who would be his followers to take up their own cross and come after him.

Each of those readings offers us some really good material to work with this morning, but I am going to go with the first reading: Moses and the burning bush.

If the custodians of Saint Catherine’s monastery at the foot of Mt Sinai are to be believed, then I have seen that very bush with my own eyes. During one of several visits to Mt Sinai about 30 years ago, I went into the Chapel of the Burning Bush which is inside the walled compound of the monastery. There inside the Chapel we were shown a small bush growing up against the interior wall and we were told this was indeed the bush through which God had spoken to Moses. When we asked our hosts how the bush came to be growing inside the church building rather than beside a wadi where a shepherd might take his father-in-law’s goats, we were assured that the bush had once been outside but had been trained to grow inside the building by the monks over many hundreds of years. 

I am really not all that interested in the historicity of the exodus traditions including the stories about Moses in the desert prior to his return to Egypt to liberate the Hebrew slaves, and I am even less interested in the pedigree of the little green bush inside the chapel at Saint Catherine’s monastery. 

What does interest me is, first of all, the way that God is spoken about in this story and secondly, the kind of religious experience or perspective which this brief passage in the Old Testament has promoted over the past millennia.

The history of both Judaism and Christianity has been largely a story of people seeking to capture, define, and control how God is best understood and also how God is best experienced. 

We have taken this very seriously. It really mattered to us.

We have written millions of words in theological documents and church liturgies to ensure that there can be no ambiguity about what is expected—whether in belief or action—and no deviation from the approved interpretations of religion. 

Indeed we took this all so seriously that we broke into factions, we persecuted each other, and we even killed each other over differences in theology and prayer.

All this is to our shame and must never be forgotten when we criticise other people for the religious violence to which they are sometimes drawn in our own time. 

Let’s go back to Moses and his amazing combustible shrub, a bush which was ablaze with fire but apparently was not being consumed by the flames.

Even that description, of course, uses symbolic language. We are not dealing with history in this passage, but with one of the most important texts in the western religious tradition. 

The importance of this text is not what it says about Moses but rather what it says about God and about us.

As the story goes, God has a pretty amazing project for Moses to undertake. Moses is to leave his wilderness sanctuary—where he fled to escape the consequences of his own violent rage which caused the death of another person—and he is to go back to Egypt and indeed into the courts of pharaoh no less, to demand the release of the Hebrew slaves.

Again, it’s important to remember but this is a story and not an historical narrative. Leaving aside the fact that Moses is said already to be 80 years of age before beginning his life’s project, it is equally true that he would neither have secured the release of the Hebrew slaves nor evaded incarceration himself had he returned to Egypt. 

So let’s put aside the larger story in the book of Exodus and just focus on this amazing episode in which the character of Moses in the exodus tradition has a life-changing encounter with God. 

First of all, we notice at the outset, that Moses does not even know God’s name.

Actually, none of us know God’s name. This is not to say that we do not have names for God or for “the Sacred,” but is to remind ourselves that we can never know God and in ancient terms, that means none of us know the name or the identity of G*d. 

G*d is always beyond any name.

We can never capture G*d by pronouncing a magic phrase which will bind G*d to wait upon us and serve our desires. That kind of God would be a house elf from Harry Potter on steroids.

Secondly, we notice when asked for a name, G*d evades the question. G*d is not be defined by the past nor constrained by some label in the future.

I AM who I AM
Ehyeh asher ehyeh
I shall be what I shall be

Finally, God gives Moses a name—Yahweh—derived from the same verb “to be” (EHYEH) that was pronounced twice over in the theophany at the burning bush. The meaning of this mysterious new name is to be inferred from the words of revelation which are simultaneously words of evasion, open-ended terms, possibilities beyond our comprehension.

The name which eventually given is not an answer to the question, but an invitation to enter the mystery of who God is, and what God shall become.

This divine freedom is the third thing I want us to reflect upon from this classic story.

When the haunting Hebrew words EHYEH ASHER EHYEH were first translated into koine Greek not long after the time of Alexander the Great—as with every translation of every phrase anywhere at any time—something was “lost in the translation.” 

As these words passed through the filter of Greek language and culture, divine disclosure itself changed as well. Instead of “I AM who I AM” or “I shall be what I shall be.” in the Greek version (the so-called Septuagint), we find: “I am THE ONE who IS”

The focus moved from action to being, from relationship to ontology.

And even that ancient attempt to define God fell short.

In this ancient tale of the Great Encounter—the encounter between a human and the divine—we don’t find a lot of words. Moses is mostly silent as he takes off his sandals to acknowledge that he is in the presence of the G*d beyond all words.

It is good for us to be silent in the presence of the mysterious divine Other.

But we have filled our liturgies with words, words, words.

In many forms of contemporary Western Christianity, it seems that everyone needs to be talking at once and in some places all the time. So much noise. So many words. So little attention to the Sacred Other who will not be defined by any of our words or any of our rituals.

In this pandemic period as our songs are silenced and our actions are more limited, there may be a fresh opportunity to recapture the inner essence of worship.

We are not here to chatter about G*d or assail the heavenly court with lists of requests.

At its best, worship is a time when we discover ourselves to be in the presence of G*d, and practise doing so in order to recognise that same sacred presence outside of worship in everyday life. It may not require many words, and the words used need not be passing our own lips.

Silence is golden.

Use the silences that occur in our Cathedral liturgy to draw close to the G*d beyond all words.

As the cantors sing, rest in your own silence and float on their cadences. The choral pieces are an invitation for us to be still and discern beyond all the noise of our lives that there is a Sacred Other who we can never capture, but who comes to us in Jesus, Emmanuel. Not in words, but in a courageous and compassionate human life.

We can never capture G*d with our words, but in the silence we may allow ourselves to be captured by G*d, the One who will be whatever They wish to be, and chooses to take us into the future blessing as well.

Christ Church Cathedral, Grafton
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
16 August 2020

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It was the rostered day off for Jesus and his team.

They had headed to the coast for a break, near the famous cities of Tyre and Sidon. 

These days they could not get there due to the Israeli border fences, but in those days it seems people could move around more freely. Indeed, I have friends in Palestine who speak of catching the train from Jaffa to Beirut or Damascus to see a show and have a dinner. That was pre-1948, of course.

The geography is just one of the unusual things about this story.

It first appears in the Gospel of Mark (7:24–30), where the woman is correctly described as Syro-Phoenician. Today we would say Lebanese.

Matthew changes her ethnicity and calls her a Canaanite, evoking the hostile attitudes to the indigenous people of Palestine that we find in the Old Testament. That little twist sharpens the dilemma posed by this woman’s request for help.

The visit to Tyre and Sidon also evokes the old traditions (1 Kings 17) about Elijah having been sent to the same region when there was a famine in Israel. He found hospitality, after a hesitant initial reaction, from a widow who—along with her son—was close to death herself.

There is yet another twist to this fascinating tale.

In Jewish traditions from around the time of Jesus (Lives of the Prophets), the widow’s son is none other than Jonah, who had settled in Sidon with his mother, after returning broken-hearted from his all-too-successful preaching campaign against Nineveh. Having ‘failed’ in his wish to see the enemy destroyed—because his preaching was so successful that everyone in town repented (even the cattle put on sack cloth according to the book of Jonah)—he could not bear the shame of seeing the Assyrian capture his land. So he packed up his widowed mother and relocated to the region of Tyre and Sidon, only to have the prophet Elijah come and stay with them for an extended visit. First the sea-monster and now Elijah.

Jonah’s hometown, according to the tradition, was a small village between Cana and Nazareth, modern-day Mashhed. That connection may be why Jesus spoke about needing to pay attention to the ‘sign of the prophet Jonah’ if people were really going to understand him and his mission.

This is starting to sound like Alice in Wonderland …

Whether or not Jesus ever went to southern Lebanon, people of faith like to tease out what God is asking of us by telling stories, connecting stories, reshaping the stories.

We have a meme here.

Prophets from the Galilee understood their mission to be to their own people, but they sometimes found themselves needing R&R in Gentile territories outside the kingdom of Israel.

Elijah finds lodging with a widow from Zarephath near Sidon

The widow is later understood to be the mother of Jonah

In Luke 4 Jesus reminds his hometown crowd that Elijah was sent to the widow at Zarephath and not to any of them; just before they try to throw him off the cliff!

Jesus himself seeks some ‘time out’ in Tyre and Sidon, as Mark says in the original version of this tale:

From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice … (Mark 7:24)

So the runaway prophet meets with a local lady from the region of Tyre and Sidon.

We can almost sense the first-century audience thinking, “Ah, just like Elijah …”

Like the widow that Elijah encountered, this Lebanese mother has a needy child. 

This Lebanese mother has heard that Jesus is a prophet who can heal people.

She finds out where he is staying and disrupts his vacation time!

The prophet … the mother … the sick/dying child …

Yes, we have a meme.

And the disciples are irritated. Send her away, they ask Jesus. But this woman is not for sending away. She has a sick daughter and she believes that Jesus could fix that situation. She will not be shooed away.

Finally, the woman is right there in Jesus’ face … “Help me, Lord!”

Jesus responds with cruel words, harsh words, that offend our ears but invite us to appreciate him as a person of his own time, culture and religion: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

This Lebanese mother has chutzpah, a Hebrew term for extreme self-confidence or audacity. “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

In the original version of the story, found in Mark, Jesus replies: “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” (Mark 7:29)

Matthew seems to feel the need to find some religious basis for Jesus’ agreement to assist her distant daughter, so he reworks the moment this way: “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” (Matthew 15:28)

The temptation for preachers and theologians is to ‘over think’ this scene.

Let’s just stay with the Jewish meme of prophet-goes-to-Lebanon-meets-woman.

Like the car chase scene in a movie, we know how such a meme has to end. In this meme, always people are healed, rescued, kept alive, blessed and transformed.

As we hear this story and as we engage with the ancient meme it reflects, we give thanks for the God who meets us in the guise of other people. Sometimes we are the prophet to them, other times they are the prophet to us. Always God is at work. Always good things are happening. 

Love drives out fear.

Light overcomes darkness.

Compassion trumps religion and tribalism.

And for that we say, Thanks be to God.

Christ Church Cathedral, Grafton
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (A)
9 August 2020

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For our first reading today we have the OT passage about young Joseph. You know, the precocious little guy with the fancy jacket and a fawning father. And the dreams! What an attitude this kid had.

In the Bible the Joseph story stretches across 14 chapters of Genesis: 37 to 50. It comprises about one-third of Genesis and is clearly a major topic of interest for the storyteller.

Our lectionary gives us two small bites of that very large cherry. Today we have the murderous scene where his older brothers conspire to get rid of the dreamer. Next Sunday we have the scene from Genesis 45 when Joseph, now the de facto ruler of Egypt (as if), reveals his identity to the starving men who once plotted to murder him.

We can perhaps understand why the lectionary committee chose those two scenes, but where is spiritual wisdom to be found in such texts?

The lectionary snippets do not do justice to the biblical text.

The selections are usually short and convent, and they do not slow us down too much, but our hearts need more than ‘drive-through’ spirituality .

Worse still, as read in church, they affirm and validate violence and exploitation. By the time we get to the happy ending in Genesis 45, Joseph has already been messing with his brothers’ heads by a series of tricks worthy of both his father and his younger self. It seems he never did gain wisdom.

Sometimes the Scriptures need to be read in lengthy extracts and not consumed as the spiritual fast food that is served up in the lectionary. 

Do yourself a favour and read all 14 chapters of the Joseph story this week. Better still, find someone to read the whole story out aloud so you can hear it being performed and not simply consume the letters on the page.

As you do that, ask what the Spirit is saying to the church—and to me—through a text such as this?

The answers will differ, but let me suggest some that you might come up with.

You may notice—and I think this what the biblical narrator probably wants us to sense—that there is a bigger divine plan beyond our own personal agenda for life, and wisdom consists of ensuring that our lives fit with that plan. I am certain that is what the editor of Genesis had in mind, and it was certainly what the writer of today’s Psalm (Psalm 105:12–22) had in mind.

We might look at that story with all its bad bits, and sad bits and loving bits and notice that God is all to weave all the bits of our lives together so that everything is OK in the end. That’s a Romans 8 kind of interpretation: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

As some people read this story and reflect on it, they will notice how things that could have been disastrous actually end up turning out for good. Indeed, at the end of the story, Joseph says to his brothers: “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.” (Genesis 50:19–21)

Depending on what sort of family you come from, you might take some encouragement from the knowledge that dysfunctional families are actually quite common, quite normal, and even happen in he Bible. This is certainly one dysfunctional family.

You might notice that is also a story about reconciliation of broken relationships. In the end, finally, Joseph and his brothers are indeed reconciled. Maybe that gives us hope when we are living and working with broken relationships.

As you read the whole narrative, you might realise that this is a story not dissimilar to the blowing up of the port in Beirut on Tuesday. This is a story in which the people who live in Palestine, Canaan, have lost their food supply and gone down to Egypt because they have heard there is food in Egypt.These are refugees. These are people who have been hit by a natural disaster and they are going to their neighbours for help. We might wonder whether Australians have an obligation to help our neighbours as they go through tough times; whether that is CVID-19 or wider issues of violence and poverty.

And certainly we would notice, as we read the whole 14 chapters, and perhaps reflected on the experience with a friend, that Scripture is an amazing gift to us and an incredible spiritual asset.

We don’t get that from the fast food drive-through lectionary experience that we typically get in a Sunday morning service.

The meanings that we see in the Scriptures will, of course, be contextual. It always is and it always must be. The meaning depends on who is reading the story, what is happening in their lives at the time and with whom they are reading the story; either actually with them or who they are taking with them in their heart as they read the sacred text.

So I invite you to get into the story of Joseph this week. Not because it is the best story ever told, and not because it actually happened historically, but because it makes up a third of the book of Genesis. It is a really important part of what the Bible has to tell us about wisdom for life, and it is an invitation from God—and from those before us—to think deeply about where we might see God at work in our everyday relationships.