Author: Gregory C. Jenks

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St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
Creation Sunday
1 September 2024

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Today we switch from winter to spring, despite the last few weeks seeming like summer.

Today we begin the Season of Creation, which will run from today until early October. More about that in a moment.

Today we also begin two new sets of readings: with the first reading each Sunday coming from the Wisdom literature of the Jewish Scriptures (what Christians call the Old Testament) and the second reading coming from the Letter of James. James is the NT document most deeply grounded in the Jewish wisdom traditions. More about that in a moment as well.

On top of all that, today is also Fathers’ Day!

The wisdom tradition

There are various streams of literature to be found in the Bible, and especially in the Old Testament:

Epic Narrative: an extended and essentially continuous story of the covenant people stretching from the creation of the world to the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE.

Laws: Interwoven with the first part of the epic story of ancient Israel we have materials about the laws that would govern the public and private lives, and especially the religious lives, of the covenant people. The famous Ten Commandments are the classic expression of this stream.

Prophets: Another major stream within the Bible is found in the prophetic writings which essentially call Israel to account for their failure to observe the laws and keep the covenant with God. They were not foretelling events in the distant future, but describing what is about to happen in the cycle of punishment and restoration. There is passion for justice running through these books, and a vision of Israel having a role as a light to the nations.

Songs of the Temple: the Psalms form a major stream in their own right, as they gather up the prayer songs of God’s people over several centuries. We now know that not very long before the birth of Jesus the collection of Psalms was still incomplete. From the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1948 we see that up to Psalm 109 was pretty well fixed, but the final 40 or so psalms had not yet been chosen.

Wisdom Literature: this includes books such as Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. Within the OT Apocrypha we have additional wisdom works, including the Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sira.

It is this final stream from the biblical tradition that we shall be listening to during the next few weeks as we go observe the Season of Creation.

It offers some different perspectives on meaning and truth, and invites us to embrace wisdom wherever it is found rather than sticking to our own religious community.

This may prove to be a very important insight for all humans as we seek to grapple with the climate changes that are reshaping our lives and transforming our futures.

Season of Creation

As mentioned already, from this Sunday until early October we shall be observing the Season of Creation. 

This is a time to renew our relationship with our Creator and all creation through celebration, conversion, and commitment together. During the Season of Creation, we join our sisters and brothers across the ecumenical family in prayer and action for our common home.

This ecumenical and international celebration originated in 1989 when Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I proclaimed 1 September as a day of prayer for creation within the Orthodox churches. 

The World Council of Churches soon adopted the idea for an extended season, extending through September. 

Since then, Christians worldwide have embraced the season as part of their annual calendar. In recent years, statements from religious leaders around the world have also encouraged the faithful to take time to care for creation during the month-long celebration.

The season starts 1 September, the Day of Prayer for Creation, and ends 4 October, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology beloved by many Christian denominations.

Throughout this month-long celebration, the world’s 2.2 billion Christians come together to care for our common home.

Caring for our common home.

We look after our own homes and tend our own gardens, but we have a shared responsibility for the care of all creation.

Both the stories of creation with which the Bible opens agree that humans exist under the providence of God to tend creation.

This commission to be custodians of the planet has mostly been misunderstood as the grant of sovereignty over the plant. This is to misunderstand the meaning of Scripture. The authority bestowed on humans within creation—like the authority exercised by parents—is not power to dominate and exploit, but responsibility to nurture and protect. Like responsible parents duty-bound to care for their children, humans have a responsibility for the wellbeing of creation, not a licence to control, dominate or exploit.

For Anglicans this is expressed in the fifth of our five marks of mission:

To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, 
and sustain and renew the life of the earth

In our parish life and in our homes we are called to do all we can to preserve, sustain and renew this fragile planet we call home.

This is not a distraction from the Gospel, but rather a core element of the Good News.

We are not offering free tickets to escape this world, but rather recruiting people to work with God to restore and protect creation.

We shall be reflecting on this call during these Sundays in the Season of Creation.

As we do that, we shall be encouraged by the Wisdom texts each week to look deeper and to look farther afield for the wisdom we need to care for creation.

Wisdom calls us to her table. If only we have the ears to listen:

Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table. She has sent out her servant girls, she calls from the highest places in the town, “You that are simple, turn in here!” To those without sense she says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” [Proverbs 9:1-6 NRSV]

PNG Martyrs
St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
25 August 2024

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In today’s Gospel—chosen for the festival of the PNG Martyrs—we have a classic piece of spiritual wisdom from Jesus:

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. [John 12:24]

This saying happens to be one of my favourite biblical texts. It has always touched me profoundly.

These words take us deep into the mystery of the truth that Jesus lived, and the truth that we are called to live as well.

To be a solitary and self-sufficient figure—even if we could do that, which mostly we cannot—is to be lonely and pointless. To survive at all costs, might mean that we die without any meaning to our existence at all.

The point of being alive is not to survive, but to serve.

This was a theme to which Jesus and his first followers returned time and again.

Here in John 12 the saying about the grain of wheat is followed by the aphorism about losing life in order to find it. 

Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. [John 12:25]

Those who cling to their own existence, who prize it above all else, find that they lose what they most value. Those who dismiss their own importance and live for others, will find they have saved their own life and—in the process—fashioned a life that is worth having lived.

In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke we find a similar truth to these words from the Gospel of John Jesus calls on his followers to take up their cross. 

This metaphor does not refer to personal hardships, aching backs or broken hearts. It proclaims a terrible truth: that the path to life is only open to those who are willing to die for something bigger and greater than themselves.

Each time we gather at the Table of Jesus this profound spiritual truth is acted out for us: the broken bread, the wine poured out, Jesus’ own life given to us, and through us to others.

It is not hard to see why the lectionary committee chose this passage for the feast of the PNG Martyrs, those seeds that fell into the rich soil of PNG and became a vast number of people claiming their own identity as people of God.

And here we are still a world—and indeed in a church—where the wisdom of Jesus seems to find few ears that are willing to hear in the halls of power.

It was ever thus, of course.

Those who killed Jesus and those who demanded the death of the PNG martyrs, were powerful and privileged in their own contexts.

In our prayers today we especially celebrate the faith and the faithfulness, the courage and the hope, of the martyrs.

 We also pray for a share of the same faith, that same courage, that same hope and that same spirit of solidarity and service.

As a generous faith community in the heart of Ipswich since 1859 we are at our best when we forget about our own survival and spend ourselves for the sake of others.

This morning as we come to the Table of Jesus to receive the life that he gives away for the sake of the world, let’s seek the grace to live for others and not for ourselves.

That is how we best honour the martyrs of New Guinea and how we best serve our risen Lord.

Pentecost 13B
St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
18 August 2024

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At the heart of every faith community there is a symbol of the good life, or perhaps the struggle to overcome evil.

Sometimes there are multiple symbols.

These symbols capture almost without words the essence of our faith.

For some Christians, the ultimate symbol of our faith is the cross. It certainly represents a distinctive and unique aspect of our faith, and is easily recognised as the de facto “trademark” of Christianity. It has parallels in Judaism and Islam, with their symbols of the star of David and the crescent (sometimes with a star).

However, for me as an Anglican, the central symbol is the Table of Jesus; that Table where Jesus is both the host and the menu. The Table—the Altar—is the most prominent and central feature of our church space.

I wonder which symbols speak most powerfully to you and your faith?

In churches where the Table takes precedence over the pulpit or the organ, we are being reminded each time we step inside the church that God has called us to a place at the Table, at God’s Table.

In this understanding of faith, there is a picnic at the very heart of the universe.

Indeed, the whole point of the cosmos is God inviting us to claim our place at the Table

In the ancient book of Proverbs we read these words:

Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars.  She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table.  She has sent out her servant girls, she calls from the highest places in the town, “You that are simple, turn in here!” To those without sense she says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”[Proverbs 9:1-6 NRSV]

The prophet Isaiah imagined God inviting people to a magnificent feast:

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. [Isaiah 55:1-3 NRSV]

In today’s Gospel we hear Jesus—the wisdom of God in human form—inviting people to the meal where he is both host and menu:

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” 
[John 6:35, 51, 54-55, 58 NRSV]

To imagine God as setting a table and inviting us to come and eat together, is to see the world through the eyes of Jesus.

In the time of Jesus, there were strict boundaries around meal customs. Purity rules once designed for the temple in Jerusalem were increasingly applied to everyday life out in the villages.

Jesus broke the rules.

He ate and drank with anyone and everyone.

The shared meal—the open table—was at the very heart of his mission. It was both his message and his program.

He gathered people for meals and in those gatherings around a shared table they discovered forgiveness, healing and new wisdom for everyday life.

The rich and powerful hated it, and they hated him.

Indeed, they killed him because of his radical idea that God was closest when we sit around a table with strangers, rather than when the High Priest offers a lamb in the temple.

So we come to the table of Jesus here today.

It is Jesus who invites us.

The bread we break and the cup we share is a communion in the essence of Jesus. We are fed with his life, we are shaped by his wisdom, we are renewed by his love, we are strengthened by his faithfulness.

As we prepare to reach out our hands to receive the Bread of Life, we say this line from the prayer that Jesus himself gave us:

Give us today our daily bread …

Yes, Lord, give us that bread.

One day at a time—one step at a time—grant us the wisdom, the courage and the grace to be authentic followers of Jesus. 

That is the blessing we seek as we come to the Table of Jesus.