Author: Gregory C. Jenks

Pentecost 5B
St Thomas Church, North Ipswich
23 June 2024

In today’s set of lectionary readings, we are served up two of the all-time best-known stories from the Bible:

• The epic scene where David defeats the Philistine champion with a single slingshot
• Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee

These stories are vivid.

They are much loved by people who design Sunday School curricula.

More than that, they are primal stories that evoke a response deep within us as we hear the stories. This is true even if we have heard the story many times in the past. 

These tales strike a chord.

As with many of the best stories in the Bible, these tales were doubtless told and retold by word of mouth for many years before reaching their fixed written.

Along the way—like any good fishing story—they may have grown a little in the process of being recounted over and over.

Some of the details do indeed seem far-fetched, but they need not distract us from spiritual wisdom that these biblical texts offer us.

For instance, we know that some individuals can be rather taller than most people in a population group. Or indeed, shorter, for that matter. 

Just as modern basketball teams prefer tall players, ancient armies engaged in hand to hand tended to value larger than usual warriors.

Likewise, with the Sea of Galilee. It is actually a medium-sized lake: just 21 km long from North to South, and 15 km wide (from East to West). However, it does sometimes generate wild tsunami like storms. 

A recent tidal surge storm event generated waves up to 5m and caused immense damage to buildings and parklands around the lake. The story in the Gospel of Mark at least preserves an ancient memory that such wild storms can and do occur on this mostly placid lake.

But we are not here to discuss variations in human body heights or tidal surges on the Sea of Galilee.

We are seeking spiritual wisdom for everyday life.

In everyday life we do face giants, and we can certainly feel that we are being swamped by the storms of life.

The first grain of wisdom may be to shift our mindset from engaging with a story in the Bible to a mindset where we engage with God in our own everyday experience.

Being a disciple is not simply knowing stories from the Bible but being familiar with the whisper of God’s Spirit in our own everyday lives.

In the famous story of Elijah fleeing to Mt Sinai after his conflict with the 400 prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel, he discovers that the most powerful expression of God’s presence is not in the strong wind, or the earthquake, nor even the firestorm, but in the still small voice. In fact, the Hebrew of that sentence is very hard to translate. It is more like a sound of sheer silence (2 Kings 19:12).

Maybe—as we walk towards our confrontation with the giants in our own lives—we need to do more than collect a handful of pebbles from the creek. What we actually need is a profound sense of the powerful presence of God that is beyond any words; whether ours or God’s.

Maybe—as we fear that our fragile vessel is about to be swamped by the tidal surges of everyday life—we need more than a memory of a Gospel story from Sunday School. What we do need is a deep confidence that the God who is already aboard our fragile vessel is perfectly able to still the storm, to calm the sea, to bring peace to our soul. 

We just need to ask.

And maybe our most important mission here in the local community is not to tell people about the Bible, but to teach people how to discern the silent presence of The One Who Is.

The unseen God at the heart of the burning bush.

The utter silence of divine love we retreat exhausted from the struggle of life.

The surprising God who chooses a young boy to defeat a warrior giant.

The sleeping Jesus already aboard our fragile vessel.

Peace. Be still.

A sound of sheer silence.

Such a gift.

Such good news.

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The prayer of the day

O God our defender,
storms rage about us and cause us to be afraid:
rescue your people from despair,
deliver your sons and daughters from fear,
and preserve us all from unbelief;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Pentecost 4B
St Paul’s Church Ipswich
16 June 2024

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Aesop the fabled storyteller of ancient Greece may have lived around 600 years before the time of Jesus. He is thought to have been born around 620 BCE and to have died in the holy city of Delphi around 564. So many legends have developed around this character, that it is hard to say for sure just when he lived or to validate the many clever aphorisms attributed to him.

Among the many witty one-liners supposed fashioned by Aesop is the observation that good things come in small packages.

Rather than being a zinger once said by Aesop, this aphorism is more likely the moral of the famous fable—long attributed to Aesop—in which a lion is rescued by a mouse whose life had been earlier spared by the same lion.

Whoever first said that clever phrase, it could also serve as a summary of one message we can take away from our readings this morning.

Samuel anoints David

In the first reading, the prophet Samuel—who has been the key character in the OT reading for the past few weeks—turns up at the village of Bethlehem on mission to identify the person chosen by God to succeed Saul as the ruler of the people of Israel.

As is the way with ancient wisdom stories, Samuel is not exactly totally candid with the people about the reason for his visit.

One by one Samuel considers each of the seven sons of Jesse, thinking one of them will be person chosen by God. The numbers are significant: seven sons, the first three of whom are named in turn. Finally, when questioned directly by Samuel, Jesse admits that he does have another son.

An eighth son is like an extra day in the week. Not to be expected. A new twist in the story, and thus a significant develop in the plot.

We all know the story.

The unexpected son, the child who is too young to be worth even calling to the festival, turns out to be the one chosen by God. He had been left minding the sheep. Overlooked. Dismissed.

Yet, it is David who will be anointed by Samuel. None of the older brothers—each of them impressive in their own ways—turns out to be the one chosen by God and destined for greatness.

The overlooked youngest child is chosen by God and anointed by Samuel.

As the story ends, we are told that “the spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward …” 

The mustard seed

In today’s Gospel reading we have two of the parables attributed to Jesus. Just as Aesop was credited with fables in the ancient world, Jesus is described as a teacher who used seemingly simple stories when speaking with the crowds, but then explaining everything in secret to his inner circle of disciples.

There are 33 unique parables attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, with scholars divided over how many of them really go back to Jesus and which of them were simply attributed to Jesus by his followers.

The parable of the mustard seed is one of the few that almost everyone agrees was first created by Jesus.

Here we have another example of our theme that good things come in small packages.

To express that in slightly different, a small and useless object—in this case the tiny mustard seed—may turn out to be the essential ingredient of success.

As you can see from the photograph of wild mustard plants on the front cover of today’s service booklet, the mustard seed does not grow into a mighty tree. Jesus was making a joke in this parable.

For hundreds of years before Jesus, people had compared the kingdom of God to the mighty cedar trees of Lebanon. These trees were awesome and famous. Indeed, they remain the national symbol of Lebanon.

When trying to explain what the rule of God would be like, Jesus compares it to mustard seed.

When trying to tease out the point Jesus was making in this parable, I like to say that Jesus is referring to the tendency of mustard plants to spread like a weed and take over the garden.

Were he telling this parable today, I suspect Jesus would say, “The kingdom of God is like nut grass!”

One fragment of nut grass—like one mustard seed—can spoil the whole patch. They spread and multiply, until the whole garden—or our carefully manicured lawn—is taken over by the invasive weed.

Our vision of God’s modus operandi

Where do we see God at work?

How do we understand God to operate?

Is God to be seen in the grand gesture and the powerful miracle, or is God to be seen in the subversive presence of love at the heart of everyday life?

Like the prophet Samuel in our first reading, we want to see God in the big, strong and capable people who make an impression on those around them.

Like the audience of Jesus in our Gospel, many of us dream of a time when God’s presence is so powerful that everyone will come to faith and embrace God’s call on their lives; a giant tree where all the birds of the air build their nests.

But maybe we best serve God—and our neighbour—when we focus on the small things that really matter, the small actions that change the world: like compassion, solidarity and justice.

The reign of God comes to be among us one act of love at a time.

Good things do indeed come in small packages.

Pentecost 3B
St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
9 June 2024

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Water, fire and oil

Here at St Paul’s Church in Ipswich this Sunday we are going to start a young girl on a journey that will take the rest of her life to complete.

She is too young to choose this journey or embrace this life, just yet.

But her family appreciates that it is never too early to begin learning the ways of God that we learn from Jesus. 

Just as she will learn to walk with the example, encouragement and support of her family; so she will learn the walk the way of Jesus from them—and from us.

As this new disciple begins her journey as a Christian, we shall use three very ancient symbols: water, fire and oil.

Water

The primary symbol of Baptism is water.

There can be a lot of water or just a small amount, but there has to be some water.

Water is the great symbol of life: clean, fresh and abundant life. 

In the ancient temple at Jerusalem huge amounts of water were poured out at the end of the Festival of Sukkot. The water symbolised their prayers for winter rain to bring new life to their parched land as summer drew to a close.

When an adult is baptised, they are turning away from their old life to embrace their new as a follower of Jesus. The old is flushed away and everything is new, fresh and alive.

We are praying for the waters of baptism not only to renew and revitalise this chid, but also to transform, cleanse and revitalise her family.

Parents, godparents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins and siblings … even her church family here at St Paul’s … we all need the fresh rains to fall upon us and renew the life of Christ within us.

Fire

A dancing flame speaks to us of the great mystery at the heart of our religion.

How do we imagine God?

Fire is one of the best ways to do that.

As we watch the flames dancing around we can catch a glimpse of the God who comes among us, draws us into God’s own life, and gives us the double blessing of light and warmth.

Our fires here this morning are pretty tame, but there are lots of them. There are candles everywhere, and one big candle—the Easter Candle—that represents the risen life of Christ.

We shall take some of the fire from that candle to light a Baptism Candle. 

When we do that the fire is divided, but not diminished; it is shared and increased.

More light.

More warmth.

As we welcome this child into our community of faith we promise to teach her how to tend the fire of God in her own life, so that it never goes out but always sheds light and warmth to those around her.

And we teach that best when we tend the sacred fire within us as well.

Oil

In ancient times the kings of Israel were anointed with sacred oil from the olive groves. We saw that last year when King Charles was anointed with oil brought to London by my friend, Hosam Naoum, the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem.

Priests and prophets were also anointed, and the title “Christ” is given to Jesus because we believe he is the anointed one, the chosen one; christos.

As we anoint this chid, we say that God has chosen her for something that only she can ever do. Out of all the billions of humans who have lived on this planet, the child is called and chosen to be the blessing to the universe that only she can be.

And so are you.

And so am I.

For those who will have an opportunity to bless this little girl with the sacred oil, let me suggest you also make the sign of the cross on your own forehead.

Claim a blessing for yourself as well as giving one to her.

Because God has a blessing for you.

We are each chosen to be that person which only we can ever be.

There are other symbols in this service, so keep an eye out for them as we go along.

But the big three are water, fire and oil.

May this child know the profound blessings that these symbols represent, and we may know them in our own lives as well so that we can make this world more like the way God intends it be.

It’s a big job, but that’s what we sign up for as followers of Jesus.

Pentecost 2B
St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
2 June 2024

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Sometimes stories operate on multiple levels, and that is surely the case with our first reading (1 Samuel 3) today.

• It is a great story for children and has been used in Sunday Schools over many years. Maybe that is where you first came across this story?
• It had a message for adults in the Jewish kingdom of Judah around 600 BCE, as it formed a key role in the argument that the nation should follow religious leaders rather than elevate someone to serve as prince or king (as we shall see in the readings next week). Samuel is set up by the storyteller as a great example of godly leadership, and this episode is part of that political argument.
• It also speaks to us about living as people of faith at a time when faith is not a strong value in the lives of most people.

It is this third level of the story that I want us to focus on this morning.

The reading begins by telling us that “the word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”

That sounds a bit like the world in which we live.

Most people do not expect God to make any difference in their lives. Religion is a small and diminishing attribute in their personal and collective lives.

In our case, this is mostly due to our secular culture in which there is little room for the sacred, and it has been made worse by the tragic history of abuse of children and other vulnerable people by clergy and lay leaders.

These days the idea of a mother surrendering her recently weaned son to be a trainee priest in the temple fills us with horror, rather than admiration. We fear for the safety of the child. We want to see the “blue card” issued to the elderly priest, Eli.

We live in a very different world.

We hear the biblical stories through very different ears.

The spiritual wisdom we seek from these reading today are not about the arrangements for placing young children in the care of elderly priests.

Rather, we seek wisdom for living faithfully in a world where the voice of God seems strangely silent.

1 Samuel 3 offers us some wisdom of that kind, if we have ears to hear and eyes to see.

The clue is in the name of the young boy: Shamuel.

The SHAMU is a Hebrew word relating to hearing, while the EL is the ancient word for God.

Even so, the word is ambiguous. Does it mean “God hears” or is it better understood as “hear God”?

I think the ancient Hebrew storyteller is intentionally exploiting this ambiguity to draw us deeper into the story.

In the earlier story, God hears the prayer of Hannah, the childless woman who will become the mother of Samuel. Indeed, when Hannah names her child, she says his name is Samuel because God heard me.

Hannah is a woman with a lively faith. Her life is not easy, but she pours out her sorrow to God and when the elderly priest offers her a blessing, she takes the promise to heart and in due course brings the young boy back as a gift to God.

Hannah is a unique character in this story.

For her, the word of the LORD is part of her own lived experience.

After she leaves the boy Samuel with Eli the priest, the focus falls on these two male characters. Both are devoted to the service of God. One represents the past, the other represents the future.

Neither expects God to speak to them.

That is the crux around which this story revolves.

When God does speak to Samuel in the night, at first neither Eli nor Samuel realise what is happening.

Eventually—but only after being aroused from sleep for a third time (a good storytelling device)—Eli realises that perhaps God is seeking to communicate with Samuel.

Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” (1Samuel 3:8-10 NRSV)

Now let’s unpack this story a little further in our quest for spiritual wisdom.

Eli is the priest in charge of the temple at Shiloh. He keeps an eye on its operations and is assisted by his sons, who should have become his successors. (That is another story for another day.)

It is a busy parish, er, temple. There was a lot happening. There were people coming for sacrifices, and there were groups of women working in the temple to assist people with the rituals. People came from villages farther way every year, including Samuel’s mother who always brought him some fresh robes as he grew taller.

Good stuff was happening there, but nobody was being given the wisdom to listen to God.

The word of the LORD was rare, and visions were not widespread.

What Samuel needed to become the person God planned for him to be, was to learn how to listen to God.

And what about the people who join us for worship, who come for assistance, who are seeking ways to serve the community, who love to share their gifts of music and song, who volunteer in so many different ways as we celebrated a week ago now?

Like the temple of the LORD in Shiloh this is a busy place.

But are people learning to listen to God here?

Do we teach them how to pray?

Do we encourage time for reflection and prayer in our liturgies?

Yes, we do and for that I am grateful. 

But we can do more as we become better at discerning God’s call on our own life and encourage others to discern God’s call on their lives.

What if the things that St Paul’s Church was most famous for was not our heritage buildings, or our fine music, or our amazing clergy, or our OpShop, or the Sunday afternoon food ministry …

But most of all as a place where people learn to listen to God and say yes to God’s call on their lives.

St Thomas Church North Ipswich
Trinity Sunday
26 May 2024

Today we begin the long series of Sundays after Pentecost.

Between now and the Feast of Christ the King at the end of November we have a long series of Sundays when we explore different aspects of the faith that we share. During these “Sundays after Pentecost” the usual liturgical colour is green: a symbol of life.

We start the series of Sundays after Pentecost with the feast of the Holy Trinity.

One way that I have sometimes described Trinity Sunday is that it provides us with an opportunity to ask ourselves, What have we learned about God from everything that we have been doing since Advent Sunday last year?

Of course, the matching question as we look forward rather than backwards, is to ask: What understanding of God do we take with us as we begin this series of “Ordinary Time” (as our Catholic friends call this series of Sundays)?

On this day last year, I was the guest preacher at Holy Trinity Church, Fortitude valley where I had been inducted as the Rector some 40 plus years earlier. 

Towards the end of that sermon I offered these observations:

Our mission is not to discuss the Trinity, but to live the vision of God—and of humanity—that Jesus both taught and practised.

If people are to glimpse that there may be more to life than gadgets and status—if they are to embrace the call to compassion in everyday life—then they need us to be people who embrace the call of Jesus to imagine a world where God’s dream is realised. 

Our fancy religious words for that are “the kingdom of God” or the “reign of God,” but it is as simple as saying: imagine if the life we live reflected the inner character of God’s own self?

Indeed; imagine that!

We are called to celebrate God as the ultimate reality, the meaning beyond every explanation, and the profound love that calls everything into existence.

Today I would like to unpack those ideas with a slightly different focus.

I want to think about the significance of Trinity for the way we do church, rather than the way we live our own lives.

Of course, those two ideas are related. However, I want to focus on the idea that the Trinity offers us a model for being together and working together as people of God, as disciples of Jesus, as communities of the Spirit.

This insight emerged from a conversation that I was having with Lorraine last Monday morning. There is one brief (or not so brief) time each week when we actually get to sit down and talk about our work as Priests here in the Ipswich Anglican Community.

Most of the time we are too busy running from one task to another. But on Mondays around 10am we stop to talk about what we are doing, why we are doing it, how we might do it differently, and what kind of outcomeswe hope to see.

I indicated that I was not really sure what we are seeking to achieve in the partnership between Ipswich and North Ipswich. 

Are we actively seeking to combine the two parishes into one parish with multiple church centres? (There are several examples of that right here in Ipswich with our ecumenical partners in the Catholic and Uniting Church communities.)

Indeed, I can imagine a time when all three denominations choose to work as one ecumenical partnership, with our several churches simply being different ministry and worship sites within the one Ipswich Christian community.

That would have been unimaginable 100 years ago, and it may be too much for us to imagine right now. But I am guessing that in 100 years time it will be the case.

They will wonder why it took us so long to figure this out.

But back to St Thomas and St Paul.

I wondered out loud whether St Thomas’ Church folk are worried that St Paul’s—or the Diocese—plan to shut them down, sell them off, and take the money?

And this was before I looked up the address for St Thomas’ Church on Apple Maps and discovered there is just a 4 minute drive between our 2 churches.

From conversations with people at St Paul’s Church, I also realise that folk there may not have much interest in what happens at North Ipswich. To be frank, they have enough challenges of their own without worrying about what may be happening over here.

But we also know that several churches from the parish of Ipswich have already been closed.

And we are well aware that church engagement (not just Sunday attendance) is dropping like a stone in a pond.

As I commented in my Trinity Sunday sermon last year, it is not that we face persecution. It simply that most of our family, friends and neighbours could not care less about our religion and have no interest in getting involved at church.

So where does that leave our two Anglican communities on either side of the Bremer in the heart of Ipswich?

I think our understanding of God as Trinity offers a model for ways we can work together.

We believe that Father, Son and Spirit exist in, with and for each other.

It seems to me that this is the understanding that has to be at the basis of our shared future together, for surely our future is a shared one.

Even after just 4 Sundays here, I think I can assure you that the folk at St Paul’s Church have no interest in your property or your money.

In their better moments, and these occur more often than you might imagine, they simply want both this church and their own church to thrive as an authentic Anglican presence in our local community.

It is not about the land or the buildings.

It is not about the money.

It is not about boundaries and separate Parish Councils.

It is all about living our Christian faith in ways where we exist in, with and for each other.

We have already made a start and no doubt there will be more steps to take together in the years to come.

But the heart of the matter is the way that we put into practice the trinitarian understanding of God that lies at the very centre of our faith.

We need to be there for each other in these challenging times for people of faith, just as Father, Son and Spirit are there for each other.

Always have been.

Always will be.

This is our faith and this is our model for shared ministry as the Ipswich Anglican Community.

Pentecost Sunday
St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
19 May 2024

In place of notes for a sermon this week, I am offering some reflections on the dynamics of the Spirit in our lives as people of faith.

These reflections are grouped under a series of headings: watery chaos, dry bones and freedom.

Watery chaos

One of the primal images for the Spirit of God in the Bible comes from the opening paragraph of Genesis:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2 KJV)

I have chosen to cite the words from the King James Bible as they have shaped our spiritual imagination in the English-speaking world for more than 400 years.

Most modern translations render the Hebrew ruach elohim as “wind from God” or even “a mighty wind.”

In biblical terms the imagery is much the same: a wind, a breath, a spirit or even a powerful storm is forming over the watery chaos. Something new is about to happen. Creation is about to begin.

Until then there is no form to the world, just a dark primeval ocean.

But once the spirit or wind or breath of God hovers over that nothingness, new possibilities emerge.

That is not just a meme from the ancient Hebrew creation myth. It is a truth of our own lived experience as people of faith.

The chaos and the darkness of our own lives can be transformed by the spirit of God.

That is one way to talk about salvation.

Dry bones

The prophet, Ezekiel, lived in Jerusalem around 600 BCE and was taken into exile after the city was captured by the Babylonians. 

He lived at a time when it seemed both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah had been destroyed. There was no hope for recovery.

God gives Ezekiel a vision of vast valley filled with the desiccated bones of dead soldiers.

It is a confronting vision, but God used it to assure Ezekiel—and the people with whom he worked—that there was still a future for them. 

God would pour out his Spirit on the exiled remnant of the Jewish people and bring them back to Jerusalem once more.

I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act,” says the LORD. (Ezekiel 37:14 NRSV)

From a hopeless situation where it seemed there was no prospect of recovery, God’s Spirit renews and restores.

Again, this is not simply a message for the Jewish people more than 2,500 years ago.

It is a central element of our faith as well.

There is no situation we can ever find ourselves in where the Spirit of God cannot turn things around and replace despair with hope.

Freedom

For the third reflection I want to draw on a theme found in Paul. 

To do that, I will cite two brief lines from different letters where we catch a glimpse of how Paul understood the Spirit of Jesus in his own experience and in the life of the early Christian faith communities.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes Jesus this way:

Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. … The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:45-49 NRSV)

The other piece from Paul which I want to place alongside those rather unusual words are from his second letter to the Corinthians:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17 NRSV)

Jesus has become “a life-giving spirit” and as the spirit of God in our midst, Jesus sets us free: the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

“Freedom” in this context is not about politics or social situation, but about our own existential reality. Elsewhere in Paul (Romans 8) we read about the amazing freedom we have as the children of God. 

That whole chapter 8 of Romans is well worth a read this week.

Chaos … despair … anxiety —all are transformed by the gentle power of the Spirit of Jesus.

That is not only the message of Pentecost, but also the deep meaning of Easter.