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Ecumenism: journey, pilgrimage and challenge

Easter 7(B)
13 May 2018
Christ Church Cathedral

The ten days between Ascension Day and Pentecost Sunday are marked within the Australian churches as a week of special prayer for Christian unity.

As we reflect on the challenges faced by all Christian communities in contemporary Australian society, it may be worth reflecting on our complex history of relationships between the churches. The good relations which we enjoy and appreciate these days have not always been the norm, and indeed it may be worth asking just how serious we are about Christian unity.

We can perhaps trace the history of our ecumenical relationships through a series of four or five stages. The fifth and final stage—unity—is yet to be achieved, but the other four have been part of our shared journey.

Breaking down the wall of hostility …

REJECTION: During this phase of our ecumenical relationships, each major Christian church liked to pretend that it was the only valid church. Catholics dismissed Anglicans as not a valid church, while Anglican dismissed Presbyterians or Methodists as not a proper church, and so on. Marriage across denominational lines was almost impossible, and considerable suffering was experienced by people whose families happened to include people from more than one Christian tradition.

COMPETITION: Once it became impossible to maintain the fiction that only the church to which we belonged was an authentic church, then we moved into a stage of competition. In this phase we each sought to consolidate our historical privileges and attract new adherents from other traditions or from the wider community.

COLLABORATION: Since the establishment of the World Council of Churches in 1948 there has been a move towards formal collaboration, at least between certain subsets of the churches. The conciliar movement gives de facto recognition to the validity of different expressions of Christianity, whether they are due to cultural and ethnic factors or variations in beliefs and practices. Some church groups found even that level of recognition too much to embrace, with the result that rival councils of churches now exist with the Australian religious scene.

COALITION: In response to various forms of humanitarian and social need even churches that disagree on key beliefs and practices have sometimes found that we can form a coalition to address issues like alcohol abuse, gambling, refugees, and so on. But around issues such as marriage equality there was no grand Christian coalition, since the churches adopted opposing views on the question or chose to leave people to follow their own consciences. In such cases the differences within the one religious community can be greater than those between different communities.

UNITY: There remains the hope of structural and visible unity among the churches, but it seems to be a fading dream. The test for our commitment to genuine ecumenical progress may be how we respond to this challenge from the late Bishop Michael Putney, formerly a colleague of mine in the Brisbane College of Theology. Bishop Michael argued fervently that we should “only do separately those things which we cannot in good conscience do together”.

Here and now

We have some real challenges here in this city when it comes to ecumenism.

For the most part we pretend that all is rosy, but in fact that far from the case.

Every time a new Christian community starts up, it is an act of schism and a new rip in the fabric of the faith.

At the heart of these new fellowships or missions is a belief that none of the existing churches provided an acceptable way for that group of people to serve God’s mission in this city. The others are so wrong about so many serious points of belief or practice that true fellowship is impossible to maintain and yet another new church needs to be created.

And the city looks at us with disdain, while the Lord weeps.

The Christian witness is fragmented and our resources are diverted into buying new properties, erecting new buildings, and engaging new clergy.

Is the Christian church actually any smaller in Grafton than it was 25 or 50 years ago, or are we just so fragmented that almost all of use are smaller inside our half-empty new churches?

But let’s look closer to home. Even within our own Anglican Church we are divided in ways that detract from the mission God has called us to do. We cannot even work together we each other on opposite sides of the river for fear that we might lose something that matters more to us—it seems—that providing a strong Anglican voice in the city of Grafton.

I do wonder how the respect for the Christian churches in Grafton might be improved if our neighbours saw us acting out of such a spirit of mutual acceptance rather than competing for some marginal advantage to the perceived benefit of our own institutions.

Let’s pray that God will make us—Yes, us!—so uncomfortable about the lack of unity within our own church and between the various church communities of this city, that we actually do something to make a change.

As a start, I suggest we embrace the word of Bishop Michael Putney and resolve “only [to] do separately those things which we cannot in good conscience do together”.

12 May 2018
Better than silver or gold

Christ Church Cathedral Grafton
Third Sunday of Easter
15 April 2018

[video]

During these great fifty days after Easter the first reading in Church most Sundays comes from the Book of Acts rather than the Old Testament.

Normally we take time to check in with the wisdom of our spiritual ancestors (and indeed our spiritual cousins still) in the Jewish faith, but during Easter we are invited to listen to episodes from the account of the early church that we find in the Acts of the Apostles.

We can talk more about Acts some day in one of the Dean’s Forum sessions, but it is a fascinating book and the only one of its kind in the New Testament. It does not offer us stories about Jesus, but stories about his first followers in Jerusalem, then stories about other early leaders, and especially stories about St Paul.

One of my favourite stories from Acts is the passage just heard read this morning. Let’s start by unpacking it a little bit.

Peter and John at the Temple

Peter and John were from a couple of guys from two small villages on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, about 100km north of Jerusalem.

We do not know how many times they had ever been to Jerusalem, but they have been here for a couple of week according the the Gospels and Acts.

Every time these two fishermen from Bethsaida and Capernaum walk into the temple they were supposed to be in awe of the scale and beauty of the place. It was many many times bigger than this Cathedral.

So imagine them in this story, entering into the vast Temple plaza via the highly decorated Beautiful Gate (aka Golden Gate).

Just like the holy places in Palestine today, there were beggars lying around the entrance hoping for a gift to help them meet their living expenses.

One of the beggars catches Peter’s eye, and Peter (that’s a nickname meaning, Rocky), says to him: “Hey, look over here!”

The beggar does not need a second invitation. He is hoping for a nice big bag of coins. But then Rocky says, “I have no silver or gold , but I do have something for you!”

In the story, Rocky (Peter) heals the lame man who then goes into the temple with them: “walking, and leaping and praising God.”

Look at us … what are you seeking?

I want to hit the pause button on the story, and use that line from Peter as the anchor for our reflections today.

What are we looking for when we come to church?

What are we looking for when we bring a baby for Baptism?

What is Willy looking for when he pesters his parents to get Baptised?

Despite the fact that some churches promise it, we are not offering prosperity, happy marriages, or good health. I wish were able to do that. Imagine how we would pack them in every Sunday! Imagine how much happier our community would be.

Sometimes our prayers are answered in the way we want, and the simple fact that I am here—alive and in such good health—may be a sign of that. So, sincerely on my part, thank you for all those prayers and all that love that has washed around me these past six months.

But other times those prayers are not answered. The money problems persist. The family breaks up. The disease gets worse and the person dies.

So I need to say, along with Peter and John, we are not promising you silver and good. We are not even promising you an easy life, good health or a happy family.

So what is it that we offer?

Have we got something as good as silver and gold, or maybe even better than silver and gold?

I think we have, and that is why we are baptising Sienna and Willy this morning.

So what can be better than silver and gold?

Let me try a 3 minute promo for the Good News that Jesus brought, and the Good News that involves Jesus.

Hey, Willy, why not come down here and help men with the next bit?

OK Willy, here is why I am going to be baptising you here in this Cathedral in a few minutes time. Are you ready? No need to take notes because it is the job of your mum and dad and your godparents to remember all this and help it come true for you. No pressure, folks.

I am going to give you three words (that’s not too hard, eh?) and a sentence or two to go with each of them:

FAITH

We have learned about about God from our own lives, from the Bible, and from thousands of years of lived experience by people of faith. We want to share that stuff with you, because knowing it helps you make sense of life. We want to share our faith with you, so you can make it your own as you get older and keep on learning about God.

HOPE

Sometimes the world can be a scary and sad place. But our faith gives us hope. Not a pretend happy face even when bad stuff is happening, but a deep confidence (hope) that even when the bad stuff is happening it is OK because God will make it all work out just fine. When we stop and think about it, that is one of the ways to think about Easter. Things looked bad for Jesus on Good Friday and really no better the next day, but by Easter Day God had turned everything around: for Jesus and for us.

LOVE

The last of our special three words is love. I am not talking about how you feel about someone else, but how you treat them. When we have faith and hope, then we can be there for others and create the kind of world God wants this place to be. We cannot do that without faith and hope, but with God we can help make the world a better place.

So that, young man, is why I am going to baptise you now. And each time you come to visit us here in Grafton you can have a quick word with me to ket me know how that project is going.

Sometimes it will be easy to have faith and sometimes it will be hard. Sometimes it will be easy to be hopeful, and other times everything will feel hopeless. Sometimes it will be easy to care about others and to care about the world. and sometimes … well, sometimes we all need the encouragement of other people’s faith and other people’s hope to keep us on the track.

And that is why we come to church.

Not for the silver and gold, but to find other people who can help us have faith, hope and love so we can all help each other make the world. a better place. People like that are better than silver or gold, and you find them in church.

So, if you are ready for the adventure to begin, let’s go and get the water ready …

14 April 2018
Witnesses to transformation

Easter Day
Christ Church Cathedral
1 April 2018

[video]

Our second reading for this liturgy is from Paul’s first letter to the troublesome Christian community at Corinth.

They were a tough parish for Paul to serve as their pastor, but we can be grateful for that since their issues repeatedly drove to Paul to put in writing information that he had previously told them orally, but which otherwise we may never have known about.

That is certainly the case with the list of resurrection appearances in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 1 to 11.

Paul is probably writing this letter in the year 53/54 CE.

That makes this letter one of the earliest Christian documents to survive, and it is within 25 years of Easter. I hope that little fact gives you goose bumps.

The information Paul is repeating in the letter was previously given to the Corinthians, according to Paul, as part of his oral instruction when they were first converted. This was material from their Baptism preparation program!

Since Paul explicitly says that he passed on to them what others had passed on to him, we can assume that this list of Easter appearances goes back even earlier: most likely to the vibrant Christian community in the strategic city of Antioch, where Paul had strong pastoral connections.

We cannot be sure of the dates, but it is not unreasonable to suggest that Paul learned this information at Antioch about 10 years before his letter to the Corinthians.

So now we can date the list to 15 years after Easter, and probably a few years earlier.

That makes this list one of the oldest Christian documents that we have. More goose bumps!

This list mattered to the first generation of Christians because only those on the list were considered to have authority as leaders.

That, by the way, is Paul’s problem: he was not on the list!

Notice how he deals with that awkward problem.

Paul does not argue about the list. He repeats it, exactly as he had received it from the tradition before him, and then he adds his own name like a kind of postscript:

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe. (1 Cor 15:8–11 NRSV)

The list of appearances

he appeared to Cephas,
then to the twelve.
Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time,
most of whom are still alive, though some have died.
Then he appeared to James,
then to all the apostles.

Most of the appearances in that list are not known to us, while it seems that most of the appearances in the Gospels are not included in the list that Paul inherited from Antioch.

When we put the two sets of traditions together, three names stand out:

Peter
Mary Magdalene
Paul

Let’s take each of them in turn, even if very briefly.

Peter

This one is very easy, since we have no description of the appearance to Peter by the risen Jesus. It is mentioned in Luke 24, but not described. We have no idea what it involved, although there is a later tradition of Jesus speaking with Peter by the Sea of Galilee and restoring him to his leadership role after his triple denial of Jesus.

Mary Magdalene

All of the Gospels agree that Mary Magdalene was present at the crucifixion and was one of the women who went to the tomb early on the Sunday morning to anoint Jesus for burial. In fact, Mary is the only women mentioned in all 4 Gospels, and she is always listed first.

The Gospel of John preserved a beautiful story of an encounter between Mary Magdalene and the risen but unrecognised Jesus in the garden close by his tomb. According to the Gospels, Mary is the first person to whom Jesus appears after his resurrection.

She is sometimes called the ‘apostle to the apostles’ because of her role as the first witness to the resurrection.

But the list that Paul got from Antioch fails to mention Mary Magdalene.

She has been cut from the list by the male gatekeepers. And this within the first 10-15 years! How quickly we abandoned the way of Jesus.

Happily, we can now restore her to her proper place as the first witness to the resurrection.

Paul

With Paul we are on firmer ground, but his encounter with the risen Lord was not in Jerusalem and had nothing to do with an empty tomb.

In an even earlier letter than 1 Corinthians, Paul describes very briefly his encounter with the risen Jesus:

For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. … But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. (Galatians 1:11–12, 15–17 NRSV)

Paul refers to—but does not describe—a moment when God revealed the reality of the risen Christ to him, and he claims that as being the same kind of experience as the apostles, and this something that gave him the same authority as them.

The Easter transformation

If these are the earliest witnesses to the resurrection, what is it that they proclaim?

Here we really are reliant on Mary Magdalene and Paul, since we have no description of the appearance that Jesus is said to have made to Peter: nor to “the twelve”, nor to the “more than 500”, nor to James the brother of Jesus, nor to “all the apostles”.

As an aside, let me just observe that if I were seeking to create a fake story about the resurrection I would be sure to have a better set of eyewitnesses. The fact that our chain of witnesses is so flimsy may actually be something that counts in favour of the historicity of this tradition.

Despite the gaps and inconsistences in their stories our witnesses agree on a simple, yet amazing discovery: Jesus is alive.

Neither Mary Magdalene or Paul of Tarsus expected to discover that.

Mary had come to the tomb of Jesus to finish the burial preparations for her beloved prophet. She is so immersed in her grief, and so disinclined to discover a living Jesus, that she does not even recognise him when she encounters him in the garden.

Paul, on the other hand, knows all about the rumours of Jesus having been raised to life and is determined to stamp out this nonsense, and arrest anyone who believes it. By his own account in 1 Corinthians 15 and Galatians 1, Paul was trying to eradicate this nonsense from the face of the earth.

Even now, some 2,000 years later, we are still coming to terms with the implications of the amazing truth they each discovered, and which lies at the heart of our Easter celebrations.

That is our essential work as people of faith: making sense of Easter, and working it out in our own everyday lives.

Death was not the end of Jesus.

God raised Jesus up and took him deep into God’s own life.

And that same transformation is available to us, right now, even before we die.

I cannot prove that to anyone, but this is what we celebrate today, and that is the message of the church across the millennia—and here in Grafton right now.

Christ is risen. Alleluia!
He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

31 March 2018
When words fail …

Christ Church Cathedral Grafton
Lent 5 (B)
18 March 2018

[video]

This week the Sunday lectionary offers us three serves of text, each of which centres around a particular—but different—metaphor.

At first glance I wondered what exactly I would do with those texts for the sermon this morning, but on reflection I want to suggest that the readings invite us to embrace metaphor as the most valid way of speaking about God and faith.

All of our speaking about God is necessarily poetic and metaphorical. After all, human language developed for communication between persons about events, places, relationships and feelings in our world and in our lives.

When we attempt to speak about God using human language it is as if we are pushing our human language up to the red line, and even beyond the red line. We should not be surprised if words fail us when we seek to speak about realities which are beyond everyday human experience.

So let’s get into the metaphors!

Melchizedek

My first reaction during the week, when I saw that Hebrews 5 was providing our second reading this morning, was to comment to Roger about the occurrence of the word Melchizedek in that passage.

It is an odd word to our ears, and for many people to our tongues, but to Jewish ears it is not such a strange word at all.

This ancient Hebrew word is built from two other words: the word for king (melek) and the word for righteousness (zedek). When put together these two terms create a name which simply means king of righteousness.

Until a few decades ago we had no idea why this mysterious character with the odd name was so significant the author of Hebrews. But with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls we now know that Melchizedek was one of two symbolic characters with great significance in those ancient scrolls.

The opposite character to Melchizedek was an evil and dark character with the delightful name Melchiresha, which means king of evil. So Melchizedek and Melchiresha were to Jews in the time of Jesus, what Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are to fans of the Star Wars series today.

These two poetic and symbolic characters reflect the deep underlying tensions in human experience: we know ourselves to be called to the light, but we find ourselves drawn to the darkness.

This is metaphor.
Powerful truth.
Wrapped up in poetry and symbol.

New heart, new covenant

Our first reading from the book of the Jewish prophet Jeremiah has its origins in the years just after 600 BCE. Jerusalem was surrounded by the armies of Babylon who were about to capture and destroy the city. That much was politics and history, and archeologists have even picked up the arrowheads on the grounds outside the ancient city walls to verify the reality of those hard times.

But Jeremiah seeks a deeper truth for people in dark times, and he imagines a new covenant, a new relationship between God and the people of Jerusalem. He imagines a new covenant written not on blocks of stone, but etched on the human heart.

This is a powerful invitation for us as we prepare the rituals of Holy Week and Easter, to remember what matters most is what is happening in our hearts and not the ceremonies the rituals we may be performing.

This is metaphor.
Powerful truth.
Wrapped up in poetry and symbol.

A grain of wheat

The gospel of John offers us a third poetic image, and this is one of my personal favourites: the grain of wheat which falls into the earth and seems to have died, but in fact gives rise to an abundance of new life.

This metaphor penetrates deeply into the mystery of life and faith and it is especially relevant in these final two weeks of Lent.

This is the wisdom by which Jesus lived.

This is the wisdom we are invited to embrace.

This is the wisdom into which we will baptise Lachlan later this morning.

This is the spiritual wisdom our city and our nation needs to hear.

This is the wisdom of life that we need to share with our children and grandchildren.

This is metaphor.
Powerful truth.
Wrapped up in poetry and symbol.

Metaphors abound

Life is full of metaphor—and so is the church and especially our rituals.

The life of faith is a life informed by the wisdom we discern in metaphor, poetry and symbol.

We miss the point – and we totally miss the deep spiritual wisdom available to us — if we argue about the historicity of the metaphor. This is an essential lesson as we approach Easter.

Instead, today and during these next two weeks as we turn towards the cross, we are invited to embrace the deep wisdom that is available to us if only we will open our hearts to poetic truth in metaphor and symbol.

17 March 2018
The cleansing of the church

Lent 3 (B)
Christ Church Cathedral Grafton
4 March 2018

[video]

The lectionary today switches us across to a series of readings from the Gospel of John. For the next three Sundays our gospel readings will come from John even though we are in the year of Mark.

The Gospel of John offers us a different take on Jesus.

John sees Jesus very differently from the three synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

One of the differences concerns the identity of Jesus’ opponents.

In the synoptic gospels the opponents are various political and religious groups within Second Temple Judaism: Herodians, Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes. But in the Gospel of John the opponents of Jesus are routinely described as “the Jews”.

We see that very easily in today’s gospel message, which begins with the statement that “the Passover of the Jews” was happening followed by repeated references to the Jews as the opponents of Jesus.

Quite apart from this explicit labelling of the opponents of Jesus as being the Jews, a story such as this week’s text represents Jesus in profound conflict with the Temple hierarchy, and thus in conflict with the central institution of Jewish life at the time.

This is exacerbated by the way the story is moved from later in the life of Jesus and placed by John directly after the miracle of the water being turned into wine at Kfar Kana, Cana.

It is of the very essence of that story—as told by the gospel of John—that the ‘water’ of the Jewish religion is being replaced by the ‘wine’ the Jesus religion.

This is a clear and unambiguous anti-Semitic statement.

Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism is one of the worst stains on the conscience of Christianity. It ranks right up there with child abuse and cover-up, but is even worse; hard though it is these days to imagine anything worse child abuse and cover-up.

Anti-Semitism has been a feature of Christian life from the time that Christians first gained political power after the conversion of the Emperor Constantine. However, its roots run much deeper into the text of the New Testament itself as we can clearly see in the Gospel of John.

In case we missed his point, John moves the episode of Jesus creating a scene in the temple from the end of the story back to the beginning of his account of Jesus’ public activity.

For the author of John’s gospel, this scene sets the tone for the ministry of Jesus. For John, that tone is deeply anti-Semitic.

It would have been comfortable for me this morning to focus on the first reading from the book of Exodus or even second reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, but it is impossible to remain silent when such an anti-Semitic text read out loud in the Cathedral.

Silence suggests consent.

Worse still, silence allows hateful attitudes towards Jews to become embedded in our spiritual DNA as Christians.

This animus is even found in First Corinthians 1, although it is not quite as virulent as we see in John’s gospel. Paul is writing to the Corinthians and “the Jews” are listed as one of the groups of opponents of the gospel who persist in asking wrong questions because they do not wish to believe.

Although Paul — like all the early Christian leaders — was Jewish, his letter betrays a profound level of antagonism between his mission and the religious leadership of Jewish society.

The Decalogue

Such a nasty turn in the rhetoric between the followers of Jesus and the adherents of Moses is all the more remarkable today when our first reading is from the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments.

These ancient laws are Jewish laws.

They summarise our fundamental duties in human life:

duties to God
duties to parents/family
duties to other people

These laws derive from the heart of the foundational Jewish story: the account of the exodus as God rescues the Hebrew slaves in Egypt. This is not a marginal Jewish tradition, but something which is very close to the very heart of Jewish identity.

Wisdom for faithful living

This insidious poison of Christian anti-Semitism which we find in the new Testament and throughout church history, must be opposed and denounced at every turn.

This is also true of its modern twin Islamophobia.

Fear of the other has no place in the Christian faith.

Hatred towards those who are different has no place in the Christian faith.

Arrogance which assumes we are better than others has no place in the Christian faith.

So where is the heart of the gospel in all this and what are we to make of the memory of that scene in the Temple all these years ago?

It seems best to understand the incident in the Temple as a symbolic prophetic act by Jesus.

He was not seeking to storm the Temple or to make it the base for a revolt. That would happen around 40 years later, but had nothing to do with Jesus.

Rather, acting in typical Jewish fashion—and in perfect consistency with the examples of the Jewish prophets in the Scriptures that we still share with Judaism—Jesus was making a vivid prophetic denunciation of the way that the Temple was serving the interests of the rich and powerful.

This is not an anti-Semitic act.

Jesus was thoroughly Jewish and so was this act.

He was calling the Temple hierarchy to account for their failure to live by the covenant for which the Ten Commandments constitute a summary of basic principles.

We should recall that Jesus himself summarised the law in a similar way to other Jewish teachers in his own time: love God, and love your neighbour.

This is the heart of the covenant with God: for Jews, and Christians, and Muslims.

On this spiritual wisdom we all agree.

As Jesus saw it, the corruption at the Temple was failing to honour God and was also exploiting the poor.

No love of God here, and no compassion for other people.

By the time the Gospel of John is composed, a bitter divide has happened between followers of Jesus and their Torah-observant Jewish peers.

The vitriol was extreme, as we see consistently through the Gospel of John.

John and his first readers had no extremist agenda to attack Jews. But his language would feed later generations of anti-Semitic thinking and actions within the Church at times when Christians had both the capacity and the desire to harm Jews.

For this we hang our heads in shame.

What must we give up this Lent?

Anti-Semitism for sure!

So we stand alongside Jesus, the Jewish prophet from Galilee as we call on our religious institutions to walk the talk, to serve always the mission of God in the world (rather than their own self-preservation), and to protect the vulnerable and the weak.

In this Cathedral there can be no anti-Semitism. Ever.

Passionate as I am about Palestinian rights to justice and self-determination, there is no excuse for anti-Semitism as we stand in solidarity with people who have lost land, family, homes and hope.

Similarly, there is no place for Islamophobia here.

This Cathedral—like the Temple in Jerusalem—is a house of prayer for all God’s children, and we welcome our Jewish and Muslim friends to find here a place of pilgrimage and prayer.

If you love God, you are welcome here.

If you love your neighbour, you are welcome here.

3 March 2018
Amazing grace

Ordination of Chad Rynehart
Lindisfarne Anglican Grammar School Chapel
24 February 2018

May these words be spoken
and heard
in the power of love. Amen.

We are gathered here in this school chapel for the ordination of Chad Rynehart.

It has been my privilege to serve as Chad’s spiritual companion during the past three days as he prepared for this service. That precious time which we have shared will inform what I have to say, although nothing that we discussed will be shared with you today.

Were this an ordination service with several candidates, I would be expected to speak in fairly general terms about the importance of the ordained ministry within the life and mission of the church, and especially the role of Priests.

But we have just a single candidate for this service, so the focus falls on one guy—and my comments will also be rather more individualised than might otherwise have been the case.

Amazing Grace

We all know the popular hymn, Amazing Grace. It was written by—of all things—by someone who had been the captain of slave ships, taking captured Africans to America to be sold into slavery, and had himself been the slave of an African princess. Even after retiring from the slave trade and becoming an Anglican priest, John Newton continued to invest in the slave trade for many years.

The words of that hymn came to mind as I reflected on the conversations I have shared with Chad these past few days.

A constant thread in those conversations was grace: recognising—even if only with the benefit of hindsight—the loving presence of God in different circumstances and situations.

It is that idea of grace that I want to explore a little further with you today.

Maybe we can move from hindsight to foresight, and develop the spiritual skills to recognise and respond to God’s grace in real time, rather than only with hindsight.

Charis: beautiful, gift

Grace is a word that has two major sets of meaning, even in English,

In the conversations that I shared with Chad these past few days, I think we were mostly thinking of grace in the sense of: undeserved gift.

We were recognising various ways in which God has been present in our lives, often unrecognised and always undeserved. The miracle of sacred presence. The miracle of loving presence.

That is an idea I will return to shortly.

The other meaning of grace, is beauty.

When we comment on the grace with which someone acts, we are responding to something very beautiful about them. The dance, they speak, they act … with grace. It is a joy to watch them. They are authentic and beautiful because of the grace with which they act.

I shall also return briefly to that idea at the end of this reflection.

From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

In John 1, as the poetic prologue ends, the writer adds these words:

From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

During the past few days as Chad and I have engaged in conversation, prayer and solitude this has been a truth that we have each recognised: out of God’s eternal fullness we have both received—and you have all received—grace upon grace.

Grace upon grace.

What an inviting concept.

One good thing on top of another good thing, and more good things on top of those good things.

Grace upon grace.

How good is our life as people of faith, and even as people of little faith.

LIFE

The first and most profound grace that we have received is life itself.

We do not have to exist, and we cannot cause ourselves to exist. Life is a gift. A grace. A gift that we do not earn, and yet also a gift from God’s own self. We exist because God exists, and because God generates life.

It is grace. Thanks be to God.

COMMUNITY

We exist within community, even when we choose to be alone.

Around us, before us and after us is a rich community of humanity, and indeed all creation. As we are coming to realise more and more, we are connected within an immense web of life.

For much of the time that web of life may be invisible to us, but it sustains us and we contribute to that web by our actions and our thoughts, our hopes and our fears, our successes and our failures.

This too is grace. Thanks be to God.

KINSHIP

Within that immense web of life there is a circle of people with whom we are most at home: our families, our lovers, our intimate friends. These are the keepers of our secrets. They know us better than anyone else, and love us regardless.

This too is grace. Thanks be to God.

CHURCH

Connecting with a different set of people across cultures, nationality, place and time is the mysterious reality of the church. Here we glimpse God’s dream for the universe and find the spiritual wisdom needed to live lives that are holy and authentic. Here—when church is at its best—we find a safe space to explore the meaning of life, and to experiment with our own response to the God who call us.

This too is grace. Thanks be to God.

MINISTRY / SERVICE

Neither of these terms is quite the word I want, as they speak mostly to activity within the church or in the name of the church. The Greek term leitourgia would be better, but is mostly misunderstood as liturgy. In the ancient Greek world, leitourgia was an act of public service, something done by an individual for the sake of the community.

In our daily work and in the ways we spend our discretionary time, we are called to serve others. As we serve others, and as others serve us, the fabric of our society is created, enhanced and protected.

For some that will be ministry as a deacon, priest or bishop.

For others it will be ministry as a teacher, technician or gardener.

For others it will be ministry as a parent, as a carer, as … (insert your role here).

This too is grace. Thanks be to God.

Grace upon grace

Grace indeed takes many forms, and will be present even if we do not recognise it.

But here in this service we do recognise grace.

We celebrate grace.

We honour grace.

And we seek more expressions of grace in the years to come.

This school community is a community of grace. May it ever be so.

This ordinand, Chad, is a person of grace. In both senses of the word. May he ever be so.

Chad, we affirm today that we embrace you as a person of grace. You are a blessing to us and especially to this school community. And you are someone in whom we see the beauty of God at work as you gracefully go about your ministry within this community.

Grace upon grace.

We affirm and celebrate the grace of God within you, and we stand alongside you as you say yes to the God who calls you into new expressions of grace as a Priest in this school community, as a Priest in the local church, and as a Priest in the life of our Diocese.

This too is grace. Thanks be to God.

24 February 2018