Tag: Ipswich

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.

A sermon for St Paul’s Church, Ipswich on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, 12 May 2024.

---

Around the country today and in many other parts of the world people are observing Mothers’ Day.

This year that celebration coincides with a growing awareness of the scourge of domestic and family violence, and indeed the whole of May is dedicated to raising awareness of domestic violence.

More on those matters shortly.

But first, a brief look back at the origins of Mothers’ Day and indeed Mothering Sunday as well.

Mothering Sunday

For churchgoing Anglicans, we have a special celebration of mothers on the fourth Sunday during Lent: Mothering Sunday. That, of course, is the official Mothers’ Day in the UK. However, it is essentially unknown outside the shrinking circle of Anglican Church life.

In medieval times, there was a custom to visit the Cathedral—“mother church”—of the Diocese, or even the local parish church where a person had been baptised as a child on the Sunday that fell halfway through Lent. This was also known as Refreshment Sunday and it offered a brief respite from some of the rigours of Lenten disciplines.

In Early Modern times, servants were sometimes allowed the day off so they could visit their mothers and take some fresh supplies from the kitchen of the great house.

The modern revival of Mothering Sunday in the UK is just over 100 years old, and it was an English response to the development of Mothers’ Day in the USA.

Mothers’ Day

The back story for the development of Mothers’ Day is rather more complex. It begins as a response by women peace activists who were campaigning to ensure that the horrors of the US Civil War (1861–65) were never repeated. That was the war in which my own great-great-grandfather, John Henry Jenks,  was killed during the Battle of Cedar Creek at the very end of the war.

In the years following the Civil War, Julia Ward Howell—who we know as the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic—appealed for women around the world to work together to prevent future wars. In 1870 she issued the Mothers’ Day Proclamation:

Arise, then… women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of council.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient, and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

That was one courageous woman, even if her prophetic call for women to rise up for peace mostly fell on deaf ears.

Almost 40 years later in 1908, Anna Marie Jarvis held a memorial service in honour of her own mother, Ann Jarvis who was a colleague of Julia Ward Howell. During the Civil War, Ann had worked as a nurse and campaigned as a peace activist. In honouring her own mother, under the cloud of a looming war in Europe, Anna Jarvis triggered the establishment of the modern Mothers’ Day and the reinvention of Mothering Sunday in the UK.

It would be 1924 before the first observance of Mothers’ Day in Australia. So today we mark 100 years of Mothers’ Day here.

Beyond the scourge of war

Back then, the motivation for Mothers’ Day was to empower women to abolish war. It was a grassroots women’s movement for liberation and human flourishing. Who would have thought that behind the commercial flotsam of cards, floral bouquets and restaurant lunches there was such a courageous agenda for profound social change.

And all this at a time when women were finally securing the right to vote!

But now we face another plague of hatred and violence, with women and children suffering at the hands of men who are supposed to love them and care for them.

We have all heard the terrible statistics in recent days.

I was impressed to see these same cruel facts being presented at the Mothers’ Day breakfasted hosted by our local Mothers’ Union branch in the parish hall yesterday morning.

In brief …

On average 1 women is murdered very week in Australia by their current for former partner

By the end of April, the rate this year was about 1 death every 4 days.

And that is just the deaths of women who are beaten and killed by their partners. Even more are injured but do not die. Many of those women are mothers, and their children are caught up in the cycle of violence and sometimes killed as well. How do we count the number of these child victims?

It is a cruel reality. 

I know. 

I grew up in a home where my father would beat my mother, until the day I was big enough to intervene, even if not big enough to stop my father. At least the beating shifted from my mother to me.

Churches matter

My parents were people of faith, and my family was heavily involved in the life of our local church. We were there several times on Sunday and actively engaged in church life during the week.

How does such violence happen in a Christian home?

Why did we make excuses for Dad rather than address the problem?

The sad truth is that family and domestic violence is more likely to happen in a Christian home than in the average Australian household.

The 2019 National Anglican Family Violence Research Project found that around 23% of Anglicans who have ever been in an intimate relationship reported having experienced domestic and family violence. That is almost 1 in 4 Anglicans who have ever been in an intimate relationship.

We might think it is even worse in the wider society, but that is not the case.

The rate for the general community was 15%.

That is still awful, but it is almost half the rate of domestic and family violence among Anglicans.

There is something about the way we teach people to treat women and girls that encourages violence by the men in their lives.

That is simply horrific.

This Mothers’ Day let’s seek the wisdom of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit to turn that around, and make sure that anyone who we influence treats women and girls as having equal value. 

We need to be safe place for women and children.

That can be our gift to Ipswich this Mothers’ Day.

St Paul’s Church, Ipswich
Easter 6B
5 May 2024

---

Waiting can be a difficult time.

“Are we there yet?” may only be expressed by the children, but the adults know the feeling all too well.

“How long, O Lord?” is a cry of despair within the Scriptures themselves.

How long indeed!

It has already been several months since Selina left Ipswich to begin her new ministry at the Cathedral.

It took a while for the Bishop to find a locum and another month before he finally got here.

But here I am and here we are.

We are in that space between what lies behind and what is yet to come.

And we still do not know how long it will be until the new Rector arrives.

No, good people, we are not there yet.

I am not your new Priest.

But I am the person assigned by the Bishop to lead this community of Jesus people at St Paul’s Church—and support you through this time of transition, whether it is a short time or a longer time.

This week I join the waiting community at St Paul’s Church partway through the Great Fifty Days of Easter. Five weeks of the 50 days are behind us, and just 2 weeks remain.

In the story line of the New Testament, the fledgling Jesus community in Jerusalem was about to enter the most challenging part of their waiting time.

As Luke tells the story in the Acts of the Apostles, and as John tells the story in the fourth gospel, and also as Matthew told the story in his revised and enlarged edition of Mark’s gospel, something new was about to happen. The disciples needed to wait, but Jesus would be with them as they waited and also when the new thing began to happen.

John has Jesus repeatedly telling this to the disciples before Easter. We had one example of that in this morning’s Gospel:

I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. [John 15:15–16]

In Matthew we read this version of the tradition:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matthew 28:16­20]

And in Acts—just before the Ascension (which we observe this coming Thursday)—we find these words:

While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” [Acts 1:4–8]

So, two themes come through these texts: God is about to do something new, and we need to wait for it to begin.

There was no time frame on this new thing happening. Indeed, in Acts we find Jesus saying that it is not for us to know the times or the seasons. That makes it all the more interesting that the invitation from Bishop Cam was for me to serve as locum here, quote, “for a season.”

That season may be until the end of the year. It may end sooner if we find the new priest before then. It may even be a slightly longer season. Who knows?

In this in-between time we wait, and we prepare.

We do not prepare best for the new priest by keeping everything exactly the same as it was during the past 5 or 6 years, or even longer.

We certainly do not prepare for the new priest by doing everything my way in the meantime.

But we do prepare best for the new priest by deepening our own faith and consolidating our faithfulness as disciples of Jesus.

Some things will remain the same, some things will be refreshed, and some new things will happen as we seek to discern the best ways for us to be disciples of Jesus in the heart of Ipswich, as we have been ever since 1859.

Central to that process of reimagination and renewal is our mission action plan that was adopted by Parish Council this past week.

You will hear more about that in the coming weeks.

I did not remember to ask Sue to update the front page of this week’s bulletin, but you will see some changes already on the website and for sure in the bulletin next week.

We have simplified our vision statement so that it now reads:

an inclusive Anglican presence in the heart of the Ipswich community

Nothing there is new, I hope, but it is expressed more directly and will serve as the litmus test for every action that comes to PC for approval. 

Over and over we shall be asking ourselves, does this proposal help us be more inclusive, more authentically Anglican, more connected with our local community here in Ipswich?

As we ask those questions, I hope we might also keep in mind the powerful words spoken by Pope Francis last Thursday when meeting in Rome with Anglican Primates from around the world:

Only a love that becomes gratuitous service, only the love that Jesus taught and embodies, will bring separated Christians closer to one another. Only that love, which does not appeal to the past in order to remain aloof or to point a finger, only that love which in God’s name puts our brothers and sisters before the ironclad defence of our own religious structures, only that love will unite us. First our brothers and sisters, the structures later.

That is true for the relationship between Anglicans and Romans, but also for relationships between all the churches in this city, and indeed for the inner spiritual dynamic of St Paul’s Church.

We are not here to protect the past but to engage with the future.

And while we wait, we practise authentic love for each other.