Monthly Archives: June 2022

MtE Update – June 30 2022

  1. Our study groups next week will be looking at the work of grace and forgiveness – details
  2. News from the Justice and International Mission Cluster (June 29)
  3. The most recent Synod eNews (June 30)
  4. The most recent news from the UCA Assembly (June 29)
  5. This Sunday July 3 will continue with the book of Revelation, looking this week at the theme of divine vengeance (!!!) (16.1-7). For commentary on the other lectionary readings for this week, see here.

Worship

  1. Our COVID policy for worship continues to be as follows, to be reviewed again by the church council in July:
  2. Mindful of the health-vulnerability of some members of our congregation and the uncertain state of play with respect to the pandemic, the church council has decided that we will continue to wear masks in worship throughout March, except for those who need to remove them when leading the worship, and for morning tea, or who have an exemption from wearing a mask. Holy Communion continues to be servied in both kinds, the wine via small communion glasses only.

Advance Notice

  1. Congregational Meeting following worship July 24 (previously erroneously advised to be July 17)

Lectionary Commentary – Ordinary 14C/Proper 9C (Sunday between July 3 and July 9)

The following links are to the Revised Common Lectionary commentary pages of Howard Wallace and Bill Loader, and are suggested as preparation for hearing the readings in worship for the Sunday indicated above.

2 Kings 5:1-14 see also By the Well podcast on this text

Psalm 30

Galatians 6:(1-6) 7-16

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 see also By the Well podcast on this text

26 June – Dying to live

View or print as a PDF

Pentecost 3
26/6/2022

Revelation 6:1-11
Psalm 16
Luke 9:51-62


In a sentence:
The witness – “martyrdom” – of Christians is against the powers which dehumanise the world.

The book of Revelation is a violent book, deeply marked by antagonism, conflict, threats, and death.

It is the violence of God in Revelation which is the most problematic. God’s four horsemen of this morning’s reading “conquer”, take away peace “so that people would slaughter one another”, and are given authority “to kill with sword, famine, and pestilence, and by the wild animals of the earth”: not everyone’s idea of a God of love. While the violence of God catches our attention, less obvious is the violence which has preceded the blood-letting of the narrative: the violence against the people of God. We might return to God’s violence before we finish with Revelation; today we’ll look to the martyrs in the text.

In today’s reading, John identifies “those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given” (6.9). The word “martyr” doesn’t appear in our usual translation of the book of Revelation, although it is present throughout the text in Greek. The Greek word marturia means “testimony”, so that a “martyr” is “one who gives testimony”. The later notion of martyrdom extends from this root to understand the death of persecuted believers as being because of, or as giving testimony to, the truths of God. The original context of Revelation is still debated, but part of that context is likely to have been the persecution of Christians, even to death. It’s not always clear why they were persecuted. Just being different can be enough to cause the powerful to scapegoat a community, as Nero is said to have done when he burned a large part of Rome. Here, the sheer difference drives the persecution rather than the content of a community’s belief. Scapegoats can be politically useful.

But other times it is the belief itself which causes the persecution. We have a record dating from early in the second century (AD 112), which describes the test put by one Pliny the Younger – a local Roman official – to Christians:

I interrogated them as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. [1]

Pliny elaborates further, but the threat of execution in the interrogation was clear. Given that threat, are these believers themselves not being a little extreme, a little fanatical? What is lost if one softens a bit, especially if we keep our fingers crossed – if God knows we still believe even if we tell the Romans we don’t?

But we can’t begin with this question until we see what Pliny describes from another critical angle. We might think it extreme to die for convictions and creeds about something which can’t be seen. But we should also wonder: What is it about these “mere” beliefs which makes believing them reason to execute the believer? The death sentence reveals that what is at stake is not merely “religious” – not merely about what we might believe and others might reject. Pliny the Younger was sane and measured. He observed and investigated – if by torture! – and found only that Christians were deluded by “depraved, excessive superstition”. But these were for him no mostly harmless late-afternoon nutters on public transport. Pliny held the delusion of the Christians to be utterly dangerous to the community, the temple and the local economy. And so the Christians were executed if they would not sacrifice in the temple or worship the emperor’s image. Christian belief had consequences which threatened to break the social and political order.

In a decision to execute over “mere” belief, faith is revealed not merely a “belief” thing, as distinct from a political or social matter. Pliny killed Christians because the social and economic consequences they drew from their “deluded superstitions” were perceived to be positively dangerous. This is clear. But let us also see that if we consider the martyr to be a little unreasonable in her refusal to change her beliefs “a bit” under threat of death, we should also hold that it is unreasonable to threaten and execute her over such things in the first place. We might lament this clash of worlds and the blood it spills, but we should not do it too loudly, for Pliny might mistake us for Christians. No well-meaning “wish” that we could just get along better together is going to overcome the fact that, even today, people are killed because they see the world differently – often rightly – and such vision is dangerous. We might think here of those crushed in dark, faraway places by the interests of large corporations, or those who see the lies in despotic politics, or those who expose to us where we benefit from overlooking inconvenient truths. The history wars playing out in Australia are caught up in a similar dynamic; we’re just not as bloody-handed about it (anymore). To say “it all happened so long ago” is not unlike saying “it’s just something you believe”.

There is a lot of blood spilt in the book of Revelation – the blood of the martyrs and the blood of the perpetrators. This is because there is a lot of blood spilt in the world. The witness – the martyr – says, against too-easy claims about peace, justice and life, that is not peace, that is not justice, that is not life. The need for wide-ranging judgements about life and death, peace, justice and life are not as distant as we imagine. How will we handle the needs of the millions living on low-lying coastlines when rising sea levels render them homeless? There is no technological solution to this question; solar panels don’t float. How will we handle increasing hostility in the superpowers we don’t like or understand? Will there be true peace or the more likely return to killing as a means of “peace”? What truths will require witnessing – “martyring” – in these contexts?

We “hope”, of course, for less blood than more. By this, we usually mean that we have our “fingers crossed” because we know that the powers of darkness are very strong, for all our effort against them. We don’t need the book of Revelation to tell us this but opening our eyes to the world around us should at least explain why Revelation is violently dark and red. Indeed, revelation tells the story of the God of love, but it is the story of God’s love for us who are too familiar with blood.

For this reason, we gather around the table not merely to receive “the bread of life” and a “cup of salvation”. Indeed, this language is appropriate, but it doesn’t tell the whole truth, and here of all places, let us tell the truth. We are given what is named explicitly as tokens of the body and blood of Jesus because the very people of God – people like us – are capable of making a martyr of the Lord of life. “Bread of life” and “cup of salvation” are Christ broken “for” us; “body” and “blood” are Christ broken by us. Salvation is salvation from this “having-broken” another. The mystery of Christian faith is that, without justifying the violence, God uses it for the revelation – for the apocalypse – of God’s persistent love for his enemies.

Christians do not “wish” for peace. We “hope” for it. That is, we confess a God who exceeds the possibilities of a world of predictable cause and effect – the cause which is violence and the effect which is more violence. To hope “Christianly” is to say that violence is not the only thing which can follow violence. The violence of denial does not have to follow the violence of dispossession or neglect. The violence of war does not have to follow the violence of escalation. Yet Pliny shows how, in a violent world, even such suggestions seem violent, a challenge to the prevailing order: depraved, excessive superstition. Christian hope – not mere belief – can be costly.

To hope Christianly is to live as if we have done the worst and been forgiven, and to relate to others who have done badly in such a way that we become the means by which they do better. It is in this that we “martyr” – that we give testimony to a truth which is not known until someone points to it by being it. “This is what truth looks like”, says the risen Son of the Jesus hanging on the cross.

In none of this is there any revelling in the possibility of martyrdom – that martyrdom which is dying. This corruption has certainly infected the church and many other movements at times, but it is a corruption. Death is never a means to an end with this God.

In reflecting on the martyrs, there is only the invitation to open our eyes to the violent ways of the world. This is not easy for those of us served well by violence. Nevertheless, testimony – martyring – in word and deed – speaking the truth about God and the truth about ourselves – is our purpose as a church and the expression of our faith. Violence might be the way of the world but it is not to be our way.

Let us, then, be willing witnesses to the peace of God, for the sake of all world, believing and not.

Related sermons

[1] The text of the letter can be found at https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/pliny.html.

Sunday Worship at MtE – 26 June 2022

The worship service for Sunday 26 June 2022 can be viewed by clicking on the image below. 

Other worship services can be found in the list below or at the MtE YouTube channel

The order of service can be viewed here.

MtE Update – June 24 2022

Study Groups July – August
  1. Our study groups next week will be looking at the work of grace and forgiveness – details
  1. The most recent Presbytery News (June 23)
  2. The most recent news from the UCA Assembly (June 22)
  3. This Sunday June 26 will continue with the book of Revelation, looking this week at the theme of martyrdom (6.1-11). For commentary on the other lectionary readings for this week, see here.

Worship

  1. Our COVID policy for worship continues to be as follows, to be reviewed again by the church council in July:
  2. Mindful of the health-vulnerability of some members of our congregation and the uncertain state of play with respect to the pandemic, the church council has decided that we will continue to wear masks in worship throughout March, except for those who need to remove them when leading the worship, and for morning tea, or who have an exemption from wearing a mask. Holy Communion continues to be servied in both kinds, the wine via small communion glasses only.

Advance Notice

  1. Congregational Meeting following worship July 24 (previously erroneously advised to be July 17)

Free of Charge – Study Groups July-August 2022

Our third-quarter study groups in 2022 will look at Miroslav Volf’s “Free of charge: giving and forgiving in a culture stripped of grace”.

This text is available in paper and electronic form (Amazon, Koorong [e-book is in epub format], Book Depository, and elsewhere). Participants should get their own copy of the book ($11-$20).

The study groups will meet online for 60-75 minutes on:

  • Wednesday nights, 7.45pm from Wednesday July 20
  • Friday afternoons, 1.30pm from Friday July 22

You’re welcome to switch between groups if one week you can’t make your prefer. The groups will run for 6-8 weeks – about a chapter per week.

It will help if you register below, to received the Zoom meeting link (which is the same for both study groups).

REGISTRATION: Free of Charge

REGISTRATION: Free of Charge

Please indicate which group you plan to attend (you can switch between groups week by week)

Please enter your name
Please enter your name
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I will be coming to the following online group

Lectionary Commentary – Ordinary 13C/Proper 8C (Sunday between June 26 and July 2)

The following links are to the Revised Common Lectionary commentary pages of Howard Wallace and Bill Loader, and are suggested as preparation for hearing the readings in worship for the Sunday indicated above.

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 see also By the Well podcast on this text

Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20

Galatians 5:1, 13-25 see also By the Well podcast on this text

Luke 9:51-62 see also By the Well podcast on this text

19 June – Heaven is not our favourite things

View or print as a PDF

Pentecost 2
19/6/2022

Revelation 21:1-6a
Psalm 42
Luke 8:26-39


In a sentence:
Heaven is where we are made by other people, not the absence of other people.

History has delivered many images of what heaven is like, which are usually connected to certain notions of what hell might be like, the one contrasted with the other. Hell is a place of fire and punishment; heaven is a place of sunshine and bliss – so the story typically goes. The book of Revelation has contributed considerably to these expectations!

Our Revelation text this morning provides a vision of heaven with elements of the blissful existence we might be hoping for: God will dwell with them, will wipe away every tear from their eyes, death and mourning and crying will be no more. These are things we all long for.

But there’s another aspect of John’s vision which may be more troubling if we consider its fuller ramifications: heaven is a place where others are. We might take some comfort in being in heaven with others if we could choose who else is there: friends, the family members we actually like, perhaps our favourite artists or musicians or thinkers. Yet not only they are there if heaven is a city. As a city, heaven is a communal place and not a place of isolated individuals with their narrow desires. This means that heaven may be a place where there will be people we don’t like or have even learned to hate and who return that favour. And there doesn’t seem to be very much heavenly about that.

Of course, if it’s a city, we expect heaven to be pretty large. Perhaps we could be in heaven without running into those people who rub us up the wrong way. Yet, given that that’s how we do things already here and now, there’s still nothing very heavenly about this vision if we have to plot when and where we’ll be to avoid being annoyed or threatened by others. If heaven is a city full of people, it could be just plain hard work. So, after a lifetime of being commanded to love people whom it’s hard to love, we’ll go to heaven and meet more of them. Praise the Lord.

This is all a bit silly but unpacking the ideas of the text in this way shows how they can be misunderstood. There are a lot of half-thought wishes and dreams about heaven (and hell) which have little relationship to scriptural imagery. Whatever heaven is, it is not our favourite things.

Day after day, our televisions, newspapers, radios and social media feeds fill the space around us with the cacophonies, the dissonances, the traffic of city life. What would it take for life in a city to be a harmonious reality, for the heavenly city John describes actually to be heaven?

The answer is that we cannot imagine. By this, we mean that we do not know how this could be possible and so we can’t create this Utopia. The bad news the church has is that we are unable to save ourselves, to the extent that we would have to be alone in heaven if we were to be there on our own terms and not be hassled by other people – even by those we love and yet who are still quite capable of driving us up the wall. Every dream of a new city, every vision of a new society, every “solution” for some communal problem creates just another problem. This is the dynamic between the left, the centre and the right in our politics, each crying out in turn “That didn’t work”, after every social and economic pendulum-swing solution.

But let’s turn all of this towards something more concrete and specific, and closer to home. What about us and our search for a solution to the problem of our future as a congregation? What do we dream of here? What is our vision? How will the next thing for MtE be “heavenly”? For indeed, that is what the next thing must be to be worthwhile.

In another reflection on our situation late last year, I quoted from a little book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Life Together – in which he makes a powerful statement about ideals and human community:

“God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who fashion a visionary ideal of community demand that it be realised by God, by others, and by themselves.

They enter the community of Christians with their demands, set up their own law, and judge the fellowship and God himself accordingly… They act as if they are the creators of the Christian community, as if their dream binds people together.

When their ideal picture is destroyed, they see the community going to smash. So they become, first accusers of the fellowship, then accusers of God, and finally the despairing accusers of themselves.” (SCM 1954, 17f)

This is to say that it is not a brave person who declares “this, and only this” is how to give shape to heaven, is the future of a Christian community. It is not even a fool who says this. It is a blasphemer who declares that God’s home is not with mortals (Rev 21.3) – that God’s home is not with those whose existence is indelibly marked by brokenness and death, who are prone to get it wrong: even us.

We worship a God who justifies sinners. This is not a declaration that there is a safety net for when we break the rules. To say that God justifies sinners is the rules. “Who-justifies-sinners” is God’s name and not merely what God sometimes happens to do. “Home-is-with-mortals” is God’s name.

The shadow-side of this is that if this God is our God, then we are those in need of being justified. Why? In relation to the need to decide our future together, it is because we mistake planning for hope, our work for God’s.

It is, of course, necessary that tomorrow have some particular shape in our imagination: we must plan. This is so that we have something worth doing today. But we can have no confidence that our planned tomorrow will not amount to a crucifying of the Lord of glory. Instinctively, we know this. It is what causes us so much anxiety in the whole process. We wonder, Will we get it wrong?, with particular ideas in our heads of what “wrong” looks like. That is, we have a clearer sense of hell than of heaven. And we wonder, how will we account for ourselves? Who will accuse us for what we choose and how it works out? Perhaps those who went before us, giving us so much, only to see it lost? Perhaps the Presbytery or Synod, which imagine they could have put the resources to better use? Perhaps those sitting in the row in front of, or behind, you, who advised that we go a different way? Perhaps most powerfully: Does God have a plan for us, which we are supposed to guess? Do we risk failing God in this?

To put the question differently: what is the relationship between what we have to do and what is said from the throne in John’s magnificent vision: It is done? What is done? The “done-ness” is the revelation that God’s home is with mortals. God home is with those who built all this, and then died, leaving it to us to sort out. God’s home is with us who will decide what to do with it all, and will then die. God’s home is with those who will have to live with our decisions before they die.

All this is to say: our decision is not the source of our life. The God named home-is-with-mortals – this God is the source of life.

We are a baptised people. The only death which matters we died in that baptism; there is no condemnation of those whose lives are hidden with Christ in God. Weekly we are fed with the signs of death – broken body and spilt blood – not because we are a cannibalistic death cult but because with this God death has no power but what God gives it.

The decisions before us cause us so much trouble because we are afraid that something will die, that tomorrow will be less than heaven. But God’s home is with mortals, with those who die. There is nothing to fear.

“It is done” declares that death has no power; it is overcome, and there is nothing to fear.

What then are we to do? There is only one option. Let death be behind us by choosing life.

What kind of life? Life together: God’s will done, on earth as it will be in the impossible, promised heaven.

Based on a sermon
preached at MtE April 2016

Related sermons

Sunday Worship at MtE – 19 June 2022

The worship service for Sunday 19 June 2022 can be viewed by clicking on the image below. 

Other worship services can be found in the list below or at the MtE YouTube channel

The order of service can be viewed here.

MtE Update – June 17 2022

  1. The most recent Synod eNews (June 16)
  2. Have a look at what is happening through Hotham Mission; details of the Hotham Mission EOFY appeal are here.
  3. The most recent news from the UCA Assembly (June 15)
  4. This Sunday June 19 will continue with the book of Revelation, with another “take” on Revelation 21.1-6a. For commentary on the other lectionary readings for this week, see here.

Worship

  1. Our COVID policy for worship continues to be as follows, to be reviewed again by the church council in July:
  2. Mindful of the health-vulnerability of some members of our congregation and the uncertain state of play with respect to the pandemic, the church council has decided that we will continue to wear masks in worship throughout March, except for those who need to remove them when leading the worship, and for morning tea, or who have an exemption from wearing a mask. Holy Communion continues to be servied in both kinds, the wine via small communion glasses only.
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