Of Sin

Sin is something I am eminently qualified to speak about. I went to every lecture in college about sin, and I diligently did my homework.

But the sinning did not magically stop once I put on a clerical collar. Relentlessly over the years, I have become the master sinner. Once I thought I had actually invented new ways to fall from grace. However, it transpires that my ego was overinflated (again) and that all the really clever ways of sinning had already been thought of and honed to an art form.

So here’s some of the things I have learnt about sin.

First, we are tempted to sin not with the mundane, routine, dull and boring things. No, we are tempted by sparkly and attractive-looking things. Things that are luscious to the eye and the senses.

Secondly, you sin before you even realise it’s what you are doing. Rarely do you hear the still small voice whispering ‘Do you really think it’s a good idea to have that second chocolate brownie?’ In my vast and wide-reaching experience, I’ve already scoffed it down before I have thought of what numbers might appear on the scales in the morning.

Finally, sin promises you everything but can only deliver disappointment. To push the parable of the second chocolate brownie beyond its logical parameters, the second chocolate brownie promises you a marvellous mouthfeel and taste sensation, even better than the first brownie. You might even believe that it has all the 5 basic food groups: sugar, butter, chocolate, fat and flour. You might be seduced into thinking that such a little chocolate brownie could never do much harm.

Ultimately, sin, no matter which form it presents itself, can only deliver disappointment. It just takes a lifetime to relearn this.

16/8/26

Of Homecoming

At this time of year, there is a curious day in our lectionary called Mary Mother of the Lord.

Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters call this ‘the Assumption of Our Lady ’, and our Greek Orthodox brothers and sisters call it "The falling asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

It's a day that we know must have happened. The day when the Mother of Our Lord died a physical death. There are at least two possible points of view.

One says that when she drew her last breath, Mother Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven. Much like our Elijah catching a ride on the chariot or Our Lord ascending into heaven.

The other says that she went to heaven after she died, much like you and I plan to one day.

I don’t think that it really matters which theory you subscribe to, but what does matter is that Our Lord and his mother are in heaven, united together in the love that they shared while they were here on earth. Today reinforces our understanding and enhances the teaching that love and life really do continue beyond the grave with those who we miss and cannot see temporarily.

For those who might be squeamish about such popery, a couple of simple little sayings might help.

One from a friend of mine who once quipped but quite seriously said

‘You can’t say I love you Jesus, but your mum's a dead roman catholic’

or

‘No Mary… no Jesus. It’s as simple and as mysterious as that.’

Or

‘If Mother Mary is not in heaven with her son, where exactly is she?’

This day should be a day of great hope and reassurance, for if a lowly teenage peasant lass can make it to heaven, then goodness gracious there is hope for everyone here today and those who are not.

But my feeble attempts to explain something of this beautiful and exquisite day were completely gazumped by somebody who had been saying their prayers a lot longer than I. They saw the reunification of Jesus and his Mother as a kind of ‘homecoming.’ Now how come I didn’t have the insight to see it that way? Perhaps it might be helpful to think of the next funeral we attended as a kind of homecoming.

Sister Carol Wildt in France wrote:

‘I picture the Assumption of Mary as her homecoming! Having completed the mission of her earthly life and longing to be with Jesus and Joseph, Mary is now reunited with her son and her husband. What a homecoming that reunion must have been like!
I also find myself wondering how Mary’s Assumption affected John and the other disciples. Mary was no longer physically present with them; they could not see or hear her, they could not confide in her and seek counsel from her. What a challenge to their faith in Jesus and His promises. With Mary’s body literally gone and no burial site to visit, there was no physical reminder of Mary, only memories and, at times, an unexplainable presence.

In our own day, many of us have met or know of persons who have experienced the loss of a loved one as a result of war, accident, violence, unknown circumstances, etc. and the body is never located. The feast of Mary’s Assumption gives hope and consolation to them as they grieve and mourn the loss of their loved one, believing that the person is not lost or annihilated, but enjoys eternal life with their God who loves unconditionally.

The Assumption symbolises for me the fulfilment of Jesus’ promise, “I go to prepare a place for you.” This scriptural quote speaks to me of transition. In these days of transition, Mary’s Assumption brings hope and a deepening realisation that present life, with its challenges, joys, struggles and dreams, is not the definitive heaven we seek. As the funeral liturgy states: Life is changed, not taken away. If I, like Mary, continue to walk the path of my baptismal and vowed commitment wherever God leads me, I, too, will be raised and reach the place that Jesus has prepared for me.

In several weeks, the global community will observe the 80th anniversary of the beginning of World War II. This period of history saw millions of people die as a result of genocide, concentration camps, slave labour, and the numerous evils of the war. The war showed the world what happens when the human person and human body are not valued and are perceived as unworthy of life. Mother Mary is a powerful statement that the human person and the human body are sacred and will be glorified for all eternity. God’s creation of each person (including you and me) is very good.

While the Assumption signifies God’s crowning of the creation of Mary as she ends her earthly life, it also signifies for me that I hope to follow her when my earthly life has ended. You and I can celebrate the hope of reaching heaven and living with the Trinity just as Mary has. My deepest hope is that following in Mary’s footsteps on the path that God has laid out for me will bring me to my true home and that I, too, will celebrate a homecoming with God, family, friends and all who I hold dear.’

‘You have looked at it, but you haven’t seen it.’

It was just a sentence out of one of my favourite books, ’The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.’ A far-reaching compendium which includes how to make a pan-galactic gargle blaster. A refreshing beverage that theological students claim is a vocation.

My more serious quote comes from a discussion where one of the protagonists is excitedly chatting to another about the beauty of a fjord.

‘You have looked at it, but you haven’t seen it’. And it struck me that this is true of me as well. How many times have I ‘looked’ at a thing of great beauty and not ‘seen’ it? I did not really appreciate it. I did not really enjoy it, engage with it and be moved by it.

Every inch of our local Grampians opens up the possibility of such an experience. So does the ocean, which is only an hour away. You can ‘look’ at these things for sure, but to really ‘see’ them you first have to stop. Completely stop. Breathe, then breathe several times more. With your gentle gaze, caress every detail slowly.  Allow the vision to enrapture you, delight you, enthral you. Do not move away, do not stop seeing it, until it lets you go. Those starry-eyed couples who gaze at each other longingly over candlelit tables are experts at this process.

But you don’t have to go to the Grampians or the ocean. It can be with the roses in the back garden or the face of someone you see frequently.  It happens with me at the altar as the Master looks at me and I look at him. In this exchange, in this living moment, I am not just looking, but I am seeing, as if for the first time.

9th of August

Mary Sumner … Thank You!

Yippee! In our Anglican calendar, it is Mary Sumner Day. This year it happens to fall on a Sunday, so we’re making a bit of fuss.

Mary Sumner was the founder of Mothers Union. This parish is gorgeously blessed because it has such a healthy, vibrant and laughter-filled group of people who are members of our Mothers Union. In fact, it is probably one of the strongest Mothers Union groups in the diocese and, numbers-wise, it is certainly the strongest organisation in our parish.

Mothers Union is especially concerned with family life and therein lies the rub. Full disclosure and confession, I should quickly point out that the Diocesan Mothers Union Chaplain, who also happens to be your vicar, comes from a family where his parents were divorced and each went on to remarry. Does this disqualify me from this wonderful and undeserved role? Perhaps my qualifications and heritage are besmirched.

Perhaps I am not in good standing to be the MU chaplain or even a Mothers Union member. When my parents were going through the throes of divorce in 1977, this may well have been the thinking. There are people still alive today who can tell you with hand on heart that they were asked not to attend MU because of their marital status.

Perhaps it might help if I let you know that while the nastiness of the separation and divorce was exploding around me, there were a couple of priestly people and one Bishop who were exceptionally kind and compassionate. I came out the other side aspiring to pass on that same pastoral care. I have no idea if these clerics were members of Mothers' Union, but they did show forth inclusion, welcome and support of me and my family, even though and perhaps especially because my family was in tatters.

We have come a long way in our thinking since I was a gawky, pimply 17-year-old. All sorts of ragamuffins and recalcitrants are not only welcomed into Mothers Union, but they are rejoiced in, and they minister to us. We actively seek them out and encourage them because they are authentically human with no pretence or dressing up. Life in the raw, to be loved, redeemed and rejoiced in. They have much to teach us and we as Mothers Union and a parish are all the more colourful and accessible for what they bring to us. Mary Sumner, … Thank you.

And that, for me at least, is the beauty of Mothers Union and Mary Sumner. That the healing begins with the acceptance of everyone. Mary Sumner, being married to a vicar, would not have always found it easy. Toss in the pressures of being a mum, and there must have been days. The organisation she started would have been a challenge for her, but it would also have been a source of blessing and encouragement.

Mothers Union sets the bar high, for we all need principles to strive for, but it is also the first to be there in the grit and gravel, when love is shredded as sometimes it is.

And when this happens, we turn and have a good long hard look at our warts and realise that none of us is perfect and far from tut tutting, we open wide the arms of welcome to those who seek us out and say to them…

‘Welcome friend; I’m just like you. We’re all a bit grubby around the edges; we all have gashes that we hide away from others. Love has unravelled for me sometimes, and there are many weeks when I am just holding it together.’ 

And we can say this and live this when we have reflected on the words of the gospel.

 ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.’

It seems to be that the Master knows that those who are wild and woolly like a scarecrow are the most fun and the most fruitful.

So today we gather and give thanks for Mary Sumner who could not have foreseen the fruitful organisation that would still all be happening in Western Victoria in 2026. Today we give thanks for the Mothers' Union, in this parish, throughout our diocese and throughout the world.

And today, as a begrimed Mothers Union chaplain, I say with a big cheesy grin and a twinkle in my eye, “Mary Sumner …Thank you!”

Do I Really Need To Say This?

One of the excruciating lessons that I have to learn and relearn continuously is the need to set and keep a guard over my mouth. I am privileged to have many conversations each and every day, and frequently I find myself falling into the trap of saying more than I need to or should.

To my detriment and therefore to the pain and angst of others, I have learnt that you cannot ‘unsay’ things. Once it’s out and spoken, you can’t retrieve and pretend like it didn’t happen. You can’t ‘erase’ the conversation, what is said and the way that it is said. And don’t get me started about electronic conversations which are there for all to see, print out, read and distribute literally around the world in a matter of seconds.

Some little ways forward that I have found are useful for me and therefore might be of some help to you, gentle reader.

With the issue of text or email, don’t send it unless you are absolutely sure and you have re-read it a couple of times. Maybe get an editor-in-chief to check it over before you do anything. Maybe even sleep on it for a night or two. Print it out and read it over the breakfast table whilst slurping down your porridge. Is this the sort of message you would like to receive? Can it be construed and misinterpreted in ways that you don’t intend?

As to the spoken word, that is much harder because it happens so quickly, there and then in the very moment. The only thing I have found that helps me … sometimes … is to try to listen to a small insistent voice pleading… Do I really need to say this?

What’s “angertainment?”

This new word came from Ed Coper. In his book Angertainment, he outlines the theory that with the internet, we were promised a global village.

Instead, we got a gladiatorial arena where our strongest emotions of fear and anger are manipulated for the profit and entertainment of those who should know better.

These folk are really quite good at pitting many against each other for the profit of themselves.

They do so by putting out on the screen the wackiest, ludicrous and emotive ‘grab clicks’. Our news feeds are full of carefully worded headlines which seek to draw us into a slurry of outrage and fury.

Further, the tagline of the story will always couch the topic as if the event was a simple black-and-white story and seek to draw us down a particular line of reasoning.

Short, pithy anger-inducing headlines are what we have been sucked into buying, digesting and integrating.

Here’s some from a news feed on June 25th

“Queensland teenager acquitted of planning a terror attack against Liberal Party members.”

“Man charged with murdering former partner Crystal Beale and dumping her body denied bail for second time”

A story that began with

“The argument is more nuanced and complex than what we might first believe. There are valid points on both sides and further negotiation and understanding is the way forward to a more fruitful, long-term outcome for all”

would probably not excite us, draw us in and make us investigate further. In short, it would not generate the dollars.

People have realised that in the attention economy, your anger is the only currency that matters.  Whatever happened to

‘Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God’? These words from the prophet Micah are the antidote for the sepsis of angertainment that has seeped into our world.

Our Happy Places.

It was about 1969 when we moved to the family farm at Sheep-hills just outside of Warracknabeal. Christ Church was our parish church, as the Sheep-hills Church had become defunct and had subsequently moved to Halls Gap, where it continues a faithful, welcoming ministry to tourists and locals alike.

I was baptised and confirmed at Christ Church Warracknabeal. My father and his parents were all buried from this church. I learnt to serve at the altar there, and I believe the flickering of a vocation was sparked there. The sanctuary where I floundered and flounced felt like a warm, secure and safe place, and I wanted every moment of my life to feel like this.

So when I returned there for an ordination earlier this year, I found myself once again in that same sacred space, with the same windows, the same carpet and a doona experience of nostalgia and longing. Like fluttering autumn leaves, memories came to mind. It was almost as if I had just slipped into the dimension of my former life and there I was, as if I had never left.

I should not have been surprised about the potency and possibility of this ‘telescoping of time’. Whenever I am at the altar, I am also at that very first/last supper whilst simultaneously I am at the end of time at the heavenly banquet with angels and archangels. The party that knows no hangovers or ending.

I didn’t drive up to the ordination expecting such a humbling and delicious experience. The sense of otherness always finds me.

Where I have come from and who I was is the stuff of who I am. It is not something to be shirked or recoiled from but something to be rejoiced in. It was, is and will be, my happy place. And yours is…?

26/7/26

Love Has No Transaction Fees.

Today’s first lesson about Rachel and Leah is one of my favourites. It raises several questions, has lots to teach us and is just a jolly good romping story.

Here’s the go.

Laban has two daughters. The older one is Leah, and Leah has weak eyes. Rachel, on the other hand, has a lovely figure and is beautiful.

Young, handsome Jacob is a relative of Laban, recently returned home and back to his family. So Laban gives Jacob a job looking after the livestock. After a month, two things happen. Jacob has not only noticed Rachel; he has become besotted with her. The second thing that happens is that Laban offers Jacob a job.

“Because you are a relative of mine, you shouldn’t work for me for nothing. Tell me what your wages should be.”

Well,… Jacob knows exactly what he would like, and we hope Rachel had similar feelings. He asks for Rachel to be his wages.

“I’ll work for you for seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.”

Laban is only too obliging. It’s better that you, a kinsman of mine, should marry her than some other man.

Jolly good. The deal is sealed. Jacob works faithfully for seven years for Rachel, and we have a rather exquisite line

‘But the seven years  seemed like only a few days to Jacob because of his love for Rachel’

At the end of seven years Jacob calls in the favour.

“Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to express my love for her.” My sanitised version.

So Laban brings together all the people of the place, gives a feast and then does something rather mischievous. In fact ‘mischievous’ is me dressing it up a bit.

Instead of sending the lovely, younger, comely Rachel into the honeymoon suite, he sends the older, squinty-eyed Leah.

It’s not until the next morning that Jacob realises what his devious father-in-law has done. He has woken up beside Leah… not his lovely Rachel. ‘Oh no!’  Or words to that effect.

Now there is a serious and obvious question.

How come Jacob didn’t realise who it was that was in the honeymoon suite with him? Was it that dark, were the sisters so alike, had he had a few too many wedding pan galactic gargle blasters or …

Whatever the answer, we will never know, and I’m pretty sure that in such a personal space and moment, it’s none of our jolly business much, and all as we are tempted to muse and speculate.

When Jacob confronts his father-in-law Laban about the trickery, we get a very glib, inadequate reply.

 Laban just trots out the standard traditional family line: ‘Oh well, it’s not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one, but  tell you what I’m going to do.  Finish this daughter’s bridal celebration week; then I will give you the younger Rachel also,…… in return for another seven years of work.”

And there’s another question here about the whole employer/employee, workplace agreement, minimum wage, enterprise bargaining, fair work commission thing.

Jacob is so entranced with Rachel that he jumps at Laban’s offer and works for another seven years.

Presumably this second lot of seven years was just like the first, and he could say again

‘the seven years seemed like only a few days because of his love for Rachel.

You see,…for Jacob it is not a transaction but a process. Authentic love at its finest has no transaction fees.

Wedding couples sign blank cheques to each other with their lives. Here, write whatever cost you like.

We also see this principle in the gospel parables.

Both gentlemen sell everything so that they might have the treasure or the precious pearl. The cost is irrelevant and matters not whether it is a pomegranate or a fig.

The only difference in the parables is that the first gentleman finds the treasure by accident whilst the second gentleman is on a specific quest, knows exactly what he is looking for and finally finds it.

And that is true of many of us here today. Sometimes we know the yearning, that craving, that aching God space in our lives and we go searching until we find him, usually in the most obvious places after all.

Others of us almost bump accidentally into God, or we realise that God has been gently nudging and bumping into us all along. Eventually we think. OH. It’s you! And we discover our new friend, our persistent annoying and loving God.

The same one who will give up everything, empty himself on the cross, not as a transaction fee, but to live out the process of love in betrayal through denial, upon the cross, into a sealed tomb and into magnificent resurrection. Similarly, we cannot buy grace, or His love, or friendship. They are freely given, as we must always give to him out of the finest love we can offer, with no transaction fees.

19/7/26

The sin of certainty … The holiness of doubt …

Today I would like to explore the possibility that Certainty is a sin and that doubt is actually a holy thing. This concept should be quite liberating for us, for we all struggle with doubts and we can all fall into the sin of certainty.

My inspiration for this homily is from our second lesson today, where St. Paul is writing to the congregation at Rome. In his letter, he is speaking about Present Suffering and Future Glory.

The present suffering is easy to see and understand. It is the here and now stuff. Visible and tangible. We all get that and can identify with it.

The future glory stuff is a little trickier. It belongs in the time to come, a place we cannot see and experience, but St. Paul assures us that the future glory will be infinitely and indescribably more thrilling and enjoyable than anything we can imagine. So he writes …

 “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” 

Further, he points out that the sufferings of the present time lead naturally to the glory that is revealed to us. It's as if the two are dependent on the other.

So we get…

We share in his sufferings so that we may also share in his glory.

But this shift from suffering to glory does not happen instantaneously. It’s not a quick fix, a silver bullet. There is some waiting to be done in between times, and waiting, as we all know, can be downright excruciating.

But we ourselves groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as children, the redemption of our bodies

And while we wait, we are in the dimension of hope and doubt. Every so often, an arrow with a message will pierce our conscious mind, and the message on this arrow is a simple two-word question.

What If?

And our minds and hearts are left to run amok with possibilities and conundrums.

What if this life is all there is? What if … I am not forgiven? What if my muttered feeble prayers and my countless tears amount to nothing, go unheeded and are just the gesticulations of a dotty old priest. What if … all this is folly?

So we wrestle, we doubt, we struggle, and we hope. Some of the finest folk who walk very closely in the presence of the living risen Christ are those for whom this arduous grappling is a part of their very being. They are all the more exquisite and admirable, for they get up day after day and consciously choose to walk this boulder-strewn track.

We are clothed then not just in sparkle and joy and feasting and laughter, but also in dowdy rags of doubt and hope. All of this, the desirable and the hard slog, are who we are. All are essential ingredients in the bread of life where you have to knead it … prove it and then just jolly well wait.

We hope and doubt because we cannot quite see what we are and what we shall be, but in this same cloudy hope St. Paul tells us we shall be saved.

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Take out the hope and doubt ingredients, and you are left with the sin of certainty, and we must always consider the possibility that we will frequently get it wrong.

I conclude with something I wrote last year.

Once I went to see the film ’Conclave’. It was the fictitious story about the election of a Pope. Towards the beginning of the film, the Dean who helps to co-ordinate the trickiness delivers a stunning homily to the assembled cardinals, and I believe it is particularly pertinent for our diocese as she seeks a new bishop at this time.

“St Paul said, ‘Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.’ To work together, and to grow together, we must be tolerant. No one person or faction seeking to dominate another. And speaking to the Ephesians, who were of course a mixture of Jews and Gentiles, Paul reminds us that God’s gift to the church…is its variety. It is this variety, this diversity of people and views which gives our church its strength. And over the course of many years in the service of our Mother the Church, let me tell you, there is one sin, which I have come to fear above all others. Certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” He cried out in his agony at the ninth hour on the cross.

Our faith is a living thing, precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty…and no doubt…there would be no mystery … and therefore no need … for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a leader who doubts.

And let him grant us a leader who sins,  asks for forgiveness, and who carries on.”

Allow Yourself to Learn

It was an incisive phrase I snatched from a sparkling conversation. The other person was of more mature years, but time had not dulled their mind or blunted their wit. The glitter of the conversation was nurturing and enjoyable.

‘Allow yourself to learn.’ In a rare moment of lucidity, I caught this phrase and clutched it tightly to myself. A lot is going on with this phrase, and here are just some of the bombs that go off once you light the fuse.

First, you have to own up to the fact that you get it wrong. To admit to the fallout and the bruises that are yours and those that you implanted (hopefully unwittingly) on others. Allow yourself the fact that you don’t know it all; you never will, but you are determined to go gently learning, always being patient with yourself.

Secondly, allow yourself to grasp the stinging nettle that it is OK to fail. It’s what happens after you plummet face down in the mud that matters. Do you lie there feeling sorry for yourself, or do you courageously pick yourself up, seek solace with a beverage and friend, and plot ways to avoid such a mishap?

All too often we don’t allow ourselves the space and massage of allowing ourselves to learn. There are lessons aplenty, and we should have learnt them the first time, but being mortal means that we have to repeatedly go back to some good old one-on-one tutoring.

Listen to that little voice that is too easily silenced ... It’s OK, in fact it is necessary, to allow yourself to learn. The stomping bullies of self-congratulation and self-righteous priggishness are our worst enemies and do us a lot of harm. They can, however, be easily vanquished by allowing ourselves the space to learn.