Presentation of Our Lord

Three cheers for the old fogeys.

In my little lifetime, I think I have begun to see the first glimpse of a recovery of respect and concern for those folk who are ‘mature years’. Maybe you’re familiar with some of those charming TV shows where there is a cross-fertilisation of generations in nursing homes. Primary school and youth visit and engage with senior citizens in all sorts of formats, games and opportunities.

Today, along with Mary, Jesus and Joseph there are two such folks who are the knockout stars of the gospel. Simeon and Anna are stalwarts of the synagogue, have much to teach us and they are old.

Like many who have several decades under their belt

They know how to wait, they know how to pray and they know to tell anyone who will listen, to the good news of God in the temple.

Simenon and Anna saw the messiah amid the hubbub of the temple. Seniors see things that the rest of us miss.

Further, they know that this life is not all there is. They know that there is more to come after they have taken their last breath and are finally released from the trappings and restrictions of the 21st century they blossom into angels and saints.

Old people have come to know how much they need God and how much we all need each other.

Part of the good news of Anna and Simeon is not only that they recognise the messiah in the midst of the hubbub and busyness of the synagogue, but they know how much they need him.

And when we are younger and spritely and trying to save the universe and sorting out the Church of God this is something we are not always aware of.

We need each other in order to completely be the person we are called to be and we especially need those who we have never met before and those who might come to our temple who really aren’t quite sure of the moves and rules. And they might feel rather afraid. Will they be spotted as a stranger? Will people be looking round and scrutinising them and saying 'They obviously don't belong here; they don't know what to do'? Here are all these people (that's us) apparently doing strange things without giving it a second thought. We know the moves, we know the rules, and they don't. Rather like going into a club whose rules you don't know and a school whose habits you don't know (if you're a child): so the Church feels too many. It's bizarre, it's eccentric, and it is frightening.

They might be unsure if they need us, But boy, we should know that we really need them.

• Rowan Williams put it this way

So all of us have some good news. And the good news is really this: in the infinite variety of voices singing praise in God's universe, your voice – trained or untrained – is as welcome as anybody else's. And the language you speak is a language we all need to hear. Because to be part of that overwhelming, overflowing abundant fellowship, is to recognise that no part of it is complete or alive without the others. In the letter to the Hebrews, the writer speaks of all the great heroes of Israel's past; and then says, 'Without you, these people would not be made perfect.' All the great giants of biblical history: Abraham and Moses, Joshua, Gideon and Samson: are all waiting for you to join them because without you their joy and their fulfilment are not complete. It's as if when you turn up into the fellowship of God's people, Abraham comes across to you beaming all over his face, asking ‘Where have you been all my life?!’ The great heroes, the great saints, the people we think we have very little in common with — they want our company too, because God wants our company and God wants each one of us to grow into maturity, fulfilment, and love in that fellowship. So Abraham may have been a man of exemplary, outstanding, unimaginable holiness, courage and devotion, and yet he still needs me and you to make him completely Abraham.

And as we think back across the years of our church’s existence, and the witness that's gone on here, we might think of all those people who have served God with exemplary devotion and courage and sanctity, all looking at us and saying, 'Where have you been all my life? I need your voice, your friendship and your fellowship to be myself.' Out of that deeply unlikely exchange, the holy fellowship is born: everyone, happily and gratefully, in need of everyone else; each one of us waiting expectantly and joyfully for what the neighbour can give; not only the neighbour here and now in this act of worship today, but our neighbours through history and our Christian neighbours in the future. This is not an easy idea to get your head around, and yet we are also the people that future Christians will need, and we'll need them, that's the nature of the fellowship into which we are drawn, and that is holiness, the not being without one another. It is the relationship that makes us who we are, because ultimately the holy God we serve and love, the holy God who comes among us in this temple is a God of relation, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Amen.

Plunge into the Grunge

Over the years it has been my undeserved privilege to totter along to a few dinner parties. These were often colourful and riotous occasions with tasty food and refreshing beverages. Sometimes new acquaintances were initiated. Frequently old relationships were enhanced and strengthened. There was often giggling and sometimes uninhibited, raucous laughter. As far as I’m aware no one ever got arrested and the experience is recalled with fondness and affection.

But those ingredients of friendship, conversation, privilege and service are also to be found in what comes after dinner party. The grungy, inevitable dishes.

Some of my most fruitful conversations were not at the dinner party table but at the kitchen sink doing the washing up. Here in the hot sudsy water, adorned in my finest rubber gloves and Mothers Union apron, I learnt about the important stuff. The argy bargy over that will that was made last century and is still hotly contested at vast expense. Old so and so’s gout/hernia/tonsillectomy. The time when The Reverend X did the unthinkable and unspeakable.

It’s easy when the wine is flowing, the food is fabulous and the company is witty and sparkly, but this is only a small part of the whole life experience. Such bliss is unsustainable. Real, authentic service, the gritty nitty stuff, the muck that really matters, is often not attractive, a bit on the nose and not at all glamorous. There must be times when we roll up our sleeves, maybe even put on a pair of gum boots, take a deep breath and plunge into the grunge.

It is there that we do some of our finest work and some of our most rewarding service. It is there in the bathing of wounds with patient listening and reaching out with a compassionate heart that we will find … we will find Him.

It’s time to play… “Catch the Snowball”

I heard of this endearing game the other day from the other side of the globe. You create a snowball and allow your pet dog to see it. Then you hurl the snowball into the distance where it splatters into a thousand snowflakes.

Your dog has followed the flight of the snowball through the air and has bounded off exuberantly to chase the snowball but then when the snowball has exploded, runs around in quizzical circles almost as if to say ‘I know it’s around here somewhere.’ Then, called back the process is repeated with both owner and pet enjoying the game and sense of fun.

As I imagined this game it seemed to bear an uncanny resemblance to my own quest to grasp the divine. The glimpse of something unquestionably real, the bounding along with hope and delight only to find that somehow what I thought I was chasing has morphed into a different dimension and I am left puzzled and intrigued. ‘What just happened here?’

What if the aim is not actually to capture the snowball and claim it solely for myself? Maybe the thrill of the chase is what it’s all about.

I ponder that the snow is all about and around. What I saw was perhaps just a concentrated and compounded glimpse of something that is not elusive, but is natural, available, reachable and as infinite as snow in the northern hemisphere on a chilly February evening.

And then I turned the whole thing on its head and asked. ‘What if in fact, it is we who are the elusive part in this game?’ Maybe it is an exuberant and enthusiastic God who simply is chasing us and longs to play ‘Catch the Snowball’.

A reflection for Australia day

Where is Home?

Today’s story begins in 1981. I am visiting England for the very first time and somehow this naive country boy had not only managed to navigate Heathrow airport, the London spaghetti of railway lines, but also the regional rail service all the way up to a place called Malvern Link.

I’m going there for two reasons.

First, I have a great uncle living there who I have only met once before. Secondly, because my Father grew up in this region. He had spoken fondly of this area, especially the Malvern Hills and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

It had been snowing heavily on the way up and the train trip was frustrating and tedious. I arrived when it was dark and knocked on a door. The thought that I might have got it wrong had never occurred to me. The Angels and St. Christopher must have been working overtime on this journey because the door opened and Hey Presto, there was my great uncle who ushered me in with an effusive grin, a gregarious hug (well gregarious for an English gentleman), and a nice pot of tea by the fire.

The next day I set off to visit the Malvern Hills and what struck me most powerfully was not the picturesque snow, nor the exhilaration of tobogganing, nor the crisp temperature, but the almost palpable sense of connection and homecoming. Even now as I write/read this, the potency of this moving experience stirs a physical ache and a deep emotional longing.

Remember please that I had never set foot in England before. So what was it that stirred me so? And it is not just me; there are others who will tell you of a similar experience. They have gone to a place for the very first time and it is as if they have known it all their life and belonged there.

Those who dabble in understanding how our minds and emotions work can posit many theories and while I do not wish to diminish their fine work and the plausibility of their reasoning, I would layer over the top of their research that there is something extra, a spiritual dimension that cannot be explained away with the maths and science in the research laboratory. For me this ‘something extra’ is the attractive and delicious part, purely because it is mysterious, alluring and inexplicable. Give me a taunting, intoxicating, almost rational ... but not quite, experience any day.

It wasn’t until much later when I was allowing the experience of the Malvern Hills to be stirred and marinated with the ingredients of time and distance, that a confronting, uninvited question popped up.

Where is home?

I’d always assumed that home was where I laid my head at night, but that’s not entirely true. On my travels I’ve put my head down in some pretty wacky and weird places, but not all I would call home.

Perhaps a better answer might be where our loved ones are, or where collected memories have been made, or where there are pictures of loved places and people around us.

On this Australia Day there is also a sense in which we celebrate our nation as home. It’s a mighty big home with all sorts of quirks and joys and conundrums. We must never forget what an undeserved privilege it is to live here.

The quickest glimpse of our brothers and sisters overseas, their troubles, particularly their political argy-bargy, should pull us up short and make us fall to our knees in gratitude for where we live and the way we live. While we might have the odd whinge about our pollies, we vote ‘em in, and we chuck 'em out and after voting together we share a democracy sausage and just get on with it.

But of course, I haven’t completely answered the nagging question. Where is home? Even the family home, the property, or the suburban house will not be our ‘forever home’. The reality is that it is a passing shell where memories of laughter and tears, boredom and high spirits are fermented and formatted over the years.

A starting point for  the answer might be from today’s gospel.

“Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom”.

The place where we are brought up will always be potent for us. For some it is the place of great misery and suffering. For others it bestirs fond memories and a sense of gratitude, but these places are also transient and fleeting. The farmhouse at Sheep-hills where I grew up, is no longer standing.

Rather, it is our spiritual home that is truly enduring through all ages. It might be a synagogue as it was for Our Lord and is now for our Jewish brothers and sisters. It might be this church where we encounter the presence of the one who still speaks to us through the scriptures and sacrament just as surely as he did all those years ago. Or maybe it is that moment where we sense we are at table with Him, with other disciples and angels.  Perhaps our true home is not a geographical place, but the spiritual home where we belong which is why at funerals we do not send our loved ones away from us, but rather we send them to that place which is their true home and therefore our true home.

It is there that we truly find each other. It is there that we find home. Ultimately We find our enduring Home simply in Him.

January 19th 2025

Three cheers for Felicity and Fr. Scott.

Clergy aren’t supposed to have favourite readings from the bible … are they?

So perhaps it would be a better turn of phrase if I told you that today’s gospel resonates more powerfully with me than say… the beheading of John the Baptist or Judas hanging himself. For one thing, the water into wine story reminds me of the four glorious years I spent at Seppelts Great Western.

But for today I simply offer some glints of gold that I glimpse and hope that you might find them helpful too

The gospel begins with that telling phrase “On the third day” which is a cue for the readers and listeners of this passage that something momentous is about to be told which will usher in a radical, fresh exciting chapter of new life. New life is about to burst uncontrollably forth and change our very existence.

Remember John writes later than the other gospel writers so by the time his audience hears the phrase “on the third day”, they are already familiar with the potency of these words.

The old wine runs out. The old way of existence is over, kaput and something fresh and exhilarating is about to happen.

Interestingly it is Mother Mary’s quiet insistence that helps to inaugurate this next chapter. It’s almost as if Jesus has to be nudged and cajoled into action. Mother Mary is a powerful advocate for all Christians and just as occasionally I’ll ask my own earthly Mum for help from her place on the other side of the grave, so too I have no qualms about asking Jesus' Mum to pray for me just as I ask you to pray for me and I am well aware of your prayerful support and will always be grateful for it.

Her words to us are a powerful mantra - one that I come back to time after time after time.

“Do whatever he tells you”…. “Do whatever he tells you”….

Seems obvious and straightforward forward doesn’t it? But it isn’t. The Master will ask complex and tricky things of us. Sometimes we will be led to places and people and situations ….

“Do whatever he tells you”….

Notice please that it is the underlings, the wait staff, the dishwashers, and the working class that get to do the most important work.

At the wedding, they were invisible to the guests but their role is crucial, vital and life-changing for everyone including themselves.

I mean, once you had done and witnessed something like that, you would have to be changed.

And what do you think would be the first thing they would do when they finally got home from the wedding? They’re going to tell their spouses and anyone who will stand still long enough, what happened.

There are many people whose lives were changed that day at Cana. The bride and groom, the waiters and who knows, after a couple of glasses of the really good wine and a bit of Dorky Dave Dad dancing, maybe some other relationships were kindled.. enhanced.

Our Lord’s life was changed too. He has now been outed - ousted and could not go back to being a simple itinerant wandering rabbi with a few disreputable friends.

He was outed largely by His Mum. If she hadn’t intervened and pleaded the case for the happy couple, then maybe he could have remained in blissful obscurity. Yeah, Thanks a lot, Mum.

And I wonder if being a Mum, with all the perception and foresight that Mum’s have… I wonder if she knew that her words would change the relationship she had with her son, and did she regret this shift?

Relationships are always ebbing and flowing, warping and bending, treading on new ground, sometimes gingerly and with fear, sometimes with exuberance and enthusiasm and never going back to how things were.

I’ve called this Homily ‘Three cheers for Felicity and Fr. Scott’. Bear with me as with the flimsiest of connections to today’s gospel reading I connect the dots and try to finish this interminable homily.

In just a few swiftly fleeting weeks, Fr. Scott will be consecrated as our assistant Bishop. Two Sundays a month he will be out in the parishes doing … well Assistant Bishop-type things. Behind and with Him is his wife Felicity.

They will not be able to go back to how things were last year. Their relationship with Bishop Gary, The parish of Warrnambool, the lay people and the clergy of the Diocese will irreversibly be changed. They will be outed and ousted into a completely new dimension and the old doors will shut firmly behind them.

Like the waiters in the gospel, their work will be hidden from us. Most of it unrewarding and all of it unheralded. Every child abuse case and there are lots of them, every recalcitrant priest and there are far too many of us, every tedious meeting, every tricky situation, every grumpy letter will be dealt with discreetly and pastorally, consuming stonkering amounts of brain power, spiritual and psychological energy.

We will see none of this but I am confident with Felicity and Fr. Scotts experience, verve and wisdom, the good wine will come and we will be the happier and the more joyous for their labours. We might even go back for more  good wine and do the dorky dad Dave dance. There is a sense in which the good wine has been kept until now and we will all be the more blessed in this year of 2025 and beyond.

Today I shamelessly pinch some words from the guru Nick Cave.

"You are right to be worried about your growing feelings of cynicism and you need to take action to protect yourself and those around you, especially your child. Cynicism is not a neutral position - and although it asks almost nothing of us, it is highly infectious and unbelievably destructive. In my view, it is the most common and easy of evils. I know this because much of my early life was spent holding the world and the people in it in contempt. It was a position both seductive and indulgent. The truth is, I was young and had no idea what was coming down the line. I lacked the knowledge, the foresight, the self-awareness. I just didn't know. It took a devastation to teach me the preciousness of life and the essential goodness of people. It took a devastation to reveal the precariousness of the world, of its very soul, to understand that it was crying out for help. It took a devastation to understand the idea of mortal value, and it took a devastation to find hope. Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like, Valerio, such as reading to your little boy, or showing him a thing you love, or singing him a song, or putting on his shoes, keeps the devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that it is so." ~Nick Cave

Baptism of Our Lord 12/1/25

In praise of our excitable God

In my mind’s eye I can very easily imagine the scene of today’s gospel. For one thing, those who have been to the river Jordan tell me that it would not pass our stringent O. H. & S standards. The river Jordan is not chlorinated and sparkling clean and you can’t see the bottom. So I envisage something like the muddy farm dam of my childhood, complete with Redfin, mud and yabbies. I love the image of a wild and wooly John the Baptist, complete with an embarrassingly large unkept beard, whilst waving a hefty pastoral staff passionately in the air. On the banks of the River Jordan he is proudly sporting the latest camel’s hair coat and matching leather belt. There he is, loudly hollering and encouraging the folk to get their stuff together. To repent and believe the good news, that sin can be forgiven, that they can be baptised by the Holy Spirit and that the Messiah is coming. He seems undaunted or oblivious to the fact that he is making an enemy of powerful Herod.

In this scene Luke even tells us about the sense of expectancy and wonder that was amongst the people.

“The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah.”

When I conjure up the vision I sense the peoples anticipation and hope. And if I had been there … would I have been caught up in their emotion? I’d like to hope so. But what about us today? Do we still have that flutter of nervous exuberance? And if not, where, when and how, did we lose that sense of anticipation.  It might help to recapture some of this sense of awe, if we remember who it is that is with us today. The seen and the visible, the unseen and the invisible. And it might help if we remember that it isn’t always supposed to be roses and champagne and twinkles in our eyes and butterflies in our tummy and unstoppable grins. We can’t always go on exclaiming ‘Yippee’ and ‘Hoorah’, at the top of our voices. Surely that sort of passionate hoopla and merriment is unsustainable.

Perhaps then, we are more like the mature couple who know and rejoice quietly in the fact that the heady days of their youth have mellowed and matured into something far more deeper and far more lovelier.

Our relationship with the living God has developed through days and nights of being in the murky waters where nothing much seemed to happen and yet everything has happened.

Perhaps in 2025, when we have a few more wrinkles and our hair might be a more silver fox look, we might celebrate the fact that our love of God is no longer a puppy dog rush to get to the altar in glee and gusto, but rather it has become a graceful, gentle striding, maybe even a hobble, towards an old friend who we have come to rely upon, rest in and appreciate more and more, knowing that we have always been his child and we always will be.

So what would happen if instead of feeling guilty about not hurtling to the altar we simply tottered quietly, and enjoyed each and every step. Wouldn't that heighten the desire and the joy of knowing that He is just as excited to be with us as we are to be with Him?

Mmm… Hang on. Now there’s an interesting thought. What if we worship a God who not only loves us, but actually gets excited about us.

I reason thus. That if Jesus walked the dusty streets of Palestine, was dunked in the mawkish waters of the river Jordan, bled real blood on the cross, wept real salty tears at Lazarus’ grave, drank real wine, ate real fish and bread… is it not highly probable that He also got excited and gets excited still. If we are made in the image of God then there must be times when he is not only sad and grumpy, but also delighted and excited and thrilled. If he shares every aspect of our humanity except sin, that must mean that God gets excited. Our God is in fact, not aloof, distant and cool, but a passionate and excitable God. You all probably had this worked out a long time ago, but I’ve only just woken up to this thrilling thought.

And what would walking towards an excitable God mean for us personally when we come to the altar today?

And what would this excitable, exciting, and excited God say to us? Probably the same thing that he said to Jesus his son when he was in the skanky waters of the river Jordan. If you listen carefully you might just hear him say “You are my child whom I love. With you I am well pleased.”

The difference between doing and being.

Someone once asked me if I had ever done anything else apart from being a priest. The answer is ‘Yes’. I had a very wise bishop who strongly encouraged me to go and get a regular 9 to 5 job so that I might have some sense as to how the secular world ticks and turns.

At 17 years of age, I successfully applied for a job as a tour guide in a winery. It was a marvellous opportunity to learn about the wine industry and it taught me a lot about people. I stayed for 4 years and remember my time fondly.

Then off I toddled to college and now here we are several decades later. My inquirer made an incisive observation, perhaps without realising it, and the observation is this.

That there is a big difference between doing and being. I did the job at the winery but that is not the same as being a priest. A priest is something you are and is not necessarily defined by how a cleric fills their days. There are actually a tiny minimum of things that I am licensed to do that unlicensed folk are not permitted to do. In fact, if you add up the amount of time that I spend doing exclusively 'priesty things’ it’s less than a day a week. Everything else could easily and competently be done with much more alacrity than someone other than me.

And this difference between doing and being, this sense of vocation is not limited to clerical collar-wearing folk. I strongly believe that farmers, medical people and those who work in the funeral industry, (to name but a few) all know the difference between ‘doing’ and ‘being’.  It’s a subtle but important difference and one that I rejoice in everyday.

Esse Quam Videri -is a much used Latin atin motto meaning to be rather than to seem

Making an Investment.

Have you noticed that some media burbles at this time of year are where to invest your cash? Shares, property, term deposits and superannuation. They usually ask some guru to fill our space with what will be an astute and profitable exercise. One year I will note what they say and 365 days later I’ll see if they were right.

Now while I know that it is prudent and right to be sensible with our limited resources, to get the balance right between enjoying and saving, a gentle look back over 2024 should teach us that there were other things that we invested in, that, while they are not measurable like stocks and bonds they are just as important.

For example, where did I invest my limited resources in time and mental energy? Did I allocate enough to the portfolio of rest and recreation?

Would it be a punishable crime to just slow down, step back and listen to what is going on inside of us? You know the place, where there are no screens to distract and commentators to confuse.

Maybe I invested far too heavily with the currency of fear, anxiety and worry and gave scant attention to rest, snoring and being still. Sound familiar?

As we totter and stumble into 2025 maybe our resolution should not be to do A, B, X and 3.5. In these next 52 weeks, we might actually do less of these or even none. Instead, we might aim for a Big Fat Luscious 0.

This would be a fantastic investment and reap magnificent dividends. Deep down we know that we are not made to go above the speed limit all the time. It’s a rule for your well-being. Not a challenge to exceed.

The first thing to reach for is … the  bowl and towel.

Today’s story begins at a dinner party. The Master is there with some of the more snooty, well-to-do, entitled folk. It’s all going swimmingly well with the swilling of expensive wine and canapés that are more designed to be a work of art than a source of nutrition.

Somehow a ‘working girl’ slips the security net and is at The Master’s feet, weeping. To inflame the sense of indignation and inappropriateness, she kisses his feet and wipes them with her hair.  If Jesus only knew what she did for a living…

Fast forward a couple of years and The Master is keeping the Passover with bread and wine and herbs and lamb. Nonchalantly he picks up the bowl and towel and washes his disciple's feet. This is a grungy job, always done by one of the underlings.

When the last foot has been washed and the silence of be-puzzlement has descended upon Jesus’ buddies he will ask them a piercing question. “Do you understand what I have done? This is how you are to behave towards one another.” Whenever you want to know how to treat another, instinctively reach for the bowl and towel. Pick them up and do not put them down. Remember the lass who wiped the feet of the elite? This is to be your modus operandi. Your way of being, your way of living.

While this attitude is true for all people, it is something the ordained clergy should lead with… if that makes sense. Never put down the bowl and towel. They are the foundation of all ministry.

These are the tools of trade that are indispensable and that we must come to love and use more than anything else. The first thing we reach for. It is who we are.

There in the earth of my hands
I saw life itself,
life like silent breath
emerging from the sands of death,
life like a stark red flower
crying amid the white limestone fields,
life like a single blue wren
skating across black granite boulders,
life so precious
the pain of holding it was unbearable.

In that child I saw
the flesh of every child,
warm flesh that bleeds, enfolds,
and quivers at the hope
of being man or woman,
yet true to that same flesh
as sun and wind and Outback dust
toughen skin and soul alike.

This child was my flesh,
my flower, my son,
mine.
I was ready to defy God
and make that child mine
forever mine
against all thieves
who sought to possess him.

Later, in the house of God,
I gave my child back to God
and with my flesh I gave
two birds to celebrate the day,
two birds to fly,
two birds to die
and redeem my child for life.

By Norman Habel

Mary’s Gift

For long months I pondered
my child within me,
the line of its nose,
the turn of its face.

I pondered in pain
how the lurking shadow of God
had shaped form
or deformity within my womb.

Then we were two,
Jesus and I,
facing each other
with shocks of wonder,
touching each other’s eyes
with lingering questions.

He lay in my open palms, so small,
oh so small,
as if the pressure of my fingers
would count as cruelty.