Three cheers for the Farmer.

I was trying to explain to our very patient confirmation candidates the significance of the different colours that we use in church.

Purple is our getting-ready colour. We use it to show that we are preparing for something special. So we wear purple for the 6 weeks of Lent when we are getting ready for Easter and the 4 weeks of Advent when we are getting ready for Christmass.

White is party time. We wear white for feast days; Christmass, Easter, Saint's Days, Trinity Sunday, and Christ the King.

Red is for the flames of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, it is for the blood that was spilt when we ask for the martyrs' prayers, it is for the royalty of a King riding on a donkey on Palm Sunday and for the Master’s blood shed on Good Friday.

Black is seldom worn but may be worn for Ash Wednesday, All Souls Day and for the odd very tragic and appalling funeral, where there only seems to be darkness.

‘Green’ I cheekily enthused ‘Green, is when none of those other things are happening. We wear green for most of the Church’s year to remind us that all the time we are supposed to be growing into the sort of people God wants us to be.’

Which is a very nice dance step into the parable of the sower in today's gospel. And in this parable, we might be one of three things.

First, we are the seeds. Our vocation is to grow and flourish. And yes, sometimes we are stifled, sometimes the weather seems inclement and gale-force winds threaten to destabilise us and uproot us all together.

Some of us have been around for a long time and some of us have only just begun to sprout and grow. There are times when we shoot up and we think it’s easy. A lot of the time not much seems to happen, but actually, just by being around, just by hanging in there, just by letting the sun and the rain do its thing, then we are actually achieving quite a bit. Not many of us finish up as tall as corn stalks or as colourful as sun flowers, but when we do happen to encounter such a person, it's inspiring and humbling.

Something else about seeds.
When they first start off they might not look like much but we must always try to see the potential in them. This isn’t the finished product, it was never intended to be the finished product. It is only the start and we are asked to have a lot of faith, that the tiny little gnarly something will grow into something quite magnificent.

Our planting, our burying if you like, occurs when we are submerged into the waters of baptism. That’s when it all begins and starts and imperceptibly, over a long period of time… well you know how it goes.

We are all a bit like the soil in the parable. Sometimes we are a bit thin on the surface and blown away. Sometimes we are drenched by cares and worries and we feel like we are drowning.  Sometimes we are tempted to think that the soil down the road has it so much better than us. It’s well irrigated, it’s on a gentle slope and catches the right amount of sunlight… but the reality is something quite different and an honest conversation with the person we think is a spiritual giant, will often reveal that they have had their own struggles, their own spectacular failures, their own craziness. In fact, those people are often magnanimous because they have integrated their hurts into their very selves. They have not shunned their wounds away as something to be ashamed of.

But it’s the farmer that I am drawn to most in this parable. It is the farmer that has my admiration, the farmer who I want to stand and applaud wildly for.

The farmer never gives up. Each day, day after day and every year…as the seasons roll by, off he goes, still having a go. And all the time, he knows that sometimes, in fact quite often, he knows that there will be a failure. Do the maths brothers and sisters. There is only 1 paddock out of four that brings an abundant harvest. It’s not very good odds. And notice too that even though paddock x which has never really done much, still gets the good seed. The farmer never gives up just because there has been crop failure in the past. In fact, the farmer will never give up on paddock x,  that has thistles and rocks. Perhaps, he thinks, perhaps… this will be the year, this will be the season, perhaps this time …

And from our perspective, as we are all farmers,

loving people and growing relationships and feeding and nurturing is often tiring and it is always so very risky.

And sometimes, in fact most of the time, it takes a long time for the seed to become visible, it seems to take eons before tentatively emerging and can be seen, grow and enjoyed. Often we do not get to see the growth, the reward of our persistence. Sometimes it is the one who comes after us who will delight in what we started decades earlier. And that’s OK. That’s the way it should be.  It keeps us humble. It was never about us. It was always about Him. THE farmer who tends us and loves us still, even if we are shrivelled and choked and forgetful and scared.

Embracing Our Imperfections

It is a well-known fact that I am not articulate at tricky meetings. I always think of the diplomatic and soothing words many hours later. If only I had said this instead of that, then everything would have turned out far better. If we are honest, when we look in the mirror and search our lives and souls, we will all discover that we have the odd blemish. We look at ‘old so and so’ or even ‘young so and so’, and wish that we had their flair for fixing a flat tyre, painting a bathroom or even creating a new garden shed!

When our imperfections bubble to the surface and are on view in 3-D colour for all to see, then you have at least two options.

One is to try and squelch and suppress them and keep them down. To hide them away. Pretend that it was someone else, or that actually, I am rather good at knocking up some bookshelves but I was just having an off day; when the reality is that the last lot of bookshelves I tried to construct we left in another parish long ago and far away because we were pretty sure they would not survive the moving process.

The other option is to embrace our imperfections. To ask the local handyperson to give us a hand, maybe have a congenial cuppa and form a friendship over the project. The local gifted guru would probably enjoy knocking up a coffee table and imparting some of their hard won wisdom and experience.

It’s taken me a long time not to be embarrassed by my imperfections, a longer time to embrace them and an eternity to laugh at them.

Maybe this is why the Master showed his colleagues his hands and his feet!?

When you’re weary…

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” 

I have always loved this piece from Matthew’s gospel.

I use it frequently at funerals especially when the deceased person has been through a lengthy illness. But I realised only recently that it’s not just the deceased who is weary. Surely this reading applies to everyone in the Church. Do not those who have come to mourn and pray also have their own weariness?

Absolutely they do. And when you begin to explore this phenomenon of weariness you realise that there are in fact lots of different ways of being drained.

There is physical weariness; like when you do a park run and you’re aware that the clock is ticking away in the background and you're trying really hard and the rain is chucking it down and the wind is pushing you backwards.

There is a psychological weariness like the sort of tiredness the Bishop must have after chairing a bothersome Synod magnanimously for a couple of days. There is a spiritual weariness where we just seemed to have tried so hard for so long seemingly for so little in results. For all our searching and praying and reading and endlessly offering our psalms, readings and interminable homilies, He is frequently a God who is hidden and elusive.

Sometimes I think we make our own selves tired.

Later on, Matthew will tell us that Jesus had an unveiled swipe at the scribes and Pharisees in these words.

 “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.”

So in other words the scribes and the Pharisees had become so obsessed with the letter of the law and its interpretation that they had completely forgotten the spirit of the law. The spirit of love, reconciliation, forgiveness, healing in brokenness and life in the midst of death. The ways of gentleness and rest.

And part of the trick is this… I think.

The Master invites us to take HIS yoke upon us. Not our own yoke. Not our yokes we mercilessly put on ourselves. The unrealistic expectations of ourselves, our pride, our ego, the things we can’t forgive ourselves, the desire to be more sparkling and noticeable than any other. These are very heavy and cumbersome weights that we drape around our necks and it is a waste of our hard-won energy to cart them around. They are fruitless and we should cast them off and try very hard not to pick them up again.

So what does His yoke, the yoke of Christ look like? What is it that he wants us to learn? My guess is that the yoke of Christ is just a plain simple cross. A giving of self to others in uninhibited love. And when we shoulder his yoke, not our own, we will discover that it is surprisingly much lighter than the ones we want to lug around.

There is one other tiredness that is very difficult to articulate but which affects us all.

We tread this earth and it is rich and beautiful and exquisite and we enjoy our lives and the people that God sends our way and we revel in the relationships that enhance our lives and the undeserved but thrilling privilege of enhancing other people's lives. While all that is authentic and true we know somehow, somewhere, deep within us, that this is not all there is. Occasionally we are given a sense of a distant land, another shore, that is our true home.  And we know that somehow, while things are pretty jolly good on this side of the grave, they will be sublimely perfect in unimaginable ways and dimensions on the other side of the grave. When we shuck this mortal coil when the bell rings and we know that it is finally home time.   Yes, if we are brutally honest, there is a part in all of us that is fatigued and weary. The world is a fickle place and from time to time it must inevitably disappoint and frustrate us. And while we have given it a really good shot, a great shot, our best shot and will continue to do so, our sense of longing for our true home can sometimes surprise us. With its yearning and familiar but disquieting ache, we long to be complete and fulfilled in ways that we cannot hope to be on this side of the grave.

Perhaps subconsciously, this is also why I have chosen Matthew’s words to read at a funeral because the person who has died has finally come to that homeland where there is no more pain or suffering, but only lasting peace and joy.

A prayer to finish off with that might be of some help.

O Lord, support us all the day long of this troublesome life until the shades lengthen, the evening comes, the busy world is hushed,  the fever of life is over and our work is done. Then Lord in your mercy, grant us a safe lodging, a holy rest and peace at the last. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Meet Bellabot

It was a convivial evening at a restaurant. You scanned in the QR code and ordered the food on your phone. Then, in a very short time, Bellabot came and delivered your food, right to your table. Bellabot is of course a robot. It has big charming eye’s, glides easily around and is sensitive to the movements of other patrons, so there are no unfortunate incidents.

The downside with Bellabot is that it has limited conversation skills. You miss out on the charm, wit and sparkle of conversation.

The upside is that Bellabot seldom gets sick and you don’t have to pay Long service leave or payroll tax. In fact, you don’t have to pay Bellabot anything nor do you have to tip ‘it’. Bellabot always delivers the food to exactly the right table.

I spotted two of these new-fangled waiters and the rest of the staff were all the human being variety.

There was a part of me that was surprised and thought ‘Phooey and fiddlesticks! What's the world coming to?’

But it’s not that simple... the restaurant profit margin and the catering industry is that tight, so it is better to stay open with 2 Bellabots and say 10 other staff. The alternative is not open at all and 10 staff would have to look for a job elsewhere.

It’s not as straightforward as me being an old-fashioned fuddy-duddy and being disconcerted by the latest trend. In effect, Bellabot is actually enabling other people to have a job and I think that is the most important thing about them.

I don’t think Bellabots translate easily into every industry. For example, I don’t think there will ever be ‘Bella-priesty’ people or ‘Bella-bishop’ people, but the AI world arrived while I slumbered.

Who did you help today?

It was just a line from a novel. Hidden there, waiting for me to extricate it from page 256. Asking me to wrench it out of the paragraph and to exploit it mercilessly. To offer it to you dear reader for your consumption and enjoyment. Hoping that it might give us just enough indigestion to make us uncomfortable and try a little harder to become the people we are called to be. It all went something like this.

“So we’d come home from school, sling bags into the corner of our room and enjoy the Ovaltine and Anzac biscuits. At dinner we would sit around the table, Dad would look at each of us in turn and ask in a measured tone. ‘So who did you help today?’

We all knew the question was coming, we had heard it every day of our school life and yet somehow it still made us squirm, especially when we had to confess that we couldn’t think of a single person we had helped.”

The follow-on questions which were not spelt out in the novel were .. ‘How did you help them?’ And… ‘Was your helping effective and fruitful into the future?’ Ie Did your actions have lasting consequences for the person and the school community?

It didn’t matter if the ‘helping’ was unnoticed, unheralded, unrewarded or if we were thanked. The important bit was that it simply happened. That an effort had been made. And just as importantly, another effort was made the next day, and the next, and the next, until this pattern of serving others was integrated into our daily life.

They are not bad questions to ask ourselves at the end of each day.

Who did you help today?

How did you help them?

Was your helping effective and fruitful into the future?

The Righteous, The Prophets and the Children.

While we are called to welcome absolutely everyone, in today’s gospel there are three groups of people that we are specifically asked to look out for.

They are prophets, the righteous and little ones. In this day and age these words aren’t familiar to us and I wonder if we would recognise these people if they walked through the door. So perhaps it might be helpful if I played around with these terms and offered my guesses as to who our modern-day prophets, righteous and little ones might be.

The prophets. Whenever I hear the word prophet I can’t help thinking of Nathan the prophet who called King David to account for his disgraceful behaviour with the beautiful bathing Bathsheba. Nathan didn’t go ballistic at David although he had every right to and it would have been understandable. Instead, Nathan the prophet quietly, and with great restraint, tells David a story about a wealthy guy stealing a poor man's sheep and hopes that David will understand that he is the wealthy guy who has nicked the lamb that is so precious to his neighbour. But no, David doesn't get it and Nathan has to very clearly spell it out.

So I am guessing that our modern-day prophets are those who without hesitation, call out wrong where they see it. Moreover, they do so by leading the naughty to arrive at the point of repentance by their own volition. It’s quite an art form. To say the hard things graciously without blowing your top or thumping your fist is a gift. But,.. we ought always to be listening because sooner or later a prophet will speak to us and we ought to not only welcome them, not only listen but also be prepared to act on their advice. Their words will make us squirm because we know deep down, at our very deepest level, that they are quite right and that we should have seen our errors a long time ago. Prophets are our friendly irritants.

And the righteous. The righteous are those who are right with God, right with others and therefore right within themselves. It is not a matter of outward observance but righteousness is a continuous striving for what is right often without knowing it. So Matthew will tell us in his powerful Beatitudes that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled or satisfied. And in his parable of the sheep and the goats, the righteous are not even aware that they are the ones doing good things.

Remember this bit…Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?”

The righteous are those who have striven for righteousness for such a long time that it is just a part of their daily lives. It is simply what they do and most importantly, it is who they are. The righteous.

And the little ones.

The little ones probably can refer to the small in physical stature like children, but it should also include those who, like children, are vulnerable, those who are not heard in our society and have no voice. They are those who cannot repay us for any kindness we offer.

And the cup of cold water business…

The Teacher is not giving a literal command to give a cup of cold water so much as He is describing a type of action that will be rewarded by God. The fact that Jesus uses such a routine action, such as providing a drink of water reminds us that this principle applies to any action of service, no matter how unremarkable. So it is in the little, ordinary, everyday actions that we find ourselves and we find Him. The seemingly dull and unimportant things are really sacramental by nature for they convey the grace of God. It is in the dull and the boring, the commonplace and the conventional, that God is working out his purpose and his salvation. In the pots and the pans, in the vacuuming and mowing, in the grimy dishes and the hot sudsy water. In the listening and the silence and maybe even, goodness gracious, in tedious homilies. We miss glimpsing Him because we see and do the everyday and commonplace things and actions all the time. Little ones, prophets and the righteous are those who do not hold themselves aloof with some sort of pious air of superiority. They are our everyday brothers and sisters, people that we rub shoulders with and shake hands with. They are in the grit and grime of our everyday stuff. They are the ones who say the hard things graciously and who call us back, not to gloat or because they are grumpy with us,  but because they love us and want the very best for us. They are the ones who will gently tell us a story and patiently sit back and wait for us to finally get it. And when we do, then we will find that we are the thirsty and the hungry, that we are the poor who can never repay the abundance of His magnanimous grace.

And far from us arrogantly thinking that it is us welcoming others, perhaps it is us who need to be welcomed back.

“The quieter you pray, the further you go.”

It happened on the show ‘The antiques roadshow. Someone had proudly brought in a chair, a family heirloom. It had a few knocks and scratches but it was clearly loved and had been enjoyed by many bottoms over the decades.

The chair had an inscription carved across its back in a different language. Loosely translated it meant. “The quieter you pray, the further you go.”

Now there's an interesting thought. Usually, we think that the faster, the noisier, the more out there, and the more highly politicised and noticed we are, the better for everyone. Especially the economy and for matters of our public profile.

But what if we were quieter when we prayed? What if we actually said less and did not burble our prayers as quickly as possible, as if our life depended on the words per minute that were uttered? What if we listened more? Wouldn’t that open up the possibility that we might go further in our prayers? Surely our prayers would be a richer, more exotic experience. Something to be gently savoured and simply enjoyed. When you are in the presence of someone who enjoys you and you enjoy them, surely there's no rush to just simply prattle away and be done with it just because chatting with them is a bothersome duty. Something else to tick off the daily list before moving rapidly onto the next thing and the next and…

And I reckon this works in our everyday relationships with human beings as well, especially our dearest and our best. They would understandably be crotchety if our conversation was just ‘something we had to do’. Why should it be different when we are in the presence of … Him?

The quieter you pray, the further you go.

Fear … our new opiate

Mr Marx used to say that ‘Religion was the opiate of the people.’ That is, religion is a facile drug used to calm and placate us when the going got a bit boisterous. He would argue that Religion gave us illusory happiness, a bit like smoking something you shouldn’t or a couple of glasses of red cordial. His point was that religion didn’t actually confront the cause of the angst, but rather it was like some happy gas that just soothed our symptoms and helped us forget that we had a problem.

I never actually subscribed to this theory. After all, what was calming about the Garden of Gethsemane? What is soothing about being nailed to a cross? What is illusory about being a single, teenage, peasant, unwed mother? Surely one of the benefits of worshipping the Master is that he is right here in the midst of the yuckiest times in our lives and doesn’t slink away from us pretending that there is nothing to see here. What’s more, Our Lord takes to himself our ghastly experiences and makes them his own. He makes them Holy. So the experience of dying and death is God’s experience as well.

But can I put it to you that there is a new opiate that we in our privileged 21st century, just can’t seem to get enough of and that opiate is fear. The briefest glance at any screen, or any device, will feed us with lashings of fear.

Everything from the fear that our footy team might lose to the fear of higher taxes, the fear of being homeless to the fear of how the homeless might impinge on our lives. The fear of sudden, macabre and grizzly death, the fear of death itself or the process of dying. The fear of the rich and powerful and the fear of having our identity stolen. The fear of being assaulted or the fear of being embezzled. The fear of change, the fear of the unknown.

Fear is a bully and it seems that we can’t get enough of him.

Counter to all of this are Jesus’ words from this morning's gospel. Do not fear

And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

And this is not an isolated text. From as far back as Abraham in the book of Genesis to Revelation when John falls at the feet of an angel, we get the mantra ‘Do not be afraid’.

In all, there are a minimum of 76 times when God says to someone “Do not be afraid”. It seems that we need to be continuously reminded that the Good guy is actually on our side and that fear is one of the bad guys’ most subtle and powerful tricks.

Fear leads to a muddled head and a bewildered heart. Without us realising it, our faith can find itself a little shaken and stirred.

Now we do need to be honest and say that it is normal to be afraid sometimes. It’s part of our whole survival technique. The whole fight for flight thing. And for your reflection, you might want to spend a bit of quiet time thinking about who you are afraid of, what you are afraid of and why you are we afraid. If we can work out why we are afraid of this, that, or the other person… then we might learn to our blessed relief that our fears are not woolly mammoth size at all and there might be some strategies we can put in place so that at the very least our fear is manageable.

Something else that might help is a little mantra that I shamelessly pinched from that internet thing they have nowadays.

God first. Others second. Me last.

So when we are confronted by something that unsettles us we should have no hesitation in kicking it upstairs. God first, others second, and me last.

God first. What does the Master ask of me in this situation?

Others second. How can I best serve them?

Me last. I find my fulfilment, my deepest and most lasting sense of satisfaction and joy when I get my priorities right. When all is placed safely in the pierced hands of the Master who loves me, fear is diminished and we see everything in its rightful perspective. Fear is something transitory with the really big battle already won.

And this makes sense for the rest of our very tricky and confronting gospel reading.

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me”.

He’s not saying you should loathe your pesky parents and your siblings, but rather start with God’s love and let everything else flow out from there. It’s all about getting the priorities right. Then everything else tumbles down into its rightful place.

“God first. Others second. Me last.” The antidote to fear. (Jesus - Others - Yourself = JOY)

Compassion enfleshed.

Today’s gospel is thrilling and action-packed. There is a lot going on. While Jesus travels, he teaches, proclaims, and heals and that’s just the ministry we’re told about. Whew! That’s enough you would have thought but no... Matthew tells us that there is more to do.

Jesus sees the crowds, feels compassion and he does something about it.

He summons his inner circle of disciples and after giving them authority to cast out unclean spirits, and to cure the ill, he quickly dispatches them to continue and expand his endeavour of teaching, proclamation, and healing. Off you go chaps… and because there was no gospel written at the time or Church history, we can skip the theological degree and priestly formation. Learn on the job from your mistakes and rejoice in your triumphs; which is of course what every follower of the Master does. Clergy and laity alike.

But he is also specific about which diocese they are to serve in and who are the first people that they should call on.

“Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”.

And this initiative comes from the Master because he sees and understands that the folk were ‘harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’.

At first glance it might appear that he is launching his own healthcare program, dealing with the physical bits and pieces and a few nasty demons, but he’s also aware that people feel harassed and dejected. You might have all your bones intact, a great exercise regime and a healthy diet with all the basic five food groups….but… The Master is talking about a different kind of healing here. Jesus' compassion is not limited to illness or the lack of food. His compassionate heart is in response to all those who find themselves in a situation of vulnerability. He is moved by those who apparently live on the edges of society because of illness, disability, ostracism, and social convention that renders some people "harassed and helpless" (9:36), particularly in Judean Jewish life.

We are complex, intricate, multi-layered creatures and Jesus’ response is not just to the physical and spiritual, but also to those who are not seen or heard which is a debilitating and painful illness to have.

Can I put it to you, that often it is the predicament of vulnerability in which a person lives, that allows and almost guarantees that the physical ailments will quickly follow? Here I am thinking of those who sleep on the streets or in their cars. Their health must inevitability deteriorate.

The Master’s call to the 12 is also our call. Our compelling vocation is to recognise that we have been empowered to see particularly the people who are often overlooked and ignored, and then to act on their behalf in ways that address the circumstances that endanger their lives and communities. Seeing, feeling and then acting.

Jesus' compassion for others is always sparked by a single observation, which is… that "others" are "harassed and helpless" and we must do something to address it. What authenticates Christian compassion is the action that accompanies the one feeling it, not just the emotion alone.

It’s one thing to feel compassion but if it stops at the benign comment or the hand-wringing sympathy from afar then it is not true compassion at all.

Every one of us is being called to be a harvester. Each one of us can reach a corner of the paddock that is accessible to no one else. These include our family, our neighbours, our work colleagues and others who come into our life. I may be the only person who brings Jesus with his healing and compassion into their lives.

And of course, there must be times when it feels like nothing is happening, there must be times when we will make mistakes, and there must be tricky times, but then not respond to the multiplicity of needs we see, to just sit on our hands and say ‘Its all too hard’, is not what The Master asks of us.

Compassion must become enfleshed. That is why Christmass happened and it is what happens here at every mass. God becomes enfleshed in simple bread and wine to meet us in our brokenness, to show his compassion. He comes to us so that we may be nourished and sent out into our little paddock to be harvesters for him.

And in a very real sense, it is why we are here. This is our vocation. You and I are to be compassion enfleshed. Living, moving, talking, caring, thinking, breathing people of compassion. We make the invisible love of God, …visible.

We will be most effective though when we celebrate the undeniable fact that our own hands are pierced and our hearts have been broken.

When we can celebrate this, then we will have become …Compassion enfleshed.

The sweetness of doing nothing

It was a simple line really. Something I heard in passing from the lips of Julia Roberts in the film Eat, love, pray. It’s also a book by Sophie Minchilli. The words have kind of lingered close to me ever since. The sweetness of doing nothing.

On the surface of it, someone who is doing nothing might be called a sloth,  a recalcitrant or simply a slack toad.

But what if there is something else going on here? What if the person who is stretched out on the lilo or on the couch is just simply enjoying the sweetness of doing nothing? What if they are allowing the body, the mind and the soul to recuperate, rebuild and rehabilitate?

Your brain can only cram so much stuff into it before it says ‘Enough! I refuse to take on any more, for goodness sake write a few notes to yourself and shuffle some of that other ‘essential’ stuff into the coming weeks in your diary.

Further, you should schedule some serious time to just sit and enjoy the sweetness of doing nothing. Like the succulent flesh of a mango the sweetness of doing nothing will not only nourish your body, but also your whole being. Who doesn’t feel better after eating a mango?

And here’s another advantage of savouring the fruit of doing nothing. You are far more effective, far more productive, far more efficient and far happier when you come back to the desk, the yard or whatever your workplace happens to be.

The sweetness of doing nothing is not just a dollop of something nice if you can get it. It is actually essential to your situation, to your colleagues, to your family and most especially yourself. Thank Julia Roberts.

The first edition of the 10 commandments.

In last week’s homily I hinted that God had to have two goes at writing the 10 commandments. The first lot met a catastrophic end and this is how they came to be destroyed.

Moses goes up the mountain to get the 10 commandments and leaves Aaron his offsider in charge. It must have been quite a trek, or God had rather a lot to say to Moses, or perhaps Moses had rather a lot to say to God.

Suffice it to say, that Moses is delayed and is gone for about 6 weeks.

After all this time the people get twitchy and say to Aaron. “Come, make gods for us; as for this Moses, we don’t know what has become of him”

Aaron thought. Yeah, good point. .. What could possibly go wrong?

So Aaron says ‘Take off all your gold and bring it to me.’ Aaron forms a mould and casts the image of a calf. The people are delighted and say “Voila! This is our God who brought us up out of the land of Egypt.” Aaron throws a party to celebrate with burnt offerings and in a rather intriguing line ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play’.

Meanwhile, back on the mountain, God gets to hear about this and he is not happy. He’s been usurped by a hand-made golden calf. So he says to Moses ‘Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it. Step aside Moses so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them.’ I told you he was grumpy.

Moses goes in to bat for the people and points out to God that this would be bad PR.

‘Hang on a minute God…Why should the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that God brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce wrath God; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.’

So the Lord changes his mind and Moses goes down the mountain to sort it all out.

 As soon as Moses came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.  He took the calf that they had made, burned it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.

Then he interrogates Aaron.

Aaron’s response is a classic.

You know the people, are bent on evil. They said to me, “Make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” (So it's their fault. They came to me). So I said to them, “Whoever has gold, take it off”; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire and out came this calf!’

In other words, the people have always been a bit wicked, you were gone for such a long time (so it’s sort of your fault too Moses) and well .. the people whinged to me for so long and we just threw the gold into fire and Hey Presto, Abracadabra, out came this calf. You can’t argue with that… Can you?

There’s a bit more mopping up in this story, but I want to draw out the following points.

First, the inability or at least, the desire to sit still and wait patiently for the Lord is a very difficult thing. For some reason we expect God to be just as busy as we are. But it would seem that for God, not every day has to be crammed filled with action-packed miracles.

Secondly, remember this bit?

‘Moses took the calf that they had made, burned it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.’

Just as we enjoy savouring the fruits of the Holy Spirit… love, joy, peace etc. we sometimes find ourselves tasting the fruit of our foolishness and the taste we discover is not at all pleasant.

There was an echo of this in a speech by President Kennedy in October 1962.

“We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth”

Thirdly, With Moses and the Cloud of Presence gone, the people craved a visible, tangible something. They also needed a place to gather, to offer worship and sacrifice.

Our ache for the physical, touchable, and seeable is fulfilled and finds its completion in, the incarnation. God giving his physical, touchable, seeable Son because he knows how fickle we can be.

And here at this altar once more, He gives himself in palpable, touchable, broken bread and wine poured out. He gives of himself not in a flashy golden calf, but in little defenceless things because only the fragile and the helpless and the feeble things meet us just where we are. It is this powerful self-emptying love that transforms us into Him, even as He is transformed into us, as He always was and always will be, forever and ever Amen.

Of Kate and Doug

In the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, we chanced upon a bamboo plantation. Pretty much every trunk had some names, dates and love hearts carved into it.

One of them proudly announced that Kate and Doug were absolutely smitten with each other. Well… at least they were on 1/2/18. That was five years ago and it left me pondering a few things.

First I am delighted that these two people had discovered each other and were enjoying each other. The world could do with a lot more of this gooeyness.

Secondly, I have to admire the way they made their adoration for each other so very public. And not just Kate and Doug, but a whole lot of other people had unashamedly put their passion for each other on display.

But then I wondered … what had happened to Doug and Kate? Let's say they were eighteen at the time of their carving, that now makes them twenty-five. Did they go on loving each other? Did they marry, make children or did they separate painfully or worse maybe one had died suddenly and tragically?

I’d like to believe that they went on blissfully for the next five years. I reckon that there would have been arguments and disappointments, as well as champagne and kisses. But of course, I have no way of being sure.

But the one thing I do know for certain is that on 1/2/18, in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, Kate and Doug were together, they were in love and they were not ashamed to profess it.  And they have left an inspiring and lasting legacy not only on the bamboo trunk but also for me. For when grumpy things begin to gurgle and bubble in my being, I stop and I remember Kate and Doug.