“What if…”   I thought at 3:26 and half am, “What if, there were laws that said we must do helpful things. We go part of the way with this concept when we must stop and assist at an accident. But what if we had a law that said we must say sorry when we got it wrong. A law that said we must help those who are less fortunate or those who come looking to us for a fresh start in life. What then? Well our responsibilities would then take precedence over our rights and that would have to be a good thing for everyone. You, me and the misunderstood.

But then at 4:02 am, I realised that an apology or an act of kindness which is enforced is actually bogus. It is contrived and it is not authentic. The good things that we offer to the wronged and underprivileged, must begin from the deepest part within us and not enforced from above. I well remember having to say ‘sorry’ to my brother from time to time and mutter it I did. But everyone knew that I didn’t really mean it and it certainly didn’t change my mean behaviour.

So sure there is much work that needs doing in our community, but the hard slog always starts from within us.

It is an eerie thing to stand in an empty church, look into a phone and with great enthusiasm exclaim…“The Lord be with you!” When actually there is no-one there. I try really hard to act normal, to pretend I can see who ever is on the other side of the screen, but when I look past the phone, all I see are empty pews.

It's all God's word and therefore you must enjoy every last bit of it. From the slaying of Abel, to Judas hanging himself, to Lots wife becoming salty, to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Perhaps a better way of thinking might be to say that there are some bits that are more helpful than others.

But today's gospel speaks clearly and gently to me.

The first bit is a conversation that Jesus is having with his Father

“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.”

So the Lord of heaven and earth reveals the mysteries not to the clever, the brainy, the articulate, the swift of tongue and nimble of mind. He shows forth his treasures to the little ones, the children, the least likely. The insignificant, the unimportant and everyday who just get on and say their prayers with a twinkle in their eye, joy in their hearts and love for all they encounter. People, just like the ones I am looking at now. And we should rejoice in this, not just because these things are revealed to us, although that would be reason enough, but because that is what the Father wants to do. That is his intention.

If God were a crass old introvert who didn’t like to share or play, but rather struck down people at a whim and peddled division and retribution… then I think I would be quietly putting my birettas away, typing a quick letter of resignation  and heading off to Port Fairy to rust away in the salt air.

But notice that not only is it God's intention to reveal his love to seemingly inconsequential people, but he also decides to hide these things from the learned and the clever. More than that he is PLEASED hide things from the smarty britches.

Mmm… Now there's something to ask Bishop Garry about.

Does God really have favourites… or is he just expecting more from the learned and clever?

The conversation then changes. Jesus stops speaking to his Father and chats to his listeners.

  “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 was pondering the imagery of the yoke the other day. What are our yokes? I could think of a couple.

There is the yoke of our past.

It is a terrifyingly easy thing to persist in carrying around the yoke of the past. The yoke of the past has the notches of regrets, recriminations and guilt etched deeply into it. It is a particularly nasty yoke and even when we successfully manage to put it down, we can find that much later, somehow we have managed to pick it up again.

Then there is the yoke of expectations. We expect that we will be able to do A, B, C and q.3 We expect that we can do the laundry every second Tuesday and have the greatest sense of intimacy in our prayers whenever we simply mutter “Our Father”.

This is an infuriatingly monstrous yoke. We expect wooly mammoth sized things of ourselves and they are unrelenting. Amongst the things we expect are to make minimal, negligible  mistakes. To carry this yoke is folly and detrimental to your well being. It should come with a health warning. No wonder we are weary and burdened.

The yoke that Jesus asks us to carry is not the yoke of the past, nor the yoke of self expectations, it is HIS yoke. Take MY yoke upon you and learn from me. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. This is because his yoke is a simple wooden cross of love. All it requires, is for us to walk with him, beside him, learn from him and engage with Him. We don’t have to prove anything to ourselves, or to others.

So we come today and we accept his invitation as he accepted us long before we took our first breath.

 “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.

Even so we come.

Pick a small manageable chunk of scripture. It might be from the Bishops bible reading challenge, it might be from the Sunday readings in the pew sheet, it by from the lectionary of the day. It might also be that you are gently working your way through a particular book in the bible. What ever the piece of scripture shouldn’t be that long that you lose the will the live by the end of it.

Read the passage through as you normally would quietly to yourself. Then close the bible. After a little while open the bible back up and read the passage through out-loud at a very slow pace. The slower the better.

Stop when a word, phrase or incident arrests your attention. You may want to write it down or underline it. Ask yourself what is going on here? Am I puzzled, grumpy, excited or confused.

Reread the piece that has intrigued you. Allow it to percolate, savour it, ingest it. Maybe make a few notes. Write down the questions you still have.  What is the back story behind this episode? How might I apply this in my own daily life?

Here’s some cogitations from today's gospel.

“And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward”.

One of my first questions about this passage is.

“Who are the little ones?”

The clue I suspect is in the word little. Little is vulnerable, helpless and unprotected. In Jesus day it was the lepers, the widows and the beggars. In 2020 you could take your pick. We are much more aware of the needs of others right around the world. The refugee, the homeless, the abused. Those who do not have a voice in our noisy world.

In fact anyone who is thirsting for something that they need and are unable to have access to it. That is what makes one little.

So a little one might be one of those who slept rough last night, or it might be someone who has a crippling disease ,or it might be those who have a broken heart or have physical bruises that are hidden from public view.

The little ones are in a very real sense the pierced Master himself. You know how it goes ….Whatever you do for the least of these you do for me. So part of the gospel message, but it is also a difficulty and the trick is to see who it is that we are ministering to. It is Joe Blow who we have known for years, or someone who happens to be born from a different land. This is the Master who has come looking for a drink from us.

The cup I also found interesting. A cup of water is not a lot but it does heaps and is infinitely precious.

For your reflection you might like to think about who it was that gave you a ‘symbolic’ cup of water when you were so parched and thirsty. What were the circumstances? What was the water? In many cases the water came from an unlikely source. The most unlikely person and that is why it made such an impact on you and thus you have never forgotten it. Were we gracious in our acceptance? Did we go and do likewise and offer water to someone else?

Digging a little deeper

What is the backstory here. When Jesus spoke the words from this mornings gospel was he perhaps remembering the time when he was in conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well and he had asked her for a drink.

Part of that conversation went like this

 Jesus said to the Samaritan woman “Everyone who drinks this water from the well will be thirsty again, but the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

The water symbolises what we need most. Our deepest yearnings our unspoken cravings, the stuff that we need to survive. It is that which is absolutely essential for us. Without it we perish and we perish quickly.

So the water is… Him. We give Jesus to his little ones. In doing so we minister to Him and we become A Christ for a thirsty world. A parched and aching world. We are to become an oasis for those who have lost their way in the desert of their life, but we must have a source of living water springing up always from deep within us.

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Or in another translation.

Sir give me this water always.

And perhaps that is a good place to stop and that is a good prayer for us

Give me living water always.

Give me living water always.

Give me living water always.

“Well, we were always going to have a second wave of COVID infections anyway, so its alright to attend”. That line of logic I understand and that is why I am asking for some help to understand. I reason thus.

First, I wonder how the person can be so sure that a second wave of infection is / was inevitable. Does anyone know this for an absolute certainty? The advocate for the gathering certainly was not the Chief Medical Officer or a representative from the World Health Organisation.

Secondly, this line of logic is like me saying “That as there will be more road accidents this year, it’s OK to get in my car and drive irresponsibly, because there were always going to be injuries and fatalities anyway”. Would it not be better to drive as carefully as I can to minimise the risk of yuk to others and to myself?

Finally, to reason that folk were going to fall ill and possibly die anyway, comes scarily close to saying that life is expendable for a greater cause. In this case the cause of the gathering. I would have hoped that COVID has taught us that life is of inestimable value and we do whatever we can to preserve it, cherish it and rejoice in it.

Let me be first to say that my logic may be flawed and perception skewed. I’d like some help please.

It was a helpful exercise on the very first lesson to discuss classroom rules. Courtesy, listening to each other, no smashing of windows, respect. What should the rules be? Then ensued a more fruitful, analytical discussion about why we have rules. Inevitably it came down to safety.

The Church has not always done ‘safety’ well and you wouldn’t have to think very hard about some recent examples.

But in this “COVID season” we are trying to keep the folk safe. The cleaning of hands and pews before and after might seem onerous and unnecessary, but it is really a sign of how much the Church cares. We take the health and well being of our people very seriously.

The need to book in with the priest might seem supercilious, but it actually ensures that we don’t go over the maximum of 20 folk and that some traceability is in place. This booking in process has never been easier than in 2020. Here are just three of the most popular ways. Phone 5571 1317, Text/mobile 0423 671 692, email droulton72@gmail.com

Restrictions and rules are invaluable in Church, in the classroom and in our society. They are crucial for you, for me and the classroom windows.