Planters of Flowers

by Ken Francis

(Based on John 1:29-41; Isa 49:1-7; Ps 40:1-11)

A parable:  A homeowner locked up his house and went away for a long time.  It was a beautiful house, in the classic style, but in the course of time it began to run down and deteriorate; and became occupied by a homeless woman.  Other than a comfortable place to sleep, she found little in the house to sustain her, but she did find a store of seeds, which she planted in front of the house.  They grew into a modest flower garden, which the woman tended over many years, and which drew admiration from passers-by, who wondered how such a shabby, decaying house could sport such a lovely, well-cared-for bed of flowers.

When the owner returned, he too marvelled at what he found, and wondered who had been responsible.

….

I’ve long been conscious of the value of being ordinary!  I’ve thought of it as the ministry of being ordinary, or simply the ministry of being present.

All the readings prescribed for today, in our lectionary, for this second Sunday of Epiphany, are about callings.  I’ve just read about the calling of Peter and Andrew, but we could similarly have read about the callings of Jeremiah, St Paul, Ezekiel and Elisha.  All great biblical heroes.  But – you may have noticed – I chose two other readings – the Psalm and the Isaiah – that were of a more general call – to all of us.

Note that Andrew’s mate, also called by Jesus, was unnamed!  My wife has always pondered, as we’ve whiled away time across a coffee, what about all the ordinary people of Bible times?  Did God not have need of others – unnamed, anonymous people?  We read of so few of them.  Or their callings.

And, what about us?  Are we called in similar ways?  It’s easy to read about Peter’s calling, for example – “Follow me,” it says in Luke’s account, “and I will make you fishers of men” – and think it applies to us personally.  Maybe it does!  But I’ve been following Christ for decades, and he hasn’t made me a ‘fisher of men’.
I remember once noting the outrageous things happening in Somalia:  so-called warlords were intercepting and stealing any food aid the UN was sending to that country, so famine was rife.  And a friend and I decided we were going to lease a cargo ship, load it up with supplies, and take it to Somalia ourselves.  We were highly motivated … wanted to do it for the Lord … felt called to … but it never got off the ground!

I have another friend, in Hamilton, now ninety years old, who for decades has been travelling back and forwards from the Sudan, establishing churches and teaching pastors in that scorched, war torn land.  He, apparently, was called to that work.  I wasn’t.

So, what about we ordinary folk?  We can’t all be Peters – or Jeremiahs or Moseses … or missionaries.  If we all strive to be Peters we just end up frustrated and guilt-laden.  So, what is there for we ordinaries to do?

I give you that shabby old house as a metaphor for our world.  While we wait with longing for the full renovation to be done, the flowers we plant along the frontage tell the neighbourhood that someone new is in charge and that one day the whole house will match their beauty.

There is plenty we ordinary people can do, if we take it up.  I have some ideas.

A line from something I was listening to the other day really struck me.  It said, “The world is full of lonely people afraid to make the first move.”  Does that strike you?  Do you know any lonely people?  Think for a moment.  Is there anyone you might make “the first move” towards?  Someone in your street?  Perhaps someone in your family – even someone from whom you’ve been estranged.  It may be someone you wouldn’t naturally be drawn to … might not appeal to you … But, there you go – it’s time to plant some flowers.

Or … I saw something about the Beatitudes.  In the Beatitudes (in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew’s Gospel), Jesus lists a bunch of types: the poor in spirit; those who mourn; those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; the persecuted; the meek … there are nine groups mentioned.  And this commentator, Dallas Jenkins, suggested that this list was like a map.
Huh?  How could the Beatitudes be considered a map?  Well, it’s a map to help us find Jesus.  Again – huh?!  Yes – he said, find these groups of people and join them; embrace them … and that’s where you’ll find Jesus.

So there’s a thought!  Do you know anyone meek, poor in spirit, a peacemaker?  There’s your cue.

Or … does the plight of the poor and marginalised in the world trouble you?  Is there anything we can do to minister there … in an ordinary way?  Can we plant flowers in their front gardens?  We’re relatively wealthy here in NZ.  Do we deploy the resources God has given us – to share, mind you – wisely?  Let’s review our giving – to charity, relief work, mission … particularly in suffering countries.

…

We can all be homeless people, somehow planting flowers in this shabby world.  We can be ordinary, but even within that we can sense a calling – even a ministry.  You might be being called to be a Moses or a Peter.  That would be wonderful.  But you might be being called to be an anonymous, ordinary, present person.  There’s nothing wrong with that!  Just be an extraordinary ordinary person, serving God in your specific habitat – a deliberate planter of flowers.

[Father God, may we take up the challenge this week.  Let this not be just a nice word, a nice parable, but a cue to take some initiative to find someone to embrace:  someone poor in spirit, or pure in heart.  Someone perhaps lonely or persecuted in some way, or someone unlovely … or discouraged or depressed.  May we seek such situations with intent, trusting in your guidance and calling, that we may be you to them.  Amen.]

Epiphany

by Sharon Marr

(Based on Matt 3:13-17)
With thanks to Debie Thomas.

Last week we were encouraged to think of a word that has been on our heart this Advent season, and the word I thought of was relationship.  That it had been at the foremost of my mind was unsurprising because I was about to meet a half brother I never knew I had, that afternoon. But … it was even more than that.  I have been considering for some time, as part of my mind wanderings, the importance of Relationship, the belonging to, being part of a whole. Then I personally witnessed just how important relationship is, when my new 66 year old brother broke down and wept at our father’s grave here in Tairua.  Relationship.  And then again when he and his family met my brother and sister and son and families.  Relationship.  We need to belong. We need to know who we belong too.  And then I read today’s Gospel – all about the restoring of relationship.  How wonderful.  Is that not a true Epiphany moment? 

Epiphany: meaning ‘appearing’ or ‘revealing’.  During this brief Epiphany season, between Advent and Lent, we leave mangers and swaddling clothes behind and turn to stories of shimmering revelation.  Kings and stars.  Doves and voices.  Water.  Wine.  Transfiguration.

In Celtic Christianity, Epiphany stories are stories of “thin places”, places where the boundary between the mundane and the eternal is very porous. God parts the curtain, and we catch glimpses of his love, majesty, and power.  Epiphany calls us to look beneath and beyond the ordinary surfaces of our lives and discover the extraordinary.  To look deeply at Jesus … and see God.

Christian historian John Dominic Crossan says Jesus’s baptism story was an “acute embarrassment” for the early Church. What scandalized the Gospel writers was not the miraculous, but the ordinary.  Doves and voices?  All well and good. But the Messiah placing himself under the tutelage of a rabble-rouser like John?  God’s incarnate Son receiving a baptism of repentance?  Perfect, untouchable Jesus?  What was he doing in that murky water, aligning himself with the great unwashed?  And why did God the Father choose that sordid moment to part the clouds and call his Son ‘beloved’?

I suppose every age has its signature difficulties with faith.  When we’re not busy flattening miracle into mirage, we’re busy instead turning sacrament into scandal.  After all, what’s most incredible about this story?  That the Holy Spirit became a bird?  That Jesus threw his reputation aside to get dunked alongside sinners?  Or that God looked down at the very start of his son’s ministry and called him Beloved — before Jesus had accomplished a thing worth praising?

Let me ask the question differently:  what do we find most impossible to believe for our own lives?  That God appears by means so familiar, we often miss him?  That our baptisms bind us to all of humanity — not in theory, but in the flesh — such that you and I are kin, responsible for each other in ways we fail too often to honour? Or that we are God’s beloved — not because we’ve done anything to earn it, but because our Father insists on blessing us with his approval?

Here’s my real problem with Epiphany:  I always, always have a choice — and most of the time, I don’t want it.  I want God’s revelations to bowl me over.  I want the thin places to dominate my landscape, such that I am left choice-less, powerless, sinless.  Freed of all doubts, and spilling over with faith.

But, no.  God has not insulted humanity with so little charity. We get to choose.  No matter how many times God shows up in my life, I’m free to ignore him.  No matter how often he calls me Beloved, I can choose self-loathing instead.  No matter how many times I remember my baptism, I’m free to dredge out of the water the very sludge I first threw in.  No matter how often I reaffirm my vow to seek and serve Christ, I’m at liberty to reject him and walk away.

The stories of Epiphany are stories of light; and yet, quite often, they end in shadow.  Jesus’s baptism drives him directly into the wilderness of temptation and testing.  Soon after he’s transfigured, he dies.  There is no indication, anywhere in Scripture, that revelation leads to happily ever after.  It is quite possible to stand in the hot white centre of a thin place, and see nothing but our own ego.

We speak so glibly of faith, revelation and baptism.  As if it’s all easy.  As if what matters most is whether we sprinkle or immerse, dunk babies or adults.  As if lives aren’t on the line.
Until Christianity became a state-sanctioned religion in the fourth century, no convert received the sacrament of baptism lightly; one knew the stakes too well.  To align oneself publicly with a despised and illegal religion was to court persecution, torture, and death.

I don’t know about you, but I find so much of this maddening.  How much nicer it would be if the font were self-evidently holy.  But no — the font is just tap water, river water, chlorine.  The thin place is a neighbourhood, a forest, a hilltop.  The voice that might be God might also be wind, thunder … indigestion. Or delusion.

What I mean to say is that there is no magic — we practice Epiphany.  The challenge is always before us.  Look again.  Look harder.  See freshly.  Stand in the place that might possibly be thin, and regardless of how jaded you feel, cling to the possibility of surprise.  Epiphany is deep water — you can’t stand on the shore and dip your toes in.  You must take a breath and plunge.
I remember our grandson Steffan … when he jumped off the Tairua bridge for the first time, aged about seven, and nearly drowned.  When asked why he had jumped when he couldn’t swim, his answer was, “I didn’t know I couldn’t.”  Let us, beloved family, have that same trust to plunge forward.  Regardless.

New Testament scholar Marcus Borg suggests that Jesus himself is our thin place.  He’s the one who opens the barrier, and shows us the God we long for.  He’s the one who stands in line with us at the water’s edge, willing to immerse himself in shame, scandal, repentance and pain — all so we might hear the only Voice that can tell us who we are and whose we are …  Drawing us into relationship. Listen:  We are God’s own.  God’s children.  God’s pleasure.  Even in the deepest water, we are Beloved.

Surprises

by Bruce Gilberd

(Based on John 1:1-14)

Some of you know I sometimes just walk around town here in Tairua, to see if anyone wants to talk, to share a general or personal matter.  Conversation often starts with the weather or the news.  Then it may be health.  Then family.  Then how fortunate we are to live in this natural, and supportive, environment.
But it often stops there.  Usually – not always.  For many it is a high step up to further the conversation, from delighting in creation, and a possible creator, to considering whether that same creator has disclosed himself in history.
Which is why we are here tonight – to celebrate a surprising and wondrous birth.

And what a surprise it was – not least to Joseph and Mary.

But there were more surprises to come.  A catalogue of them.
– the questioning, wise twelve-year-old child;
– the hectic three years of ministry punctuated with solitude and prayer;
– the inclusion of all kinds of outsiders – those on the fringe;
– the frequent searing challenges to those on power, both religious and political leaders;
– the surprised, anguished disciples as their leader embraced the cross;
– the supreme surprise of the resurrection, and all that means for all humanity.

Surprises, and threaded into them: wonder!

But as I chat with my friends around town, these surprises can be difficult to introduce into the conversation as we celebrate the beauty and wildness of creation, and how this same creator became one of us in history; in Jesus of Nazareth.  That is not so easy for me.  This disclosure that God is Christ-like, that Christ is both creator and reconciling liberator, is a big step for many of us.

I hope we are all working on how to respectfully deepen our conversations!

Back to tonight’s Gospel reading:
St John, writing about the identity and significance of Jesus, the Christ:  “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What came into being in him was life and the life was the light of all people,”

Jesus – the Christ, the Messiah, the Word, the Creator – was birthed amongst what he had made, this world, so he was at home here, and acted to liberate humanity from all that spoils life here.

Creator and reconciler:  Christ is both.  He became flesh and lived amongst us, and still does.

What a joy!

Love came down at Christmas

by Sharon Marr

(Based on Matt 1:18-25)

Our way into the Nativity story on this fourth Sunday of Advent, when we light the candle for Love, is not Mary or Elizabeth or John the fiery Baptiser.  It is Joseph, a quiet carpenter who upends his good life for a dream.  Every third year our lectionary turns its spotlight away from Mary and gives us the perspective of her would-be husband – a quiet, unassuming descendant of the House of David.  

So, today we reflect on Joseph’s part in the world’s greatest love story.  A love story enacted by God, whose love for us was so outrageously extraordinary … overwhelmingly unreasonable … that into this very troubled world, in His fullness of time, he sent his Son, as a babe … to reconcile us to himself.  To restore us.  To make us whole.  To bring us eternal life.  To show us how to love, this costly love.

So when did you last feel truly loved?  When did someone do something for you that made you feel truly cherished?  My moment was just the other day.  Albie and I were having the yearly conversation about “what do you want for Christmas?”.  And my very dear husband … who when doing the lawn mowing really prefers neat straight lines, no overhangs or obstacles, said, “Would you like another tree for our front lawn?”  Now I suppose that doesn’t sound like a love declaration to you: certainly songs won’t be written about it. But to me it was a most loving and generous gift … offered because he knows I would love it, even though the gift will eventually cost him his equilibrium on lawn mowing days.  An insignificant example, I know, but it is an everyday-ish example of love, the love we are commanded to give, the giving of self, costly love. When we think of costly love, names like Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Bonhoeffer usually spring to our mind along with the Saints, but the reading today reminds us that this love can come in the smallest most insignificant of packages, a babe, and change a world!

Don’t you find it surprising that, of all the ways in which God could have reached us – of all the ways in which God could have saved humanity – he chose, in his infinite wisdom, to send his son as a baby? Not a man. Not an obvious Messiah. Not a solider or a king. But an infant, helpless as any infant, vulnerable to all of the harms of the world.

How like God.  To do the exact opposite to how we would do things.  No victorious warrior, no vibrant CEO,  no charismatic leader, just a fragile teenage girl and a lowly carpenter … and God needs them to agree to be part of his planned love story.

So if we are tempted to think of Joseph as a minor character in the Christmas narrative, the Gospel of Matthew reminds us that, in fact, Joseph’s role in Jesus’s arrival is crucial, even though  he is only given a couple of mentions in the whole of the New Testament! It is his willingness to lean into the impossible, to embrace the scandalous, to abandon his notions of holiness in favour of God’s plan of salvation, that allows the miracle of Christmas to unfold.  What a gift of costly love Joseph gives. 

As Matthew tells the story, the God-fearing carpenter wakes up one morning to find that his world has shattered.  His fiancée is pregnant, and he knows for sure that he is not the father. Suddenly, he has no good options to choose from.  If he calls attention to Mary’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy, she might be stoned to death, as Levitical law proscribes.  If he divorces her quietly, she’ll be reduced to begging or prostitution to support herself and the child.  If, on the other hand, he marries her, her son will be Joseph’s heir, instead of his own biological child.  Moreover, Joseph will be tainted forever by the scandal of Mary’s illicit pregnancy, and by her ridiculous (blasphemous?) claim that the baby’s dad is somehow God.

The fact is, Joseph didn’t believe Mary’s story until the angel Gabriel told him to.  Why would he?  Why would anyone?
We make a grave mistake, I think, when we sanitize Joseph’s consent.  We distort his humanity when we assume that his acceptance of God’s plan came easily, without cost; when we hold at arm’s length his humiliation and doubt. In choosing Joseph to be Jesus’s earthly father, God led a “righteous” man with an impeccable reputation straight into doubt, shame, scandal, and controversy.  

God’s call required Joseph to reorder everything he thought he knew about fairness, justice, goodness and purity.  He would become the talk of the town — and not in a good way.  He would have to love a woman whose story he didn’t understand, to protect a baby he didn’t father, to accept an heir who was not his son.  In other words, God’s plan of salvation required Joseph — a quiet, cautious, status quo kind of guy — to choose precisely what he feared and dreaded most.  The fraught, the complicated, the suspicious, and the inexplicable.  So much for living a well-ordered life.  

No wonder that Gabriel’s first words to Joseph were, “Do not be afraid.”  If we want to enter into God’s story then perhaps these are the first words we need to hear too.  Do not be afraid.  Do not be afraid when God’s work in your life looks alarmingly different than what you thought it would. Do not be afraid when God asks you to love something or someone … more than your own spotless reputation … or your need for straight mowing lines.  Do not be afraid of the precarious, the fragile, the vulnerable, the impossible! 

Dear family, may our lives mirror that of Joseph, may we too be willing to say yes when we hear a call from God, and join with him in being part of the great love story, the story of costly love, the story in which God calls us to be bearers of the Good News to our broken world today.
We are reconciled, we are restored, and we are loved.