I have recently returned from a family holiday in Japan. In the town where our family lives, the houses don’t have gardens, but in between almost every home are small blocks of land where vegetables and plants are planted and grow vigorously.  There are wild flowers and weeds tucked into every nook and cranny, very visible in among the plantings, also in the pavements and in all the corners of the land.  When I asked about this, I was told, the land holders don’t look on them as weeds; they are embraced as they attract birds and insects which help to keep the plantings fruitful. So, they are only pulled out, when necessary, at harvest time.  The local people frown on those who use chemical solutions to ‘kill’ the weeds, as this is seen as contaminating not only plants, but harming the larger food chain, polluting wildlife and even the air. 

I’ve been reading this last week about small Christian communities, sometimes called house churches, usually led by a combination of lay and clergy sharing the work equitably, informed by bible study and practice, by love of God, faith, daily discipleship and by people actively living both in the world and in God’s kingdom. 

Those of you with children or nephews and nieces, do you remember the frustration of never being able to make the world right for them when they were determined simply to cry.  I would try to cajole my children: with food, drink, a toy, songs, laughter, cuddles, or a nap – but sometimes whatever I did, it was never right.  Occasionally, it feels like this is what is happening with people around me, as a priest and friend.  It makes me think about how and why we are pressured to change our opinions and behaviours to suit others. 

Romans was not written to provide "a theology of the Christian life," but Paul's larger argu­ment demands that at certain points he write more or less exactly that.  Chapter 6 is one of the two clearest examples of a theology of life and the other being chapter 12. 

The stories this week in Genesis and Matthew go to the heart of our relationships with one another, within our families and as a church family.  There is no comfortable place for us where we can retreat as we reflect on what happened in the Genesis story with Sarah, Hagar, Abraham, and their sons Ishmael and Isaac; and then with Jesus, his disciples and their families and the family of God.

We have just listened to a very familiar text from Matthew 28:16–20 as we reflect on God as Trinity, following on the Day of Pentecost.  It is the great climax to Matthew’s Gospel laying out Jesus’ invitation, plans, direction and reassurance until the end, but it’s so familiar we often miss how radical it is. It is known as the Great Commission and it is a counter-imperial announcement from the margins of occupied land, spoken to a powerless community which still includes the doubters.  It is not simply a call to institutional church expansion.

We celebrate today – a joyful day as we rejoice in the gift of the Holy Spirit and share the joy with those who gathered 2,000 years ago at the birth of Christ’s Church.

 There are two stories told today in our readings about what happened at the Day of Pentecost, the day the Church became visible, as the Holy Spirit came among us, gathering us into the body of Christ.  Most of us know both stories, from Acts 2 and John’s Gospel.  The story in Acts 2 stirs our minds and hearts, gifting us a wonderful, joyful, enlivening sense of the Holy Spirit, as she made her presence felt with wind and fire; with flames everywhere and three thousand people talking and sharing the news of God’s deeds of power in all the known languages of the world. It is an unstoppable story as we hear it two thousand years later. 

For almost three weeks I haven’t watched television, seen the news, read emails or engaged with world events, except with prayers and in church.  The noise of the world beating on the doors became quieter and I had time to breath.  It made a difference that I was in a foreign country with a different alphabet, so I couldn’t read or understand what was being said. So, I heard with greater clarity, the words of Jesus speaking with God and his disciples in John’s Gospel, reminding them they are in the world, even as he is leaving it.  Jesus is speaking with the disciples in the shadow of the cross and his crucifixion, the night before he is arrested. This is not a comfortable, comforting conversation. We need to hear it clearly.

Last Sunday the Gospel reading concerned Jesus telling his disciples that those who followed in his footsteps would find a new way to view God that was different to that which was taught by the Jewish faith, from which they were beginning to extricate themselves.  In fact the Jesus view of God was different to all other visions of God. 

There’s a poem by Leonard Cohen which starts: ‘You who pour mercy into hell’… it is from this perspective I start my reflection on today’s readings which bring together Peter’s instructions to the early Christians to be obedient to the authorities (1 Peter 2:11-25); Stephen’s martyrdom (Acts 7:55-60); and Jesus’ final teachings to his disciples as he prepares to step into the hell of betrayal, denial, torture and state sanctioned death (John 14:1-14).

Good Shepherd Sunday, the name that this Sunday usually goes by, has a special place in my memory.  Two things make it so.  The first thing that gives it a special place results from an occasion I preached on the theme in the Parish of Cooma, in southern NSW.  Cooma was my first appointment after ordination. 

This week we have had a funeral for a dear friend in the parish, and I am reflecting on how after a funeral, we focus on going back to our own homes, to try and pick up our daily lives.  The story of our loved one and friend is now finished.  The practical matters of organising a funeral, a burial or cremation is completed.  Paperwork is done, a home, or perhaps simply a room, is emptied of belongings, stuff is given away, shared out and memories held tightly for a little while, until we get into new ways of living and behaving, which shift the emphasis of our lives.  Grief is there, but life is continuing, whether we like it or not.  New meaning has to be found to make sense of the absence. We might even ask, ‘where is God in all this?’

We believe we’re hard to deceive.  We tell ourselves we can see the usual cons and when it comes to fancy stories and fake news, we can spot it quickly.  So, the story about Thomas and his reaction to the disciples’ news, ‘Jesus has risen’, is understandable.   He will not accept secondhand news. (John 20:19-31)

We read Matthew’s gospel story of the revelation of Jesus’ resurrection with joy, excitement and delight. After the pilgrimage of the last few weeks and days, it is an extraordinary, hope-filled story.  So much happens, it is hard to keep up as we react to the impact of what has and is taking place.

Less than two months ago, we prayed with grief on the 4th anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Four years of unspeakable horror and corrupt leadership and gross misinformation.  To paraphrase Oleksandr Mykhed, a Ukrainian writer, we pray ‘about things one can never forget.  Or forgive.’ (Mykhed 2024:xi).  It seems like this is also the story for the illegal war between Israel, Iran and its proxies, supported by the US and dragging in the rest of the Middle East as we confront rising civilian deaths, and the killing and maiming of far too many children.  The war rolling on in South Sudan, testing ancient enmities has its own echoes of hell and matching genocide as well, while the Western World looks the other way.

This is Maundy Thursday, we encounter Jesus Christ, the servant Messiah, anointed by God, blessed by wise ones from the east, checked out by excited shepherds, watched over by weary parents, claimed by seers in the temple, ancient ones who saw God’s work alive and eternal in the life of a small babe and the joy of his mother and father.  Strong words spoken, prophesy and wisdom wrapped up in blessings and in the breath of life and death. But now, as we come to the final meal together, we see Jesus has spent a lifetime casting off, shedding old traditions, customs and practices, challenging them, and then a few short years in which to pack in all the teaching, grief, joy, peace, hope and love, forgiveness and mercy, he wanted to share and show: far too much for our short lives. 

The story of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and then, the obscene swiftness with which he was deliberately betrayed, arrested, denied, tried and crucified, is horrifying.  We encounter the worst and best of humanity when we are under pressure, just as it is happening for so many people today and just as it has happened throughout human history. 

How do we tell this extraordinary story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, exposed from a tomb.  He stinks. He has been dead 4 days.  He is covered in a burial shroud, saturated with death as he steps out of the tomb into daylight.  Life has changed forever for his sisters, now living after his death, filled with grief at his death.  The suddenness of it all, the overwhelming loss and absence of a loved one has pulverized the family. 

The story about the man, blind from birth whom Jesus healed and which we read in John 9:1-41 is both joyful and sad.  You would have thought such a miracle would have everyone rejoicing, but we notice it is only the man whose sight is restored who is joyful and giving thanks to God.   So why is this the response? Perhaps we might reflect on the prophet Samuel who anoints young David fresh from the fields, as the next, unlikely, king of Israel who is told: 

The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.’ (1 Sam. 16:7)

I’ve often wondered about this unnamed woman in John’s Gospel 4:5-42, who is labelled ‘the Samaritan woman’, a term which is used in many early bible commentaries as a code for a sinful woman who had poor judgement, has been married multiple times, and is now living sinfully with someone. Yet she’s forthright, courteous, mistrustful but not cynical, she is curious and informed; and understandably wary of social and cultural religious rules which have labelled her, categorized and dismissed her.  She’s clearly learned to protect herself. She is like many women still today who are marginalized by the judgement of others.