What can we learn from the wheat grain?

5th Sunday of Lent          17.3.2024

(John 12:20-33)

The Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert has for many years practised and taught medicine in Gaza and the West Bank, among Palestinians who at the hands of Israel have suffered the theft of their land, bombing raids, arbitrary imprisonment and torture, and now face starvation. In a recent interview, the doctor remarked how he was impressed by the impressive dignity and patience with which Palestinians endured suffering. Palestinians themselves call this quality of steadfastness, endurance and nonviolent resistance sumud. More than a passive virtue, sumud takes active form when people willingly help each other in the most distressing situations.

We might suspect that sumud is actually enhanced and strengthened by injustice and suffering such as Palestinians have endured since 1947. We know how, in difficult and even catastrophic situations our own human qualities can grow stronger. Think of floods, bushfires, and our parents’ or grandparents’ wartime experiences. There are parallels too, at the bodily level: athletes need to undergo arduous training to strengthen muscles and develop their sporting skills.

Jesus seems to refer to this same principle when in today’s reading from John’s gospel he speaks of the wheat grain which has to be destroyed to make the future harvest possible. This idea is central to all four gospels, although expressed in slightly different ways. They tell us that “those who wish to save their life will destroy it”; “those who seek to gain their life will lose it”, and “the one who finds their life will lose it”. To emphasise its importance, the gospels repeat this principle in reverse, saying that only by losing or destroying our life can we save it.

These are not self contradicting statements. The “life” that is destroyed and the life that is saved must refer to different levels of our being. Two millennia after Jesus, psychologists would say that it is our ego that must be put aside, to reveal and develop something much deeper within us. There is in us a shadow self – the ego – and a deeper Self. A mature person learns to put aside their feelings, their comfort, and their less urgent preferences for more important things, like helping or loving someone else. The instinct to help others can be seen in many animals species, but reaches sublime heights in human love.

In the same gospel passage, Jesus said: “when I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all to myself”. He knew he would soon be crucified: that terrible torture by which the Roman empire killed anyone who opposed it. Being “lifted up” was similar to the crude expression “strung up”, by which not long ago we described hanging, our own empire’s method of killing offenders.

Jesus was predicting that for promoting God’s rule of love and peace he would be killed by the empire of human greed and power. His powerful act of self-giving love would, through the ages, draw countless people to see that our Creator loves us infinitely and forgives us. When Jesus said: “…I will draw all people to myself” was he telling us that all of us – even those who cause others to suffer – will eventually be “saved”, brought to fulfilment by the love of Christ, who is not separate from the One who sent him?

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Thinking about temples

Lent Sunday 3 3.3.2024

(John 2:13-25)

In every city and town of Europe, and wherever Europeans made colonies around the world, churches and cathedrals are a common sight. In Australia, Christian places of worship are scattered in every town, sometimes on adjacent corners of our main streets. Likewise, in parts of the world where populations practice Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, temples, pagodas and mosques are a common sight.

Archaeologists have found the remains of temples that date back to at least 9500 years BC, and we know that even earlier, people who left no buildings of brick or stone had their sacred places. For uncounted millennia, Australia’s First Nations peoples performed their religious rituals at corroboree grounds and bora rings.

Why have people always set aside spaces as “holy” or “sacred”? Surely it is because they have always had genuine experience of reality far beyond what we can see or touch. Although we have extended our knowledge of the physical world so that we can explain earthquakes, thunderstorms and even the orbits of planets and the decay of stars, our minds cannot comprehend “why there is something rather than nothing”. Wise people in every culture on earth have concluded that we and our world – which we now know is part of more than a trillion galaxies – must derive from a conscious Mind. Can this be merely ignorant superstition?

And so people have built temples, spaces marked out and adorned, where they try to honour and communicate with the gods or God responsible for our existence and for our endless future. In this matter too, human thought and experience have grown and evolved.

The ancient Hebrew peoples’ experience of God taught them to make a temple at whose centre was an empty space, representing the One who is nameless and unknowable. This temple played an important part in the formation of Jesus, who was raised in the Jewish culture and faith. But he was a turning point. At his baptism he realised that he was filled with the Spirit. He later challenged those who ruled his people from the temple precinct, particularly because they exploited the poor.

It went deeper: Jesus taught that a new Reign of God was beginning with himself. Humanity had reached a new stage, when people would worship “in spirit and in truth” as Jesus told the Samaritan woman (John 4:23). Jesus even promised that “this temple” was soon to be destroyed – ambiguously referring to Jerusalem’s prestigious icon and to his own body. With great daring he symbolically cleansed the temple of corruption and temporarily shut it down. The gospel writers point out that when Jesus died the curtain concealing the Holy of Holies was symbolically torn apart, (Mark 15:38) because the risen Christ can now directly give us God’s Spirit. Christians well know that “…you are God’s temple, and the Spirit Of God is living in you” (1 Cor 3:16, 2 Cor 6:16, Eph 2:21)

Nevertheless we are social beings, and we need to meet together to praise God, as well as to build our community. We need a worthy meeting place in which to gather, and naturally we like to make this place beautiful. But there is an ever-present danger that we will focus too much on the “temple” – its beauty, its cost, or the prestige and power assumed by those who administer it – while we neglect or even lose contact with the Infinite Mystery within each of us that the physical building represents.

Tragically, Christians have even sometimes shut out from their temple people whom they consider “unworthy”, forgetting that the persons they reject are of infinitely more worth than the building from which they are excluded.

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Is God compassionate, or violent?

Sunday 3B    21 January 2024

[Jonah, Mark 1:14-20]

This Sunday’s first reading from the book of Jonah fits well with the gospel, which shows Jesus calling disciples and beginning publicly to proclaim: “The Reign of God is close at hand: repent and believe the Good News.”

It would be interesting to ask a range of Christians what they think is this Good News. All four gospels tell us how Jesus showed by words and actions that God has deep compassion for us all. Jesus’ first sermon summed it up: “Blessed are the poor; those who mourn…”. In our most difficult times, God embraces us.

When Jesus was challenged to prove his authority by giving a sign, he would give no sign “except the sign of Jonah” (Matthew 16:4), the prophet who was swallowed by a fish. Jesus was quoting a book in the bible which is actually fiction: a fable. There was a real prophet Jonah (2 Kings 14:25), but he had nothing to do with Assyria. It was another prophet, Nahum, who threatened that God would take wrathful revenge against the Assyrian empire.

So how was Jonah a sign, prefiguring Jesus? The story was written for the Jewish people when they were in exile and believed, as many parts of the bible taught, that God had turned against them because they had sinned. Like the Book of Job, the Book of Jonah challenges that theology of divine retribution. It uses humour and irony to teach that God is not vengeful, but would have compassion even on the terrible Assyrians.

The fictional Jonah, like the real prophet Nahum, hated the Assyrians, renowned for their violence and cruelty. When God orders Jonah to go and warn them so that they would change their ways, he refuses. He runs away in the opposite direction, taking ship for Tashish, the most remote place known to the ancient world. God of course sees this and sends a huge storm, which is about to smash the ship, when Jonah admits to the crew that he is the cause of the storm and asks to be thrown overboard. The storm abates, and God carefully saves Jonah by sending a big fish that eventually places him on dry land.

There is deeper meaning in all this. As happens when we turn against the Power that made us, it is Jonah’s disobedience and conflict with God that causes the violent storm; and God’s vast compassion which calms the storm and even controls great sea monsters. When Jesus chose the sign of Jonah, was he foretelling how God’s powerful love would save him too from the darkness of death, three days after the leaders of Religion and State had murdered him?

But there’s more. Jonah does get to preach to the Assyrian capital: “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.” But their king commands everyone to refrain from violence; to fast and wear sackcloth, even (ridiculously) the animals. So the city is spared from destruction, as Jonah himself had been.

But Jonah still wants God be violent. He camps outside the city, hoping to see it destroyed. The sun scorches him but God kindly provides a vine for shade. Later, when God lets the vine wither and die, Jonah complains that he is exposed to the fierce east wind. God gently asks him why he is concerned about the loss of his vine, but has no compassion for the thousands of Ninevites or their animals. Then Jonah grudgingly admits what he suspected all along: “that you were a tender and compassionate God, slow to anger, rich in faithful love.”

Jonah is quoting from Exodus 34:6, but significantly leaves out the harsh end of the sentence: “…by no means excusing the guilty”. The fable of Jonah was a shift in the bible’s theology, a fitting preparation for Jesus who showed us the all-compassionate, non-violent God, whose Reign will be established when we realise God is within us, renounce violence and love even our enemies.

With thanks to Anthony Bartlett, Signs Of Change: The Bible’s Evolution of Divine Non-Violence, Cascade Books, 2022.

Hope during suffering

Adv1B 3.12.2023

[Isaiah 63:16 – 64:8, Mark 13: 33-37]

Sometimes life seems unbearable, not just because we are suffering ourselves, but because we see others suffering and can do nothing about it. We all realise the terrible agony of several million people of Gaza – including nearly a million children who will now all suffer lifetime PTSD – and we feel helpless to stop this evil genocide. We suffer with them, and also with the frightened people of Israel, who are made so insecure by their Zionist government’s stated policy to drive the Palestinians from the lands that Palestinians have occupied from time immemorial.

Immense numbers of people have suffered in other wars, but now we can see, close up, daily samples of this suffering through electronic media. The suffering does not seem to have an end, and we feel unable to do anything about it.

But we can! It is essential that we Christians do not turn away from this suffering. True, we must take care not to become so immersed in it that we suffer damage ourselves. However the core of our Christian faith is found in the words of Jesus, who commands that we must not turn away from any suffering people, for he identifies them all with himself. (Matthew 25:40)

Our sadness is increased by the fact that we tend to blame ourselves; we feel less worthy, and even feel that our world is an incurable mess. “We have all withered like leaves… all that integrity of hours like filthy clothing” (to quote the prophet Isaiah, in today’s first reading.) What on earth can we do about this? Do we feel like saying, again with the prophet Isaiah “O that you would tear the heavens open and come down”.

It is in this real and desperate situation that we turn to the immense treasure of the Good News, which is that we, every human person, is waiting for a meeting, an encounter. An encounter with whom? With the One who came among us, who went to the depths of our suffering and has gone through death before us. From him we get the strength to keep all suffering people in our hearts, praying for them daily.

The time of Advent is not just to prepare for Christmas. These four weeks are like a ladder by which we can climb up in hope, and even to some degree reach a much greater event than the birth of a baby in Bethlehem long ago. We are looking forward to the return of the Transcendent One, who is our father, but because transcendent, much greater than a father.

Groping for a metaphor to describe our human situation, the prophet Isaiah said that we, the entire human race, are like clay in the hands of a potter. The deeds of every person on earth, whether we are loving another person or stealing the land of another nation, are somehow under the complete control of the One who made us.

So we are waiting, really, not just for Christ to return, but for the moment when we meet the Infinite Trinity who made our cosmos of a trillion galaxies. For the risen Christ cannot be separated from the Trinity, and each of us is waiting to merge with this Trinity, living in timeless, everlasting consciousness and love.

So as the gospel writer Mark says: “stay awake, be prepared”. Although the present moment may be horrible for many, the Good News is that by we can use our love to understand and speak the truth, building a future in time and eternity, where the good of everyone is assured.

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Does God want conflict?

Sunday 28A 15^th October 2013

[Isaiah 25:6-10, Matthew 22:1-14]

Let’s think about collisions! The other day I found myself in Melbourne CBD. My next appointment hours away, so I thought to visit the museum, where I hadn’t been for many decades. I was not disappointed. In its new building, the museum is full of creative and informative displays.

Most impressive are the dinosaurs, moving around you on huge video screens. In the middle of the hall their giant skeletons tower above you. One sauropod has a neck ten metres long, and a similar tail for balance. Conflicts between dinosaurs must have been astounding.

Graphic models of our planet’s evolution take you much further back than the dinosaurs. When stars or planets collided, gravity pulled together vast amounts of fragments, melting them to liquid. Later, continental plates floating on the planet’s core collided, raising up volcanoes to flood the earth with lava that later became soil; and mountain chains that create weather cycles and rivers. It all works because of collisions!

In rainforests and oceans, species collide in conflict all the time. Bacteria eat stuff. Other things eat bacteria. Spiders eat insects. Carnivores eat other animals. Lions devour deer.

As I thought about how productive collisions can be, I watched children colliding joyfully with large padded mounds fixed to the floor for their enjoyment.

Then I came to the thoughtful First Nations display. You follow a winding path through their unfolding story, from first collisions with the white strangers who came on tall ships. You watch two centuries of conflict, tragic collisions with the colonisers. We almost destroyed their ancient cultures, but they survive and recover. Were these impacts, these collisions, fruitful? Yes, in dark, mysterious ways.

Soon after I came home, we began to hear of the insane attack on Israel by Palestinians breaking out of Gaza, one of the world’s largest prisons. This collision promises only mutual destruction, adding thousands more dead and immense suffering to seventy-five years of dispossession and theft of land.

And we here dare to gather for Eucharist in this world of collisions and conflicts, to share bread without conflict; to hear the prophet Isaiah tell of God’s promise to provide an abundant feast for all peoples. Joy and eternal happiness on the holy mountain.

We heard in the gospel Jesus nearing the final conflict of his life. He tells a parable about the same ultimate feast provided by God, who is the king inviting guests to his son’s wedding. Sharing a meal – especially a wedding feast – surely ought to bring people together without conflict. But these reluctant and ungrateful guests refuse the invitation, and the king turns angry and destructive.

The story is a caricature, with many humorous details: why would people who depend on the king’s favour reject his invitation? Why would they murder the king’s messengers, provoking him to burn down their city? How does the king keep the food hot, while his servants travel long distances to summon the guests, and a military campaign is organised to destroy the rebels’ city?

The parable is a kind of cartoon. And like most cartoons, the message can bite us. Have we never turned down an offer from the Holy One? While Infinite Love can never be provoked to destroy or harm us, haven’t we sometimes missed opportunities to love better? Have we actually caused conflict ourselves?

And how do we handle conflicts, even those we we only see through the television screen? Do we take sides, angry at the injustice, the greed or stupidity of one of the parties? Do we curse in exasperation? Do we pause to pray? To deepen our love for both parties, drawing on the in inexhaustible fountain of God’s love, the abundant feast on God’s holy mountain, which is always ours to share?

Was I ever horribly conflicted by some psychological collision: the breakup of a friendship, or a marriage, or by the death of one close to me? Did I dwell too readily on my pain and loss, rather than give thanks for the mystery of the gift of the other person’s existence? After a death, did I give thanks that they had gone before me into God’s love, eternal life free of all conflict.

Is it not our task, as builders of the Reign of God, to do all we can to bring peace to every conflict? Blessed are the peacemakers, who can speak the truth about all people involved in conflicts: who can respect every person as a child of the Holy One. Blessed are the Peacemakers, who can listenfor the truth possessed by each side, and pray that they come together in justice.

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When was I most afraid?

Sunday 19A 13^th August 2023

[1Kings 19:9, 11-13, Matthew 14:22-33]

We all get tired sometimes, but there are times when we reach an impasse, a deadlock, and cannot see how to go any further. We sit, perhaps with our head in our hands, not just looking hopelessly for a way to proceed, but wondering why we started on this work at all. Perhaps it is a writing project; perhaps we are trying to manage a conflict between people; perhaps it is in our intimate partnership… sometimes we may come close to despair.

It is consoling that other people, even the “famous”, have also reached this point. In our first reading, Elijah felt he had failed as a prophet. Yes, he did have that day of triumph over the prophets of Baal: the crowd was stunned when only Elijah’s sacrificial bullock was burned up by fire from heaven. He seized the impetus of that moment, and – probably with the help of the mob – slaughtered those rival prophets in their hundreds. But he could not overthrow Ahab and Jezebel. Those corrupt royals were still in power, and Elijah had to flee for his life into the desert, where he asked God to let him die. But as we know, he was fed by an angel, walked to Mt Horeb, and heard God re-commissioning him.

Even if we are not discouraged about our personal life and work, we might feel something like despair when we look at the enormous failures and injustice in our world. How the poor are crushed and the powerful have their way. Australia just now is rushing to hand over more power to our “partner”, the USA, whose military force has in the past destroyed numerous countries for its own profit: Vietnam, many Latin America states, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Ukraine, whose legitimate government they helped overthrow, prompting Putin to invade. Now we have B-52s flying from Australian soil.

Disappointments can quickly replace our times of joy. When Jesus’ followers saw him feed the huge crowd, they must have been on a high. “What a marvellous leader we have!”. They might have been disappointed when he sent them back across lake while he stayed behind to pray… but when the storm sprang up and threatened to drown them, they were terrified, and as superstitions fishermen, when they thought they saw a ghost coming at them, they were panic-stricken. But in these stories, such crises are a prelude to God’s intervention, showing that God is in control, and wants to help us.

Jesus stayed back to pray alone, just as he advised us to pray, in secret. His miracles seem to depend on his prayer, his relationship with God. Likewise, when we are disappointed, or fail at something, it is good to put aside what we would prefer, and create space where God can fill us.

So the disciples are being battered by the sea. For the bible writers, the sea was a mystery, symbol of destructive power of demons, and of the political powers that dominate our world. Emperors claimed to be masters of land and sea, but the book of Job describes how God “trampled on the back of the sea” (Job 9:8). Perhaps Matthew was recalling this, when he shows Jesus walking on the water to reassure his friends. They were crying out in fear, but Jesus responded: “I am. Don’t be afraid”.

But the story is sensitive to the fact that we do not develop confidence in God suddenly. Peter is used as the fall-guy to show us this. He tries to trust Jesus and would love to copy Jesus by walking on the sea: “If it is you…” let me join you on the water. But when he realises what he is doing, he weakens and sinks. “You of little faith”. Perhaps Matthew is showing us that our own faith is a mixture of belief and ego and lack of belief, and that’s all right. We look towards Jesus, but in the face of the dangers that surround us, we waiver. It’s natural.

Matthew, who hands this story on to us, is quite sure of Jesus. He shows him performing five God-like actions: Walking on water; saying “I am”; extending his hand; saving them from the deep; calming the storm. Earlier in this gospel, when Jesus calmed a storm, the disciples were described as awe-struck. Now Matthew says, they recognise him as “son of God”, and worship him. Where are we, in our search for faith?

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What is my greatest treasure?

Sunday 17A 39^th August 2023

[Romans 8:28-30, Matthew 13:44-52]

Could we even begin to imagine the terror of having our children or partner kidnapped by the fanatical groups Boko Haram or ISIS? A recent television documentary showed this happening in parts of Africa, and to Yazidis in northern Iraq. How would we cope with the horror of not knowing where our family members had been taken? Were they still alive, as slaves, being routinely beaten or raped? Would we ever see them again?

Jesus announced the Good News that the Empire of God had begun: a living community that would outlast Rome’s powerful legions. People belonging to this Empire were said to be “redeemed”, as a first-century slave, or victims of ISIS or Boko Haram might be freed by paying a ransom. But today, claiming that we have been “redeemed” doesn’t mean much to us. It’s a dead metaphor. We may have been taught that this is why we should go to church or celebrate the Eucharist, but what does it mean in practice, especially for young people?

We might be touched more effectively by Jesus’ story of the buried treasure which a person found when working in someone else’s field. The only safe, legal way to get their hands on it is to buy that bit of land, so they sell everything to raise the money and get the treasure.

Today we see the same single-minded focus in young athletes, swimmers or musicians who hope to become champions. Even as children, they practice and train for many years. But what about us? Is there a treasure for which we hunger and strive with all our heart? If Jesus Good News that God’s Reign has begun doesn’t much excite us, is this because our generation is tired of endless arguments attempting to prove that “God” does or does not exist? Weary of such mental gymnastics, perhaps we need to look again at what Jesus was talking about: the deep hunger within us for friendship and love. Do we remember what life is like when we are deeply loved?

We cannot de-fine the Infinite One, but Jesus own actions and compassion showed that God is more approachable than the most loving of parents, and can be talked to as friend. Jesus used the child’s affectionate name “Daddy”, and invited us to pray to “Our Father in the skies”, without meaning that God is male, or is out there among the trillion galaxies. Jesus assumed that God is present everywhere, and as Infinite Consciousness is aware of all that happens to us. This is why Paul – in today’s reading from Romans – can say that God co-operates with all those who love God, “turning everything to their good.”

If this extraordinary claim doesn’t match out little experience of life, we need to recall that in order to believe the Good News, we need to “repent” (Greek metanoia), to get a new mind so as to see a picture far bigger than our little ego-centric world-view. As we grow closer to God we begin to see that the love of this Infinite Friend makes relatively trivial the many evils in our life. Whether they come from nature – sickness, weather events – or are inflicted by people, they can ultimately deepen us, making us more aware of God and compassionate towards others. Indeed, trusting that we have an infinite future in this Love, all our fears dissolve.

How can we grow deeper in this friendship? In the same ways that we deepen a human love relationship: by spending time with our Beloved; offering our self; listening; asking. For good reason, mystics in all ages and in other religious traditions have described their friendship with God in terms of sensual love, but many “religious” people do not recognise this treasure, stopping far short with commandments and rituals.

But we cannot be friend to God merely as individuals. Because all people are loved by God, we are all intimately linked. The community Jesus invites us to build comes alive to the extent that we care for each other, feed and clothe the needy; shelter the homeless; and abolish forever the scourge of war. Impossible tasks? Not when we find that every good deed, every act of kindness, no matter who performs it, is done in collaboration with this loving Partner who lives within us.

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How well are we listening?

Sunday 15A 16^th July 2023

[Matthew 13:1-23]

After watching a video * of woman doctor describing her Near Death Experience – the remarkable psychic “journey” during the half hour she was clinically dead – I described it to a friend, who was a priest. His reaction amazed and disappointed me. He said that such experiences were “rubbish”; mere hallucinations. When I suggested he watch the video, this highly-educated man refused. He had no need to examine the evidence, for or against: his mind was made up.

This illustrates the parable in Mathew’s gospel about the various outcomes when seed is sown. After the farmer scatters it on the ground, some seeds are eaten by birds, some choked by weeds, and others withered by the sun, but some falls on good soil and produces a bountiful crop.

We usually interpret the seed as representing “the word” about the “reign of God” which it was Jesus’ life’s purpose to announce. That was how Jesus himself explained the parable. From his spoken teachings and his actions, as described in the four gospels and preached by his followers. humanity has deepened its understanding of itself. For instance, from the simple but powerful story of the “good Samaritan” we are shown the wider horizon of love, the beauty of helping any person in need, even strangers and foreigners. The Good News expands our view of God as like a loving father or mother of all people. It promises that if we help those who lack food, clothes or shelter; if we build peace by forgiving our enemies and loving each other as God loves us we will gain “eternal life” – not just “heavenly reward” but create God’s reign here, on earth.

When Jesus broke sacred Sabbath rules to heal people, we learned that rules and laws, even “religious” ones, are less important than people who need help. Jesus advised us to question ancient conventions and traditions of family and society, for these are often based on self-interest, narrow parochialism or tribalism. We must “hate” these if they stand in the way of pursuing the greater good, which includes everyone.

Jesus was criticised for partying with outcasts, but in befriending people of every kind – whether “respectable” or “riff-raff” – Jesus showed us that we are all loved by God. Above all, he showed us how to change the world by building supportive, welcoming communities, centred on a beautiful ritual meal at which we remember him as actually present when we break bread and share a cup.

But – to return to my sceptical priest friend – “the word” in not only found in the bible or heard in churches. The world around us offers abundant wisdom, if only we are listening. It is sad that some people imagine that “church” is our only source, as if the world is somehow unworthy, even corrupt. Does God speak only through the pages of the bible? Wasn’t the mysterious God expressing Eternal Wisdom in creating the trillion galaxies, of which we are an infinitesimal part?

Isn’t the Creator seen and heard in every movement of creatures in the countless living species, including ourselves? Jesus was born into this wonderful, constantly evolving universe. If we are listening, we can learn wisdom from every aspect of the world around us. If we allow ourselves to wonder, we will be astonished by the Creator’s word that echoes within it.

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* This is the video…

The wisdom of children

Sunday 14A 9^th July 2023

[Matthew 11:25-30]

A true story: When the parish priest, Father Cuthbert – not his real name – came to dinner at her family’s home, little three-year-old Margaret observed him closely. The following Sunday she was taken to Mass in what she was told was “God’s house”, where the same good cleric was to preside in ornate vestments, of which he was particularly fond. As the procession moved up the aisle, with acolytes, candles and celebrant, Margaret could not see it, for it was hidden by a forest of adult bodies. Always keen to know what was going on, she climbed up the back of a pew, and just as the priest solemnly approached the microphone to open the ceremony, she announced in her piping voice, heard in every corner of the church: “Oh there’s Father Cuthbert, pretending to be God”. We all cherish a few such funny statements, made innocently by a little child, which had a hilarious and perhaps embarrassing meaning for the adults present.

Jesus’ life-task was to change our world by announcing and beginning the Reign of God. He was solidly opposed by leaders of his own Jewish religion, who had succumbed to formalism and become corrupt. Those educated scribes and pharisees used their learning to oppress the common people with onerous ritual obligations, “purity” rules and heavy taxes. In contrast to the “yoke of the law”, Jesus invited the poor to accept his own “yoke”. They could find that God is totally loving and forgiving, like the father in the story of the “prodigal” son, or like the generous employer who paid latecomers a full day’s wage.

Speaking to people who were desperately poor, and suffering cruelly, Jesus offered them rest and life to the full. He spoke of God’s limitless love; and commanded us to support each other in all material needs, and to forgive. For us who hear him centuries later, he offers the wisdom to handle all the burdens and worries of our life, from childhood to old age and death. But his teaching challenged religious hypocrisy; and announcing the Kingdom of God alarmed the officials who represented the oppressive Roman empire.

When Jesus occasionally healed individuals and fed crowds, he was predicting that he would give himself to us in the Eucharistic meal. This was intended to gather as equals women and men, poor and rich of all races, to share the same meal. He gave it as a visible way to celebrate God in and among us, present in food we share: the foundation of the Reign of God.

When Jesus said that only “mere children” are capable of receiving and understanding his radically alternative view of God, it ought to make us pause. What material things and “adult” concerns so fill our lives that they block us from seeing God, the Infinite Mystery, in every particle of the universe as well as in every person? Or prevent us from waking up to the truth that the one whom Jesus called Daddy is our own closest friend?

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How can dying bring us life?

Sunday 13A 2^nd July 2023

[Matthew 10:37-42]

Jade cup, Persia 14^th century

This cup is made of jade, or greenstone. It once belonged to the emperor of the mighty Timurid empire which included Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and a lot more. Can we imagine the carver facing the hard decision to hollow out this large, precious piece of gemstone? In the days before high-tech equipment, they would have needed to waste a lot of it. The end product was worth it… but they would have regretted the loss. Perhaps the dilemma facing this artist can help us to understand the enigmatic principle that Jesus enunciates in this gospel? “Those who lose their life … will find it.” What might I have to lose, to become a precious and useful vessel?

This rule is at the heart of the Good News. Each of the four gospels declares it. It is the beatitude re-phrased: “Blessed are those who mourn… who are poor.” We can see it being lived, today by so many poor people across South America, Asia and Africa. In poverty and hunger, with no hope of better opportunities for their family, they decide to go through a painful process in trying to reach a more prosperous country. They might walk hundreds of kilometres to reach a border; or borrow a large sum of money to buy a place on a leaky boat. Many of them perish, but the few who are accepted as refugees know what it means: “those who lose their life …will find it”.

Every indigenous culture, through thousands of years, acquired deep wisdom. Although no culture is perfect, they developed ways to form their young people into adults by guiding them through an arduous initiation process, by which they lost their earlier life and entered the broader, stronger life of an adult.

In nature there are countless examples of this process: loss that leads to increase. The seed dissolves in becoming the mature plant. Butterflies and all insects “die” in a cocoon before being reborn. Human mothers give birth in pain, and parents – and grandparents – suffer much in guiding children towards a mature life. Jesus compared himself to the wheat seed that dies to produce more grain: God’s self born among us, he told desperately poor people that they were children of God as much as the temple priests or Roman conquerors. His words and actions challenged the ruling powers, who soon forced him to suffer the cruelest form of death that human beings can impose: to take up his cross and die on it. Through that terrible narrowing, Jesus was raised by the unlimited power of the God.

This universal principle challenges us. Jesus asks us to prefer him to our own family. This is not the ranting of an egotistical cult leader. He is saying that to build the Reign of God, we must avoid trying to “possess” our children or other loved ones, and “let them go”. We must not get caught up in the rivalries of family against family, favouring our relatives above strangers. To bring about God’s reign, we need to break free of narrow parochialism, nationalism and racism, seeing and living the broader picture. This will often make others hate us, and take us through a very narrow space.

Today’s first reading told us about a pious woman who kindly provided the prophet Elisha with a bed-sit and office to use whenever he was passing through Shunem. Jesus might have been referring to her when he urged us to welcome those who bring God’s word to us. When we welcome the bringer of the Good News, truth, we welcome Christ and God’s self. Each of us needs to ask: “how do I see and welcome the many people who offer me opportunities to “die to myself”, to learn and grow? How do I react to the person sleeping on the footpath downtown? Do I give a thought to the cries of the thousands of children around the world who die of hunger every day? Do I speak up for people who are still excluded: those who are gay, or trans, or unattractive in their brokenness? These can all be prophets for me, more than those who preach homilies in churches.

People whom we often consider to be “enemies” can present us with opportunities to see the bigger picture and so stretch our minds to “repent”. If God is immanent in every particle of the universe, can we grow to see that mysterious presence even where we do not expect it?

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