volunteering. or how many dollars they donate to end hunger, or poverty, or oppression. It’s not measured by how many people say the sinners prayer. And it’s not measured by how many people become less sexist or racist or classist on any given day. I don’t you can measure it at all. It’s like trying to measure a giggle, or the taste of chocolate, or how you feel when your baby smiles for the first time. There are some things that cannot be measured. If growing renewal isn’t something that can be measured, or easily defined, how is it that you can recognise it?
This body is more than just us - it's more than just the Christian church. If we take some time to stop looking through a centric version of the world, where we prioritise people just like us - people who call themselves Christians; if we stop looking at labels and if instead we look at the values that we share, the things that we believe in, our goals, then it can look quite different.
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And this is what made Jesus so angry. How had they gotten the message so wrong? How had they twisted the good news of renewal that God had always been pushing - how had they turned that into this petty rule following. Where was the love? Of course people should be healed on the sabbath. Showing compassion is the most holy thing you can do.
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Forgiveness is a painful, ugly process of humility, of reclaiming our God-given dignity, and of entering into a forgiving flow whereby we can return love for hate, forgiveness for hurt, acquittal for accusation. And in doing so we set ourselves free. Free from being stuck back there at the place of the wound. Free from holding on to the grudge or the debt or the anger or the loss. Free to step into a future where God can continue to walk with you and show you over and over, that you are loved.
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I want to tell you of the dramatic transformation Jesus has made in my life. A change not for me to be personally blessed and renewed, or so that I can have an enjoyable life. Not for the sake of gaining a happy clappy church-going life, not so I can be the best prayer, best bible reader or best theological student, but so that my life can be a reflection of Jesus. A life marked by radical generosity, authentic community, deep spirituality and selfless servanthood. And as I tell you part of my own journey, I want you to reflect on your own.
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It felt more like an explosion of my inner world and everything I once knew, but this was in fact the beginning of another awakening. As I started to look closer into the Biblical story I began to see that it is not a story of destination and absolutes, but a story of journey. A slow reveal. A story not of escapism, but one of embrace. The Jesus of the scripture was not one of sin avoidance, someone who stays in the safe, clean space of heaven, but someone who hangs out with sinners at their dirty houses and provides the grog at weddings.
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There's often something about the culture and structure of religion that's comforting, something you can be certain about. But sometimes, the certainties of religion can get in the way. The challenge for us is, what is it about our religion that we need to let go of. Because when you let go of it, there's only love on the others side...
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Religious people love binary thinking. Good and bad. Black and white. In and out. Accepted and rejected. Saved and unsaved. Right and wrong. Spiritual practices and social justice activism. Theology and praxis. Christian and non-Christian. Church and secular. Religious people want to teach you what the truth is so that you know things and then do things. Thank fully, what we see in Jesus is that he was all about dismantling all of that.
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We have seen racism and oppression in horrendous imagery from overseas, but now, particularly during Reconciliation Week, we are reminded of the racism and oppression that First Peoples experience right here. There is an evil there to confront here, to drive out, but for people like me, this is something that we have benefited from and might not have the power to exorcise...
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I really don’t think that those people with authority in that community would have been bothered by people sitting down quietly and discussing theology. No, what was stirring up trouble in the best way possible was the fact that these Jesus followers were threatening the hierarchies that they had worked so hard to enforce.
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The faces, the stories, the resilience, the hope, the extended hand, it is all sacred. It is all resurrection. It is a glimpse of how it should be. And this isn't to minimise the pain and struggle that we all are facing, but this is to extend hope. The hope that Jesus offers you and me. And the hope that one day things will be set to right, things as they are meant to be. And the invitation to participate now. Let's bring in the reversal now!
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"The story of Jonah is a well known bible story that you likely heard as a child, if you did, you may have missed the essence of the story. The story has a message that goes far deeper than the surface and often not told in the children's version. This story disrupts our personal peace and affluence. This story shows us a difference trajectory, where we are not the hero nor the most important person in the story. God is."
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"God is weaving a complex and beautiful basket of restoration for our people, even though I don’t know how, when or why. It’s our stories of hope which remind us again and again that Yahweh is not a God who ignores or abandons. He’s a God who hears, who sees and who powerfully acts. He’s a God who is faithful to restore light and peace to hearts filled with fear and despair."
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"The renewal of all things includes us. But the moment we think it’s about us we become the problem. The renewal of all things looks like Jesus suffering with a broken humanity, living as an example of the world set to right, putting others first and subverting the social norms that seek to capitalise on your greed and your fear. Be wary of anything that is training you to place yourself at the pinnacle of existence, that teaches you subtly or overtly that your well-being is the end of goal of life."
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"Do not be afraid, God is with you – so with courage choose to follow the path of the baby in the manger we celebrate today towards selfless love, sacrificial service, radical generosity and a deep spirituality that rejects a shallow consumer religion of convenience and comfort and embraces the brave and active hope of personal and universal transformation."
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"These words are not only a testament to hope, they’re a testament to the incredible power of God, that whatever is going on, God is bigger. God knows better. God sees beyond the horizon. It doesn’t make our fears magically disappear, but it helps us to remember and trust that God has a wide-angle lens perspective on our lives, and on all of creation."
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"Fear not – because God is one of you. God suffers with you. God has removed all the barriers between humanity and the Divine. God is with you now. Not when you improve, change, grow, behave, get it all together, pray enough, attend enough, get strong enough, do enough good deeds – God is one of you now, God suffers with you now, God has already pulled down the barriers that the church has not yet demolished, God is with you right now."
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"We are in two worlds perhaps. Two dimensions. There is the professional, secular, capitalist world, and overlaid on that is my life as a follower of Christ, as a servant of God. And that there is a difference between the two.... We are in the system, but not of the system."
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“Generosity is not a single act, or something you look back on, it is a posture. It is a way of life. It is a spirit of generosity. Even when you don’t feel like it. Even when you don’t get it in return. Even when it doesn’t make sense. It will look different for each of us. Because we are sharing ourselves, in our own ways. Just like Jesus does.”
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“Spirituality is not about achieving any external measure of wholeness, value or ‘normality’. It is the pursuit of freedom in the security of immeasurable love leading to being able to truly love others which is only possible when you no longer need their approval or validation.”
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“Spirituality is not about achieving any external measure of wholeness, value or ‘normality’. It is the pursuit of freedom in the security of immeasurable love leading to being able to truly love others which is only possible when you no longer need their approval or validation.”
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“Just because the Kingdom of God is hidden among us it doesn’t mean that it is found in us alone. I am not the Kingdom of God nor are you. The kingdom of God is revealed in our togetherness and through the way we love each other. We don’t have a monopoly on the Kingdom of God, there are glimpses all around us.”
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“In the Parable of the Hidden Treasure, Jesus describes a Kingdom that is found among the worlds already built. This isn’t the world of colonisation, the world of capital, or the world of class and inequality. These are the worlds we see everyday, inherit, live beneath. Jesus speaks about a new way of life, a new world – the world of God – already here, hidden in the earth, in the dirt. There if we look for it.”
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For others to experience divine moments, our lives, our actions, our conversations, our priorities and our character are the means by which people experience the love of Jesus. If we the followers of Jesus don’t actually live out the values and character of Jesus (in the ‘big ways’ but more often in the small ways), then how can anyone else experience those things for themselves?
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"I sense God is calling to ‘sleep’ those things of unrest. Those things that have been actively wrestling within us due to pain, rejection, devastation, helplessness or tragedy. I feel God is calling these things to ‘surrender unto sleep’. To quieten. To soften. To ease. To release. To rest."
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