“CORNELIUS”

            The Apostle Simon Peter, deemed the Rock of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, had been sent away with a flea in his ear by that upstart Paul from Tarsus. This humiliating story is told in Galatians chapter 2 when Paul rounded on Peter why he believed that all Christians, whether Jewish or not, should live the same as Jews.

            The Galatians themselves were an example of this unnecessary victimisation. They had little or no background in what we call the Old Testament so Paul had to start from square one to present to them the good news about this Jesus whom he called Christ. This epistle is the result of the events in Acts 14:8-23,27. After Paul had left, the area was visited by Christians from Jerusalem determined to ensure the Galatians Christians filled in the missing Jewish gaps.

This included the whole law of Moses, especially the dreaded Leviticus, including the stipulation that all faithful males be circumcised (ouch!), a painful practice from which we males are thankfully now exempt. And Peter had, without thinking this through, had gone along with this. Paul was livid at this misguided leadership display when they met at Antioch and told Peter so.  

The flea in Peter’s ear had not retreated when he arrived at Joppa (Acts 10). While waiting for lunch, he dozed off on the roof and dreamed of all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds coming to him and a command to kill and eat from them. Being still a good Jew, Peter protested to God, quoting from Leviticus as one does as if God cannot read, aghast at eating anything “common or unclean”.

Back came the voice, “What God has cleaned, you must not call unclean.” The penny was beginning to drop for Peter as he was invited to visit the centurion Cornelius from the Italian Cohort, as Gentile as they come. The rest is history continuing into Acts chs 11, 15. Several of the chapters in Acts are out of sequence when first compiled but once sorted out the message becomes clearer.

Because of that historic meeting between Peter and Cornelius, stimulated by Paul, the good news of Jesus Christ has come down to us. Peter probably accompanied Cornelius when he returned to Rome so here we are.

We are here because our spiritual ancestors were prepared to step out of their comfortable box to include those they had previously left out. Cornelius keeps coming to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church through our yesterdays and today, knocking on the door, strangers to what we have become used to, to seek inclusion.

Cornelius comes from different ethnic, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds, from women seeking ordination, from those with all sorts of disability, and from people of differing and diverse sexual orientation. That voice still comes back to us, again and again, just when we thought we were comfortable in our own familiar ways, “What God has cleaned, you must not call unclean.”

“LEARNING THE GREEN THUMB”

            I was never meant to have green thumbs. Some authority adult guided me when I was a boy to a garden bed and bid me pull out some tough looking things called weeds then left me to it. They were certainly tough weeds and the novelty of this new experience soon wore off once my hands started protesting.

            Much more inviting were similar looking plants nearby and I found them much easier to pull out. The authority adult returned to scrutinise what I’d done and I looked up with my beaming smile to receive my well-deserved praise. Instead a thundery brow loomed down on me, “You stupid little boy. You were meant to pull out those infernal weeds, not those flower plants I planted yesterday.” Sigh! Ever since then I’ve been guilty of watering plants that ought not to have be watered and leaving unwatered those plants that ought to have been watered. Gardeners, have mercy on me!

            How that reminds me of Jesus’ Parable of the Weeds found in Matthew 13:24-30 among the parables of growing things. Weeds are defined as plants in the wrong place. They have a special habit of sneaking among the “good” plants and using them as shields when human hands reach down to uproot them. I am sure other would-be gardeners have caused some collateral damage in finding they have uprooted the wrong plants in their tidying up the garden patch.

            The gardener in this parable is fortunately very wise. Obviously having heard of my experience in my boyhood attempts at horticulture, he hesitates to let his staff loose on his garden at this point, preferring to wait until the reapers can better distinguish the crops.

            If only we could take this to heart more often today. Over this year or more, two great ancient cities have been destroyed before our televiewing eyes.

Aleppo was known to me in my childhood as a prominent trading centre, and Mosul was just across the River Tigris (one of the first rivers mentioned in the Bible) from even more ancient Ninevah, capital of ancient Assyria, known to us from the Book of Jonah and other parts of our Old Testament. To see such ancient history destroyed before our eyes is enough, in itself, to make one weep.

            Aleppo and Mosul have been unlucky to be caught up in two not unrelated wars continuing side by side. Invading forces have determined to root out militant resistance hiding within those cities among the terrified citizens. On this morning’s news, I learned that 40,000 civilians in Mosul have been killed, and God knows how many before in Aleppo.

            Tragically absent in all of the falling of Aleppo and Mosul is the wise words of the gardener in this parable. The “weeds” defending their patch in these respective cities have been hiding behind the civilians, effectively using them as human shields. Families able to flee are caught in the cross-fire, escaping one danger and succumbing to another. Just seeing their distressed faces and hearing their stories of unrelenting crises brings out the lament in me. Good Lord! Where are you?

            We hear excited shouts of victory with guns let off into the air and flags flying as if returning from a footy match where our team has won. The weeds have been taken out, yes, but what a pyrrhic victory with even more civilians, children, women, and men, those who couldn’t get out of the road in time, the casualties numbering much more than these “weeds”.

            Just imagine these cities were ours, every place bearing our postcode number reduced to unlivable rubble, family members, friends and neighbours no more to be seen or heard and we reduced to living from crisis to crisis. Not even a church building for shelter. Doesn’t bear thinking about it, does it?

            All this has happened before, of course. During the Normandy invasion after D-Day, the ancient city of Caen was bombed by the Allies to flush out German defenders, who had already retreated. Look up for yourselves the number of civilian citizens who perished in what was then considered a necessary act. “C’est la guerre!” was the resigned shrug.

            It’s so easy to plunge right in when wrongs need to be righted without considering the collateral damage which may well exceed the worth of the effort made. The number of civilians caught in crossfire by being in the wrong place at the wrong time because of human irresponsibility should sit heavily on human conscience while God weeps over the loss of human beings loved by him and by one another, future doctors, teachers, prime ministers, scientists all necessary to the future of their communities.

            Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers, as Tennyson keeps reminding us.

We may know this parable but we also need to have the wisdom to remember it when tough decisions are being made.

“IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS”

          

            Easter holidays are coming and right across Australia plans are underfoot, as they are for any holidays, on the best ways to enjoy a good break from work and school. There’s footy to watch, sailing on the river, camping in the bush, perhaps a tour away from the traffic congestion to somewhere more exotic.

            Australians look forward to holidays. Maybe somewhere along the line some one may pause to ask if anyone knows what the holiday is for. Amongst the shrugs a voice plaintively utters something about chocolate eggs and bunnies so a toast is raised to chocolate bunnies and the show moves on.

            The media don’t help that much. Amongst all the special days in the year, when did you last see or hear Ash Wednesday mentioned? The day before, certainly, but the season of Lent has now been all but forgotten in the public eye.

Conspicuous consumption continues its reign uninterrupted by little known seasons like this.

            Mentioning Lent does not boost sales, the market cries. Closing down for respect for Good Friday is considered a nuisance. Paying penalty rates for working Sundays and any other special day when work has to be done is grizzled about. In all, we are encouraged to forget the reason for the season.

            The culture we now live in today is at pains to airbrush the name of Jesus from society. It is socially taboo to talk about him even to mention him as an historical figure. Certainly, bringing to anyone else’s attention, his self-sacrifice on Good Friday, particularly if others are in the middle of a good time, is being the wettest blanket of all. Try raising the reason for the season this Easter.

            I had an unforgettable experience the first time I walked into Holy Spirit Catholic Church. As soon as I’d come through the doorway, there confronting me was a life-sized, life-coloured crucifix with the bleeding Saviour of this world draped awkwardly from it. In that church there was nowhere else to look. I was left in not the slightest doubt what it was all about.

            It’s easy for even us disciples of Jesus Christ to become so caught up in the business of church and of life itself that we can erase from our minds that it is all about Jesus. Jesus is no narcissist even in an age where narcissism is thrust into our faces almost everywhere we turn and that is the point. Where “fake news”, “alternative facts”, and “disinformation” become fashionable, the idea of self-sacrifice is shoved off the radar even at Easter.

            So, what we are called to do during the rest of Lent coming up to Easter is to ensure that in the living of our lives this time is all about Jesus. Put your head inside the doorway of Holy Spirit Church and get the picture. Everything else is meant to fit behind the one whose kingdom is not pre-occupied in bombing civilians or cornering the global market but rests in the spirit where love, joy, peace, goodness, gentleness, and self-control become currency for now and the future, just as Jesus showed us in spades.

            Yes, it’s all about Jesus and the sooner the world is exposed to this truth the better it will be for the future.

“EPIPHANY – WHAT?”

           

            I couldn’t believe it!  No sooner Santa had left the stores, every one seemed to salivate for the hot cross buns (not you, of course). Yeek! What happened to Epiphany and Lent? And Christmas has been commercially truncated. It was supposed to go on for twelve days. Didn’t we sing about diverse things stuck in a pear tree? Didn’t 12 lords come leaping to us sent by our true love on the 12th day? Not that I saw any. All I saw on the 2nd day were not 2 turtle doves but a horde of manic shoppers treading over the door-openers of all the stores in town eager for bargains at the Boxing Day sales.

            And the Wise Men had not yet come. Perhaps that’s why they were wise.

They had not come to worship Santa or the hot cross buns. Timing, people, timing!

            Leaving out Epiphany! Shame! Now that Christmas is well and truly behind us even though contacting my annual list has been much delayed because certain surgeons wanted their cut first. We have ceased wishing people a Happy New Year now that all our resolutions, like giving up procrastination, have been put off for next time, and more than enough disasters have already sadly happened.

            Now that people are in doubt what to wish one another, I’ve taken to greeting everyone, “Happy Epiphany!” only to be stared back at with an awestruck look questioning my deteriorating sanity. Dear, dear, if only they knew about Epiphany they wouldn’t be missing one of the most exciting times of the year.

            Epiphany is the time of making known whom God unwrapped for us at Christmas. Jesus Christ is not just the gift for us but on the label we’ll find written the words, “For you and for the world, especially those who need good news.” How are all those needing good news going to receive good news? Santa’s reindeer or the Wise Men (whichever school you went to) have now departed to feed their camels or reindeer whatever, so we are left holding the great gift of God in our hot little hearts yearning to find the yearning hearts for whom the good news is also meant.

            The Christmas Bowl Appeal should now be on its way not so much in the guise of Santa or the Wise Men but represented in the bucket brigade across the gaps to those who wait for useful stuff that will help them renew their lives this year. Now, that is a resolution worth keeping because it becomes good news for those to whom this all was intended.

By the time Epiphany has finished in a burst of tossed pancakes, you would have then learned that Lent is not the stuff that’s left in a clothes-drier. So, Happy Epiphany!

"CHRIST IN A DANGEROUS WORLD"

       

            Back in 1978 our family were moving from Nedlands to Gosnells. At the same time my doctor whisked me into hospital for a biopsy on my thigh. I came home with a bandaged thigh propped with me on a chair while the home furniture was moved out from around me. I was the last piece of furniture moved to Gosnells and hobbled to the ringing ‘phone. The hospital was ringing me urgently to book me in for surgery for suspected melanoma so back I went for a fortnight.

By the time I was allowed out, Gosnells’ new minister had to conduct worship over a few weeks from a lazy-boy lounge.

            I remembered that little adventure recently. My number came up for a room at Arrunga, our new assisted care home centre in Ermington at the same time a surgeon took to me to remove my parathyroid glands from which I am hopefully recovering. My son flew back from Brisbane where he was moving to a new human filing cabinet and filing work applications. He stayed at the unit while caring for frail father and doing the bulk of clearing my unit putting his life on hold again like he did this time last year. He has fled exhausted back to move his own stuff into his new place.

            The moral of my story so far is to avoid moving and surgery at the same time. I have now done it twice 38 years apart. Between my long surges of self-pity which some of you have had to endure, I thought what has occurred to millions of people around the world this year.

            Millions of people have been desperately on the move fleeing for a chance to survive. Few end up at their preferred destinations. Organisations are unprepared and, dare I say it, unwelcoming, treat the refugees like plagues. Those of us who care have found ourselves challenged by unavailable resources and opposition from those with xenophobia. Our own little moving issues are like packing for holidays compared to the risky upheavals in their life. Fortunately, we can contribute through the Christmas Bowl to help.

           

            Being pursued by physicians and surgeons to spend time in hospitals is like an overseas holiday when we become aware of the brutal bombing of hospitals in Aleppo and other places. We look at our children and then watch the horror of little children rescued from rubble, traumatised by organised terror, often the only survivors of their families. They will need support for years. The Christmas Bowl and Act of Peace can be our conduit by which this support can come.

            We can think of Jesus born of a Middle Eastern family to flee to Egypt from a ruthless ruler and had a taste himself of what so many are going through right now as you read this. Jesus comes to us again this Christmas. We see his face on everyone experiencing and fleeing danger. Remember that when we celebrate this Christmas. May Christmas come to all of you.