Parish Of Opawa St Martins Blog

Looking at the readings before us today, what is striking is that the disciples are living in interesting times. They have come through a huge shock, having witnessed the death and resurrection of Jesus. Life will never be the same again, and how the future will look is still to unfold.

The parallels with our situation here in Christchurch are striking. We are living in interesting times. Our community is recovering from the trauma of the earthquakes, and the loss of a city. There is part of us that wants everything to go back to the way it was before. If only the insurance companies would release the money, and the government could have the will to save certain heritage buildings, we could put things back to the way they were. But nothing is ever going to be the same again. We have all been affected by what has happened, and the events of the last 18 months have changed us. At the moment we are living in an ‘in between zone’ where are leaving behind the way things were and looking forward to what will be with, perhaps with a mixture of fear and grief tinged with excitement and promise.

This is the kind of space in which the disciples found themselves in those early after the resurrection. It was a new sort of zone to be in, a wilderness time, in which reality has changed forever. They had to cope with the reality of Jesus’ death, trust that their intense experiences of the resurrection were actually real and ongoing, and that they really could continue to know Jesus in a new way.

Often we think of the events in the life of Jesus as being sequential in time; so Jesus died, then rose again, went up into heaven 40 days later, and sent the Holy Spirit ten days after that. Even though this is the way Luke tells the story, the New Testament, especially the Gospel of John and the letter to the Ephesians, wants us to look at these realities differently. The letter to the Ephesians is asking, “What if God gave us Jesus so that we could taste eternity, and taste what it is to have a dwelling in heaven?” What if God knows what it is like to be us, to be living in this limbo, in between zone, where are leaving a past behind and waiting for a new future to emerge? And what if God, knowing that, wants us to taste heaven now? As we look at the story of the Ascension in this light, we need to stop seeing the events of Jesus as a sequential tale; first this happened and then that happened and so on. We need to see these events as eternal, as lasting forever. Jesus is always coming to us as we proclaim in Advent; and the Word-is-being-made-flesh in us and in the world wherever Christ is present. He is always dying for us and giving his life for us. He always being raised up and being the first born in a new creation. When it comes to the ascension, he is always ascending to heaven, in other words, he is eternally taking the experience of being human to God, making a human space within the heart of God so that we can dwell in God and with God too. That is Good News. When our lives are still fluid and uncertain and our previous reality has been shattered, when energy levels are low and dealing with the next problem brings on another headache, God is mingling his divine life with ours. He is making it possible to taste heaven itself, to dwell in his company.

The letter to the Hebrews makes much of this theme. If humanity is being drawn to God, the human being, Jesus, is like the advance guard. He has gone ahead of us to the throne of God. There, he is the great intercessor and mediator of a new covenant, who prays for us and pleads for us continually. He knows what it is like to go through a whole human life, to be battered and bruised by everything we face, to know pleasure and joy as well as grief and pain, death and loss. He takes all these experiences into the heart of God, and eternally prays for us, pleading our cause and bringing our particular needs direct to the heart of God. He is making a place for us there, and is preparing a welcome for us. He is praying for our flourishing. We are already united to him in a union of faith, hope and love, but that union is but a foretaste of our final union with God when we ascend to heaven to be with Jesus at the time of our own dying.

The image of Jesus ascending into heaven is a curious one for our imaginations. In fact, I suspect many modern people would struggle to take seriously, the sight of Jesus’ feet poking out the bottom of some clouds. But it was not so to the first readers of Luke’s gospel, steeped as they were in the Hebrew Scriptures. The most famous example of an ascension in the Old Testament is the story of Elijah who was carried up to heaven in chariot of fire. Before Elijah departed into heaven, his protégée, Elisha, asked for a double portion of the Spirit. After Elijah had gone, Elisha found that the Spirit of God was even more active that it had been in Elijah. Something similar happened when Moses died. The Spirit that had been in Moses was transmitted to Joshua after Moses laid his hands on him. In the account before us today, Jesus blesses his disciples, just as Moses and Elijah had done. The parallels are unmistakable. He has arranged for them to receive the Spirit, just Moses and Elijah had done in ages past. So as Jesus departs from this world, he leaves behind another body; the company of believers we call the Body of Christ. He promises them that they will be “clothed with power from on high.” In other words, they will receive a double share of the Holy Spirit just as Elisha received the same. The mantle of Jesus’ prophecy will be laid them, and they will work signs and wonders.

What we are witnessing in the closing verses in the Gospel according to Luke, is a community in formation. The gospels all make it sound to our ears as if the grief and loss of Good Friday is over in a matter of days. In fact, it took the disciples some time to make sense of what was happening to them. Luke has the Ascension taking place 40 days after Easter, but in the bible 40 days is frequently short hand for ‘a long time’. It took the disciples some to realise that they were now the Body of Christ, to see that the gift of the Holy Spirit enabled Jesus to be present with them in a much more intense way and in every time and place. It took them some time for their wounds to heal, to see that they were forgiven, to see that all the good that Jesus had done not been destroyed. It took time to see that God had a purpose and a future and that they would be part of it. It took time for them to gather their energy and to see that God trusted them and total confidence in them to continue the mission. So it is with us. Like the disciples we are need to take time to make sense of what has happened, to discern where to next, and what it means to be the Body of Christ in this time and place.

In the midst of all this change, as we leave one life behind and learn to live into a new one, Ascension Day is a day of hope. It is day that proclaims that as the old world is passing away, God is making every new. God has an agenda and a purpose for us that will be for our good. The good we have been part of, and the works of faith and hope and love we are engaging in now, God will honour and give a meaning far beyond what we can see now. Goodness will not be undone or blotted out. The mistakes and sins of the past can be repented from and will be forgiven. God will heal us and empower us with the Spirit and trust us with a mission. The Ascended Christ will give our humanity space to flourish, and eventually, we too will ascend to take our place in heaven, where every tear will be wiped away and we can enjoy the company of God forever.

We have been singing the songs of Easter for six Sundays now. We who are the church celebrate the one who was once crucified, now raised from the dead, now given back to us by God as forgiveness, the mediator of reconciliation and peace. The first Christians gathered together because in their meetings they experienced the presence of Jesus as a reality so clear that it was more intense then when he was physically present before his death.

It is our meeting with the living Christ present in our midst that makes this gathering “Church.” It is our relationship with Christ that makes us Christians. Christ’s ministry did not end with his death; in reality, the presence of Christ is now more intense and more effective because of his resurrection. This is because of the work of the Holy Spirit who is poured out to unite us with Christ and to guide us into all truth. The Spirit of Christ is shaping us, moulding us, pruning us so that our lives resonate with the story of Christ and sing the age old stories of God’s deliverance form death and despair. One of our tasks here is to listen to the melody of that song and to tune our hearts to sing in unison with the Spirit of the Risen Christ.

As St Augustine once said, the primary melody of this song is that of friends and lovers. John’s gospel makes this clear over and over again. John places these words on Jesus’ lips: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” Its very clear that Jesus had an awareness of dwelling in God’s love. It was because he was grounded in that loving relationship with God that he was able to keep going in the face of opposition. It was God’s love that enabled him to trust enough to grow into his full humanity, to be able stand out from the crowd without worrying about what others might think. All his needs were met in his relationship with God, a relationship that gave him the security and the confidence to be true to himself. As the song says, “He came singing love.” This love song is not the song that we sing to use others for our own purposes. Neither is this the song that manipulates others into doing what we want, or that turns others into an object or that focuses love inwards on ourselves. This is the song of the presence of Christ within and between us. This is the song of self-giving to one another. It is the song of friendship, rather than domination. It is the song of free, open, and loving communion with God and with each other. It is the song that enables us to accept ourselves, to take delight in others. This song enables us to trust reality, rather than escape into fantasy or pretend that we are something that we are not.

John’s gospel goes on: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends; I have called you my friends.” The love song of God tells us about the kind of new humanity that we are called to be in this community of the resurrection. None of us are present here as second class citizens. Our song is about living for others; it is about sacrificial love and friendship. We are not members of Christ based on hierarchies of status of greater or lesser rank. Neither are we members of Christ based on ethnic identity.

The Book of Acts details the first major controversy of the early church and it was all about culture and race. Jewish Christians, represented by Peter, thought that the mark of a good Christian was about keeping Jewish holiness rules. So when confronted with Gentile Christians, false prophets wanted Gentiles to keep Jewish law; to be Jewish first and Christian second. So they asked: “Did they know the scriptures? Were they circumcised? Do they keep the dietary laws of Moses?” Only when the answer was yes to all this would these false prophets sit at the same table with these Gentile Christians. The only problem was that the Holy Spirit had other plans. When they arrived, Peter found that God had already poured out the Holy Spirit on these gentiles. So the Jewish Christians had to get with the programme. First of all, Christian believing cannot be reduced to a formula. Our faith is not about holiness codes; how well one keeps rules and avoids being tainted by certain evils. Neither can we ever let culture and race become a barrier to community if we want to be the Body of Christ. In Acts this meant that one did not need to be a follower of the Law of Moses first before one could be marked as a Christians. The mark of a Christian is a relationship with Christ, nothing more and nothing less. So while Peter was pondering issues of holiness, whether or not to sit at table with Gentiles, he discovers the Holy Spirit has already jumped the gun and made his mind up for him. Peter comes across a group of faithful Christians and he is forced to view things differently: to proclaim that the Holy Spirit has healed the divisive barrier of culture and made the church a sign of God’s restorative future. God has no favourites: the love of God is available to all.

People often asked Jesus what God is like. And so Jesus talked about God as “personal being”: Abba, Father. He taught us that to see God, we need a relationship with Jesus and we need to abide in love. Perhaps what Jesus was suggesting, was that the reality of God can only be grasped by us human beings through our experience of human friendship. In our love and concern for each other, in our friendships and in our human communities, we gain insight into God. God is love. All our human love comes from God and leads us to God for God is love. Those who love are born of God. So the God revealed in Jesus is not only infinitely powerful, but also infinitely caring, forgiving, compassionate and concerned. We are to dwell in that love, and when we do, we begin to tune in to the great song of love that comes from the heart of God, and our hearts resonate with the music of God’s love.

This music – this song brings us into a communion of people bonded together because God has chosen us and loved us first. This gift of friendship is not to be hoarded among ourselves. If we are to have truly apostolic hearts, we are to be God’s people, the new Promised Land. Our communion of love is to overflow with milk and honey so that this may be a place where our song is of generosity of spirit, overflowing beyond ourselves to the world. This is a new song. It is a song that will sound odd in a world of competition and rivalry, but we are not discouraged. We sing it when we greet each other and when we make commitments to each other. We sing it when we care for the unemployed, for the refugees and the new migrants, and for those downtrodden by the hardness of life.

The friendship we share here is to be shared – given away. Indeed it is our mission to do this. Such a mission is a joy, for those who know God’s love cannot help but pass it on. Every time we pass it on, we co-operate with a fresh initiative of the Spirit, and we bring hope into our troubled world.

Over the season of Easter, the gospel readings use particular metaphors to speak of our relationship with God in the light of the resurrection. Last Sunday we reflected on Christ the Good Shepherd. Today, the scriptures bring before us Christ the true vine. All through John’s gospel, the relationship between Jesus and God is one of mutual love. Jesus and the Father are so close to one another, that the two speak and act as one. Jesus came that we might have access to that circle of love, that we might be drawn into that communion of love, because knowing ourselves as loved utterly by God is the ground of our being.

John makes much of this theme all through his gospel, using lots of ways to help see what abiding in God’s love is like. Jesus washes the disciples’ feet to show us that true love is a love that is centred beyond ourselves. To abide in God’s love is to become part of the movement of God’s self giving. There are other ways God’s love is expressed too. For example, Mary was greeted by name in the garden on the day of the resurrection; he is the shepherd who knows each of us by name and recognises who we are. Jesus meets personally with the disciples in the upper room and breathes the breath of life upon them. Jesus personally restores Peter by asking three times, “Do you love me?” All through his gospel, John taps into the human experience of personal love, in our friendships and in community together, in order to show us in as many ways as possible, what God’s love looks like. John understands the deep wisdom of old; that it is in loving one another that the Word is constantly being made flesh. In loving human relationships Christ is the “Word made Flesh”. “The Father abides in me and I in him,” says Jesus. The two of us are united in an intimate circle of love. No wonder Jesus extends this love to his disciples by calling them, not servants, but friends.

Perhaps this is why John’s gospel makes so much use of another relational metaphor: the vine. Today Jesus declares that he is the true vine. In the cultural world of the Old Testament, vines were one of the most important plants. In fact the Old Testament is full of texts where Israel is referred to as God’s special vine. Israel is the “choice vine” that has been brought out of Egypt and planted by God. Sometimes the vine finds itself growing in the desert, where it is scorched by the heat of the sun and suffering from lack of water. Sometimes the vine is by the river, putting down long taproots into the waters of God’s salvation. Sometimes the vineyard is chastised by God for its failure to produce good fruit; the fruit of justice and peace. Isaiah 5 is a good example of this kind of poetry where the vineyard produces bloodshed instead of justice. So God comes along with the pruning hooks and casts the dead wood into the fire. The idea that Israel is the vine abounds in the Old Testament, especially in the poetry of the prophetic writings.

So when Jesus speaks of himself as the true vine, he is focusing all that Old Testament imagery on himself. Jesus describes himself as the true vine, and we, the new Israel, become the branches. The resurrected Jesus is the new vine; planted as it were, in the Promised Land. “I am the true vine,” he says. “You are the branches.” When Jesus says he is the true vine, he is saying that we owe our life to him. He is rooted in rich soil, and it is from him that we draw nutrients we need in order to survive. We are the branches. When we are baptised we are grafted onto the vine. We become new shoots filled with the same life as the original vine. The Church, therefore, is a holy vineyard. Our branches reach out to envelope the world. And our tendrils stretch out in the shape of the cross, extending all the way to heaven itself.

More than any other image in the bible, the image of the vine emphasises Christianity as a relational faith. In the resurrection we are drawn into that intimate relationship between Jesus and God, so that we too, participate in that intimate relationship with God. The metaphor of the vine speaks of our intimate connection with Christ. The apostles understood that well. They knew how necessary it was for them to be one with the branch, interconnected both with God and with each other if there was to be any fruit. That is an important thread through the story of Acts which we hear in Easter – how the disciples, filled with the Spirit and living “in Christ” turned the world upside down with the gospel. They knew they could do nothing without God.

Jesus tells us to abide in him, an instruction similar to the command to love one another – a central theme in the writings of John’s church. Most of us know about love. We know the importance of an embrace, of encouraging and challenging our friends. We know that loving relationships help us grow in selfhood, because we know that we have value, that we can trust enough to let others see our real attitudes and thoughts; and because in living for others, we see that our lives can enrich the lives of others. In our prayer, we need to spend time considering the love Jesus bears for us so that we can trust enough to live for others. How often do we spend time in prayer, picturing the risen Christ glancing our way with delight? How often do find ourselves grinning at the thought of his smile? How often in our prayer do we imaginatively “feel” the strength and warmth of his embrace?

If we are abiding in Christ, the True Vine, we are enabled to know the love of Christ in its fullness, and we can pass it on to others. But very often there are blocks in our lives that prevent us abiding in Christ and knowing his love. These are the parts of us that need pruning. Sometimes that block is our inability to believe Christ really loves us. If our journey through life has left us damaged and battered, then it may be difficult to see God’s love in our lives. That can lead to a deep sense of worthlessness or guilt about who we are; we reject God’s love because we are in a defensive stance and unable to see it, or we are sucked into believing God’s love isn’t really for us. The truth is, God’s love extends to us in spite of our warts. God sees exactly who we are and what we are, and loves us anyway. God wants us to be part of the vine and to feel his life pulsing through our veins.

In your prayer this week, imagine the love of Christ around you personally and around all of us. For what else could abiding in Christ mean? What else could it possibly mean to be filled with the Spirit, than to know the love of Christ, the love that bonds us to God and each other?

St Augustine said in one of his sermons, “Music belongs to lovers.” God sent us Jesus to show us what love looks like, to draw us into the song of God’s self giving love for the world. In C.S Lewis’s book, The Magicians Nephew, the reader is transported to the dawn of time when the lion, Aslan, opens his mouth to utter a song which sings the world into being. As the sound of beautiful music resounds through the new creation, life comes into being; indeed there is so much life that even a steel lamp post becomes a living thing in its own right with a light that burns perpetually for all time. God’s creative energy is the music of love, and the fruit of that love is Graham, and you, and me, and all creatures in creation. In the gospels, the song of love is revealed fully in the person of Jesus, who abides in an intimate relationship with God, a relationship of mutual love in which the Father and Jesus eternally give themselves to each other. It is a song of love that shows us a love that is centred beyond ourselves and finds meaning in giving self to others.

Graham was given to us by God. He bore a unique image of God that was his only to bear. He died suddenly last Tuesday, but he died a happy man, because he knew the truth about himself. That truth is that he knew himself to be loved utterly by God, with all his complexities and with all the aspects of Graham that made him an endearing person. He was happy because he knew himself as one who was loved and cared for by his wife Glennys, and by his family; and he was happy because he had still making music with his church family, leading the people of God in song, enjoying being in communion with God and God’s people, both here in this parish of Opawa-St Martins and in the wider Anglican family, including the cathedral singers who are with us today.

Jesus came to draw us into deeper communion with God, to become part of that intimate circle of love that is the Trinity, so that we can relax into becoming fully human, comfortable with the person we are becoming. Graham wore his humanity on his sleeve. He was realistic about the frustrations and limitations that come when an ageing body that will no longer do what it used to be able to do. There were many moments when that humanity was funny, beautiful, endearing, complex, even frustrating. Graham was a determined human being who was not going to be defeated by the effects of the ageing process. He continued to contribute as much as he was able and as fully as he could. When we think of Graham here in this parish, it might be the times we saw him sitting at the organ. It might be the times we saw Graham running around in the VW Combi van which was well and truly over loaded with all the junk being gathered up for the white elephant stall in the church fair – the poor old vehicle just about breaking under the strain of carrying all the stuff. Or we think of Graham walking around with his trademark ladder and crow bar, hatching some sort of building project. Glennys tells the story, of going out for coffee somewhere and returning home to find Graham walking about with his crow bar, and finding that a whole wall has disappeared in the house as a renovation project was getting underway.

We could see Graham’s humanity shown in his generous love for his family. He was a faithful husband to Glennys, a generous grandfather to all his grandchildren, and loving father to his children, who of course, could do nothing wrong in his eyes. Within our parish community, he was re-elected to vestry just last Sunday, because he was looking forward to being part of the new church that will emerge from the earthquake. Last Sunday he was so happy to be part of this community of faith, still thinking about the future, still leading the congregation in song from the piano, which I have to say was not his desired instrument (proper church music is played on an organ of course!). He had spent many hours over the previous few days practising the hymns and songs, keeping his arthritic fingers and hands nimble enough and strong enough to make the piano sound the notes. Not only that, but he had a whole strategy worked out to keep his brain exercised enough to enable the music making to continue.

The story of Graham’s love of music and church goes back a long way. There are some here today who got to know each other as kids in a church choir in Holy Trinity church in Invercargill. The music making is like book-ends framing key relationships in Graham’s life; those he was with as a child singing together in a church choir, are still together today, still singing in another church choir for the glory of God. Graham loved this church, and he was determined to contribute and to be part of the future. His faithfulness is an example to all of us, from the very young to the very old. He lived his life in Christ. He tried to shape his life around the way of Jesus, and he tried to make the way of Christ shape his work and ministry as a GP in east Christchurch. His faith has brought glory and honour to Christ. He has followed the Way, searched for Truth, and lived the Life.

God has house with many rooms. Graham has been away from that house for a while, but God has been keeping a room ready for his return and Graham has always stayed in touch. He has allowed God to keep him within that loving communion of intimacy that exists in the heart of God. He has been a loveable human being, within whom God has incarnated his creative energy and a generous compassion for people. Now God is welcoming Graham back home. Graham’s life is returning to the Source from which it came. It is a homecoming; a longed for reunion with God whom Graham has always known.

Graham’s life on earth has come to a conclusion. It was a sudden death, and when death comes suddenly, it can mean that we have been unable to say all the goodbyes we might have said if we had time. Use the moments of silence in this funeral to ask Jesus to pass on your messages of farewell to Graham, to pass on the things you would have said had there been time. And be assured that Graham will be praying for us as he takes his place in the company of heaven.

Graham has been parted from us by death. That our bodies will also wear out and come to a natural end is part of the way God has made us. Graham has known the song of God’s love, and has dwelt in that love. May we also know God’s music of love. Be who you are. Be singers of the song, and dwell so deeply in that love, that death may hold no fear for us, but instead, be our longed-for reunion with God, who is the love that dwells us, who is the love that is between us, and the love that sings us into being.

Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd.”

Sheep in the Middle East behave quite differently from Kiwi sheep. Yes it is true. This was one of the deep learnings during theological education. Middle Eastern sheep are, well, different. We are all used to Kiwi sheep. If you meet a mob on the road when travelling, you can never be quite sure which way they will run. Farmers control them with sheep dogs who run around barking and making a lot of noise to get them from one paddock to another. So it was quite a surprise to learn about the ways shepherds operate in the Middle East. They have little pipes and they teach their flock a wee tune that only the sheep owned by a particular shepherd will know. By all accounts, there are no sheep dogs in the Middle East. All the shepherd does is play the wee tune on his pipe, and the sheep hear it and follow.

There is the story about a child shepherd in the 1948 war in when the British were still trying to administer the Palestinian territory and pressure was building for a new state of Israel. The Palestinians were protesting, blowing up hotels and oil processing plants, and generally causing the British much grief. So as a way of getting control back, the British rounded up all the sheep so that the local Palestinians would be starved into submission. So in this fenced off area were was a huge mob of sheep, well over 10,000. After this went on for a while, and the locals began to get really hungry, a kid from a village went up to the sergeant who was guarding the sheep and said, “Let me have my sheep back. My father is dead. There is only my mother and my younger siblings. We are harmless to you and we are starving.” The sergeant said, “It’s impossible for us separate your sheep from all the rest. Go away.” But the child kept insisting, and said, “If you just open the gate, I will get my sheep.” So after a while the sergeant got sick of this kid nagging, and opened the gate, whereupon the kid played his wee tune on his pipe, and his wee flock of about six sheep jumped over the backs of all the others and followed the kid home.

Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me.

All through the bible, God repeatedly makes the claim to be the true shepherd of the people of Israel. Ezekiel in particular makes forceful use of this metaphor for understanding the being of God. Meanwhile the kings of Israel are berated for their failure to be shepherds of Israel. The prophets accuse them of being motivated by self interest and their need power and wealth. They fail to bind up the wounded and the broken. They allow the poor to go hungry while the wealthy elite live in palaces dripping with luxury. They tolerate unfair trading practices that make the rich wealthier and trap the poor in poverty. The point the prophets make repeatedly is that the kings of old were unfaithful leaders, bad shepherds, who consigned their flocks to the wolves. In response, God says: I will be the true shepherd of Israel. I will act swiftly and decisively for the good of the community. I will lead them beside restful waters and to green pastures. I will bind up the broken and defend the weak.

Jesus said, “I am the good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.”

The issue Jesus is dealing with here is to do with life and death. He, in his person, is making the claim to be the true shepherd of the new Israel. Following Jesus leads to eternal life. By contrast the religious leaders who oppose Jesus are the next in a long line of failed shepherds. Separated from God they are in a kind of living death. They too, have been far more interested in power, in maintaining their religious systems in spite of the human cost, and in bolstering their egos. They have done more to stop people knowing God. By contrast Jesus is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, so that the way to God would be opened to everyone, even those sheep beyond the flock of Israel. He is not a Good Shepherd who happened to lay down his life on a day when things went awry. He is the Good Shepherd because it is in his nature to lay down his life. Remember that in John’s Gospel, no one takes his life away from him. Jesus freely lays it down.

The reason it is in the nature of Jesus to lay down his life is because of the circle of divine love of which Jesus is a part. John’s gospel repeatedly says that Jesus and the Father are united in a circle of intimate communion and love. They are so close to each other that act and speak as one. Each gives themselves unconditionally to the other, in an intimate circle of mutual abiding. God’s love is the kind of love where each person in the relationship gives themselves unreservedly to other, without conditions and without agendas. That is the kind of love that Jesus is revealing to us. So all his human relating while he is here on earth reflects this. He is continuously giving himself to us just as he gives himself to God. He gives of himself freely, even to the point of laying down his life. God sent Jesus to show us this kind of love, so that when we know what it is like to be loved this way by Jesus, we may be drawn into that intimate communion with between Jesus and the Father.

Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd. I lay down my life for my sheep.”

Jesus has come to share with us a vision of God. As we see who Jesus is, the way he loves, we also see who God is and start to share the vision. The church is a school for learning how to love. To quote St Paul, It means being able to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. It means setting aside our needs to be important or be in control or the need to be right, or what ever it is, for the sake of our brothers and sisters. It means living into the vision of God and God’s way of loving, of becoming part of the movement of self giving. In Orthodox iconography, the person who prays to Jesus is encouraged to contemplate the face of Jesus and follow the gaze of his eyes. Jesus is always depicted looking toward God, so that as we gaze on Jesus and become more like him, we also begin to gaze on God through the eyes of Christ, and see God as he really is. That is why Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He not only leads us to God. He leads us to the place where he is wrapped in God, so that we might be there in that place as well, seeing who God really is, loving the way God loves.

Jesus is our Good Shepherd because he laid down his life. He was able to die for our salvation. That is why we trust his voice. That is why we belong to him. He speaks to us of what he knows, and he draws us into the heart of God so that we can truly be there with him. As our first reading says, our healing, our salvation come through his name alone.

Today we hear that Jesus is approached by night by a would-be disciple. A strange conversation ensues.

Usually when we hear Jesus talking, it is loud and clear in ways that are easy to understand. Often Jesus’ teaching was in parable form, sophisticated stories that challenged us on all sorts of levels. They offered new realities that Jesus invites us to grow into.

This is a different conversation, typical of John’s gospel where things are going on at different levels. Jesus’ words sound like a series of riddles designed to confuse. The key of course, is the timing of the conversation. It takes place at night, so we know that Nicodemus’ faith is fragile, that he is moving toward Jesus from a place of opposition. He is coming gradually into the presence of the One who is Light and Life.

Nicodemus is a member of the Sanhedrin. In other words he is a member of the Jewish council in Jerusalem. Ironically, the name “Nicodemus” means something like “power to the people”. His problem is that he has a limited understanding of who Jesus is, and when he begins talking with Jesus and finding himself getting out of his depth, he resorts to a kind of faith which is about definition and formula. He wants to stay in a world where he feels in control and that he understands, rather than allowing Jesus to take him on a journey to show him a new reality. Jesus’ patience and perseverance in this conversation is admirable.

Nicodemus’ response is a temptation for any of us who would be followers of Christ. Faced with new experiences and new challenges, it is easy to cling to what we know and stay in a world we understand. One of the enjoyable aspects of the Lent Study Group DVD that we are watching at present, A History of Christianity, is the shear variety of Christian identities that have developed down through the ages. We have discussing what the shared core of Christian faith might be, whether it’s the creeds, scripture, Eucharist, confession, vocation to live under vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, or whatever. The question I have been sitting with over recent days is whether the shared core is actually to be in mission, since every single one of the various ways of being Christian have all been incredibly effective in adapting to local context and communicating the Good News in their time and place, and in their unique way.

The music of our Sunday liturgy is a celebration of the variety of Christian identities we find today, drawing music from Catholic as well as Protestant traditions, from Europe as well as Africa. At the moment we have been learning music from the Orthodox Church. Recently we have sung a beautiful Kyrie Eleison from Russia. During communion today we will attempt another equally beautiful piece of Russian Orthodox music. Orthodox music is interesting in that it is designed to be sung in harmony but without an organ to accompany it. The result is beautiful harmonies that are easy to sing, and that lift the soul heavenward.

On the subject of rejoicing in the various Christian identities surrounding us, I would also like to encourage parishioners to think about confession. This is a practice that the Anglican Church did not stop at the Reformation, so it has a long tradition in our church stretching back over 1500 years. It is available for those who wish to avail themselves of it. These days we call it Reconciliation of a Penitent. You can read all about it on page 750 of the NZPB. It is a way of talking to God about things that you find troubling in your life, and it provides a way for you to hear the good news that God’s forgiveness is for you. Some people find this a helpful preparation for Easter. Parishioners are welcome to make an appointment to see your vicar if you would like to avail yourself of this sacrament of the church.

Jesus takes Nicodemus out of his comfort zone in the conversation they have today. Nicodemus tries to keep Jesus under control by keeping the conversation tied down to known certainties that he understands (which is what he is doing when he understands birth as having one meaning – our physical birth). In response, Jesus keeps explaining gently about what it means to be in the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus is struggling to see that entry into the Kingdom of God is something God does. God calls us; God gathers us; God enables us to be born into the kingdom. This is a gift from above, a gift from God. It happens because of God’s divine initiative and will, rather than being something we initiate and control, because it a work of the Spirit that blows where it wills. Entry into the Kingdom is like a birth into a new situation. Indeed, this birth is accomplished in a ritual with water, what we call baptism, in which the Spirit is poured out. In John’s gospel, entry into the Kingdom means being part of a community of believers who profess faith in Christ and who want to live out their understanding of Jesus.

Nicodemus struggles with this. It may be that he is part of the religious bureaucracy used to regulating and controlling who can be in the Kingdom. But here Jesus blows open the boundaries of the kingdom. God will open this community right up to include all who believe and trust in Jesus. The writer to the Ephesians will develop this theme and say that we need ‘the other’, we need people who are different from us, to open our eyes to aspects of God that we would otherwise not be able to see.

A central piece of the Gospel reading today points to the cross, which is important to note as we approach Holy Week and the culmination of the church’s year at the Great Vigil of Easter. Here, Jesus explains his suffering as a process. He refers to the incident in the Exodus stories where the people are bitten by snakes. Moses finds a way to remove the pests and bring healing. One commentator suggests that these were fire snakes, and that the way to get rid of them was to wind them slowly around a stick from the tail up so that they would release their jaws and let their victim go such that the head is not broken off and left in the wound. The religious aspect of this is the memory of the snake being raised up on a pole and the people receiving the healing of God. Jesus is saying that he is a copy of this. He too, will be raised up on a cross. He is a definitive sign of God’s healing, and one who brings that love into the world. His is agenda, therefore, is to love rather than condemn; to announce that God’s purposes are always for our good. He wants us to slowly and carefully copy his way of loving and living, so that more and more we are united to him and become like him in the ways we think and speak and act. Lent is a kind of practice time for doing this so that we can live into Christ’s way of loving and living all the year round.

The task before us, then, is simple. Like Nicodemus, we come to Jesus. Come out of darkness into the light of God. Come to experience God’s forgiveness and healing. Come that God may raise you heavenward into life in Christ. Come to Jesus who longs to overcome the darkness of our lives and to feed us with the gifts of faith and hope and love. Come to Christ; place your trust in him, and experience the love and peace which passes all understanding.

Today’s gospel has Jesus doing something political. It would have been seen as an act of public protest. According to one commentator, Jesus and his followers occupied the whole temple mount for an afternoon, driving out the traders and money changers in the process. It is not hard to imagine the pious sensitivities of many people being stirred up by this. John’s gospel tells us that this took place at the Passover Festival when many of the faithful would have been present. I am quite a sure strong reaction would have ensued.

But the mention of the Passover is an important detail for another reason, because the Passover festival is when the people of God celebrated the Exodus, the time long ago, when God released the people from bondage in Egypt and led them freedom in the Promised Land. Passover was a festival of hope and a celebration of God’s redemptive activity, and this episode points toward Jesus death and resurrection by which he will bring salvation to the world.

Most of us have an understanding of the symbolic power of a building such as the Jerusalem temple. Many in Christchurch are feeling the grief of the loss of our Cathedral in the Square. Yesterday the square was filled with ordinary people from Christchurch going to see the damage for themselves and to say good-bye to a beloved building that had been a symbol of this city for so long.

The Jerusalem temple had also been a powerful focal point for the Jewish people for centuries. If we think back to the Exodus story, the people of God were led through the desert by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar fire by night. Only Moses could approach the cloud when it came down to the tent of meeting, and when he emerged from meetings with God it is said that his face glowed. Well, when the temple was completed by King Solomon years later, that same cloud descended on the temple. The cloud was so bright, says the writer of 1 Kings, that the priests could no longer fulfil their duties that day. In other words, the cloud was a visible manifestation of the glory and presence of God, who was taking possession of the temple. From now on, the temple would be the point of access to God for the people of Israel.

Enter Jesus, coming into the temple. He arrives, makes the whip of chords, and drives out the money changers and the pigeon-sellers. In the terminology of John’s gospel, this is a sign. Changing water into wine is the first sign Jesus gives. The prophetic act of driving out the money changers and pigeon-sellers is also a sign. It’s a sign that works on many levels as we shall see.

It might help to understand the layout of the temple. The Jerusalem temple had three parts. The inner-most court was for Jewish men. Then there was a middle courtyard that the women and children could access. The outer courtyard was called the courtyard of the Gentiles. This outer courtyard was where the money changing and selling was going on. The temple authorities would have justified what was happening by saying that it was helping worshippers worship properly in the temple. The money changers changed the coinage, with images of emperors or one of the pagan gods on them, into kosher temple currency. The cattle and sheep would all be unblemished and acceptable for sacrifice. The pigeon sellers were there to make it possible for the poor to purchase an affordable sacrifice, so that they could participate in temple worship. So you might be asking, “What’s the problem?”

The issue is one of justice. We don’t know the politics of everything going on here, but the suggestion is that there is a racket going on, where the temple authorities are benefiting from running a monopoly and making themselves considerably better off.

So on one level, the “sign” we witness today is Jesus cleaning up corrupt business practice in the temple. The point is to make sure ordinary people can access God when they come to pray. Helping people know God better is an important aspect of our life and witness. And the Good News of God has always included what the Anglican Church calls “transforming unjust structures in society”. The Anglican Consultative Council declared that there are five aspects to the mission of the church. Proclamation of the gospel, nurture and baptising new believers, loving care of people in our society, care of creation, and transformation of unjust structures. Hence our church often calls for justice in national and international contexts. For instance, Archbishop Rowan Williams visited Zimbabwe recently and called for an end to injustice and corruption in that country.

But there is more to the sign that Jesus offers here. It is much more than a challenge to corruption in the temple. Think back to the cloud coming down on the temple when Solomon first consecrated the first temple centuries earlier. Now Jesus is saying that he in his person is the place where the glory of God dwells. He is acting decisively to become point of access to God. He will be the person in whom God’s redemptive activity will be focused. From now on, temple and its whole apparatus will be irrelevant. We notice that the cleansing of the temple takes place in the court of the Gentiles. The hope of the prophets was that the Messiah would open a channel for all people to access God, including Gentiles. So when Jesus cleanses the temple in the court of the Gentiles, he is saying that he now provides an access point for Gentiles to approach God. Furthermore, the episode quite clearly points to his passion and death on the cross, and his resurrection: “Zeal for your house will consume me,” and, Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” While the temple authorities think Jesus means the bricks and mortar, Jesus is talking about his body, which rose from the dead on the third day.

In the hands of Jesus and the writers of the New Testament, the temple becomes a symbol for Christ himself. St Peter will later write a letter or sermon, in which he calls Jesus the head stone, or corner stone, and you and I are the living stones making up a temple made of people. The true temple of God is not a building, no matter how ancient, or beautiful, no matter how long it has taken to build, and no matter how much gold has gone into building it. No. The true temple is of God is God’s holy people, baptised into his death, which we recall on Good Friday, and raised in him into eternal life, of which the primary celebration is the Great Vigil of Easter on Holy Saturday night. Be that temple, and in your prayer, ask God to shape you and to show you your unique place in this spiritual building, so that your participation in the Body of Christ may give glory to God.

Mountaineering is one of the great past times New Zealanders engage in. And little wonder as we live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. We enjoy stunning mountain scenery becomes to the point where we can become blasé about the landscape we are in. There are some downsides, such as the fact that the mountains also represent the location of active fault lines that can rupture at any time, but nevertheless we enjoy them. We climb mountains, we ski on them, build tramping huts and tracks, and the very fit and the brave will climb to the top of them. The reason many people like the mountains is because they allow us to experience transcendence. On a human level, anyone who climbs to the top of Mount Cook or one of the other big mountains, transcends themselves; transcends the limitations of their fears. As Sir Edmund Hillary put it, “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” From the top of a mountain God shows us that our human limitations and our fears can be transcended, and we find the heights to which the human spirit can soar.

Maybe that is why mountain tops come up so frequently all the way through the bible. Abraham, Moses, Elijah, all of these great spiritual leaders went to the mountain top to encounter God. Abraham encountered God and God made a covenant with Abraham to make him the ancestor of a multitude of nations. Moses received the 10 commandments at the top of the mountain amid the sound of trumpets and in the thunder of the storm. Elijah encountered the sheer silence of God and the whisper of a still small voice. Jesus frequently went up the mountain as well. That is where he went to pray and to be close to God.

But on this occasion, they had an unexpected experience of transcendence. Jesus was transfigured before them and his clothes become dazzling white. In other words, God reveals to the disciples the fullness of Jesus’ divine being. They see that his life comes out of the depth of God’s life, that in his being he is the fullness of God. Imagine for a moment a singer or an instrumental performer performing a beautiful piece of music. You see that musician is totally focused; every ounce of energy is being focused into producing music, every muscle, every nerve and every breath, his/her whole being is focused in the life of that piece of music to the point where it seems that the musician is being carried by the music rather than the other way round. That is a metaphor for what we are seeing here. If the music is the life of God, Jesus is fully immersed in God’s life and is being carried along by it. He is being borne towards us as if carried on a wave and he is bringing with him the fullness of God.

In the vision, Moses and Elijah are standing either side of Jesus. Moses and Elijah represent the law and prophets of the Old Testament. Their presence tells us that Jesus is standing at the very heart of our history as a focal point to which everything points and from which all life flows. It is as if Jesus is standing at the centre of the vortex of time; all time and all life flows through him and from him. Mark introduces this moment with that enigmatic phrase, “after six days”. From the earliest times, commentators have said that this is an allusion to the days of creation, making the Transfiguration the climax of the creative work of God and an entrance into the joy and rest of God on the seventh day. In other words, where Jesus is, the fullness of God’s kingdom is also present and the harmony of creation is restored.

So Moses and Elijah, figures from the past appear in the present moment. The light that makes them radiant is not their own. It is the same light that is coming from Jesus. We see what has been true all along: that what makes them agents of God is the light of Christ that is shining in them. What all this is saying is that their lives have layers of meaning that they couldn’t see when they were alive, but which is visible now in the light of Christ. So it is with us. The light of Christ shines in our lives too. We have to allow for the fact what we say and do now will have new significance when seen in the light of Christ. Sometimes we look back on our lives and realise that some good has come out of distress or failure, or that God has been working away in us in ways we hadn’t noticed. When our lives are finally seen in the light of full light of Christ, there will be meanings and significance that we can’t see now. That means we can reflect on the sufferings and failures of our lives with a degree of hope. St Paul says that “all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8: 28). Moses and Elijah had many failings, but in the light of Christ we see their lives working for good. God will do the same in our lives too. This is not necessarily being said to make us feel comfortable. It is a recognition that there is a depth in God that can give shape and meaning even to the painful experiences of our lives. Even if we can’t see that meaning now, God’s providential grace is at work in our past, present and future, redeeming what is broken and giving a meaning purpose that will be revealed when we can see our lives in the light of Christ.

Many people wonder why the church reads this passage in Lent. Why does it belong on this day? Mark does not tell us what Jesus, Moses and Elijah discuss when they are together. But Luke does. Luke tells us that they were talking about Jesus’ impending death in Jerusalem. Indeed, next time we see Jesus on top of a mountain, the mountain will be Calvary and Jesus will be on a cross. He will be flanked by two other figures on that day as well, but they two will be the two who were crucified with him on a cross. The disciples are yet to understand this, and until they do, they will not have a full understanding of who Jesus is. The point of the Transfiguration is to open our eyes to see what is true about Jesus and about God, and indeed about all the saints. All human life is sustained out of the depths of God, and God’s life is united to every aspect of ours. Today we see that God is sustaining Jesus: we will know, therefore, that when Jesus is racked by fear and doubt in the Garden of Gethsemane God will be sustaining him. We will know that God will be sustaining Jesus when he is on the cross and when he walks through the valley of the shadow of death. What the Transfiguration is telling us that God’s life has so much depth to it, that God can live even in the midst of death. That is why we tell this story now. It comes as an encouragement to Jesus as be approaches the agony of Holy Week and Good Friday; and it is an encouragement to us in the midst of our disaster, grief and pain, for God is sustaining our lives in all that we face. That’s good news. The Transfiguration assures us that God can survive death itself. If God’s life can absorb death, death will not overcome Jesus, and God will sustain us in our time of disaster and need. There is no place where God is absent and there is no experience so appalling that can separate us from God.

On one level this is good news, but it does mean that God does not spare us trial and agony or even death itself, as we all know. The glory of God will be most apparent when we see it containing disaster and surviving. As we gather at the table of the Lord on this day, we stand in awe of the transfigured Jesus. We give thanks that our lives will finally be seen from God’s perspective and not the perspective of human history. And having seen the glory of God on this mountain, we know that what ever terrors we face, or that Jesus faces, God is present. He is present at the heart of our darkest places; he is sustaining our hearts and our lives, and he is holding on to every single bit of us. Thanks be to God.

Today concludes the Church’s celebration of the incarnation (the Word-made-flesh), a central mystery of the Christian faith. The fact that God assumed a human form is another way that the Christian faith affirms creation and our bodies. The fact that God affirms created matter and speaks to us through it is why art and symbol, music and ritual are so important in the Christian tradition. Certain parts of the Body of Christ make much more of this than others. Using all our senses of sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste make for a tactile and rich liturgy of worship..

The Christmas Crib scene has been packed away now, leaving a lovely space in this church where the organ console used to be. My agenda is to make that a prayer space; a place where people can go and pray quietly, maybe after church on Sunday or during the week. Having something beautiful as a focus of prayer would be helpful, such as a flower arrangement, or a candle with an open bible or an icon would be good. It could be a place where prayer ministry could be offered after church on a Sunday. If you have any ideas, please let me know about them.

Icons have been very important to many in the Christian tradition. At present the Romanian Orthodox church is using the hall at St Mark’s. The use of icons in their worship is routine. It would be very interesting to invite their priest, Fr Emanuel, to come and tell us about them one day. (There is an idea for any parish groups looking for speakers!) In Christian icons, Christ is very often depicted as the “Light of the World”. We celebrate Jesus, the “Word made flesh”, and so in icons Christ is nearly always holding a scroll or book of the gospels indicating that in his person Jesus the Word of God in human form. God is not actually words in a book. God is revealed fully to us in a real human life. Sometimes the book of the gospels is opened to a passage such as, “I am the light of the world,” but more often the gospel book is open to a page with the text “Whoever follows me walks not in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

All through the bible, light is the very first attribute of God. God is the light that pierced the darkness at the dawn of creation. In the birth narratives Jesus is born in the night and is proclaimed as a light piercing the darkness of this world. Jesus is the “Light of the world” about whom the prologue of John’s gospel speaks, and the One Luke calls a “Light to enlighten the nations” in the song of Simeon which has become known as the Nunc Dimittis; sung by generations of Christians at night prayer before retiring to bed.

We usually think of light emanating from the sun, but biblical thinkers usually thought of light as being uncreated; emanating from God himself. So when Moses came down from the mountain after communing with God and receiving the law, he had the appearance of being penetrated with God’s light to such an extent that he still glowed with it. Having approached light itself, Moses’ body is transfigured into light.

Anna and Simeon are probably the only two elderly characters I can think of in the story of Jesus. Their whole attitude suggests their welcoming of Jesus. The Christian who contemplates Christ, who is attentive to Christ’s coming into his/her life and who welcome the Christ become rather like the transfigured Moses. They become windows through whom the light of God shines for all to see. Moses spent all that time communing with God on the mountain and contemplating the Law of God. Our task is similar, to make Christ the centre of our being. Whenever we allow our hearts to be penetrated by the light of Christ, whenever we are able to repent and receive his forgiveness and know that we are loved unconditionally as we are, the light of God shines in our lives.

The gospel today is from Luke’s story of Jesus, but it is John’s gospel that makes the most of the theme of light and dark. All through John’s gospel you can tell whether someone is friend or foe depending on the time of day or night they see Jesus. The faithful are people who live in the light and speak with Jesus in the day. Enemies do their thing at night. Nicodemus appears only three times in John’s gospel. His first appearance is on the occasion when he comes to Jesus at night as a closet believer. His problem is that by day he is a man of the Pharisees and a ruler of the Jews. So he does not want to be seen consorting with Jesus during the day. That would get him into trouble. So he comes to Jesus by night. Unluckily for Nicodemus, Jesus is not flattered by the attention he receives. Jesus knows that to have desires by night which are in contradiction with the desires he has by day are signs of dishonesty and a distorted life. So he gives it to Nicodemus straight: there can be no such thing as a closet disciple. After delivering the most famous verse of the New Testament: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”, Jesus draws out the consequences. If you are a disciple of Jesus, then you are not frightened to come out into the light because of it.

Poor old Nicodemus! He had thought it was possible to give witness to belief by night behind closed doors when no one was looking. But instead, Jesus assures him of the absolute incompatibility between his daytime persona, and his night time confession. He is told that only if he is able to act on what he claims he believes in the broad daylight that he will show where he really stands. Living as people of light appeals to our piety, but it can be costly, even frightening at first. Living in the light, becoming fully human involves the task of working out where we stand in relation to the world we live. It is about living truthfully. This was the challenge facing Nicodemus after he had spoken with Jesus. He had to decide whether or not to go along with the pharisaic interpretation of good and evil and to act accordingly, or whether to involve himself in the undoing of that world whatever the consequences. He had to decide whether to allow his life to be beacon of God’s light, or whether he would allow something else to hold sway.

It is the same with us. The gospel enables us to receive Christ and to make him the intimate centre of our lives. But it also involves a transformation of our hearts; the kind of costly journey facing Nicodemus as he prepared to come out of the closet and into the day. Have there been times when you have stayed silent rather than speak up to offer a Christian perspective? How would it be to ask Jesus to give you the courage to speak and act in his name? Have there been times when another person has triggered a deep negative response in your gut. It may well be that that person is reflecting back to you an aspect of yourself that you dislike or that there is something so precious that you fear others will walk over and damage, and so you have tried to shut that bit away in the closet out of sight. Would it be so bad for Christ to bring that part of you out into the light? Facing and accepting and loving these parts of ourselves is what it means to live in the light and to grow into full maturity in the faith. This is what the gospel calls us to do. It may look difficult or scary, but the grace of God is able to do so much more than we can imagine or conceive. Living in day, in the full light, means being in intimate communion with God and being happy and comfortable with the person God is making us become. What better life could there be?

At the moment we have been hearing readings from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Usually I find the territory of St Paul’s writing to be a bit like travelling in a foreign country where everyone speaks a strange language. I don’t relate to it as easily as the gospels. However there were some racy things said in last week’s reading from chapter 6 that caused quite a bit of comment over morning tea. So today we are going to tackle the reading from St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.

Today’s passage is mercifully short. It can be summed up in this portion of the text: “let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.”

The first thing to remember when reading Paul’s letters is that these were written to people who had been Christians for a very short time, maybe five years. Also, while many of them were Jews, there were also many who were Gentiles (non Jews), so they did not always have an in depth understanding of the Hebrew bible and a Jewish background to inform their understanding of God. These were people in a vastly different time and context from those whom Jesus primarily related to. The church was working through what it meant to be Christian in a completely new world.

To understand this text before us today, we have to go back to the beginning of chapter 7. Funnily enough, Paul kicks this off by saying, “It is well for a man not to touch a woman.” What is it about the biblical writers telling the men to stay away from the women? (Let the reader know: we joked about this last week when looking at Exodus 19 and the background to the feast of Pentecost). Well men (and women), wait up. Up until recently, most people thought this idea of men staying away from women was Paul’s opinion. But now most interpreters think that Paul is quoting something that is being said in the Corinthian congregation by someone else; someone supposedly in authority. So the issue we are actually dealing with here is teaching about sex within marriage. What we can note straight away is that Paul is not taking a negative stand on this subject. Each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband (1 Cor 7:2). Husbands and wives should give each other their conjugal rights. In other words, there is nothing wrong with being married, says St Paul.

One point of great interest, is that given what we know about the status of women in the ancient world (and in many societies today), it is instructive to note that Paul regards men and women as absolutely equal. This is an outworking of the radical call of the gospel that the early church was working to live into. “For the wife does not have authority over her body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” (1Cor 7:4). The call for the community to give equal status to men and women is a theme of this letter that comes up repeatedly in different contexts such as worship and spiritual leadership. Here, the theme of equality is in the context of marriage, and in terms of the times Paul is writing when many wives were treated as little more than slaves, this is highly counter cultural stuff. Mutual respect between men and women is to be the mark of a Christian community, and that extends into Christian relationships such as marriage.

But back to the issue before us that was foreshadowed last week. The real issue in Corinth was that the wives had, in a very high minded fashion, decided to practice celibacy. In other words, the problem initially in the Corinthian church was not promiscuity, but abstinence. The reason the women decided to practice celibacy, we think, was so that they could concentrate on prayer. Now this was not unusual in Corinth. There were other religions in Corinth that taught their adherents to do this, and it was regarded as a particularly pious thing to do if you were highly committed to your faith. There are hints in this letter, however, that this was cause of much frustration among the deprived husbands, who were then tempted to have their needs met elsewhere. Corinth was a sea port, so there was no shortage of brothels to visit and other sources of temptation. So Paul’s sensible advice is not to go for abstinence at all, unless both partners want to and agree by mutual consent, and even then only for a set length of time.

What about those who are single? Paul says it is good for the unmarried and the widows to remain single, wishing that “all were as I myself am (verse 7). But if they are not practicing self control, they should marry. “It is better to marry than to be aflame with passion” as the NRSV puts it.

One of the things we need to take from this is that St Paul is a Jew, and Jewish people had a very robust and matter of fact approach to sex. Paul understood the power of our sexual needs. There is a popular view that St Paul thought of marriage and sex as something the pious would avoid. But that is far from the case. Paul should really be regarded as a champion of good sex in marriage, and married couples should get on with it and enjoy it. Good on him!

In fact what Paul is doing as he goes through this letter, is that he builds up a sophisticated Christian theology of the body, which is something our church needs to do again today for our context. In Paul’s day, the popular Greco-Roman view was to say that the body was worthless and transient while a person’s soul or spirit was everything; that meant people thought that the point of spiritual life was to escape from the body and the physical world. On the contrary, Christians believe in the resurrection of the body; therefore we believe our bodies have been redeemed by Christ and for Christ. Our being joined to Christ in baptism is just as much a physical union as well as a spiritual one; our bodies will be raised in Christ and taken into the life of God. Therefore, we believe bodies are good and they are to be enjoyed. What we eat and drink and smoke or otherwise inject or ingest actually matters. Our sexual relationships matter. We have a bodily existence which is part of our God-given humanity, and our relationship with the body of Christ is also just as much physical as it is spiritual. Our bodies belong to God who made them and God will not let go of any part of them. Bodies are not our personal property that we can do with what we want; they are a temple of the Holy Spirit, they belong to God and even to the community of faith, the Body of Christ.

But in terms of today’s passage this is almost secondary. The real point is the nature of the call of God on our lives, which is what all our readings focus on today. Paul is saying that living into God’s call for us is what actually matters most. Our marital status, whether we are single or married or widowed (and you can extrapolate to our professional identities and who we are when we play), these things are very important, but even more important is our vocation. Do not try to change your circumstances to live the Christian life. To use St Paul’s examples: if you are old, do not pretend to be young again. If you are a Jew, do not pretend to be someone who is not a Jew. Live the life that God has called you into and be happy in it; be comfortable with who you are becoming. In all you do, in every situation, open your hearts and minds to Christ. Find your self worth in being loved by him. Seek to make him known without seeking self glory or self promotion. Trust that you will know yourself as a deeply loved brother and sister of Christ who died to raise you up and set you free. This is what really matters. Marital status, social status, gender itself; these are the things that will pass. But knowing ourselves as loved utterly by God and called by God to be in communion with him: this is eternal, and this is what really matters.