Dear People of God
Grace and Peace to you all
Yes, the clock ticked over during the week. Thankyou for the good wishes and the cards (and what they enclosed!) I think that I said last week that my elder son-in-law’s father turned 80 on Monday: I sent him greetings with the acknowledgment that I was glad to note that there is someone in the extended family who is even older than me, if only by two days!
In our parish cycle of intercessions we sometimes overlook or tend to undervalue those ministries which we tend to take for granted. One such is the ministry of Welcome. Handing out books and reading sheets can seem rather mundane, but just imagine that you are coming as a stranger or infrequent attender. Someone mentioned to me the other week that I began the service, as has become our custom, with the prayer of Humble Access, said from the entry to the church, without announcing the page number: they didn’t know where to find it and were lost until they realised that it was a prayer with which they were very familiar but at the different place in the service. Things which we take for granted can be very disorienting for someone not used to the “Beresfield Way”. Welcoming and explaining where, what and how makes people feel at ease and welcome to this community of faith.
Shorter and shorter each week!
The Lord be with you
Fr George
PROPERS for Epiphany 3
Sentence
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe the gospel.
Collect
Bountiful God, through your Son you have called us to repent of our sin, to believe the good news, and to celebrate the coming of your kingdom: teach us, like Christ’s first apostles, to hear the call to discipleship, and, forsaking old ways, to proclaim the gospel of new life to a broken world, through our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
Readings
Jonah 3:1-10 Jonah tries to run away from God
Psalm 62:5-12 Song of trust in God alone
1 Corinthians 7:29-31 The life the Lord has assigned
Mark 1:14-20 Jesus calls the first disciples
SERMON (Fr George)
In the Name of God, Amen
Let me deal with Paul first. Like many, or perhaps most, Believers in the infant Church, Paul appears to be expecting the return of Jesus any tick of the clock. In effect he is saying “live as though this is the last week of your life: it’s really urgent and nothing should get in the way of your expectation of that!” In much of the region which Paul was proselytising the new faith of the Believers set them apart from the wider community and we have to read Paul’s exhortation through that lens, startling though some of may seem to us with the benefit of 2000 years of hindsight! I wonder what he’d make of the role of women in much of the Church today? Would he have a fit at the very notion that women could not only speak in church but might also be priests or even bishops or archbishops? Somehow I think that he would joyfully embrace it, although he would be very stern about the divisions that beset us both within and across our denominational boundaries!
The Gospel according to St Mark is, as you know, the shortest of the four gospels. Its composition is dated prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD; probably in Rome and summarising the preaching of Peter, and likely to be by that John Mark who gets a mention in Acts 12.12 and 15.37. Although short it is very dense and bears intense study.
Our reading for today speaks of the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. He has just been baptised by John the Baptist who has been saying of the One who was to come “I baptise you with water but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit”. Greater things are about to come! Immediately (and that’s a favourite expression of Mark) Jesus retreats to “the wilderness” for the contemplation of the future that lies before him.
The ministry of John the Baptist, the Fore-runner, is concluded with his arrest, and Jesus begins his preaching “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel, the Good News”
What Jesus is saying is not that he is ready to begin his public ministry, but rather that “here is the completion of everything that has gone before”. John the Baptist tied off the loose ends. God is now active in bringing in the kingdom, in and through Jesus the Christ. Our familiarity with the text, having heard it read many times, can blunt our sensitivity to the radical nature of tis proclamation. We encounter this often in the Gospel: just think of Luke telling us of Jesus reading in the synagogue in Nazareth, claiming the Isaiah text for himself “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor, the recovery of sight to the blind….” Radical stuff indeed, especially when the carpenter’s Son, not a great Temple worthy, but a local village boy is the speaker! No wonder his hearers got a bit angsty! “Who does he think he is?” indeed! Jesus preaching “repent and believe the gospel, is the summary of the whole of Jesus ministry.
Mark, with his innate sense of urgency, has Jesus starting to form the band of those who will be closest to him in his ministry. Again, it’s not the high and mighty, as we noted last week in the call of Philip and Nathanael, but people close to the bottom rung of the social ladder. At Christmas we heard about the angelic proclamation of the birth of Jesus to the shepherds, even lower on the social scale than fishermen. Like carpenters, like Jesus himself or certainly Joseph, they were small businessmen, working for themselves or worst, day labourers, selling their catch to make a living.
Did Jesus know them? Were they, as some traditions suggest, relatives? There is some suggestion that when the mother of James and John asks Jesus that her sons might have places of honour in the kingdom, it’s Aunty Sal asking a favour of Jesus for his cousins. Whatever the detail is, there’s an urgency in the call to Andrew and Peter, to James and John.
The call of the Kingdom is no less urgent now. Just as Israel had lost its way, we might well say that 21st century western civilisation has even more comprehensively lost its way and worships not God, but itself. The unclean spirits that Jesus casts out are unclean because they have turned people away from God. Just try to out that into a modern context! Forget films like “The Exorcist” or all those cult Christians who “cast out demons” at the drop of a hat.
The proclamation of the Kingdom calls us to repent, to turn again; to examine ourselves and the values of the society that surrounds us. We will shortly be starting Lent, with its call to refocus, to sharpen up our aim, the believe that God in Christ is actually and radically reconciling the world to himself.
Why did the fishermen and the tax collectors and the rest believe and follow Jesus? Why did Nicodemus come to Jesus by night, seeing something in this teacher that troubled him and sent him searching? What made Joseph of Arimathea so brave as to risk exclusion from the Sanhedrin when he went to claim the body of Jesus for burial? What brings us into the Church? In our society it’s certainly not social respectability! Is it habit? Or is it actually seeing hints of the Kingdom and wanting to be a part of bringing it in?
The Kingdom is typified by justice, compassion, renewal of purpose, equity and service, and above all in the belief that God in Christ is reconciling the world to himself, and we are, thank God, a part of all that.
At the end of this service I will dismiss you to “go in peace, to love and serve the Lord” wherever he finds you!
Amen
INTERCESSIONS
In our prayers:
For the peace of the world, especially in the Land of the Holy One and in Ukraine
For those who lead in government, industry and commerce, and in the wider society
For grace to lay seriously to heart the peril in which we stand through radical climate change and of threat of wider war; and of the structural imbalances in our society
For the Church Universal, for the breaking down of the barriers that separate us
For the Anglican Church across the world: Justin of Canterbury, the Diocese of Guadalcanal, the Episcopal Church of Brazil, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and the Australian Diocese of Bendigo
For this Diocese, our bishops, Scone Grammar School, the Anglican Men’s Network, the Justice Ministries and Chaplaincy, the parishes of Bateau Bay and Gosford
For this parish, for its grace and peace; our clergy, for the Welcomers, those who lead Prayer and Study Groups and those who read the prayers and readings in worship; for our fellow-Christians in Tarro Uniting Church
For the community in which we live and work; its businesses, for Beresfield Bowling Club, Usher’s Kitchen, Beresfield Early Learning Centre, and all who work or learn in them.
For those who have sought our prayers or for whom prayer has been sought, including Jenny, Indi, Barbara D, Val Frazer, Lynn, Betty, Les, Ann, Daphne, Bruce, Debbie M, Samuel, John J, Ryan, Nicole M, Jenny H, Didi, Peter McC, Susan, Elizabeth, Heidi, Wendy F, Peter, Vicki L, Jenny M, Val D, Ben, Keith, Sammy Jo and Noah, Stuart McInnes, Sue T, Derek, Zoe, Paul and Katrina, Levi, Arlo, Grace, Lisa, Sandy, Margaret and Holly, Luke S, Kathy, Sandy and those who care for them; and for those who will seek the Sacrament of Holy Unction at this service.
For the departed especially at this time for Lance McColm and Elsie Beggs, and for those whom we have loved and see no more.
A Song
Last Sunday, when the Gospel reading was the call of Philip and Nathanael, Gabby played a hymn which exactly sums up the summons of God to each of us. It’s written by John Bell and Graham Maule of the Iona Community in Scotland. I’ve sung it in other places but I had to go searching to find the words. The tune is the Scottish folk tune “Kelvin Grove” No that’s not named for the suburb of Brisbane sorry! This week’s Gospel is the call of Andrew, Peter, John and James
A side-note: I’ve been to Iona. The cross I wear around my neck comes from Iona and was blessed in the chapel there. It’s just off the west coast of Scotland and is the place where St Columba landed after leaving Ireland for quite understandable reasons. It became the base for the spread of Christianity through Scotland and Northern England. It’s also the place where the Scottish kings were buried, including the one whom we know as “Macbeth”, who was a deeply popular and honoured king, despite the job Shakespeare did on him. (Shakespeare was a great dramatist but a lousy historian: he did a hatchet job on Richard III as well) (No correspondence will be entered into about these latter comments!)
The Summons
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?
Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen,
and admit to what I mean in you and you in me?
Will you love the “you” you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around,
through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?
Lord your summons echoes true when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In your company I’ll go where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me
© GIA Publications
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