Notes on the Readings for Pentecost Year C

 A. The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11)

1. Gen 1-12 include universal stories: we read them and see something of ourselves and the universal human predicament in these stories  (For example: Creation and Fall through resentment leading to  human violence and arrogance, revenge and murder.)

 

2. Notice that, despite the best efforts of humankind to “make a name for ourselves,” God still has to “come down” to see the great tower built into the heavens. The arrogance of humankind is on display, shown in a competition with God.

 

3. God confuses and scatters humankind to break up our attempt to be great and all-powerful. The greatness humankind aspires to without due reference to God leads to a uniformity we can recognise in the great mass movements of the twentieth century. In confusing our language (different languages) we are scattered to await the true unity that God will build within us. That is, in confusing and scattering us, God is saving us from ourselves.

 

B. The Holy Spirit Descends (Acts 2)

1. Jews from all over the region (speaking different languages) have come to Jerusalem to celebrate the great Festival of Pentecost. They are a microcosm of the great variety of humankind. Even their unity as the Chosen People/the People of God must wait for its final form in the preaching of the good news by the disciples of Jesus.

 

2. Notice that it is not the listeners who are enabled by the Spirit to understand the dialect of the disciples. The Spirit enables the disciples to speak the good news of what God has done in Christ into the variety of peoples and languages of the world, and in this variety bring a new, unforeseen unity. The unity is not to be found in a uniformity, but in the new humanity won for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

 

C. Love and Unity of the Father and Son in Us (John 14)

1. We have heard how the universal disunity of humankind (symbolically displayed in our differing languages) is brought into a surprising unity through the folly of the cross and resurrection of Jesus and the giving of the Spirit.

 

2. It is worth comparing the apparent foolishness of God’s wisdom displayed in the cross of Jesus with the ‘wisdom’ and arrogance of human attempts to bring unity.

 

3. Jesus and the Father are one.  The unity we enjoy and must nurture comes to us through union with Jesus, and through him, union with the Father. That is, he and his Father make their home in us. This is the “much fruit” that comes from the seed that falls to the earth and dies. We are one because of Christ’s death.

 

4. Therefore, we must always remember that our unity is not made by our own effort, but is a gift of God, won for us at great cost. However, the unity we enjoy can be easily undermined by our own effort.

 

5. The Advocate/Spirit abides in us and teaches us from within. And what are we taught? The Advocate/Spirit will teach us how to love Jesus by obeying his great commandment: to love one another as he has loved us.

The Day of Resurrection (Mustard Seeds 8)

 Ann Nadge, a poet I know, has distilled some of the posts from this blog into poetry. She has used my words verbatim, captured the essence of the post, and moulded it into a poet's vision. 

This poem consists of verbatim fragments from an original post on 19 April, 2025.

 

The Day of Resurrection

The death and resurrection

of Jesus together changed everything.

Jesus died an outcast,

rejected by all, judged a sinner

and worthy of execution.

Without the resurrection,

lost to history - just one more failure,

one more criminal, one more statistic,

lost amongst the dead of history.

 

The resurrection changed this -

If the 'Jesus thing' is only

about the resurrection,

why does the risen Jesus have nail holes?

The cross and its meaning cannot

be divorced from the resurrection -

God's "Yes!“ against human sin,

the nail holes in the body of Jesus,

part of the Christian revolution,

forgiveness through repentance.

 

Jesus died out of love for us,

death initiated, ended in love.

Human failure is judged -

It is love that judges, love that saves us.

The constancy of love demands

nothing more, or less than love,

disciples of that constancy.

Reflection on Forgiveness (Mustard Seeds 7)

 Ann Nadge, a poet I know, has distilled some of the posts from this blog into poetry. She has used my words verbatim, captured the essence of the post, and moulded it into a poet's vision. 

This poem consists of verbatim fragments from an original post on 13 February, 2021.

Reflection on Forgiveness.

 

As we head to forgiveness

and grow into the full stature of Christ….

Where am I in all of this?

Am I ready to 'die' to whatever

has brought me to be so offended?

Not a call to attack oneself, rather,

an invitation to self-understanding.

 

Sometimes there is a remainder -

no simple forgetting, no easy

moving on as though it 'doesn't matter'.

When understanding, empathy,

do not cover the sin, we have

entered the realm of forgiveness,

its asymmetry, not deserved,

not earned, not a reciprocal

coming down off our high horses

and meeting somewhere in the middle.

It is full of grace. 

 

Forgiveness costs us-

reconciliation where there is

human alienation, is neither easy nor cheap.

Grace is always costly. We should not

separate the two, cross and resurrection.

The forgiving victim of sin

offers forgiveness and sends disciples

to proclaim repentance, forgiveness of sins.

This is God and God's way:

complete embrace of what is not divine,

bringing reconciliation.

On God’s Love, Spiritual Discipline and the Freedom of Patience (Mustard Seeds 6)

Ann Nadge, a poet I know, has distilled some of the posts from this blog into poetry. She has used my words verbatim, captured the essence of the post, and moulded it into a poet's vision. 

This poem consists of verbatim fragments from an original post on 2 September, 2021.

On God’s Love, Spiritual Discipline  and the Freedom of Patience

There is nothing God is withholding,

waiting for us to earn.

Everything is given – what more

can there be than the love that is God?

What God has done in Jesus

and given in the Spirit

is working its way through our lives

and the whole of creation. 

 

To live into what has been bestowed

requires new habits of thought and feeling,

practising the spiritual disciplines, the sense

of the presence of God to blossom -

new habits of awareness and gratitude,

not always intense discipline,

but a freedom and patience

that waits for God in our lives,

the presence of God unveiled

now and in our past. After all,

joy can’t be manufactured

it is a gift.

Comments on the Readings for Easter 4C

 Acts 9:36-43 

Earlier in Acts, Peter had great success in turning the hearts of his Jewish listeners to Jesus through his first speech. (Acts 2:37-42) then Peter visits the coastal plain and heals a man named Aeneas and, through this healing, converts a whole area, “who turn to the Lord.” (Acts 9:32-35) So, through word and action, the Christian mission is expanding among the Jews of Jerusalem and the surrounding region. Our reading follows this story of the healing of Aeneas, with Peter responding to a cry for help. In our story today we gain a glimpse of the humanity of those involved in the story. Often, as in the case of the healing of Aeneas, the narration of the miracle is terse and to the point. And because of this, we often miss that a healing or other miracle like this comes after a tragedy that deeply affected those around. (Not only the one healed.) And because the story is usually told so matter-of-factly, we miss the human element. But in this story, we are provided a window into the grief of ordinary people. We are told of Tabitha’s good works, and those who grieve show Peter the evidence of this. They loved this woman. After she dies, they lay her in an upstairs room. (As was the custom.) We glimpse a real life here. And through Peter, Jesus gives her life. (It is important to note that Peter does not have life in himself – the power is that of Jesus.) 

Rev 7:9-17 

Immediately prior to the section that we are reading, the tribulations of history are in full swing. (Rev 7:1-8) But there is a short respite before the tribulations continue, to allow time for the servants of God to be marked and sealed on their foreheads. And the number who were sealed were 144,000, with 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, including, significantly, the ‘lost tribes’ of Israel. (See Jeremiah 31:8) This number, constituted by multiples of the symbolic number twelve, represents the fullness of the reconstituted and renewed people of God. “Israel” is first used in Revelation here at verse 4; the chosen ones are gathered and sealed with the blood of the Lamb. Another, and final, Exodus is underway in the vision. And then we arrive at our reading today. John sees a vast multitude, too great to count, from every nation and language. (Interacting with Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-11) While it might seem confusing that there are two accounts of the redeemed, they play into each other. The vocation of Israel (see Genesis 12:1-3) is fulfilled in the renewed twelve tribes of Israel, called from every nation and language. (And we are reminded of Jesus calling twelve Apostles to symbolise the renewed twelve tribes of Israel, and through these apostles, the renewed people of God would include Jews and Gentiles.) We are still witnessing the liturgy of heaven. The people of God are worshipping at the throne, with robes and palms reminiscent of worship in the (recently destroyed) Temple in Jerusalem. We are told that the worshippers have come through the great ordeal, purified by the blood of the Lamb. John is giving his listener/reader (including us) a vision of ourselves with God and the Lamb in the kingdom (to come, yet also strangely here). In this Kingdom there will be no more tears, and the Lamb will guide us to “springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” This is the message: Rejoice and have confidence that God is working on our behalf for the fulfillment of the Kingdom. 

 

John 10 :22-30 

What do you use to identify who and what God is? One ancient way is by the things that God does. If the one you are identifying as God carries out these functions, then that one is God. In John’s Gospel, the author demonstrates that Jesus is God because he carries out these functions. There are a number of functions that only God can execute. For example, life-giver, creator, and judge. Filling out life-giver a bit, we might say that God is source of all life. Not like a prophet who raises the dead in the name of God, but someone who has life in himself, the sheer livingness of God as their own possession. This is Jesus. A classic passage where Jesus identifies himself as possessing life in himself is John 5:25-26. (See also John 10:17-18; 11:25-26.) And this also touches on God as creator, the one who gives life to everything that lives. (See John 1:1-4) And another function of God is protection, because God is greater than all else. These two, life and eternal protection, are the central point in today’s Gospel reading. Jesus says that he, the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep, will give his sheep eternal life. And, just as no one will snatch his sheep out of his hand (not like the hireling of John 10:1-10), no one can snatch the sheep out of his Father’s hand because the Father is greater than all, even death and sin. Therefore – and this is the climax - Jesus and the Father are one. (John 10:30) We can trust Jesus, for he is the very Word of God made flesh. (See John 1:1-5, 10-18.) All that Jesus is he has received from the Father through self-giving love: God’s sheer livingness, judgement, life and protection to share with creation. And Jesus the Son loves the Father, and in that love gives his life in obedience to the Father’s desire for our good, our life, our eternal life. (John 3:16)

The Triple Revelation of the Cross (Mustard Seeds Poetry 5)

 Poetry by Ann Nadge, inspired by the post (April 17, 2025), The Cross of Jesus: A Reflection on Love, Judgement and Obedience (Part 2).

 

“Behold humanity!". This is what 

we do to each other, and this is what 

we have made ourselves into. Our fall is revealed in the flesh 

of one of us, Jesus Christ. 

 

This is a double revelation: 

God so loved the world 

that he sent his only Son. 

In Christ God suffers and dies 

at the hands of sinners 

to show us who and what we are. 

There is a third revelation: 

In the crucified Jesus, who dies for love, 

we see our true humanity, 

distorted humanity in his wounds. 

His wounds (the price of love) 

reveal to us the love that is 

our true calling. We are invited 

to look at the cross, the revelation 

of love and our need of God's healing love, 

to be set on the path of faith. 

 

 Look and live. We see what we are 

in the broken body of Jesus; 

we see on the cross the true 

humanity to which we are called - 

A faithful humanity, obedient 

to the loving will of God 

for the sake of others.

The Resurrection of Jesus (Mustard Seeds Poetry 4)

 Ann Nadge, a poet I know, has distilled some of the posts from this blog into poetry. She has used my words verbatim, captured the essence of the post, and moulded it into a poet's vision. This is the fourth of more to be published over the course of the year.

This poem consists of verbatim fragments from an original post on 27 April, 2008.

 

 

The Resurrection of Jesus

 

The resurrection of Jesus 

is a unique event, 

without precedent in history. 

The resurrection of Jesus 

is not to be justified 

by historical precedent, 

as though to be ordered to the past 

to gain credibility. 

 

It is the other way round – 

In the Christian scheme of things 

History is ordered to the resurrected Jesus. 

The resurrection of Jesus 

is the future come to meet us. 

The resurrection of Jesus 

is God's action in breaking us out 

of the cul-de-sac of history, 

why faith in the resurrected Christ 

is liberating.

Resurrrection: A Reflection on Love, Judgment, and Obedience (Part 3)

 The Day of Resurrection

The cultural artefacts produced in the West because of the death on a cross of a Jewish man 2000 years ago is astounding. Art, poetry, literature, sculpture, Cathedrals, the rules of war, human rights, freedom of speech, secular space, the rise of Western science, and not to mention the Christian religion itself, are products of faith in Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and risen. It's easy to forget how much we stand on this legacy of Christianity in Western culture. And we forget what the Christian revolution meant to the pagan world around it. It was a revolution. And that is part of why the fading of Christianity - with its dead, pathetic, crucified Lord on a cross - is not recognised as the civilisational catastrophe that it is by very many people. (Although we'll have to wait and see what happens in the West - something is afoot, and I'm not being nostalgic here.) The general contemporary atheist of the West (e.g. the "New" Atheists of not that very long ago) seems ignorant of the original revolution and its continuing benefits and cultural richness. You probably have to go back to Nietzsche to find the atheist who understood that with the cultural death of God (and he meant Christianity) everything people assumed morally would vanish. There would be no reason to continue the accepted moral standards of the West, and instead, all would be negotiated by power (i.e. down the barrel of a gun).

The death and resurrection of Jesus together changed everything. Jesus died an outcast, rejected by all, judged a sinner and worthy of execution. And without the resurrection this is how he would have been lost to history: just one more failure, one more criminal, one more statistic, and then lost amongst all the other dead of history. But the resurrection of Jesus changed this. The resurrection is God's 'Yes!' to the sin that crucified Jesus. And although the resurrection of Jesus is about life after death, on its own this is too narrow an understanding. If the 'Jesus thing' is only about the resurrection, why does the risen body of Jesus still have nail holes? It's because the cross and its meaning cannot be divorced from the resurrection. The death is rolled up into his resurrection. These two features of the death and resurrection of Jesus - God's "Yes!' against human sin and the nail holes in the resurrected body of Jesus - were significant facets of the Christian revolution. However, why didn't Christianity end up a religion of revenge? That is, a movement of God's revenge for crucifying the Lord, directed at all sinners? Instead, Christianity is a movement (from its inception) of forgiveness opening up a way for forgiveness through repentance. Why forgiveness? Revenge is the usual human way.

 The reason is because Jesus died out of love, for us, without the self-righteous anger of the movements of change peppering all of human history. And he died in obedience to the one he called Father. And the Father sent the Son into the world out of love for us. And in this death initiated and ended in love, human failure (sin) is judged. It is love that judges us. And it is love that saves us. To follow the well worn path of revenge would be to betray the very reason for Jesus and deny the God who sent him. That is why Christianity is not a religion of revenge. The constancy of love (see Parts 1 & 2) demands nothing more (or less) than love. And we are disciples of that constancy of love.

The Death of Jesus (Mustard Seeds Poetry 3)

 Ann Nadge, a poet I know, has distilled some of the posts from this blog into poetry. She has used my words verbatim, captured the essence of the post, and moulded it into a poet's vision. This is the third of more to be published over the course of the year.

This poem consists of verbatim fragments from an original post on 31 March 2021.

 

 The Death of Jesus

At the last supper Jesus gives 

a portion of bread to his betrayer- 

Is this an act of forgiveness, 

an offering of his body? 

One can't help feel the poignancy 

the moment, Jesus' world collapsing 

and he offers the bread to Judas, 

makes his way to Gethsemane. 

 

He needs his friends as his world darkens. 

They fall asleep. 

 

"Take this cup from me ..." 

The God who has been responsive, silent. 

 

Where will this end? 

On the cross, with loud crying, lament, 

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 

I feel our common humanity- 

know something of anguish, suffering.

The Cross of Jesus: A Reflection on Love, Judgement, and Obedience (Part 2)

 Good Friday

Judgement is less like the teacher telling you off and more like Jesus on the cross. 

 Jesus is on the cross out of love. Jesus on the cross condemns the sin that crucified him. In his innocence (Lk 23:47), sin is unmasked and its true nature shown: the absence of love. (And the darkness could not overcome it. Jn 1:5)

But this judgement is also a revelation. When Pilate brings Jesus out to the crowd he says, "Behold the man!" Or is could just as easily mean, "Behold humanity!"  This is what we do to each other, and this is what we have made ourselves into. Our fall is revealed to us in the flesh of one of us, Jesus Christ. But this is more than a revelation of who and what we are. This is a double revelation: who and what we have made ourselves into to be able to do this to one another, and also a revelation of God. 

"God so loved the world ..." (Jn 3:14)

Yes, God so loved the world that he sent his only Son. In Christ God suffers and dies at the hands of sinners to show us who and what we are. Christ's death wasn't a miscalculation or a mistake on God's part, to be corrected at the resurrection. Christ loved his own to the end - to the point of death on a cross - to simultaneously reveal the depths of God's love and our need for a saviour.

  But there is a third revelation. In the crucified Jesus, who dies for love, we see our true humanity. He revealed to us our distorted humanity in his wounds. Now his wounds (the price of love) reveal to us the love that is our true calling as humans.

Today we are invited to look at the cross. It is the revelation of love and our need of God's healing love. To look at the cross of Jesus this way is to be set on the path of faith and of healing the great need within us. Look and live. We see what we are now in the broken body of Jesus; but we also see on the cross the true humanity to which we are called: A faithful humanity, obedient to the loving will of God for the sake of others.

Let Us Love One Another: A Reflection on Love, Judgement, and Obedience (Part 1)

 Here is the first of three reflections used at Easter with a theme of love, judgement, and obedience. (Using John's Gospel as the prism to refract the light revealed to us in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.)

Maundy Thursday 

"Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." (Jn 13:1)

 Jesus' walk to the cross wasn't a misjudgement on his part, or a miscalculation on the part of the Father, or the act of someone stuck between self-giving and self-flagellation. It wasn't the result of despair or frustration. The death of Jesus was the result of love. (Love on the part of Jesus - malignant violence on our part.) Jesus loved his own to the end. His death was for us and our good. 

 

And the death of Jesus was also because of his love for the Father. Jesus' love of the Father, shown in his obedience to the divine will, took him to the cross. (Jn 14:31; 15:9-10 ) But the cross was not only the result of Jesus' love of us and his love of the Father. The Father's love for the cosmos was the source of the Father's sending of the Son for our sake. ("For God so loved the world ..." Jn 3:16) And because of this constancy of love we know that God is love (1Jn 4:7-12, 16), the light of love. And although the darkness tried to overcome the light (Jn 1:5), we know that God is light in whom there is no darkness. (1Jn 1:5) 

 

Jesus symbolised his act of love and service on the cross in the washing of the disciples' feet at the Last Supper. Footwashing, the work of a slave, parallels the Son who emptied himself, taking the form of a humble slave, being obedient even to the point of death on the cross. (Phil 2:5-11)

 

But the footwashing is also about being washed by Jesus.  Peter could not conceive of his Teacher and Lord washing his feet. But it is because Jesus washes our feet/is crucified for us that he is our Lord and Teacher. (See Luke 23:35-38) And in this 'washing' we find the way to salvation. (Jn 6:68; 13:8; 14:6)

 

And our response? Jesus invites us into the constancy of the love of the Father and the Son through faith in him. (Jn 1:12; 11:25-26; 20:30-31) And we abide in this love of Father and Son through obedience to Jesus' command - to love one another. (Jn 13:34-35; 15:12-17) In this love we will know the Father's love, just as we will know the love of Jesus, the Son, and abide in their love. (Jn 14:21-24; 17:20-24) And with the presence of the Paraclete - another Advocate - within us, we will testify to the truth (of this constancy of love) and  receive all that the Father and the Son share. (Jn 16:13-15) And in this testimony we know the future: the glory of the love of Father and Son, abiding with us now, and eternally. (Jn 16:13) 

So let us love one another. To love one another is the master key to unlock the mystery of the cross and resurrection of Jesus. To love one another is the fruit of the cross and resurrection of Jesus. To love one another is to love Jesus and share in his love of the Father, and to enjoy their mutual presence of love in our lives. So, let us love one another.

Deeper Into Sin to be Freed (Mustard Seeds Poetry 2)

 

Ann Nadge, a poet I know, has distilled some of the posts from this blog into poetry. She has used my words verbatim, captured the essence of the post, and moulded it into a poet's vision. This is the second of more to be published over the course of the year.

This poem consists of verbatim fragments from an original post on 8 April, 2022.

 

Deeper Into Sin to be Freed

During Easter we are invited 

to 'walk' the path of the saviour- 

we read the story from Gethsemane 

to tomb in dramatic form; we take 

parts other than the role of Jesus. 

We walk the road from Gethsemane 

not out of guilt, an excuse 

to self-recriminate…. 

Nor do we grovel as we walk 

a religious version of a show-trial. 

Nor is the journey chastisement 

catharsis, some kind of pagan festival. 

 

Christians walk the Via Dolorosa 

as sinners in need of a saviour, 

to get off the see-saw, 

self-recrimination, criticism of others. 

Walking the way of the cross with the saviour 

brings with it freedom, 

because we are loved, 

that's the point of the Jesus thing – 

we don't have to hide from our sin. 

We don't have to be in the centre- 

we can let God be the centre 

and receive God's love and forgiveness, 

renewal and freedom.

Lazarus (Mustard Seeds Poetry 1)

Ann Nadge, a poet I know, has distilled some of the posts from this blog into poetry. She has used my words verbatim, captured the essence of the post, and moulded it into a poet's vision. This is the first of more to be published over the course of the year.

This poem is from an original post on 28th March 2020 that was written at the beginning of COVID-19.

 Lazarus, a figure of conversion 

life of discipleship, moves 

from life to death to a life given back. 

So too, we move deeper 

into God’s love - movement 

from life to death to a life renewed 

in daily dying and rising with Christ. 

We die to the false self, in Christ 

receive a renewed sense of self. 

Imagine Lazarus smelling the roses 

after he was raised, living the gift 

of life despite the dark times. 

We too are called to smell the roses 

for we have gained our lives, 

not lost them. 

 

Whatever cross you bear 

there is a flower on your path 

just waiting to be noticed. 

Live the gift of life given back, 

live it as the gift it is.

Lent is a Season of Repentance

 Lent is the season of truth. And this through repentance. And by repentance I don't mean the human effort to clear the decks of the bad things we have done so we can have a relationship with God. That would mean that we don't need God when we are at our lowest. The Gospel is that we are saved at our lowest ebb. That's why it is grace and why it is freedom. But, if Lent is the season of repentance, does that mean we are spending six weeks finding misdemeanours to repent of? That's part of it, of course, but that sounds more like the work of private or congregational confession and absolution. So repentance is the confession, with a truly penitent heart, that "I did this."  But it is more also. Repentance includes digging down and recognising and acknowledging who we truly are. What we really are like. Deep down. In our fears. In our malice, in our egotism, etc. To be able to say, at the end of Lent, "So, I'm like this" is the goal. 

So repentance is also about who we are, not just what we did or didn't do. Perhaps even more about the who rather than the what. And in recognising who we are, we touch our deep need for God and who God is calling us to be. (There is a parallel here to sin as not just actions or omissions. Sin also refers to the distortions that live in me that need healing.) And, so, this is why Lent is about the truth. The truth about ourselves. (And remember, we do this with God's love and acceptance with us now, as we come to face the truth.) The one who God desires is you and me, as we actually are, not a fictionalized version. Let us reacquaint ourselves with our true self this Lent.

Dust and Ashes

 We begin the Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday. Prior to the day, we burn the palm crosses left over from Palm Sunday the year previous. The palm crosses, before they are made into ash, remind me of the rejoicing at the coming of the Messiah into Jerusalem. And yet, a few days later, the same crowd are baying for the blood of Jesus.  The hopes of the crowd turn have turned to dust and ashes. Or perhaps they are just fickle like crowds can be. Or perhaps it was malice, envy, scapegoating, or betrayal that turned them. Any number of these all too plentiful human realities explain the change in a those few short days. Death will turn us to dust and ash, but we invariably turn so much goodness in our lives into dust and ash well before death. So the ash points us to our mortality. We are dust and ash. To be marked with the sign of the cross in ash is to acknowledge this deep need.

Come Easter Day we will celebrate resurrection. He is risen! But first, we connect at ever deeper levels with our need. Unaided, we cannot save ourselves. We wait in the ash of the frailty of our humanity and our lives for that new life that death could not hold. (And sin could not stop.)