A Single Grain, Much Fruit!

‘Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’ (John 12:20-33)

It was here the storm destroyed the crop.

I grew up on a wheat farm. The year was organised around ploughing, sowing and harvesting. I watch the quality of the soil. The meticulous attention to the sowing of both the wheat and the clover and then the wait for the crop to begin to grow, the beseeching of the rain to come at the right time and the joy of the harvesting. The journey of the seed through death, germination and life was vital to the existence of the farmer, the vitality of the soil and the continuation of an ancient ritual.

Those listening to Jesus under stood this image. They knew about farming and harvesting. They had watched as the farmers  worked to produce a living. Yet they struggled to understand it in the context Jesus retold the story. John and his fellow Gospel writers understood it. Hindsight allows us to see what those involved in the story were unable to.

We know it’s about Jesus, the crucifixion, the tomb and the resurrection. We know it means that without Jesus death and burial and resurrection there would not be the possibility of new life. It is all about Jesus. Or is it?

The 12^th chapter of John is a bridge between what has become before (The Signs Jesus performed) and what is to come, his farewell and the speeches he gives to usher in the end. John is setting the scene here and uses the image of the seed as a suitable signpost for what is about to occur.

 Kenneth Carder suggests there is much more to this passage than what a simple literal reading will give us. Yes the death and resurrection of Jesus is primary to our faith, but that is not where it stops. Carder says: "As Jesus gives his life in faithful participation in God's creation of a new community, disciples give their life and become part of the 'much fruit' produced from the 'single grain' (12:24-26)."

 Jesus participates as the cornerstone in the birthing of a new way of living, of a new community God ushers into a world. This is to be a community of compassion in action, interested only in being life-giving, not in what it produces. A farmer can not dictate what the outcome of his efforts will be. One year he will be rewarded with a bountiful crop, other years when he has done exactly the same thing, the crop has withered and died.

I remembered watching as the fence was cut to allow the tractor and harvester into the paddock where a wonderful crop stood, only to watch the black storm clouds rumble in and the subsequent hailstorm decimate the crop. Not one head of wheat remained. 

 We often sit and look around us and wonder where the reward for all our work over the years is. We remember the days when the church, the youth group, the children’s work was vibrant and active. We remember the study groups, the women’s and men’s groups were great in number and full of energy and life. Where has that all gone? There is a sense of failure, of regret, of what if? 

Yet, perhaps we miss something. Something very important. Just like the religious Jews missed the new thing being done by God through Jesus, we miss the new thing being done by the Spirit. Carder hints at it when he says that ‘disciples give their life and become part of the ‘much fruit’ produced from the single grain’.

We give our life in the church, not to reproduce ourselves in the place where we are sown, but to produce much fruit that goes out into the world imbued with the faith, values and Spirit experienced through our example and engagement with them. People who have been here, in our sphere of influence, take what we have shown them into the world. And while they may not replicate our practice, our understanding, our commitment, they live out of the one seed.

Henri Nouwen, Catholic priest and writer, has said that the student, the disciple, only learns what he or she has been taught when those who teach them are no longer with them. That is the fruit we seek. A life lived out of the nurturing experienced with us in this place.

Many of us grew up in the church, in the family church. We have lived in one place for a long time. We have not moved around, shifted jobs and cultures, experienced the rapid change that our children and their children have. They no longer grew up in a small community of which the church was at the centre. They live in one place, work in another and socialise somewhere else. They are not committed to one small homogenous community. My mother and father lived within 50 miles of their birth homes and worshipped at the churches where they were baptised almost all their life. That is rare today and will be more so in the future.

Why are we surprised that they understand faith and their practise of faith is less church and community centred? Why is it hard to accept that their faith is more democratic, fluid and imbued with shades and shapes ours never was, and less place and space centred? Their faith and practice reflects their work and the world.

Carder suggests that we have given our lives and we have produced the fruit of the new creation Jesus came to give birth to, but that that fruit looks very different to how we wanted it to look and where we wanted it to be seen. We wanted it to be like us, here! 

So what are we challenged to do:

•  We are challenged not to be discouraged by what we see, but to be encouraged. The young people we nurtured and fed in this place have grown into people who have given life and hope to others. They have done good things for the right reasons. What would our world have looked like if the people we shared our faith had not had the opportunity to experience that? As Nouwen suggests, when we look at those we have seen come through this place, for example, we can be confident that they have indeed learnt a new way of living and lived that out, out there. Rejoice, do not despair. 

•  We are challenged to reimagine how our church and our faith looks like in this post-modern era. We are living in a time when people have the opportunity to use their capacity for critical thinking and decision making to reshape both faith and how faith is practiced. And that is thanks to those of us who have gone before and encouraged them to question and decide for themselves.

•  We are to rejoice in the Spirit who leads us into new places and new times, even though those places may be foreign and just a little bit unsettling. We rejoice for it was the same Spirit who brought us through our faith journey to this place. Now we are being asked to open the way for the future to be as alive and vibrant as the past.

•  We are, as those who listened to Jesus and his dying seed story, on the cusp of a new faith, a new church, a new creation built on the seeds we planted in those who have shared this place, our homes, our schools, our workplaces with us over the years.

 The future is exciting and we are not told to ignore the past, but to build on what we have sown and watch something completely new arise. The Spirit helped Peter and the disciples did. There is no reason we can’t do the same.

Critical Thinking & Faith

Have you ever had a light bulb moment, an epiphany, that moment when you see something clearly for the first time and go ‘aha’! After a time of ecstatic joy we often pose the question, ‘What does this mean for me?’ Great moments come with more work to do.

Peter has one of those moments. Jesus asks the disciples who he is (Mark 8:27-30). They reply what they have heard from others. When you speak to people about who God is they often reply with other peoples answers. Rarely do you hear what they think.

Peter gives his own answer. The Messiah. Jesus doesn’t applaud him. No gold star for Peter. The other disciples are told not to talk about who Peter thinks Jesus is. This is a light bulb moment, which is going to take an eternity to unpack. Don’t go off with undigested ideas.

Critical thinking is vital to our understanding of Jesus and faith. We need the skills of questioning, recognition, articulation and reflection to allow us to fully discover who He is. Under the questioning of Jesus, Peter achieves recognition. This questioning had been going on for sometime, always leading back to the ‘Who do you say I am?’ Peter articulates what he has arrived at.

Jesus says don’t say anything to anyone. They were not yet ready to articulate what they had discovered. They didn’t have the language, knowledge or the lived experience to.

But when Peter gets it right on the day of Pentecost he is powerful and persuasive, fully possessed of the knowledge he only now glimpses. Jesus is right to allow them time to observe, reflect and experience the truth they discovered before letting them take into the rest of the world.

This Easter we only glimpse the possibilities invested in Jesus, yet as we observe, reflect and experience Him may we become empowered as Peter and the Disciples did.

Age of Entitlement

(Ps. 107:1-3, 17-22 - Hesed - The Unfailing Mercy of God, Ephesians 2:1-10 - Hesed Continues- Saved by Grace not Entitlement. But we Can’t Complain, John 3:14-21- Look Up and Be Lifted Up)

Our modern world is one of entitlement, blame and complain. It is never my fault or my responsibility, it is someone else – them - (whoever them is) who is responsible for the situation I want to complain about. Because I am entitled to better, more, respect, recognition etc. And our society feels entitled to and complains about everything! Not enough money, roads, school, medical support, decisions others make, the that’s not how we do it complaints, the I don’t want to change complaints, the it won’t ever be right no matter what you do complaints.

 A man in Canada sued a restaurant because when he bowed his head to say grace the sizzling hot plate of food he ordered, sizzled and burnt his face! So he blamed and complained.

 A couple of years ago a Kenyan Baptist minister spoke to our year 11 & 12 students. He told the story of his church, his people and the lack of opportunity they faced. Almost one in two Kenyans are unemployed[1]. 70% of all unemployed are young people.[2] It is suggest that only one in 6 of those who attend primary school go onto high school. These figures vary greatly from region to region. The Baptist Minister explained that is because of the cost. Uniforms and fees equal about $300 Australian Dollars for a high school year, an amount only about a third of the ipad, iphone, surfboard or dress for the year 10 formal. A fee that would cover less than 30% of a years school fees for those listening

It was interesting to watch the reaction of the young people. They went from complaining about the small stuff to putting it in perspective. What they felt entitled to, a new pair of shoes, the latest iphone, a new surfboard etc seemed of less import to the situation faced by their peers in Kenyan. In one hour we raised $1,000 from what was obviously the students own resources, enough to educate 3 students for one year.

Entitlement, blame and complain seems to hardwired into our human existence. Ask anyone who attempts any kind of change in companies, institutions or even in family relationships. Change is threatening, the process unnerving, the outcomes uncertain. At the first sign of difficulty people begin to blame and complain. Now take the Hebrews in the desert, or maybe you would think twice about taking them into the desert, if Moses’ experience is anything to go by. They were slaves in Egypt. Exiles and outcasts, fodder the economic development of that country and without a country of their own. They managed to remain in tact as a people without a place. Moses comes along and, as instructed by God begins the process of setting them free from their captivity. They are ecstatic. This is what they were entitled to. They are going home. Wait a minute – out there – into the desert – what are we going to eat – where do we get water – how long are we going to be here – we were better off in Egypt – it’s all your fault Moses – Now why did God bring us out here to die – it’s all his fault.

Now we know they finally made it to the promised land, not all of them, not even Moses and anyway at 120 years of age and having spent 40 years with that lot in the desert I am not sure he wanted to. Yet make it they did. But they stilled blamed and complained over and over, against God, against others, against the situation they found themselves in.

You see the good news that found embodiment in Jesus Christ speaks not of entitlement but of grace. It is the Hebraic concept of Hesed, the unfailing goodness and mercy of God, which formed part of the Old Covenant reimagined through the life and death of Jesus. Through that experience we have the opportunity to reimagine our own lives in a way that reflects the values of God – compassion in action. Paul in Ephesians suggests that it is not anything we do but it is the initiative of God’s grace, hesed that means we have the capacity to live in a new and life giving way. You don’t get there because you are entitled to because of your good works good works are the outcome of grace. The definition of good works means taking sacrificial responsibility for self and others. Grace is given free but it has a cost – the relinquishing of the passions and desires we are enticed into by our nature and our culture.

If our nature is to complain and find fault or to always point the finger at someone else then we are called to let go of such a nature. If our nature is to want our way at all costs to those we share the world with, then we are called to let go. If our nature is to hold onto old hurts and faults, then we are called to let go. If it is our nature to think none of this applies to me but I can those it does apply to, then we are called to let go in response to God’s unfailing, unending goodness to us. We cannot simply say this is the way I am and you are going to have to deal with it.

John at the end of Jesus conversation with Nicodemus, a Torah Jew who was unable to accept the message he had heard, connects Jesus directly to Moses and the serpent. The people complained and poisonous snakes afflicted them. God instructs Moses to place a snake on a pole and to hold it up and healing was possible. Not simply physical healing but the wholeness that comes when you see something for the first time. It not only was to heal the snake bite but also the sense of entitlement, blame and complain that was preventing them moving forward into the promised land.

The death of Jesus acts in the same way. The Moses story is a type of the Jesus story. In the death of Jesus we do not concentrate on who to blame but on the example of hesed – the unending goodness of God which Jesus never ceased to offer to the world. The law apportioned the blame but only a new vision of the world provided by the death and resurrection of Jesus heals the blame.

In his resurrection we see the possibility of living out this unending goodness everyday. Not only do we see it as a possibility, but we recognise it as our responsibility to do so and to do it to the world, not just those we like but those we don’t like; not just those the same as us, but those who are very differentOh and we are to do it within the worshipping community of St Oswald’s too. The challenge for us this Easter is to give up any sense we may have of entitlement, any inclination we have to blame others and any tendency to complain about the way things are and come together with the Good News present in others, wherever we might met them on a daily basis, in away that ushers in the new way of living, the realm of God!

[1] http://www.tradingeconomics.com/kenya/unemployment-rate

[2]http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/fileadmin/uploads/aeo/PDF/Kenya%20Full%20PDF%20Country%20Note.pdf

The Foolishness of Wisdom - God At Work in the World.

1 Corinthians 1:18-31, John 2:13-22 

The Bible is full of fools and foolishness. God’s story, old or new is full of fools and foolishness. Even the wisdom we discover there in seems to be at odds with the wisdom and learning we encounter in educational, institutional or everyday life. Paul points straight to the cross, Jesus points straight to the tearing down of the temple through the cross, Moses at 80+, Abraham and Sarah at almost 100 years of age, David as King and the list goes on.

Not only was the wisdom in the Bible at odds with the prevailing sense of the world, it simply marches to a different rhythm to the world we live in. 

Yet, the wisdom and knowledge the world we live in has grown up with is not certain and true.Take, for example, the creation of our universe which has been said by scientists to have begun with a big bang – the big bang theory. There are at least three other theories standing against the big bang theory. The latest from a group of scientists at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, suggests that the universe was simply there all the time and had no need for a big bang theory explain it.

Ideas such as the world isn’t flat, or it isn’t carried on the back of a large tortoise or the sun revolves around earth were all foolishness at one time or another. Over our lifetime we have seen the wisdom of the day overturned time and again, and what would have looked as foolishness, become the new wisdom. Who could have imagined we could instantly connect to someone on the other side of the world with out going through a telephone exchange, having someone dial the number, waiting for the operator on the other side of the world then finally connecting and have to listen through the crackle and noise inherent in the cables under the sea? 

The suggestion that God could be found present in the world in the person of Jesus from Nazareth was foolishness to those for whom God was distant, beyond the clouds and only to be found in the Torah or through interventionist acts from beyond, was foolishness. Even for the majority of Christians God was seen as part of a three tiered cosmos, outside our world, someone who chose who to rescue and not to rescue and was, arbitrary to some degree, in who was in and who was out of his kingdom.

Today we know that God doesn’t live beyond the clouds. We have been there and God, as a person cannot be found. We know, from experience, that God cannot be manipulated into rescuing, saving or healing us. We have come to understand what Jesus and Paul said was true and not foolishness. We are made in the image of God, God is within us and we are within God, and we are on a journey to discover ourselves as we discover who God is to us. Jesus oft said 'Today the kingdom of God has come near' reveals the truth that God is nearer to us than ourselves and our mission is to be still and know that I Am is God.

This was the message of the mystics of all ages and is the core message of John’s Gospel. John was Jewish and his language to describe Jesus and his purpose comes directly from Jewish mysticism. It is the language of unity, being and one-ing. Right at the beginning of his Gospel he lays a hymn of praise and recognition to such an understanding of Jesus. He is not talking about a physical being, a real person or a God who has become a man, but to a being who has always existed and is indelibly apart of the one who simply says I Am. And if we are made one with Christ then we are also made one with the ground of all being, I Am. John uses those two words over and over again to describe Jesus. He is not subtle.

In the temple John directly connects Jesus, I Am, with the temple and all that goes on there. The temple cult sat at the centre of Jewish religious, social and political life. It was the place where the Holy of Holies contained God, and to some sense, where God could be seen as holding them. Jesus, John’s I Am, comes and confronts this worldly wisdom and says this is simply man made. “Here you have created a place where you strive to contain and manipulate God according to the written law and practice. I will destroy the validity of such wisdom and replace it with what may seem like foolishness, a death that says relationships; emerging, growing and defining relationships, with creation and with each other become the places where you encounter God. The possibility of such a relationship is available to all, and especially those that make it real in their lives.

Paul reminds us: ‘For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.’ We could say that God’s love is greater than man’s law. The ongoing story of the two members of the Bali 9 and their struggle with Indonesian law challenges us all. The law is a straightener. It should be designed to bring people back to the centre of themselves and society. The parameters and the judgement of the law should be flexible and able to respond to the steps people make to come do so. To pursue the ends of law simply to make a point is pigheaded brutality and needs to be avoided.

Over and over again, in my engagement with young people in schools, I and those I worked with, faced such a challenge. Yes, this behaviour is inappropriate simply deserves severe censure or expulsion. Yet, what is the outcome we seek? That this child may return to the centre of his or her community and not be expelled from it. Therefore do we follow the letter of the law or do we find ways to allow this person to find redemption? The latter, often seen as foolishness by those for whom punishment is the only reward, was chosen more often and not. And it works.

Saw a message from a young man recently whose history is dotted with great failures. He is now a member of the Army Cadets and was recently promoted to a corporal. It is one of those wow moments. If his misdemeanours had been handled by the letter of the law, this may not have been possible. Relationships and compassion pave the way to redemption.

Sin is not a legal problem, it is a relationship problem; the relationship with self with others and with the I AM, and can only be solved by the foolishness of love, love in the shape of the cross and the taking up of that cross by us in a way that it allow others to journey back to the centre.

May we do this in a way that values individuals and their life experience, be they the young who need direction and correction, or us who are slightly older who need to know that, contrary to the wisdom of the day, are in fact the embodiment of the wisdom experience God has brought our way, if we have processed those experience through the foolishness of the crucified and reimagined Christ.