tomb and womb

 

SERMON PREACHED at HOLY TRINITY, RINGWOOD EAST

ORDINARY SUNDAY 29

 (October 22^nd) 1989

(incorporating baptism of Matthew)

I scripted this sermon with two introductory paragraphs which I later omitted, presumably because they were not suited to the context and added to the length. More than 35 years later I think the omission was wise (!) but I kinda like what I was saying – maybe a message to myself rather than to those who gathered that day? I'm not sure I achieved “new languages and images” but the thought was there. 

I preface my thoughts by emphasising that it is the task of the Church to rediscover and re-present its doctrines for every generation. New languages and images  have to be used to express the truth of Christianity just as new vehicles are used as our transport needs change.

But we as Christians must test our claims – in each generation – by the double yardstick of biblical witness and the tradition of the Church down through the ages.

***

Baptism represents a new start. When Nicodemus quizzed Jesus about the signs he was revealing to the world, Jesus replied by saying that understanding, and full experience of God, could come only to those who are born again. It is a message that has been repeated and argued over by Christians ever since.

What did Jesus mean? I want to stress that our experience of Jesus need not necessarily begin with a clear conversion experience. Mine did, but others’ may not. But I must emphasize too that the promises we make at our children’s baptisms and our confirmations only become fully realised if we seek continually to enter into full relationship with Jesus. We must pray through Jesus. We must explore the scriptures to understand more fully the relationship between God and human history. We must confess regularly our inadequacies before God. We must be active in our allegiance to and involvement in the Church, the Body of Christ.

Baptism is the way by which we enact or symbolize that beginning. Jesus was baptised in order to symbolize his absolute identification with humanity in all its grot – and to accentuate the beginning of his public ministry.

Jesus describes the required commitment to him as one of being “born again.” It is no coincidence that he and the Church adopted water as the sign of that rebirth. Birth is a watery business.

Sigmund Freud says that we spend our lives in the search for means to return to the womb. Günter Grass, in his novel Cat and Mouse vividly depicts one character’s enactment of this desire, as he constantly dives to enter a submerged wreck. Freud may have been wrong in many details, but the similarity between tomb and womb is emphasised in many cultures. It is in our death, it seems, that we are finally brought once more into the womb.

Christianity enacts this return to the womb in the rite of baptism. It is as though the one baptised enters into the womb of God and is born from it. As the new Christian emerges from the waters the people of God rejoice.

We receive and welcome you as an inheritor with us  of the Kingdom of God.

But if tomb and womb are essentially the same we can say also that in that moment there is enactment of resurrection. The baptizand enters into a momentary tomb and emerges, at one with Christ’s resurrection, on the far side.

The fulness of what we are doing in baptism becomes apparent only at the graveside. It is at the graveside that we stand and defy death. We do not deny death. We deny death’s finality. As we have emerged from the waters of God’s womb, and as Christ on Easter Day emerges from the womb of death, the womb of Good Friday, so will we and those we love emerge in God’s time from the womb at our deaths.

It is to that hope, that joy, that we baptise our children.

It is because we must be faithful to that hope that we must work to grow into Christ.

It is only because of that hope, as revealed in the agony, the death, yet the emergence of Christ from the tomb-womb, that we have something to say in the face of San Francisco,[1] of Grafton,[2] or of the death of our loved ones.

The Lord be with you.

---

[1] The Loma Prieta earthquake struck San Francisco on October 19^th, 1989, killing 63, 42 of whom died when the Cyprus St Viaduct collapse. .

[2] On October 20^th, 1989,  21 people were killed and 22 injured when a semi-trailer and bus collided on the Pacific Highway near Grafton, NSW. At the time it was Australia’s worst road transport disaster, though tragically it was surpassed two months later, 200 kms further south on the same highway, when two coaches collided head on near Kempsey, NSW, killing 35. Coroners recommended that a dual carriageway be built, implementation of which took some 26 years.

make eucharist

 

SERMONETTE PREACHED at 
HOLY TRINITY, RINGWOOD EAST
ORDINARY SUNDAY 28 

 October 15^th 1989           (STEWARDSHIP SUNDAY)

READINGS

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Psalm 66:1-12
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19

Has it ever been your experience to feel a Hallelujah torn from within you and offered, silently or aloud, to the heavens?

To glimpse the moon last night, or to see again the blossoms, or to be struck by the force of Friday afternoon’s downpour; to experience the love of a friend or a child, to be torn apart by a piece of stirring music, poetry, drama or prose: these are moments that no word will suffice, except an offering of praise, silent or spoken, to the heart of the Creator.

There were ten lepers. Branded and hated by society, desperate for love and compassion, beyond touch or healing. Jesus touched. Had he not been crucified he may well have died of leprosy.[1] Jesus touched. Jesus healed. And nine went on their way.

But one came and threw himself at the feet of the healer, and gave thanks.

That man whose offering of tearful thanks was made at the feet of Jesus was doubly a pariah. He was a Samaritan. Like the woman at the well he should despise Jesus and be despised by him.

Just one came back.

A leper. An AIDS victim. A homosexual. A pariah in India. A black in South Africa. A Koori[2] in Australia. A Samaritan. At the feet of Jesus he made Eucharist: he gave thanks.

We too will now make Eucharist.

“Let us make Eucharist to the Lord our God.”

“It is right to make Eucharist and to praise God.”

 
We have much for which to give God thanks. We have much within our lives to offer to the service of God’s Kingdom. It is to that offering of thanks and of our lives that we are called each day.

---

[1] Although I did not know it in 1989 this was a fallacy. Leprosy is not transmitted by skin to skin contact, but, like tuberculosis, by airborne droplets. On the other hand Luke the physician did not know that either!

[2] By 1989 my Australian sojourns had only been in Victoria. It was not until much later that I learned of other designation of First Nations people on the continent of Australia: Anangu, Murri, Nunga, Noongar, Pallawah. For kiwi readers, these designations are not entirely correspondent with iwi except insofar as Australian Indigenous nations are subsets of these regional demonyms, as hapu are a subset of iwi.

sink or stride

 

SERMON PREACHED AT 

St AIDAN’S, ALEXANDRA

and ST JAMES’, ROXBURGH

TWENTY FOURTH ORDINARY SUNDAY

(September 13^th) 2026

 

READINGS 

 1 Kings 19:9-18 
Psalm 85:8-13
Romans 10:5-15 
Matthew 14:22-33

 

                                   

Immediately he made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. ²³ And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, ²⁴ but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. ²⁵ And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. ²⁶ But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. ²⁷ But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

²⁸ Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” ²⁹ He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he noticed the strong wind,^[b] he became frightened, and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” ³¹ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” ³² When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. ³³ And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

 

Perhaps I can begin with a confession? I am not one who slides through life with a deep sense of the tangible presence of God. Despite being a convert Christian I have to admit that much of my life of faith is based in thoughts and intuition, based more on a questioning brain cell then the pumping of the heart. I was often in trouble for that when I mixed in strongly charismatic circles, yet it has stood me in good stead in the years since. I can only hope it will continue to until the day the lights go out, one way or another.

This is not to say that what we call the heart has no role in faith. Emotions, for that surely is what we mean by heart, are a critical dimension of what it means to be human. Not actually uniquely human. Ask my dog, out there sulking in my car! For the more advanced forms of animal carry emotions too. In fact I am advised that even some species of ant are sentient – you can Google that claim later! But as Matthew sat down to record for posterity his account of the Jesus event, he ensured that his brain was fully engaged. He expected that his listeners, for that is what we were meant to be, would engage their brains too.

I say all that in the context of what are called the nature miracles. Those who first heard Matthew’s gospel account certainly had to believe that God, as God is revealed in Jesus,  has the whole world in his hands, as some of you may have sung in Sunday school.

The nature miracles, such as stilling a storm, had to be consistent with the deep sense of God that believers experienced in their lives of worship, lives of study of the scriptures, of fellowship, and even of nature around them. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork,” announces the Psalmist in Psalm 19.

But generally God does not revise the laws of nature on a whim, or to entertain Christian believers, or to create a neon spectacular. To place that responsibility on the shoulders of God makes mockery of the horrendous events of Nepal just a fortnight ago, or the drowning of 14 souls (to use aviation language) when a ferry capsized in the Mediterranean late last month, or 39 souls in a Philippines ferry fire just days ago.

The vagaries of nature are fierce. These are sometimes aided by human irresponsibility and sometimes not. Evils perpetrated by humans on each other are equally or more horrifying. Yet these remind us that all life hangs by a fragile thread. Yours and mine too. The gospel is us that divine love, resurrection hope, transcends even the breaking of that thread. Sometimes it’s hard to believe, and when we can others can for us, bizarre though that sounds. When we pray we are often praying on behalf of those who cannot.

I was not on the shores of the lake nearly 2000 years ago, as Peter had a panic attack while striding on the surface of the water. I was not there moments before this when Jesus strode out to meet his closest followers.

I have no idea what happened or if it happened at all, though I suspect it related closely to some deep experiences of those first followers of Jesus. But I do know that there are moments in our living and in our dying in which the firm hand of God transcends all expectation, all fear, all darkness.

This is not to say that we won’t experience fear or darkness in our living and our dying, but it is to say that the experience of those first followers of Jesus can be our experience too. They grew to believe that the heartening touch of God as revealed in Jesus is greater than even the deepest darkness or what I might call the scaredest scaredness. “In our darkness there is no darkness to you O Lord; the deepest night is clear as the day” as the Taizé chant puts it n its adaptation of Psalm 139.

John Bell’s translation of a Spanish affirms the same message: “Both in our living and in our dying, we belong to God.” That is the gospel we have, as we sung in our first hymn, and we have it to proclaim it. We have a gospel to proclaim, indeed, though sometimes we may struggle to believe it.

This interpretation of the events on the lake applies personally, in times of deep uncertainty in our lives.

It applies globally as we face enormous uncertainty, political and ecological, across the face of the globe.

It applies cosmically, too. That is what the author of Revelation made clear in his recitation of God’s promise of a new heaven and a new earth.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ² And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
⁴ he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

 

However unlikely and incomprehensibly far off as that universal extinction may seem, even further away than global extinction, that is nevertheless an essential part of the journey of God’s creation and redemption. Even if the means of that extinction were to be AI's destruction of humanity within the next decade, as Evan Hubinger has cautioned. 

For me this does not mean that I stride into personal, global or cosmic events with studied nonchalance or overconfident indifference. This does not mean that when I see sick little pictures posted on the internet by the president of perhaps the world’s most powerful nation, depicting himself nuking his perceived enemies, that I don’t feel a visceral twinge of horror and even doubt. There is probably a Peter in all of us.

But the scene on the lake challenges me to ensure that despite the uncertainties that surround me, I must do my best to help others on their journeys through doubt, through life and through death to resurrection. So must we all.

baptism

 

SERMON PREACHED at HOLY TRINITY,
RINGWOOD EAST

ORDINARY SUNDAY 21

 (August 28^th) 1989

(incorporating baptism of Joshua)

READINGS

Hosea 1:2-10
Psalm 85
Colossians 2:6-15 [16-19]
Luke 11:1-13
 

Baptism. There are few if any things that are agreed on by the whole Christian community, but one that we come close to agreement on is baptism. We, as Christians, argue as to when it should be done, and we argue as to how it should be done, but we are in relative agreement that it should be done.

At a time when some, perhaps many, Anglicans are moving towards a belief that only adult, believing Christians should be baptised I want to make it quite clear that I believe the opposite. I believe that, in the New Testament, when whole households were baptised, children were amongst them. And I believe that it is imperative that we baptise children not out of some superstitious belief that if some tragedy befalls them God will have no place for them, but because they are so young and unaware the rite signifies what it is to become a part of God’s Kingdom of love and mercy.

Let me explain. The argument for baptising only those who are adult, believing Christians, is that only they can fully understand the significance of the step they are taking. Joshua today will have no real conception of what is happening to him. He will know only that an unfamiliar person has taken him and has for no apparent reason washed his head.

Yet I believe that is precisely why we should baptise infants. Those too young to know what is happening to them. For if we say we have to have an intellectual grasp of all that Jesus has done for us, then the gospel is not gospel, is not good news. If we must grasp God first with our intellect then God is not good news for children, not good news for the intellectually handicapped, not good news for those who happen to meet Mormon missionaries before they meet Christian missionaries. It is not even good news for you or me, for there is no way that we can grasp or understand the significance of Easter – any more than Joshua. It is to those who believe as children – those who accept but do not even attempt wholly to unravel the mystery – that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs.

What we do with our belief is another matter. We may seek to explore and deepen our knowledge of God intellectually, as well as emotionally and physically – but that is another matter. For Joshua that decision will come later.

What are we doing then, when we baptise? Baptism is not a naming ceremony. Joshua has a name already, although by naming him again in this context of baptism we are expressing, as it were, God’s approval of his name.

Baptism is a symbolic death, burial and resurrection. It is a symbolic re-entry to the womb. The font water becomes a symbol of the waters of which we are born. Birth itself is a death experience – passing from the comfort and security of the womb into the cold and noise of the outside world, our world. The font waters become also a symbol of death – the waters of death, the tomb of death into which Christ descends on Good Friday, and to which we all descend in our death.

In emerging from that tomb-womb we symbolise the mysterious Christian hope of the resurrection of the body, the experience of Easter. We symbolise even more than merely the immortality of the soul, a Pagan doctrine, for we symbolise God’s love of his creation, God’s love of our bodies in all their functions, God’s desire to create and then to recreate our bodies in the glory of his future Kingdom.

In the end today we are offering it to Joshua no more than a symbol. We are offering to him the symbol of hope – of the hope that our life is not all. We are offering him the symbol of grafting, of being grafted on to the death and resurrection of Christ. We are offering him the responsibility to make of his life something of a symbol of Christ, a sign and reminder to the world of the hope for all people that is in Christ.

In the end we cannot understand. We can understand no more than Joshua. What we are doing today is a mystery.

 

The Lord be with you.