Andrew Boyle    LENT 5                                                                    March 25, 2007

 Isaiah 43. 16-21 Philippians 3. 4b-14 John 12. 1-8

 I don’t know how you find the writings of the apostle Paul; he’s a complicated character who expresses himself strongly and it’s not always easy to get a grip on what he’s saying. And he’s had a bad press over the last few decades; what with those passages about women remaining silent in church and his seeming support for slavery; he seems pretty un-PC in our present cultural climate. My impression of church and my childhood was there was a lot of emphasis on Paul from the pulpit but he has gone out of favour and there has been a much greater tendency to preach from the Gospels first and foremost with some tentative forays into the writings of Paul only occasionally.

One of the differences between Paul’s letters, which comprise such a large slab of the New testament, and the Gospels is that the gospels were written as narratives of the life of Jesus; not history but creative theological interpretation of the traditions about Jesus which the gospel writers had inherited, in some cases, up to seven decades after Jesus death. I writing in the way in which they did the Gospel writers sought to tell in story form what they saw as the significance of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection. They were  trying to make some points about Jesus life for their audience; who exactly their audience was scholars are not really sure but we can assume that it was a broad audience; more than just the churches of which they a part. 

But the nature of Paul’s’ letters are an entirely different matter. Maybe in writing the gospels their writers had in mind an audience beyond the early church of which they were a part. But this wasn’t Paul’s purpose when he wrote his letters. He was simply writing to one group of people; maybe in some cases no more than a couple of dozen people and he wouldn’t have intended for these letters to be read beyond the church to which they were written. So what we do with Paul in reading him is quite strange; we overhear, we spy on the correspondence between this apostle and the particular church which he helped form; in today’s case the church at Philippi.

And each letter is written in response to a particular situation; so Paul is not trying to make a  complete doctrinal statement to his readers but is talking about Christ and what it mean to be his follower in response to their particular predicament. Technically his  theology is what is called contingent; that is, it depends on the situation to which he is writing.

SO what we have done with Paul is a little strange; firstly, we read snippets, often silently to ourselves, from letters which were meant to be heard read aloud from beginning to end within a the context of a community that’s facing a particular issue.

How many sermons have you heard based upon a small section, even a single verse, from Paul where the preacher has pirouetted on what seems to be the head of  a pin. The pirouetting seems to ignore completely the context and broad concerns of the letter and so often makes a point which Paul maybe never intended.

Nevertheless we still can hear Paul today and allow what he has to say to inform our Christian journey; because his intention is always to proclaim Christ as the one who points to God and who invites us to break free from the way of sin and death. His intention is always to encourage his hearers to embark on the journey to Christian maturity; to not be confident in their own strength but in who Christ is and what he has done.

And so today in the letter to the church at Philippi in Macedonia in northern Greece we hear him in full flight; bristling with vitriol. The lectionary cycle denies us the pleasure of hearing him refer to his theological opponents as dogs. But maybe he does this because they are preaching a gospel which is about achievement, conformity and observance; not about God’s grace shown to us through Christ and the freedom which comes through this.

Paul, Saul as he was known before his conversion, boasts of his achievements as a Jewish zealot: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. If the life of faith was to be about achievement then Paul was it; at the pinnacle of salvation through works; through his own performance. But he tells his hearers I regard it all as rubbish in order that I may obtain Christ. Most English translations of this phrase protect us from the rawness of Paul’s language; I regard it all as crap, he says; if not something a bit stronger. He’s really trying to get his point across; our achievements, our social status; our financial achievements; our goodness; count for nothing if truly we desire to walk the path to mature faith:

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them all  as crap, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

I wonder what life might look like if we could live in such a way that the trappings of this world were carried lightly: our educational and our career and our financial successes; if we could simply be ourselves in our friendships, our families, our marriages and didn’t feel we need to constantly perform in order to gain or keep approval from others; where we could accept ourselves as Christ accepts us. I know for myself the anxiety to perform because I think I need to live up to other people’s expectations is paralysing sometimes. We live in a society which is based upon performance; where we are expected to measure up; our kids have to measure up in the rigours of the educational system and VCE; workers are repeatedly subjected to performance reviews; and money has to perform in order that we can live life to excess. We are frightened of stopping and just simply being. We’re led to believe that the wheels will fall off if we stop our busyness

Last Friday night at Pallotti we watched a film called Baraka; I call it a mediation on the world. It’s simply a compilation of  scenes without narration or story line which observes the world. Images of the religious life were contrasted with scenes of incredible natural beauty, profound suffering and the mad western frenzy we call life. As the images washed over me I couldn’t help but be challenged to question how much of our existence is about performance and achievement in order to make ourselves acceptable and relevant; enabling us to get ahead.

Paul invites his hearers to reject a notion of existence based on performance and cast all of it off in order to gain Christ and the life he offers. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, We are reminded that we are on the Lenten journey to the cross; that the cost of gaining life is a death. As Fr Richard Rohr, an American Franciscan, says; the challenge of the life of faith is to die before we die; to die before we die. Have you been able to do that? If somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead, Paul says. It’s an interesting idea: if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. He seems to be saying that he is seeking the life that comes after a dying, not a literal dying; but the symbolic dying to all that the world proclaims as important  in order that he might live with Christ. Paul knows that he can’t by his efforts achieve resurrection from the dead; he knows this is God’s doing. So, what is he saying? Well, I think it’s like this: that in order to attain the resurrection from the dead we need to become like Christ in his death – die to all our achievements in order to find the freedom of being alive in God.

I don’t think here he’s talking about a resurrection after his body has died but a resurrection in this life. In the way he speaks he reminds his hearers that this struggle to attain the resurrection life is a journey; that even he, Paul, has not completed it but he presses on till the last on the quest which is the journey of faith. And so we come to those verses which have been for Dorothy Aumann her life’s motto: this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

As Mary anoints Jesus with the incredibly expensive perfume she shows that she has died to the world’s priorities and she commits an extravagant act of anointing; Mark’s gospel tells us that her act must always be told wherever the Gospel is told; because she recognises who Jesus is and the priorities he calls us to while so many others still do not – even while we are just a few days from the crucifixion. As we press on toward the marking of the events of Holy Week I pray that we all may be able to come to a deeper understanding of the path to death and so to the life that we might be called to take.

Andrew Boyle

LENT 1                                                  25 February 2007

It must have been some time late in 1962 between when the Rev’d John Gillan had left the Presbyterian charge of Heidelberg and Templestowe and before the Rev’d Douglas Matthews came and began his ministry at Heidelberg that a conversation around the Boyle family table went something like this:

“When are we going to get a new minister mum?”

“Well dear, God has called the Rev’d Mr Matthews to come and be our minister.”

“What do you mean God has called him?”

“Well God has spoken to Mr Matthews, dear,  and said that he wants him to be the minister at the Scots’ Church in Heidelberg – so he is coming soon to be our minister.”

I thought I should at that point pursue this matter no further. If God had spoken to Mr Matthews who was I to ask any more questions.

And so it sometimes seems to be the case with the comings and goings of ministers; that it is a matter that mere mortals should leave well alone and not enquire too deeply about. If God’s involved in the comings and goings of  ministers who are we to question.

Well I’m not sure that this should be the case but unfortunately it seems to be. In the Uniting Church the process by which a minister is called to a congregation is that when they are looking for a new minister and they might find someone who seems to be a likely prospect for their needs and hopes for the future, what is known as the Joint Nominating Committee might then engage in conversation with that minister and if they discern that this person may be right for them they issue a call to which the minister responds. Somehow God is understood to be involved in this process of discernment. And as is the practice within the Uniting church the minister usually remains for a period from 5-10 years.

At the other end of a placement, though, there is little or no conversation between the minister and the congregation when it comes to leaving; no process of discernment and seeking what is the best way forward. And so the minister may pop up in the pulpit one Sunday and say: well, bye for now; I’m off the Nyah West – the church has called me there. And the congregation is left a little bewildered, not to say bereft and saying to themselves: well, what do we do now. There seems to me to be a discernment process, a process of seeking God’s guidance in calling a minister, but no corresponding process of discernment when it comes to the minister leaving that place. To my mind there is something profoundly wrong and disempowering for a congregation about this discrepancy.

I have been involved in a number of churches over ministerial vacancies and have watched, and experienced myself, the bewilderment, the grief, the loss of direction, even at times the feelings of betrayal, when a minister goes. For some it seems as strong as being abandoned by a lover; what did we do wrong; who am I, who are we now, without this person? Maybe I’m overstating it; assuming that the minister is more influential than they really are. But I have seen it from the membership side of things. It’s very difficult for a congregation to regroup when one ministry ends and another is then anticipated.

I have come to feel that this is not a good way for the church to be. And I don’t think it has to be, nor should be, this way. Because I think this is a stop-start culture which prevents the development of long –term vision and direction.

One minister comes and says: let’s go this way; another comes and says: let’s go that way; a third one comes and says: let’s go the other way. And people stop-still and say: well what’s the point. We’re not dogs out to fetch sticks in the park. It’s a culture I believe which dishonours a proper understanding of ourselves as the body of Christ and dishonours the work of the spirit in our midst. We deserve better than this; the work of Christ deserves better than this.

One Sunday in January I announced that I had that  past week passed the 3 year anniversary of my beginning at Templestowe. A number of spontaneous voices from the congregation asking me to stay alerted me to an anxiety close to the surface that I might at some point soon up and leave. It was the furthest thing from my mind.

As these three years have passed since I started at Templestowe I have had cause to reflect on what I would like to achieve during my years of ministry and therefore to consider whether this is happening or is possible at TUC. I have wondered what number and length of placements I feel will make good use of my training by the church and allow me to, together with a congregation, develop my own ministry and the congregation’s life as Christ’s people. I have also reflected on whether the placement system for ministers within the Uniting Church fosters or hinders effective ministry and the growth of what I would call vital congregations.

We are in what is still a period of significant transition in the church where what have been the obvious givens in congregational life in the past no longer hold but what the future might look like is not clear either. In the past there was considerable uniformity from congregation to congregation. This has not been the case now for some time though. Those congregations which seem to be developing their own particular vitality have been able to do so by identifying and building on their own gifts, strengths and passions in order to live out their calling in Christ in their place. This is in contrast to the pattern in the past where one model seemed to pretty much fit everywhere.

When I first came to TUC someone endeavoured to encourage me by saying: “well, just get on and do what you want to do, and that will be great. We’ll receive your ministry willingly.” This terrified me because it suggested that I do ministry to you. My understanding, and I believe that this is the biblical understanding of ministry, is that ministry is a corporate, bodily affair, as Paul expresses it in 1Corinthians 12. My understanding of ministry is that the congregation, in conjunction with an ordained person, does ministry together. In doing this we all live out the calling to ministry which is implicit in all our baptisms. The calling in my baptism is no different to the calling to each of us.

But, unfortunately, the church has created an us-and-them culture between ordained and lay people. Most of us probably grew up with a view that the ordained person is gifted or invested with some sort of magical powers which lay people do not possess. This understanding was behind the conversation about Mr Matthews coming to Heidelberg. This often creates an expectation that the minister will do, or is the only one equipped to do, all the ministry stuff. This overworks the minister and fosters a culture of passivity amongst congregations.

This is not the way it should be. It is also not the model of ministry which leads to healthy congregations, particularly in our contemporary state of transition in the church. I am not suggesting that this is an entrenched culture at TUC, as it is in many congregations, but I do hear voices here which express this understanding, implicitly and explicitly, and this mitigates against us consciously adopting an understanding, in the way we share our life together, which reflects that early church understanding of us as the Body of Christ.

Having been in a number of congregations through ministerial vacancies I’ve become aware of a stop/start culture associated with one minister moving on, the ensuing vacancy and a new minister starting. There is the grief associated with the minister leaving, a sense of deflation and sometimes bewilderment during the vacancy and then the heightened anticipation as a new person commences. The ‘honeymoon phase’ lasts for varying lengths of time. I am convinced that this coming and going of ministers in some way creates a culture of resistance to serious long-term planning. While things like group life and Sunday School may be maintained across ministries there is often no long term planning of non-standard initiatives which extend beyond the placement of a minister. And the tendency of ministers to undo or not honour the work of their predecessors, because the congregation is not really clear about its own direction, also exacerbates this culture.

If I would want to achieve anything in my ministry it would be to enable congregations in which I work to imagine and implement future plans which would survive beyond my ministry and any of my successors. This would mean that the particular initiative would be dependent on the congregation, not myself.

One of the things which this congregation prided itself on when I arrived was the high level of involvement by members in all sorts of activities and groups. The list is huge.  What the list did not include, though, were initiatives of the same calibre within the life of the congregation which were about building up the body of Christ here. It was like members were willing to be involved in service beyond the congregation but not in. Now I can’t answer the question why this is the case. Maybe it’s a question which you can only answer individually but it interested me that it is so.

It has in some sense taken me three years to come to the understanding of what I want my ministry to look like. I want to enter the next phase of my ministry here seeking to explore  together with the church council and the elders, and maybe through other conversations in the congregation, how we plan and commit ourselves together to the future. If we have only short term vision and goals then this will be nature of our life. If we seek to imagine a future beyond all our own leaderships then this will, I’m convinced, create something much bigger than ourselves.

So, what of my ministry here? How long will I be here? I don’t know. What I can say is that it will not be forever. And it won’t be a period of 22 years as it was with John Howard. The church having trained me has a call on my ministry elsewhere too. What you can do is actively engage with me and work with me to enable you to bring to fruition what you desire for the future. This means getting serious with me and each other about Christ’s work in this place. What I am convinced of is that long-term ministries are better than short-term ones in enabling congregations to develop and put in place serious long-term visions and programs.

It is pointless for me to say: well I’ll stay for 3 or 5 more years.  Because this does not honour the process of us discerning and putting in place, by the grace of God, something together. The question for me about how long I stay is one of however long it takes for us to do that – and then maybe discerning together that my work is done here. This throws the responsibility onto you for you to imagine and put into action what it is that you want for this group of Christ’s people in this place.

I know some are you are despondent and anxious about the future of the church but there are signs of hope and possibilities around us and some us are taking steps to explore these: work with children and young families; exploring faith with your own early-retirement peers who might no longer be part of the church; issues of social justice and how we can make a difference; ways of deepening our spiritual path.

Somebody said to me the other day: well, you can’t go now, you’ve spent three years just preparing the ground. And I feel it’s probably true. It does feel to me that the ground is ready for something new and I’m looking forward to exploring and planting together whatever that might be and watching God doing the growing in our midst.

I’ve made extra copies of the sermon available in the foyer today and hope you’ll take a copy and reflect on it and discuss it together and you’ll find it available on the website too. There is also an opportunity to discuss what I’ve said after the service today, and Rosemary will lead our discussion.

Advent 1   by Andrew Boyle                                         December 3, 2006 

Jeremiah 33. 14-16 Luke 21. 25-36

I wonder what your feeling about Advent is. I’m not sure what I feel about it. Ambivalence often. There’s part of me which gets more and more grumpy the closer Christmas gets. But that’s not so much about Advent but what else goes on at this time of year. Advent is supposed to be a preparation time; a waiting time. I’ve discovered recently that in the past it was a time of fasting and preparation in the way in which Lent is meant to be. This is why we use the colour purple in Advent as we do in Lent. It’s supposed to be a time of austerity and reflection. Certainly this is not the climate in which we live in Australia at this time of year.

I find it difficult to know what to do with these down times before the great festivals of Easter and Christmas. We know how to celebrate; we’re good at that. Splurging, spending. Eating and drinking to excess. But waiting? Fasting? Purposefully doing without; holding back? It’s inimical to our western way of being. Only this week Chris and I  received an offer from David Jones for a new line of credit: up to $25,000 approved within 2 days so that, as the brochure says, “we can indulge over the festive season”. No need to wait; no need to hold back; no need to question whether we have enough. Go on. You deserve it!

As we explored the idea last week on the Festival of Christ the King, how Jesus is a sort of anti-king, anti-hero, this Advent time is a sort of anti-preparation for the secular Christmas festival. A time of emptying when all the culture we’re part of invites us to fill up. In all of our frantic busyness and excess it’s difficult for God to actually get a look in this climate. I’m sure the pattern for most of us is to arrive at Christmas exhausted, with a few extra kilos under our belts, our bank balances depleted or our credit card limits peaked, the stockings filled up;  the coming of the Christ child becomes just a bit of trim on top of everything. I hear everyone moan about the pace and the demands and the excess but somehow everyone seems powerless or unwilling to change any of it.

So much of the imagery in the season of Advent is about emptying, about making space, taking the desert way so that God might arrive. Isaiah speaks of making a way straight in the desert, the empty place where no one wants to pass through, let alone stay in; the young virgin speaks words of praise as she makes space for the Christ child to emerge in her womb, the stable is the only available empty place that the child may come into the world. Being expectant for the arrival of God is about making space and then waiting; being attentive and hopeful. Like the bridesmaids waiting for the arrival of the groom with their lamps trimmed, so we need to be attentive if the Christ child is to come to us in a meaningful and life-giving way.

Both audiences in our readings today are in a place of waiting; both are facing the utter destruction of their worlds. The question: What will become of us? lies between the lines. Jeremiah is locked in prison as he writes his oracle of judgement and destruction and hope. And Luke is writing in the years after the destruction, yet again, of Jerusalem. The temple has been torn down and burned and the people of Jerusalem dispersed throughout the Roman empire. What has become of their world; what will become of them as a nation; where is their God, and this Jesus in whose way they have pledged themselves to follow; what of this new way? In Luke there is surely an echo of that destruction of Jerusalem of which Jeremiah is writing 600 years before. Here events are being repeated. What will become of us this time?

Their waiting has been imposed upon them. Any power that they might have had over their own destiny has been removed from them. And so they must, in their sense of abandonment, wait; but is it to be a waiting in despair or a waiting in hopefulness. As the question is always for us: do we wait in hope or despair and apathy. So often our apathy is just a symptom of despair. Do we wait with petulant expectation that we deserve to get what we want or do we wait with, what saint Ignatius, calls indifference – an open mind. Jeremiah invites his hearers to hope and to trust in the righteousness, the loving kindness of God; not to hope for revenge, not to plummet into despair, but to hope in the salvation that God will provide. In a similar way Jesus alerts his hearers to the likely chaos and destruction which is to come; but his advice is not to get involved in the turmoil around these events but to stand firm and not to descend into despair; not to adopt the response of eat drink and be merry – for tomorrow we die.

The excess of Christmas often feels to me as though it is a season tinged, if not completely stained, with anxiety and despair. So-called celebrations shared with family members and friends that we can barely stand to be with; work parties shared with people that you would really rather not socialise with; presents bought out of a sense of obligation rather than joy; the loved one missed so much that it doesn’t feel like a time for celebrating at all; the broken relationship which will probably never be healed. Maybe you want me to say some cheery things about Christmas but for so many the lead up to it is a time of high anxiety or looming despair. And it is for these that the Christ child came and so it is for his promised healing that we must prepare. Not the mutual jollying up at the high point of the year but the coming of redemption for the people who walk in deepest darkness.

But whether we are in despair or not there are always things in our existence which require making space that the grace of God might appear. Maybe if we are feeling strong and resilient it may be space to reflect on and pray for someone we know, or a situation in the world, where we can focus our attention; if our approach to Christmas fills us with increasing dread we can make space and contemplate our discomfort offering it to the loving gaze of God; if we feel like our world has dramatically changed or seems to be falling apart we can make room that the Christ child may come with healing and comfort us in our sorrow helping bear our burden.

In making the Advent candles available for each household I hope this may be a tangible way of making a little space in our homes which will be like an icon of the space we desire to make in our hearts for the Christ when he comes. And maybe we can choose to not do one thing we are invited or asked to do this Advent and so symbolically make a little space and see what it feels like. Maybe we can choose to perform some extra act of compassion or service to focus on someone who really needs our care.

And in whatever we do we can pray: Come Lord Jesus, as we continue to live as the body of Christ in the world in hopefulness that the kingdom may come.

Andrew Boyle

LENT3     By Andrew Boyle                                                                 26 MARCH 2006 

Number 21. 4-9   Ephesians 2. 1-10  John 3. 14-21

The epistle and the Gospel today contain what are two of the most famous verses of Christian scripture. From a letter attributed to Paul to the church at Ephesus we hear the words: for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is a gift from God – not the result of works. A phrase which was in some senses the catch cry of the Reformation; it was Martin Luther’s counter to the works- bound approach of the church at that time 500 years ago which insisted on all sorts of action on our part to ensure that God regarded people favourably. And from the Gospel of John we hear the great chapter 3. verse 16; for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. Maybe this is in some ways the great salvation catch cry of our own time. God loved the world so much is the essence of what John has to say in both his Gospel and his letters; as grace is the essence of what Paul is saying is God’s attitude toward humanity. Love and grace.

They stand in stark contrast to our fears; fear that we maybe condemned, damned, useless, worthless, fatally flawed, that no one could or will love us; fear that motivates us to live in such a way that maybe, just maybe by being terribly, terribly good, by working very hard, that we will be justified, at least in others eyes. Fears that we will not be accepted, fear that we are just not OK which motivate and shape our lives at the most basic, basic level. As I listen to people in pastoral conversations I hear this at the heart of people’s understanding of themselves – I need to be justified; I am condemned; I am no-damn good. And our culture blares it at us; you have to justify yourself in some way; be hard-working, rich, be sexy; be influential – and we might love you – but not for too long, so beware.

The love which comes to us from God through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus comes to us in contradiction to the condemnation and need for justification which we are so inclined to heap on ourselves and which are the currency by which we relate to each other; in shorthand, the currency of the way of sin and death. Walking in this way we are condemned; walking in the way of Jesus we are justified. Yet I struggle with this language. Because when we compare God’s way of love and grace with our human capacity for condemnation and our need to justify ourselves we place ourselves in a world-view which is a legal worldview; a legalistic world. We imagine a world where we are either condemned or justified; one or the other; and we invent ways of working out whether ourselves and others are in or out; the currency of whether we are really worth anything. In this world view God operates as the great judge; an image which has not served the church well. Jesus came with the message (which cost him his life) that this is not actually the way God sees it; that it is not the way God wants us to see it – either with him or with each other. But sure as sure it is a struggle; we hope, we claim that we are saved by grace but we struggle to live by that hope.

I think the essence of the Christian journey is to day-by-day, month-by-month, year by-year more deeply realise the grace of God in our lives. To eschew a world view that we must justify ourselves in other’s and God’s eyes and to live by faith that it is love and grace which actually make up the world. If we believe that God made the world and makes us in love, then it is God’s world; then, who can condemn Paul asks.

We struggle to know whether the church has anything to say anymore; sure as so many people’s lives are a living hell we do. As we have the courage to face our own fears and allow the love of God to transform us then our very lives become witness to the free gift of God’s grace. I hope that this Lent and Easter we may realise this more deeply in our lives.

LENT 5        By Andrew Boyle                                                                               2 April 2006  

John 12  20-33

We are in John’s Gospel today. It is bit bewildering being thrown about by the lectionary cycle. If this is Thursday then we must be in Rome. If this is Lent 5 then we must be in John. We have been in Mark since the beginning of the year but now we find our selves being given bits and pieces throughout John. And we are at a pivotal point in his gospel. Jesus has just made his apparently victorious entry into Jerusalem on the donkey and the crowds are lauding him. And we hear that the Pharisees are alarmed and we overhear one of them say “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after him!”

And so John tells us that now even the Greeks want to know about Jesus. They come to Philip who goes to Andrew, who together go to Jesus. Who rather than respond to the request in a direct sort of way announces: “Now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” The Greeks are of course not Jews, they are outside the religious club which will not recognise Jesus and what he has to say and so once the outsiders are willing to recognise Jesus it is the time for things to be brought to fruition. The apocalyptic confrontation will take place and Jesus will be glorified.

But this is a glorification which is rooted in disappointment. Because everyone is going after Jesus; the crowds in Jerusalem, and now the gentiles – the whole world is following him. And Jesus begins to talk about death – a seed falling to the ground and dying; the Son of Man being lifted up, like the serpent in the desert for all people to see. Come on Jesus get on the pedestal; we want you to be our saviour; get over this self-sacrifice story will you; we need someone to lead us; we’ve had enough of these religious leaders and the Romans. Make us great again will you.

These episodes from the gospels all contain this strange tension; between what the crowd want of Jesus and his apparently hell-bent intention to go to the cross. Now my soul is troubled – And what should I say – Father save me from this hour? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. father, glorify your name” This is the apocalyptic showdown; the crossroads of time; “now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.”

I want to turn my face away from this story because I know where it goes. It is a story of utter failure; of Jesus’ determination to be strung up; of desire to make himself the victim of everyone. There is no worldly success in this story; it flies in the face of every way I know of operating in the world; denies every gram of a need for self-preservation we might have. I don’t want to hear it; because I know where it goes. To the failure and humiliation of the cross.

But Jesus is talking about gloomy. Where can the glory be in this path to the cross; what could be redeemed from this course with its sights set on apparent failure. We are in an ancient world where glory is much to be desired; the glory of the athlete, the glory of the soldier, the glory of the powerful successful male; the divinity of the Emperor. The same as we know glory; glory of the sportsman; glory of the business success story. Glory is not a word we use any longer but it’s still the stock-in-trade of our culture. I can recall the frenzied adulation that went on in the 80s for Alan Bond and Christopher Skase – hearing people talk about having some remote connection with them through someone who worked for them –going to one of their developments; basking in their reflected glory. Basking in the reflected glory of our athletes, our football team, the achievements of those we are connected with. But it’s not our kind of glory which Jesus seeks; not men’s glory. He is intent on another kind of glory; God’s glory. God will do the glorifying – how will it come? How possibly could it come out of this? Jesus is rejecting all the praise his followers want to heap on him; he will not let them make him king. What glory is there in this?

The gospel of John makes much of glory – And we have seen his glory, glory as of a Father’s only son, full of grace and truth. Jesus calls us to follow in this other way. To follow in the narrow way which leads to life. Not follow in the narrow-minded way but the way which is eternal life. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Now for John eternal life is not life after death but it is life in another realm in the here and now; it is a life which is lived from a longing to seek God’s glory; a life which seeks after righteousness in order that it might be whole and lived to the one in whose image it is made.

Lent is known as a time of penitence; like glory not a word we use much any more; but maybe, like glory, it is something which we still know or need to know the reality of in our lives. As I see Jesus eschew the glory of the world I see him march to a different drum – seeking God’s cheers as he goes on his way. It’s like he is running the race in reverse; running the other way on the track. When I see this I realise my own desire to seek the glory of others and so realise how far I have to go. Or maybe it’s just that I need to turn and run a different direction on the track, following him. Our own awareness of a need to seek other’s glory before God’s is gift to us; not reason to beat ourselves up; but an awareness that here is a place where God’s light doesn’t shine and so we can turn to God in penitence and faith, as the invitation to prayer of confession says.