Returning to the garden of God’s goodness: doing God’s will of reconciliation

A sermon preached by the Dean of Melbourne, the Very Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, at St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne on the Second Sunday after Pentecost, 7 June 2015

Today’s readings are all about God’s work of forgiveness in a world of conflicting standards. They take us to key moments in the life of God and his people, to explain how evil entered the world and what God is doing in order to ensure that evil will not have the upper hand. They remind us that evil can take many forms – like the serpent in our first lesson or the demons referred to in our Gospel reading – and that it is impossible to make a good bargain or deal with evil – for evil delights in deceiving. They urge us to call on God when we feel burdened; when find ourselves in the depths out of which our psalmist addressed his heartfelt prayer to God. They show us how, through Jesus Christ God has already bound evil, and plundered evil’s store of deceits and deceptions, like the property of strong man in our gospel reading.

Because God was there at the beginning of the story of evil’s sway over humankind, and because Christ has already taken away the ultimate power of evil and death, today’s readings encourage us never to lose heart: even if our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. And the key to that constant renewal, our lessons tell us, is seeking God’s friendship, his protection, and forgiveness.

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Our first lesson (Genesis 3.8-14), from the first book of the Bible, tells the story of creation in allegorical terms. God has created a universe he knew to be very good, and placed humankind in the middle of his garden of delights. There is no no harm, no hardship, no death; only goodness, growth and life. Everything in God’s garden promotes life; especially the trees at the heart of the garden: ‘the tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ (Genesis 2.9). In return for life in his presence, in return for his goodness and the absence of any evil, God commands humankind not to consume the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

In an environment that is all good, with the tree of life to give life, and no form of evil at all, there is no need to discern between good and evil, God knows. Indeed, the very act of seeking to know of evil in an environment that is all good, God knows, invites evil, harm and death into the garden of goodness. And so God tells humankind not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, ‘for on the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die’ (Genesis 2.15).

The people did not die immediately, once they had eaten of the fruit that invited evil into God’s good creation. But with the knowledge of evil in a world of goodness came evil itself – not only the temptation to be like God and to be enabled to navigate the complexities of discerning what is good and wholesome and what is evil and destructive – but the very evil that leads to death and mortality. Indeed, a chapter after our first lesson sees the first fruits of evil and death: a deep-rooted jealously that led to pre-meditated murder as Cain killed his brother Abel. Once evil had been admitted into God’s good creation, our story tells, there was no more protection from the ultimate fruit of evil. Where once the fruit that sustained humankind had been the goodness of the fruit of life; now there only remained the decay of the fruits of death, as people daily are confronted with the need to discern what is good and what is not, and folk sense more and more how their outward nature is wasting away, on the way to the ultimate, universal, human destiny: death (2 Corinthians 4.16).

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It is this very physical experience of evil and oppression, of death and destruction, that led our psalmist to cry out to God ‘out of the depths’ (Psalm 130.1). Our Psalm is one of the fifteen psalms of ascents, the songs of pilgrimage of the second temple that were sung by faithful followers of the God of Israel on the way to, or on the steps of, the restored Jerusalem sanctuary. Our psalm is written from the perspective of exile and distance, recalls the time in captivity, when God’s people were driven away from the land of their promise by fault of their own disobedience, when they were ‘led away’, by the Lord, ‘with the evildoers’ (Psalm 128.5). As in the garden of goodness, so here, on the steps of the temple sanctuary, our writer recalls, appeals to, God’s goodness. We might find ourselves in the depths, might find ourselves afflicted and oppressed, like God’s faithful followers in exile. Yet even when confronted with the reality of the fruits of evil, and an absence of goodness to discern, there remains a sign of our hope: our direct appeal to the One who created this world to be very good, and who will hear the supplications of those who call on him – wherever and in whatever circumstance of life we might find ourselves: ‘let your ears be consider well – be attentive to – the voice of my supplication’, our psalm writer prays God (Psalm 130.2)

Our psalmist knows that, having presumed to take the place of God and discern between good and evil, humankind had, all too often, chosen the path of evil rather than goodness. If God were to do what humankind appropriated to itself – the right to pronounce judgement of what is good and what is not, the right to know what is good and what is not – then none would stand; all would fail and fall, the psalmist has experienced: ‘If you, Lord, should note what we do wrong: who then, O Lord, could stand?’ (Psalm 130.3).

At the same time, the writer, who plunged the depths of human experience, also knows that God will readily show mercy, if only we ask him to take away our the evil that oppresses, and our own sins: ‘there is forgiveness with you … with the Lord there is mercy, and with him ample redemption’ (Psalm 130, 4, 7). ‘Trust in the Lord’, the writer appeals to those who, like him, have known of the misery of the depths of evil and human frailty: ‘God will redeem his people from the multitude of their sins’ (Psam 130.8).

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Our gospel reading from Mark’s account of the story of Jesus and his followers, gives us a very practical insight into how God has redeemed his people from the multitude of their sins through his Son Jesus Christ. Jesus had just called to himself a group of twelve apostles, followers whom had had commissioned ‘to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out evil’ (Mark 3.14-15). These returned with him to his home in Capernaum and, because he had healed many, ‘a great multitude followed him’ (Mark 3.7). So large was the crowd, so desirous to be healed, to be set free from the fruits of disease and death, that Jesus and his apostles ‘could not even eat’ (Mark 3.20). Jesus’ own family come to take him home for a meal and a rest: the experience of healing so many, of setting folk free from the fruits of evil – which for Mark included possession by evil forces – had worn Jesus out, they believed. Or at least their neighbours thought so, the people who kept on saying: ‘he has gone out of his mind’ (Mark 3.21). But they are rebuffed by their son and brother: are sent away so that Jesus is enabled to explain why it was that he did what he did.

Until now in Mark’s gospel, we have only seen the fruits of Jesus’ ministry of countering evil in all its guises – at this stage only evil personified knows Jesus’ true identity and mission: ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One of God’, the demons address him (Mark 1.24). Until now in Mark’s account, we have only seen the fruits of his mission to be a physician to those who are sick in body, mind or soul; to be the One who pronounces forgiveness to those who have sinned, or are so deeply affected by evil that they feel as if demons had conquered their innermost selves. Until now in Mark’s story, only those set free, only those healed, know Jesus’ true identity: the others are amazed, attracted and follow him; or are unsettled, upset and call him a blasphemer.

The reason why Jesus does not have time to go home and rest, why he sends his own family away, and calls his disciples and anyone else who ‘do the will of God’ his ‘brother and sister and mother’, is not because he does not love, or care for them, but because he is about to engage those who are unsettled, and reveal to all what doing the will of God entails for him. For Jesus doing God’s will means nothing less than entering ‘the house of the strong man and plundering his spoils’ (Mark 3.27).

The ‘strong man’ in our gospel reading is evil personified. From the moment of the story of evil entering human existence in the garden of God’s goodness, evil had steadily increased in power, built for itself a strong fortress, gathered for itself spoils from frail humans. Jesus’ task is to bind evil, to storm his fortress, and to plunder his spoils, Mark tells in his story. Only by binding evil and setting free those drawn into its sphere of influence, drawn into the strong man’s house, people will be able to taste again of the fruit of the tree of life. Jesus tells the scribes and teachers of the law who have come from Jerusalem to ascertain his motives: ‘Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins’ (Mark 3.28). Those who believe that Jesus is the agent of this deliverance will be able to call on God out of the depths of even the deepest distress, and be given the assurance of a new beginning, a new life. Those who only see the power of the strong man, ‘Beelzebul, the ruler of demons’, do blaspheme against the power of God, and the Holy Spirit through whom God accomplishes the work of deliverance (Mark 3.29). Those people, Jesus says, will remain in their depths of distress, will not able to lift their heads above the parapet of the depths from which they call: ‘whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’, Jesus rebuked those who had come from Jerusalem to rein him in (Mark 3.29).

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This liberation by Jesus Christ is the reason for the hope expressed so poetically in our epistle reading: because Jesus has bound the powers of evil, and set free those in death’s domain from eternal death, we may have hope, Paul knows. The fruits of the tree of life are given us to sustain us in our own journey of mortality, the apostle tells, are set against the wasting away of our outer nature. Where the outward is wasting away, ‘the inner nature is being renewed day by day’ (2 Corinthians 4.16). Where the fruit of evil and sin is death, the One who has overcome death by his own death, and bound evil by overcoming this world and its ruler, has returned to us fruit from the garden of God’s delight. And that is why ‘we believe: because we know that the One who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus, and will bring us – with you – into his presence’, Paul affirms this firm and certain hope (2 Corinthians 4.14). Hope this certainly is: hope that cannot be seen – ‘for what can be seen is temporary’, and is subject to destruction by death; hope that cannot be seen, because ‘what cannot be seen is eternal’ (2 Corinthians 4.18).

The call from the depths of our oppression, the call from the depths of death, has been answered, Paul proclaims. Even though ‘the earthly tent we live in is destroyed’, even though we continue to share the certainty of mortality with the first Adam, we also share the hope of immortality of the second Adam. The hope of heaven reopened, a garden prepared for us, and it it a tree of delights and life: ‘we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens’, Paul knows (2 Corinthians 5.1). Evil may well be a daily reality; the discernment of good, in a world that shows so much evil, will continue to be a labour of sweat and toil of tears, ‘till we return to the ground’ (Genesis 4.19). But we undertake this labour in the knowledge that the root of all evil has been bound, and the stronghold of evil been conquered, by the One who calls us to be his brothers and sisters, his family; people who join him in doing the will of God.

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God’s will is for this creation to be very good. God made it good, and remade it by binding the power of evil and giving us fruit from the tree of life to sustain us in our journey to his ‘house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens’ (2 Corinthians 5.1). God invites us to join in the work of promoting goodness and life, invites us to be members of the family of his Son, who share with Christ in doing the work of reconciliation and resurrection.

As we seek to do God’s will at the heart of this city, by our listening to God’s word, our sharing of his good news, and our ministry of bringing others closer to God, it is my prayer for you and for me, that we may know God’s salvation, trust in his mercy and know his love, rejoicing in the righteousness that is ours, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© Text: Andreas Loewe, Photography: Carsten Murawski 2015

Joining the song of heaven: of songs of covenant, justice and redemption

A sermon preached by the Dean of Melbourne, the Very Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, at St James’ Old Cathedral on the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, 27 July 2014, marking the Feast of St James, Apostle, and the 175th anniversary of the Foundation of the Church:

This morning’s readings (2 Chronicles 5.11-14, Revelation 15.1-8, Luke 9.28b-36) record three extraordinary moments in the life of the people of God that tell us about the importance of music, and of silence, in experiencing and responding to the presence of God. They take us back to the moments at which God manifested himself in worship, in glory and in judgment.

They encourage us to learn to sing new songs ourselves in worship of our God: both songs of liberation—the songs that celebrate our being set free from the slavery of sin and death, the songs that celebrate our relationship with God, and songs of judgment—the songs that give voice to our desire for God’s vision for this world to be fulfilled, and to become a place of justice and peace that is shaped by God’s will ‘in earth as it is in heaven’.

Our first reading from the second book of the Chronicles (2 Chronicles 5.11-14) celebrates the culmination of a long journey of faith for God’s people, a journey that began in exile and slavery in Egypt, was granted symbols of the assurance of God’s presence at Sinai, in the form of the tablets of the covenant of Moses contained in the ark of the covenant and tent of meeting, and ended in the dedication of a permanent place to house these signs of faith: the building of Solomon’s Temple. We join God’s people at the moment at which they set apart the holy place that was being built for more than a generation. Not only the Temple itself had taken a generation to shape in stone, cedar, precious stones and gold. The setting apart and formation of a generation of Temple priests and Temple musicians, from among the families of the tribes of Levi and Aaron, also had commenced a generation ago, during the reign of King David.

And it is at the moment of the dedication of the Temple—the permanent physical symbol of God’s presence in the heart of the people of Israel—that the Temple musicians sing a new song to God’s glory. They sing a song of God’s glory that celebrates their long journey of faith: it is a song in praise of their creator, their liberator-God who now deigns to dwell in a house made of human hands. And so the 120 Temple priests, and the singers from three Levitical families, lead the people of God in song. They sing a song that celebrates God’s constancy, lead the people in singing of the Hallel (הלל‎)—words that we now know as Psalm 118, ‘For God is good, and his steadfast love endures forever’, they sing. And as they sing their song of God’s constancy and presence in the house set apart for the symbols of their journey—the tablets and the ark of their covenant—‘the House of the Lord was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud’. They are prevented from moving, or entering the cloud. That cloud, our first reading tells us, was the ‘glory of the Lord filling the house of God’ (2 Chronicles 5.14).

Through the music-making of the Temple musicians, God’s presence was made manifest. Extraordinarily, it was their new song—the song of God’s liberation and constancy—that made visible all that the Temple stood for; made visible the presence of God among his people. God’s presence was made manifest in the form of a thick cloud that covered the entirety of the sacred space—‘the glory of the Lord filled the house of God’—and his ministers were blinded by God’s presence, unable ‘to stand to minister because of the cloud’ (2 Chronicles 5.14). Their song of the steadfastness of God’s love for his people made visible the grace-filled presence of God, as the Temple musicians led God’s people in singing their new song. And from that moment onwards, the singing of the Hallel Psalm has become part of the celebration of the liberation of the people of God at Passover, as God’s people recall the constancy of God’s love and his liberating power—even though the Temple building that first revealed the physical presence of God’s grace in song had long been destroyed.

Our Gospel reading, from Luke’s gospel (Luke 9.28b-36), takes us far away from the assembled people of God to a place of isolation. Jesus takes with him his closest followers—Peter, John and James (for whom your church is named)—away from the crowds that had followed him on his journey through Galilee. He takes them to a mountain-top to pray. And while they were praying, the disciples have a spiritual experience that is as extraordinary as the experience of the Temple musicians at the moment God’s House was set apart for service: their teacher and master becomes transfigured before them; ‘the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white’ (Luke 9.29). And standing by his side, talking with him, were the champions of God’s people—Moses who had led his people through the wilderness to the Land of Promise, and Elijah who had led his people through times of great godlessness and idolatry.

Two long-departed heroes of faith flanked Jesus to talk with him about his own departure Jesus ‘was about to accomplish in Jerusalem’ (Luke 9.31). They spoke about Jesus’ liberation of God’s people. Jesus’ ‘departure in Jerusalem’ is, of course, a reference to two departures: his departure from life at his ignominious ascent to the cross to die there for the sins of the people; and his departure in glory from this world in his resurrection body at his ascent to the Father. In the increasing darkness of the fading light Moses and Elijah speak with Jesus. Speak of the darkness of the cross and the glory of resurrection. Speak of the life of heaven they already have shared, and will once more share. And the disciples beheld ‘his glory and the two men standing with him’, saw Jesus as he truly was: the glorified Son of Man, and his face reflecting the light of eternity (Luke 9.30). And as Moses and Elijah depart from Jesus’ presence, they sense another presence, might perceive the strains of another song, a song of suffering and glory: the song of Christ’s departure to the cross and to the Father, the song of death and resurrection.

In his sleep-filled thoughts, Peter still thinks about how to capture this awe-inspiring moment by a marker, when a cloud descends on him and the other two disciples. And, unlike the manifestation of God’s glory at the dedication of the Temple, when the cloud prevented the movement of God’s servants, here, on the mountaintop, the cloud opens up to envelope them. And the disciples ‘were terrified as they entered the cloud’, we hear in our gospel reading (Luke 9.34). They were terrified indeed, for ‘it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God’ (Hebrews 10.31). Not only are the disciples entirely surrounded by God’s presence. They hear God speak to them—for the voice they hear is for their benefit alone—and they hear God confirm that the Son of Man they saw bathed in the light of eternity is, in fact, the Son of God: ‘This is my Son, my Chosen’, God speaks to them and charges them, ‘listen to him’ (Luke 9.35). And when the heavenly voice had spoken, there was no more voice, no song. Only silence on the isolated mountaintop, and Jesus alone with his disciples. ‘And they kept silent’, our gospel reading concludes. For sometimes the music of our new song may be the stillness of silence (Luke 9.36).

Where in our first lesson and gospel reading we heard about God’s servants experiencing the presence of God in an extraordinary way on earth—through music, voice and silence—the final song our lessons speak of is a song that is sung in the physical presence of God (Revelation 15.1-8). It is a song of praise and justice, of sovereignty and judgment. It is sung in an awe-filled place: a sea that is both still as glass yet at the same time awash with living flames of fire. At its shore stand the servants of God who, in this world have been sustained in their journey and battle of faith by the songs of God’s liberation and faithfulness: the songs of Christ’s death and resurrection, the songs of longing for God’s physical nearness.

They sing a new song, combining the song of covenant—the song of Moses—and the song of sovereignty—the song of the Lamb. A song of God’s presence—for he is among them to hear their song in person at the entrance to the tent of witness—and a song of judgment—for he is about to bring judgment to the nations.

With harps given them by God, they sing of God’s glory, his justice and constancy: ‘Great and amazing are your deeds … just and true are your ways’, their song confesses (Revelation 15.3). You are ‘Lord God Almighty’, you are ‘King of the nations’, ‘you alone are holy’ they sing in God’s presence (again, in the form of a cloud). And, in their song, proclaim the endpoint of the journey of all faith: ‘your righteous acts have been revealed, and all nations will come and worship you’ (Revelation 15.3-4). All nations will be judged, and all nations given voice to worship God, to join the new song of covenant and sovereignty at the shores of the sea of glass and fire; to sing the song of love, glory and adoration at the approach to the heavenly temple. And, as they—in this vision of the endtimes—themselves foreshadow the very end of all things, they behold both the destruction of all evil—‘seven angels with seven golden bowls filled with the wrath of God’ about to be poured out on the universe (Revelation 15.1)—and the completion of all justice—the ‘temple in heaven, and the tabernacle of the covenant of the law open’, for from now on God will do away with evil, and open up his sanctuary to those who have responded to his covenant in love (Revelation 15.5).

Three dramatic and extraordinary visions are set before us: the vision of the glory of God filling the earthly sanctuary as the Temple musicians’ song resounded; the vision of the disciples of Jesus beholding the light of eternity and the brightness of resurrection in the silent music of the mountaintop; the song of the redeemed about the behold the judgment of the universe and the coming among them of their sovereign king, their ‘Lord God Almighty’, at the sea of glass and fire. They tell us that it is in silence and in song that we can give voice to our experience of the presence among us of the living God.

And they invite us to enter ourselves into the covenant relationship with God that the singers of new songs of old—both those chosen for the service of God and who have come to know his nearness through their art, and those who have come to know God’s presence in the music of silence—have come to share. The covenant that promises us the knowledge of God’s presence on our own journeys of faith on earth; the covenant that is for us an invitation to be numbered among those who, at the end of all time, will come to behold the gates of God’s tabernacle in heaven, and Jesus Christ opening his kingdom to us.

Today we are invited to join in the new songs of faith ourselves: we are called to join in singing the songs of covenant, and commitment; the songs of calling and service, the songs of love and adoration. We are invited to join our voices with countless who have gone before, in the harmony of earthly and heavenly songs. We are invited to join their song confident that our music-making can resound with theirs in our worship on earth. We are invited to learn new songs to add to those of many generations in adoration of the God who is from everlasting. And, as we sing the song of earth and heaven, we do so in the firm and certain hope that one day, our own voices will resound in God’s dwelling place in heaven.

And now, ‘may the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus,  so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Romans 15.5-6). Amen.

© Andreas Loewe, 2014