Rev Dale Yardy sermons

Previous Sermons by Rev Dale Yardy

‘There was Jesus’

Epiphany 5, Luke 5:1-11

Presented to Warners Bay Uniting Church - 9th February 2025

Good morning everyone, it’s truly wonderful to be here amongst you as we embark upon this new chapter together at North Lake Macquarie. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that God has brought us together for this time and in this place. I am very much looking forward to what lies ahead.

Have you ever had one of those moments in life where you try to reconcile what you had hoped for with what is actually unfolding? It could be a job, a health crisis, a difficult relationship, something that you had envisioned turning out a certain way that did a major U-turn on you and led you to a completely different place?

We might think of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, where a cyclone literally picks the young girl and her dog up and thrusts them into a new and strange land where she sets out to find her way home, only to discover a golden road that leads her to a very different place to where she thought she’d end up.

Can you think of a time like that? You may even be going through a time like that. You could be preparing for the storm, or already swept up in the cyclone. You might have already landed in an unfamiliar place wondering what on earth are you going to do now?

You may find yourself in a time of despair, disappointment and unknowing…..Welcome to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 5, because that’s exactly where the disciples are too.

We just heard the beautiful song, “There was Jesus” by Dolly Parton & Zach Williams, a song about Jesus being with us when we are displaced, disoriented, when we feel like we’ve failed and find ourselves out of our depth and utterly exhausted, there is Jesus.

They sing,

When the life I built came crashing to the ground
When the friends I had were nowhere to be found
I couldn't see it then but I can see it now
There was Jesus.

In the waiting, in the searching
In the healing and the hurting
Like a blessing buried in the broken pieces
Every minute, every moment
Where I've been and where I'm going
Even when I didn't know it or couldn't see it
There was Jesus….

This morning’s Gospel opens with Jesus approaching a group of fishermen who had been out all night on a rather unsuccessful fishing expedition and who are now cleaning their nets before putting them away. It’s a scene reminiscent of feeling that sense of failure, despair and exhaustion. Those times when we’ve truly given it our all, but our all just wasn’t enough to get us across the line, and we come face to face with a storm we simply cannot sail around this time…

It is in these moments that we begin to realise that dream we had for our marriage to work out, or our prayers for our kids to find their way in life, or that dream or promotion that remained just out of reach…..whatever it may be for you, we begin to see it slip away from view and a sense of disappointment and despair begins to creep in.

This morning’s Gospel reminds us that in the midst of these moments, there is Jesus, inviting us once more to trust in him, to put out into the deep waters one more time and to have the courage to see what might emerge this time.

Certainly, for Simon Peter and for the others, what ended up transpiring on that lake was far beyond their wildest imaginings, utterly defeated they return to shore with no fish, no great catch and eventually agree to Jesus’ command to go back out and try one more time. Feeling like Jesus’ confidence is misplaced and the project, futile, the disciples obey and we’re told this time their nets literally begin to break under the weight of the amount of fish they reel in. They simply cannot contain all the blessings God provides in that moment.

But let’s face it, sometimes it can be really hard to see the blessing part, particularly when we feel defeated and we’ve given something our all, and we don’t always get to see it in such short order as the disciples do in this account. The blessings may not be evident for a very long time, it might take a year, a decade, or even a lifetime for us to be able to even begin to see God’s presence in the background, but the invitation remains the same….put out into the deep one more time, and see what God will do with your unlived life, your unfulfilled dreams, your unresolved grief, whatever it may be for you, even when you still carry the scars that will not heal, there is Jesus….

I love these words from author Alice Camille,

"When marriages collapse, when careers are pink-slipped into oblivion, when finances are shattered and homes lost, we find ourselves on the shore like Peter, picking seaweed out of our nets and feeling used or betrayed. What was the purpose of our striving? Was it all for nothing? How many of us are prepared, in the dawn of our great emptiness, to try again? Which of us would step back into our boats and head back out to open waters and lower those nets? That takes hope. You have to believe in love's potential, or "the cause," or whatever it is that made you willing to fish in the first place. You have to believe in the existence of the fish at the minimum! If we sometimes find ourselves like Peter in the daybreak of disappointment holding empty nets, we have to be like Peter also in his willingness, at a word from Jesus, to go back out there and lower our nets again. Our trust remains not in what we can do but in what God can do."

I love that, we’re invited to lean into the resources of God during those times when our own resources (or nets) begin to fail us. Even after Simon Peter and the other disciples gather in their huge haul, they would continue to be confronted with moments of disappointment and struggle throughout their lives, they would be plagued by moments of scarcity and suffering, just as we all are from time to time. But they would also come to know through this experience today that when the fishing nets burst, when the resources they have relied on begin to fray and fall apart, there is Jesus.

We recall at Christmas time and in this season of Epiphany, that the darkness could not overcome the light that has entered the world. The darkness is still around, but it has not overcome the Light of Christ. Our faith holds this tension of broken nets and boats overflowing with blessing so poignantly, reminding us that our overwhelmings, our disappointments, our failures, our despair cannot overcome God’s capacity to lift us up out of the mire and to bring about something truly unexpected and miraculous. It may not result in the outcome we had prayed for, but with time and some space we can perhaps begin to see the signs of blessing, of abundance, of hope that begins to emerge and to know we were not alone after all.

My friends, even when we don’t know where and when the cyclones of life will land and what strange place they will catapult us into, we’re invited to remember that those times when we don’t have the faith, or the courage or the fortitude to find our way or try again, we’re invited to simply trust God has enough grace & faith to see all of us through. It’s like the Footprints poem – God often has to carry us part of the way, because God knows we sometimes need that extra support to help make it through.

To the crowds by the Lake of Gennesaret. To Simon Peter, and James and John. To generations before them, to us here today, the invitation is the same; to go ever deeper and discover the depths of God’s love and faithfulness toward us, calling us into new waters, and unchartered territories, and even when we flounder and throw up our hands and say, “Enough! I can’t take anymore”….even then, there is Jesus…..

Where might God be calling you to put out to the deep and experience the abundance of God’s grace in your life? Where have you perhaps given up? Exhausted by too many futile attempts to achieve a different result, and how might this morning’s gospel inspire you to try again, to wait and watch and pray for that new thing that God is about to do?

This morning, we’re invited to remember that this journey of life and faith is an ongoing one, it is a mixture of great pain and blessing, and because of the volatility of this life, we’re invited to constantly go deeper in our relationship with God, in our spiritual reflections and practices, bringing our questions, our fears and our sense of unworthiness to the cross, knowing that as we do, there is Jesus who waits with love in his heart and patience to encourage us once more to put out to the deep and discover there life in all its fullness.

Amen.

Anchor 1

"The Beatitudes: A Pathway to Peace in a World of Chaos"

Epiphany 6, year C, Luke 6:20-26, February 16, 2025
Presented to Warners Bay Uniting Church and Boolaroo Uniting Church.

I was having a conversation a couple of weeks ago with someone who was really feeling a deep sense of hopelessness & existential dread about the state of the world right now. It has even stopped her from leaving her house most days. She is much more comfortable snuggled up with her faithful dog in their cosy, safe corner of their beautiful home, a refuge from the chaos of the world outside.

"I'm exhausted with all the hate out there, how can my voice or actions make a difference to a world gone completely mad?" she lamented.

I must admit, it gave me pause for thought. I can't remember a time in my 48 years of life on this earth where the world has seemed more bleak than it does right now. How do we even begin to speak into this chaos in any meaningful way? How do we find our collective voice to meet this moment?

In his book, 'Life After Doom: Wisdom & Courage for a world falling apart', Brian McLaren expands on this sense of anxiety many of us carry with us now as we struggle to go back to a time that felt more safe, more familiar, more normal.

In it he writes,

Normal is so easy to take for granted. Our climate and environment, our political and economic systems, our social norms and institutions, our hospitals and schools, our can-do spirit and our shared spirituality - they seem as dependable as electricity, running water, and the availability of Google and Amazon. But one hurricane, or wildfire, one terrorist attack or coup; one election result, or one voice making a declaration of war; one middle finger pressing one fateful button, one bacterium or virus against which we have neither immunity nor vaccines, and everything normal is pounded to wreckage and washed away in a surging storm of change. We can't believe we ever took for granted something as precious as 'normal'.....these days, more and more of us are experiencing the stages of grief as a shared social experience. Our whole society seems to be ping-ponging back and forth between shock and denial and anger and bargaining and depression.

McLaren powerfully describes the reason why so many of us feel a sense of perpetual overwhelm and may struggle to get off the couch some days. The recent pandemic did us no favours either as we learned to live in a new ecological social system of separatism, tuning into the daily Covid numbers and wisely kept our distance for a time. But have we found our way back from that yet as a society? It feels like we are having some trouble integrating back into community from our isolated, safe islands we have grown accustomed to.

Fortunately, this morning's Gospel offers us some clues as to how we might begin to find our way back, even in the midst of the challenging days we are currently facing, even if we cannot stop all or most of the chaos, we can perhaps still a part of the storm through engaging in our local neighbourhoods in a spirit of simplicity and compassion. Because at their essence, this is what the Beatitudes offer us. They are an invitation to go deeper into the spirit of simplicity, humility and compassion which are qualities that have the potential to be an antidote or elixir of sorts for these times we are living through right now. This is not to suggest we have a blueprint for a quick fix, but it is to say that we do have a blueprint for how we can respond. The Beatitudes opens up sacred space for us to reflect upon how we might live in a different way through being guardians of hope, kindness, humility and simple decency toward one another in a world that appears to be experiencing a significant shortage in such attributes at this time.

The Beatitudes offer us a powerful and unique framework to engage with during times like these, a promise of blessing, the assurance of the presence of God by our side despite the chaos that so often overwhelms us. The Beatitudes understood as a courageous response to a world gone wild is a radical invitation to go deeper into one's own soul work to help create a calmer inner world that we might have half a hope of nurturing a calmer, less reactive outer world. I’ve come to view the Beatitudes are the spirit of Jesus in our midst. They are a portal into the very heart and mystery of God, they are the crucible of change and transformation for us all, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh"...There is a rhythm here, an eternal pattern that reminds us that for every human emotion and situation, for every natural disaster and calamity, the presence of God is in our midst, inviting us to find our voice to speak up not only for peace and justice in the world, but also to be channels of God's love, compassion and hope. As St Francis' prayed so long ago,

“make me a channel of your peace....”

I was listening to an interview with George Lucas a while ago. Lucas spoke about how all his movies try to emphasise how the selfish part verses the compassionate part of the human spirit are constantly engaged in a tug of war, and how all of us can relate to this struggle on a daily basis. He then said something that really captivated my attention - he said, "at the heart of all my movies is an attempt to try and emphasise that the only prison you are ever truly trapped in is the prison of your mind, and if you decide you want to get out, you can."

It was a very unexpected end to the interview, but a very profound note to finish on and it got me thinking about how true that is. In a world that seems so bleak right now, the Beatitudes are a reminder for us to get back in synch with the spirit of Jesus, to set aside the selfish part of our humanity and to embrace once again the compassionate side which frees all of humanity from the prisons of power, hate, and greed and restores our vision of our shared common humanity.

Perhaps what is needed to find our voice to meet this moment is a simple return to the simplistic message of the Beatitudes. To live out our lives with that same simplicity of spirit, that same level of compassion that Jesus possessed in order to help create a more loving, kinder world. I think this is where Jesus was going when he starts talking about the four beatitudes and the four corresponding woes outlined in the text today. These polarities reveal the great chasm that lies between the imprisoned and the free, the poor and the rich, the hungry and the full, the weepers and the laughers, the hated and the revered. They speak to the real power differential between the selfish part of humanity and our more compassionate side, convicting our hearts of the very real social consequences each choice leads us into.

How do we find our voice when speaking to those who are comfortable, how do we, like Archbishop Budde at the Washington Cathedral, make a plea for mercy and compassion to the powerful and rich of our world today? In what ways will we find our voice to stand for justice, mercy, and a reordering of the way power and privilege plays out in the world today; in ways that create the very circumstances that cause others to live in poverty - where the vast majority of the resources of the world are consumed by a small minority who have no sense of the kingdom's values. How do we find our collective voice to not only protest and demand justice, but also to use our voice to appeal to society's better angels, to help bridge the great chasm between now and not yet? How can we help bring about the blessings Jesus talks about today for those in most dire need of food, clean water, let alone a hope for the future?

Thankfully, God enters the scene today through the words of the Beatitudes to remind us that through these ancient words Jesus has come to point us toward a way of being in this world that is founded on the compassionate space God holds for all God's people. The Beatitudes invite us to find our voice, to tap into that sacred space where God's spirit resides and to cultivate a spirit of simplicity and compassion in our daily lives and work and to help bring about a more just and fairer use of the world's resources for all. This includes how we care for one another, how we respond to the melting ice caps, how we tend to not just the people but to all the animals starving and maimed by war….

The invitation before us today is: will we dare to let go of our selfish desires as a human race long enough so that we can begin to love as we have been loved and respond from that compassionate space? Spiritual author and priest, Henri Nouwen once wrote, "compassion grows with the inner recognition that your neighbour shares your humanity with you”. How might we allow the words of the Beatitudes today to help us find our common humanity once again in the face of the world's challenges and in doing so, rediscover the blessings of God, and the blessings of life itself for all to enjoy.

We can't fix everything, but we can find our voice by joining God in the work of bringing about justice and compassion for all creation. But it can't all be anger and protests, we need to dig deeper than that. As Christian community, we're invited to go deeper into our own spiritual heritage, our spiritual practices, and to so directly connect with the spirit of Jesus that the Beatitudes exemplify that the unjust structures around us begin to crumble. For God calls us to work toward the reordering of a world gone mad through acts of radical simplicity, humility and compassion, that God's peaceable kingdom may finally come on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Anchor 2

‘What the World Needs Now is Love, Sweet Love….’
Epiphany 7 Focus Texts: Genesis 45:1-15 & Luke 6:27-38

Presented to Warners Bay Uniting Church February 23, 2025

Well, this would have been a good Sunday for me to go on holidays because honestly, this part of Luke’s Gospel is kind of difficult for me to preach on, and I think the reason it’s so difficult for me to preach on is because, well, I’m a human being…and so my being human makes it incredibly difficult some days to apply Jesus’ law of love for one’s enemies on both a personal and a global scale, not because I don’t want to, but because sometimes it can be really hard to love through the hurt.

We can all probably relate to moments where we’ve encountered people who are difficult to love. It can happen not only during insignificant/chance encounters, but also with some of our closest relationships which can take us by surprise and sometimes take many years to heal from. And whilst we may not have enemies in the same way that James Bond might have enemies, we do have people in our lives who are just really hard to put Jesus’ command to love into action.

I remember years ago I went to see the band Blonde in Vancouver and before the show I was ushered in to meet the band. I was incredibly excited to see the show and the bonus was to have a meet & greet with them. When it was my turn to meet with them, I extended my hand and warmly shook hands with everyone in the band until I got to the lead singer who looked at me with absolute disdain at my extended hand and said, “I don’t shake hands”. Now, this was well before Covid and seemed just so unnecessary. The interaction disturbed me so much I decided that I would show her, and so I gave up my seat in one of the back rows and left. What’s hilarious as I look back on that experience now is that my leaving made absolutely no difference to her whatsoever, the show went on without me to what I am sure was a packed house except for my recently vacated seat. But what that experience left me with was hurt, bitterness and humiliation. That ten second interaction completely ruined the night I had planned to enjoy and my resentment began to grow. Oh, how I hoped she would trip on stage, or lose her voice, forget the lyrics or get booed, honestly the scenarios I fantasized to befall her on that night weren’t exactly what Jesus would define as loving, but oh my goodness they were human and they were real and ran deep….

‘But I say to you that listen. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other one also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you….be merciful just as your Father is merciful’

What are we to do with these kinds of moments, particularly when they are with a person who is still in our orbit, who was someone significant to us? What are we to do when a careless word is spoken, or there’s been a betrayal of trust, a negative interaction, or a prejudice plays out of some sort? Well, Jesus’ response is pretty clear….forgive and be merciful. As I said before, this would have been a good Sunday to go on holidays….Forgive and be merciful….now that doesn’t come all that naturally to most of us, but I think if we reframe forgiveness in light of helping to free ourselves from the one who has wronged us, and I am very much aware there are varying levels of being wronged here, and every situation requires a careful consideration of how much forgiveness is possible and when can it be delivered….but in as much as is possible for us, to see forgiveness as an opportunity for us to be freed from our resentment and anger and all the toxicity of that situation, and to just see how God meets us in that moment and opens up a new and unexpected way forward to find life again….

There’s something about entering into unexpected places throughout Scripture and throughout our lives that become entry points into those defining moments that completely reshape our worlds. Sometimes the source of our pain where we end up being completely sold out by a person, a family member, or a community can propel us into a future that we could never have asked for or imagined, where blessings have flowed in unexpected ways. I’m not saying God causes the painful situations, I think that’s very much a human thing. But I am saying God has a way of showing up in the midst of the mess and always offers us a way forward through the wilderness into new life.

Well, our Old Testament Reading this morning from Genesis has something to say about that. The story opens like one of those movies or TV shows in a flash-forward sequence where Joseph who had been sold into slavery by his brothers finally reveals to them who he really is. These are the same brothers who betrayed him and sold him into slavery. He was almost murdered, forgotten. Through this horrific ordeal, his fortune begins to turn as Pharaoh elevates him to high office as a dream interpreter, which then sees his role expand by being given unprecedented power and privilege over the land of Egypt, in an ironic twist, the very enemies (his brothers) become benefactors of his good fortune as they are saved from famine through their connection with the one they had left for dead.

So God redeems the suffering of these cruel brothers through the suffering and elevation of Joseph, who then in turn in today’s reading, far from withholding what would be totally understandable, Joseph freely gave his blessing, his mercy, and unconditional forgiveness, and as the Gospel compels us, he did not even withhold his coat. It’s like that the old wisdom saying, “holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die”. I think more and more that is why forgiveness is so important for Jesus here. As much as it is possible for us, it is a form of release and restoration for our souls.

I think one of the hardest things for me right now in regards to the Gospel that requires me to love my enemies and the example of Joseph’s incredible act of forgiveness toward his brothers is how do I apply this to a global scale? How do I seek to love people in power who actively work toward stirring up hate and division, who’s decisions result in the deaths of millions of people, and who are emboldened through a terrifying rise in popularity that utterly boggles my mind and breaks my heart. Perhaps Desmond Tutu can offer us some wisdom for these challenging times we are living in. This is an excerpt from his book, “God has a Dream”….

“Dear Child of God, I write these words because we all experience sadness, we all come at times to despair, and we all lose hope that the suffering in our lives and in the world will ever end. I want to share with you my faith and my understanding that this suffering can be transformed and redeemed. There is no such thing as a totally hopeless case. Our God is an expert at dealing with chaos, with brokenness, with all the worst that we can imagine. God created order out of disorder, cosmos out of chaos, and God can do so always, can do so now--in our personal lives and in our lives as nations, globally. ... Indeed, God is transforming the world now--through us--because God loves us.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about the necessity of forgiveness because he knows the effects unforgiveness has on individuals and communities. There are so many situations around the world today where unforgiveness tears apart the fabric of communities, furthering the divide toward peace. I think for Tutu, part of the forgiveness process and loving one’s enemies lies within partnering with God in bringing more love into the world to counter the hate. To stand up for justice, but to also embody the love and spirit of Jesus in our protests, to be a transformative power that runs counter to the conventional wisdom of the world which escalates hate into war.

We don’t have to look far in our world today to see how unforgiveness and hatred shows up in a myriad of ways. Yet the love and forgiveness spoken of by Jesus in the Gospel this morning is set within a communal process which I think is important. There is transformative power in simply being in community that teaches to love one’s enemies and to forgive those who do you harm, because even if you can’t bring yourself to do that for yourself right now, the community will hold you, and hold that space, until one day, perhaps you can.

In the meantime, we can work with our struggles as a form of spiritual discipline. We might like to journal and process our difficulties with loving and forgiving our enemies, we could walk the labyrinth outside as a way of gently working with our difficult emotions around a particular person or situation in our world, we could spend time talking to your minister, (I’m always happy to come visit you or have you make a time to see me here) you might want to talk to a counsellor, a trusted friend, you could attend a Bible study here, or take a trip to an art gallery, or listen to a piece of music and allow the beauty of the art to speak to your soul. I guess what I’m saying is, we don’t have to have it all figured out in order to be able to move toward the way of love, but I think it’s important for us to at least, wherever possible, to take an intentional step in that direction for our own sakes, and for the sake of the world. As the old song goes, ‘what the world needs now is love, sweet love.’ This has perhaps never been more true than it is today. Amen.

Anchor 3

MOMENTS OF TRANSFORMATION

Presented to Boolaroo Uniting Church Congregation - 2.3.2025

Focus Text: Luke 9:28-36

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

Not long ago, I received a FaceBook message from one of my former youth group members. He’s now in university and wrote to me for some advice on how he can engage the season of Lent as a time to refocus on his relationship with God, to be transformed in some way through an experience with the living God.

The young man wrote:

“Hi Rev. Dale! I’m interested in actively taking part in Lent this year, I tried doing this last year but felt I missed the meaning. I’d like to try again this year prayerfully, it can be easy to lose focus on my relationship with God.”

Such a wonderful starting point for us to ponder the mystery of this morning’s Gospel from. For it speaks to us of that universal yearning to tap into constant moments of transformation, illumination, and communion with God – to have an experience of the transcendent that lifts us beyond the ordinary world, into that call to adventure, a phrase Joseph Campbell coined, that speaks of the human being entering into new experiences that expand the human soul and consciousness in such a way that the individual is transformed forever by them. It’s a living encounter with the realm of the spirit, an awareness of that thin space that exists between heaven and earth.

In this morning’s gospel, Jesus takes Peter, John, and James up to a mountain to pray – and while he prays, we’re told he is transformed before them, and by extension, they too are changed forever by the holiness of the moment. This gospel passage is reminiscent of Elijah’s encounter of God on a mountain as well as Moses’ transfiguration on Mount Sinai, which for the Gospel writer is an unabashed nod to Jesus being the great prophet of which Moses foretells. The disciples are afraid, in awe, and as usual not quite sure what to do. They are good with their hands, so they offer to build little huts for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah as if they could ever fully capture the experience, but of course they cannot. That is not their purpose here.

For now, the experience is simply to be savoured, and Jesus’ identity revealed. Likewise we can never fully contain these moments of transformation fully and put them in our backpack. Because of course that’s not the point, it’s not even the main event – the real litmus test to whether a transfiguration event was life changing or not, is what we choose to do when we come back down the mountain, when we come back to the ordinary world again. How will we be different? How will we be agents of change for our world?

These moments of transformation or transfiguration come to us in the ordinary every day world but have a way of lifting us up out of the mundane and predictable, and into the realm of the extraordinary, and unexpected. We can sometimes put this realm down to coincidence, but they often leave us with a heightened sense of awareness of synchronicity and an exhilaration of life that cannot be denied. These moments might come to us through a particular piece of art, or a piece of music that cause us to take a more compassionate approach to a person or a situation. They might come to us through thinking about a particular family member or a friend who has become estranged, and we feel an inner nudge to pick up the phone or to reach out in some way with a love we know we did nothing to generate.

These moments might come to us while we travel where we create space to suddenly notice we are on a literal mountaintop experience where we meet God face to face. These moments might come to us as we engage in spiritual practice, as we journal, walk a labyrinth, or undertake a daily prayer discipline from a mystical tradition that speaks to us on a soul level. Through the sacrament we celebrate today in worship, the bread and the wine also become vessels for inner transformation to take place as ordinary elements are blessed and broken, and are given so that recipients might be nourished into a deeper connection with God, with themselves and others, and indeed with all of creation.

CS Lewis wrote a beautiful interpretation of the transfiguration mystery from the perspective of Aslan in ‘The Silver Chair’. Aslan says, “Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly. I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not looks at all as you expect them to look when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearance. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters.”

I love that. He seems to be saying that the power of transfiguration is to be found in the realm of the mystical, the incomprehensible, the transcendent, but like the early morning fog on top of the mountain, it quickly fades away, the experience doesn’t stay with us forever, it comes and then it goes and we have a choice as to whether we will allow that experience to live on in us or not. We have a choice as to whether we will carry back down with us from the mountaintop the love, grace, and peace we experienced while up there.

The converse is true as well, as human beings we also go through our fair share of desert experiences, those dark night of the soul kind of affairs that can weigh us down. Instead of bringing us to life, they nudge us toward death. We can become overwhelmed with our busy schedules, regrets, sorrows, grudges. We can actually desire to stay in these deserts, brooding about what he said, and she did. We can form some kind of identity with our victim hood which keeps us in a perpetual cycle of helplessness. Many people fall into depression and despair by constantly reliving their desert moments. But even in the desert, we have the potential to choose life. As we move into Lent, we’ll explore this more deeply – but as Jesus reminds us in his early ministry – the desert experiences no more define people than the mountain top experiences – it’s what one chooses to do with those experiences that shapes their destiny.

This Lent, it is good for us to ask – ‘where is my mountain? Where can I go to feel God’s presence and be transformed, renewed to come back to the level place, the everyday world to be a source of change and transformation here?’

In mythology, on the hero’s journey, the hero must leave behind the everyday or ordinary world for a time, to respond to the call to adventure. And whilst we don’t always perhaps want to leave behind our everyday lives in our quest for the spiritual life, we are called to find a balance – to consider if there are one or two things that keep us complacent or trapped in ordinary life, when we could be experiencing a mountaintop experience and have our humanity expanded.

The journey of Lent is a journey to find the mountain of transformation through the desert – to allow ourselves the time and the space to return to God, to be transformed and to live our lives from a deeper awareness of God’s presence alongside of us. The God who calls us and empowers us to be more fully who we were created to be, a light to the world, a sign of love and hope, peace and joy to all we encounter. As we commence this Lenten journey this week on Ash Wednesday, let us commit ourselves to never cease to search for ways to listen to Christ in the desert, who calls us up the mountain, to be spiritually recharged and invigorated by the season, and transformed to be sources of blessing & hope to this world God so loves.

This coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday which marks the start of the season of Lent. We’ll be holding a special service on that day at Warners Bay at 9am for those of you who are able to come along, it’s a poignant and intentional way to begin your Lenten journey this year. Similar to the young man who wrote to me seeking to deepen his Lenten experience, we might think about what is possible for us to go deeper this Lent.

There will also be a special Lenten series I’ll be running on Saturday mornings from 10am during Lent which you’re all invited to come along to, however you mark the commencement of this holy season, I’d invite you to do so with a spirit of intentionality and expectation that God will show up, inviting deeper into life in all its fullness. For more information about the Ash Wednesday Service and Lenten series, you can talk to me after the service, and refer to the posters hanging up in the church that contain all the details, and you’re all most welcome to attend.

I’d like to close with a blessing for us all as we move into this Lenten season together;

O Lord, you who invite us up to the mountaintop so that we might find ourselves anew, we pray that we would not be so full of to-do lists and deadlines and anxieties during this season of Lent so that there is no space for you to do your work of transformation in us, but grant us, we pray, the grace to welcome your Spirit’s work to transform, renew, and prepare. Open up a spaciousness for us to pray, reflect and find ourselves in you, so that through this forty-day pilgrimage we might be both blessed and a source of blessing to this world you so love. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Anchor 4

Wilderness Wanderings
Lent 1, Year C
March 9, 2025. Delivered to the Warners Bay Congregation

It’s no coincidence that this first Sunday of Lent, a season of penitence and reflection, begins with the Gospel account of Jesus being tested in the wilderness. It is in the wilderness that Jesus does battle with the problem of evil, suffering & temptation personified in the character of Satan. We’re told that Jesus was compelled into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit for 40 days and 40 nights. We might think of those moments where we too have been compelled to go into an uninviting or hostile environment, either through a decision we have made or it could be made for us by the decision of others that force us into the wilderness. We might also have experienced the wilderness as the unavoidable place we are thrust into by a health situation, a wider political conflict, or through our own passion for a particular cause that places us firmly out of our comfort zone and into a new and uncomfortable place….

The wilderness can be both a place of immense beauty and challenge. People come to experience the wide open spaces, the solitude, just to get away from the hustle and bustle of daily life for a little while, perhaps to be reminded of that ‘something more’ we appear to have lost for the most part along the way. As we begin this season of Lent, we will be reflecting on the desert/ wilderness experience. We will be invited to move into a time of intentional solitude and prayer, of engaging in a rugged spiritual terrain of sorts in order that we might find God in a new way through the journey, through the struggle.

The wilderness is also the place in Scripture where we are confronted with our own humanity. It’s here where we too wrestle with the problem of evil & suffering, of temptation. We have all encountered these in one form or another throughout our lives. We cannot avoid them because they are ever present. We can be affected either through participating or witnessing those moments that diminish our humanity. Lent provides us with the opportunity to divest ourselves of these powers that can take a hold of us, and realign ourselves with God anew.

And whilst our temptations may not be presented to us by a swift talking red guy with a pitchfork, they do come in more subtle ways, designed to schmooze us and entrance us into considering things we would perhaps never ascent to in our right minds. Lent is about sobering up our spiritual lives, facing our temptations head on. It is a time of choosing an alternative way of acknowledging these forces in our lives so they don’t end up running our lives. Lent challenges the logic of these forces, and dispels their power, as Jesus demonstrates in this morning’s Gospel as he enters the wilderness 40 days and 40 nights to do battle with the devil.

The number 40 is seen as the perfect number; the perfect amount of time to demonstrates one’s faithfulness in the Old Testament world. Noah was in the ark 40 days and 40 nights while the waters fell. Moses fasted on top of Mount Sinai as he wrote the 10 commandments for 40 days and 40 nights. Elijah fasted 40 days and 40 nights as he fled to Mount Horeb where he encountered God, the people of Israel wandered for 40 years in the desert as they learned to trust in God - even when all hope seemed lost. God had not forgotten them….and God has not forgotten us either.

This season of Lent that began this past Ash Wednesday will last for 40 days and 40 nights also; as we too live into this practice of our ancestors, to be refined through prayer and fasting, as we too prepare to face our own temptations and encounter God in a way that will transform and renew us if we are willing to be open to the process and actively engage with it. This is what Lent is designed to do, to help remind us that the desert/ wilderness experience need not define us, it can certainly challenge us, even devastate us – but it need not define us, for the love and presence of God is in the desert right alongside of us, and just as the Spirit of God didn’t desert Jesus in the wilderness, that same Spirit will not abandon us either.

In today’s world we are somewhat removed from rites and initiations when it comes to marking those defining stages of human and spiritual development. But in many cultures, a young person who is being initiated into adulthood is sent out into the wilderness alone for a vision quest, to find out who they really are, to find their name, their identity, their purpose in life. In a similar way, this is an initiatory experience for Jesus also as he embarks upon his earthly ministry. The wilderness experience for him would become a time of solidifying the alliance he would make. And so Jesus enters that same place where Moses and Elijah had been sent out before him, the same place Israel would sojourn as a people in order to find a new land they could settle in, and he is tested. His tests are nothing to do with being tempted by bad things, but rather, the tests Jesus faces have to do with whether the good things that are designed to entrap and limit his outreach can lure him off the path toward his destiny.

In both Matthew and Luke’s gospel there are three tests presented; to feed the hungry, to rule the world with justice, and to serve God faithfully. Whilst feeding the hungry is an incredibly good thing, the test is more insidious than simply being able to turn every stone in the desert into bread, challenging Jesus’ ego to become the new Moses, to enjoy the fame and notoriety of feeding the world. And whilst that in itself is an incredibly good thing, for Jesus, feeding the hungry is not and cannot be the only purpose to his life, ‘man cannot live on bread alone’ he says, and whilst it would be easier for him to open the Cosmic Christ Croissant Bakery, this was not the only reason he was sent. As we know, he would later come to feed the hungry as part of a wider mission plan, but this would not be the only string to his bow in ministry – God needed for him to think bigger, which is why he rejected this first temptation.

The second temptation, to rule the world with justice, is yet another ‘good’ temptation – who wouldn’t want that? Someone to control and keep the world’s governing powers in check, tipping their preferences and policies toward justice and keeping the people they serve safe, but even if he were to accept what appears on the surface to be a good offer, the implication is that this offer is not Satan’s to make, and what might Satan ask him to do 3 months or 6 months into the job after that? Corruption can often be veiled at the start as justice. Once Jesus submits to serving the interests of something less than God, where does that path ultimately lead him? – and again the answer is the same, it would be away from the mission of God and so the answer he gives is no.

The third temptation has to do with serving God faithfully. Here Satan’s challenge is convoluted through the quotation of Psalm 91 which promises God’s protection to those who are righteous. But again, all is not what it would seem. Many of the priests who would have been seen as the righteous ones back in those days were actually colluding with the Romans in keeping the poor and suffering in their place – ensuring stability and good order. Again, on the surface that which looks like a good idea contains a very slippery slope just under the surface of what Satan is offering, and Jesus once again rejects selling himself short by accepting an offer that would entrap him into the very unjust structures he came to free people from, and so he quotes Deut 6 to Satan, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”.

We’re told after this, Satan departs from him until “the opportune time”. In the meantime, angels tend to Jesus, he is strengthened in the wilderness, and most importantly his ministry becomes much bigger than anyone of these three seemingly good things Satan offered him. In fact, Jesus’ ministry goes onto to incorporate all of these offers and much much more. Jesus did indeed go onto feeding the hungry, proclaiming God’s justice in his preaching and teaching, and challenging the unjust structures of the empire to the point that it would cost him his life, so powerful was his witness.

In the Gospel this morning, Jesus deals brilliantly with Satan, because at every turn, he resists to buy into the idea that Satan has anything indispensible to offer that God has not already provided. We are invited to consider this very same concept, to see that which may look like a good thing on the surface, may actually be hiding a more sinister agenda, and that these along with our jealousies, our resentments, our addictions, our hunger for power are ultimately illusions. They can lead us into very real and dark places, but they also cloud the greater reality that surrounds, namely that the one who was tempted in the wilderness strengthens us in our weakness and calls us to return to God - and in that act of returning, new possibilities for living life more deeply, more completely, more authentically begin to open up….

Anchor 5