“I do not box as though beating the air,” says St. Paul, and all the boxers in the congregation say … Amen!

There was a great choice of readings to work with today – from Elisha’s healing of Naaman the Syrian to Jesus’ healing of the leprous man in today’s Gospel reading – but I don’t think anybody will blame me today for choosing this passage from St Paul’s first epistle to the Christians at Corinth – “I do not box as though beating the air” – when today we have baptized a lad of such prestigious pugilistic pedigree and who promises to be such a fantastic future fighter!

“I do not box as though beating the air”! You might have thought that I had dug through the Scriptures and specifically plucked this passage out today, but it is not so! This is the reading scheduled in our lectionary, believe it or not!

Evidently it was meant to be – predestined from before the foundation of the world perhaps – that on this auspicious day, when there are so many boxers in the house, that St Paul’s one and only reference to boxing would be read!

Of course, Paul wasn’t referring to the Queensbury-rules-style of boxing with which so many of us are familiar. In St Paul’s day boxing was far more brutal!

There are no shortage of people today, of course, who consider modern boxing to be barbaric. It might help put such things in perspective by comparing the type of sport-fighting to which St Paul was accustomed – namely, the ancient Greek Pankration, which was the original fighting art of the Olympic Games.

Even though it was considered a noble sport, the Pankration was a brutal form of no-rules fighting where too naked men tore away at each other until the one left standing was ultimately able to claim the wreath with which he would be crowned Olympic champion!

Legend has it that when Ulysses returned from the Trojan wars his own mother didn’t recognise him. I’m told though that when the Pankration champion returned from the first Olympics that his own dog couldn’t recognise him! First-century boxing was a brutal activity, which is why it might strike a to be a strange sort of metaphor to use with regards to the Christian life!

In our culture, being a follower of Christ is often considered to be a bit ‘girly’. Indeed, not only in our 21st century Australian culture but worldwide, Christianity seems to have taken on a certain feminine character.

I remember our dear friend Father Elias (the colourful Catholic monk who served us so well here as a part of our community a few years back) saying to me that in France now, where his community is based, you are considered a Christian if your wife goes to church!

Now … I am not regretting that it is chiefly women who are now leading the church into the future (and this despite the best efforts of certain elements of the church’s leadership to hold them back) but I am sensing a certain cognitive dissonance between the imagery of the Christian life that is current in our own culture and that which is here being propagated by St Paul.

“I do not box as though beating the air,” says Paul, and his point is that real faith is a hands-on experience, and there is an implicit contrast here between two ways of trying to follow Christ – one that is a hands on, body-on-the-line type of stoush, and another which is something more akin to boxercise, where you appear to be fighting but when, in fact, you’re only punching the air!

Now I’ve got nothing against boxercise, but as a boxing trainer and fight club manager I can tell you that I often have to make the point to our clients that “this is not a boxercise gym”.

Most people do recognise that of course when they turn up to ‘Father Dave’s Fight Club’. They realise that they are joining a fight club and not a boxercise class, but occasionally people do need to be reminded, because there is a big difference between the two types of gym, and people attend the two for very different reasons, just as people attend church for very different reasons.

Some attend because they want to look good, and because they are interested in self-improvement. Am I talking about the gym or the church? I’m talking about both!

I can tell you though that in our case people do not join because they want to look good nor simply for the sake of self-improvement. They join because they want to fight! Am I talking about the gym or the church? I hope, once again, I’m talking about both!

For this is the key difference between the Fight Club and the boxercise gym. When you come home from Fight Club you sort of expect that you’ll be a little bruised and bleeding.

As most of you would know, I’ve been training pretty hard of late, and I’ve been coming home bruised and bleeding pretty regularly. Indeed, as I look out on the congregation today I think I am in a reasonably unique position as a preacher, as I am looking at most of the people who are responsible for those bruises and blood loss! There’s quite a few of you in fact!

I’ve had the privilege of doing quite a few rounds lately with my brother, Lovemore, and I can tell you that I have come away bleeding on every occasion, though I must add that the only person who has actually stopped me recently (that is, the only person to have actually forced me to stop fighting and take time out before being able to continue) is young ‘Bruiser Dayal’ (16-year-old Irena).

Anyway, the point is that the path of Christian discipleship is likewise a bloody experience. We wish it were not that way but it is.

We wish we could love others without having to make real and costly sacrifices but we cannot.

We wish that we could speak out against injustice without having people ridicule us, malign us, and deliberately misrepresent us, but we cannot.

We wish that it were possible to care for the poor without having to impoverish ourselves but it is not.

We wish we could care for the homeless without having to open our own homes or sacrifice our own privacy, but it is just not possible.

We wish that people weren’t so complicated, and that all our friends and family and children needed was just a few wise words, after which they would sort themselves out, but instead it turns out that family and parenthood and even friendship itself is a life-long commitment where those we love never seem to get things entirely right and where nothing ever seems to get ultimately resolved and where we are nonetheless expected to continue to pour ourselves out without ever necessarily seeing any results for our efforts.

We wish that Christian discipleship was not like this but it is! We wish that fighting the good fight was something more like a boxercise class, where we can go through the motions, look good, improve ourselves, and do so at a minimal personal cost, but this is just not possible. The path to glory is soaked with blood. Am I talking about the Fight Club or the church? Both!

I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it – I do the training. I put in the hard rounds. I put in the work in the gym and in the ring – so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.

The path of Christian discipleship, like the path of the athlete, can be a hard and lonely path. And just as the boxer needs to train properly if she is going to survive in the ring, so the follower of Jesus needs to take her training seriously, to focus, and to put in the hard yards if she is going to make it to the final round.

I know that there are a lot of theories going about as to how best to accomplish that training (and I’m talking both about the Fight Club and the church).

In the world of boxing there are a lot of theories as to how to best prepare for a fight, and I’ve heard most of them. Most recently though, in my own training, I’ve been taking my lead from a wise indigenous friend and boxing trainer who told me that I should simply follow the example of the indigenous fighters of this country in my fight preparation.

Our indigenous sisters and brothers tend to excel in boxing like no other group in the country and this guy swears that all his indigenous fighters do in preparation for their fights is two things – they run and the box.

So that’s all I’ve been doing for the last 12 months in my own fight preparation – I’ve been running and boxing (trying to box at least 10 rounds per night and run a minimum of 10kms/day, six days per week). And I have found that it works!

And at the risk of being simplistic, I want to suggest that, spiritually speaking, there are really only two things we need to focus on in preparing ourselves for the spiritual fight too, and they are ‘prayer’ and ‘praxis’.

Prayer and praxis – those are the keys I believe.

Prayer is what we are doing now – meeting for prayer and worship, and we can’t expect to progress far as a Christian warrior unless we spend time with the commander in prayer and worship.

And praxis is the other key element in the training program. Praxis means doing. It means getting our hands dirty and vigorously doing the work of Christian ministry – feeding the poor, working for justice, sharing the Gospel of hope, and doing all the ordinary, every-day works of love that Christ calls us to do.

I often reflect on the words of Jesus recorded in John chapter 8: “If you hold to my teaching … you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (vs. 31-32)

Doing the truth leads to knowing the truth (rather than the other way round). The more time we put in to actually doing the work of Christian ministry, the more we understand of God and of ourselves, and the stronger we become as Christian pugilists, just as the ring-fighter, the more times he boxes, the better boxer he becomes.

Prayer and praxis – that’s the exhortation I want to finish on today. That might not sound like much of a climax for the sermon but hard work is the flip-side of glory!

I always warn the boys in the Fight Club, ‘winning a fight is glorious, but training, for the most part, is just hard work.’ Perhaps that sums up how a lot of us feel about church at the moment too? Well, we don’t have to enjoy every session, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be there.

For we didn’t follow Christ for His entertainment value, or because we wanted to look good or simply because we wanted to improve ourselves. If those were our goals we would have joined the boxercise class at the local punching-the-air boxercise gym. No! We knew what we were letting ourselves in for when we chose to follow Christ. We knew we were getting ourselves into a fight.

For we don’t have to look to hard around our world today to know that there’s a war going on, and it’s not a fight for the faint-hearted.

We know that if we are truly going to follow Jesus in this world that it is going to cost us everything that we have. But we know, too, that if our resolve is firm and if we train hard, if we develop our spiritual muscle and self-control, if we can endure the pain and keep our cool that we will survive until the last round is over.

We will hear that final bell, we will see the enemy at our feet, and we will receive that imperishable wreath that the apostle speaks of, reserved for those who have fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith. Training is hard, but victory is glorious. Amen!

Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

And it was good to be back amongst those lovely people, and it was good to a part of the live Skype linkup with Mansour back in Esfahan (in Iran) and it was to once again enjoy the experience of being kissed by an enormous number of bearded men (an experience that [sadly] I just don’t get anywhere else).

And I was reminded very clearly, while I was there, of one particularly endearing thing that one of the members of that community had said to me on a previous visit. It wasn’t Sheikh Mansour who said it to me or any of his family members but one of the elders there – a retired professor from Newcastle University.

This man had been looking after me on one of the previous times that I’d been there and we had been talking very warmly and candidly, when said to me, “You know, before I was a Muslim, I was a Christian!” And I was taken aback and said, “Really?” He said, “Yes, and before I was a Christian, I was a Jew”.

Then I understood, of course, that he didn’t mean that he’d actually been a convert from Christianity, but that rather he was expressing our common spiritual heritage.

And of course I could not share his perspective – that Islam fulfils the Christian hope, just as we believe the New Testament Gospel fulfils all the hopes and dreams of the Old, but I appreciated that this elder in the Islamic community was basically just expressing his closeness to me, and I found that touching.

And I’ve thought of that man and his message to me often because I think the whole world needs to hear what he has to say!

I do sincerely believe that if we could somehow get rid of all the dirty politics, we’d find that the common heritage of the three Abrahamic religions is so great – at least in terms of basic ethics and values – that we really have no ideological basis for enmity, let alone for any ‘clash of civilisations’!

‘Before I was a Muslim I was a Christian, and before I was a Christian I was a Jew’ – it was an impressive thing to say, but it was also a statement that required a response, I felt – a response that I wasn’t able to give at the time, but I’ve thought of one since – a good response – and I got it from the story of Noah!

One thing that always comes to mind for me when I think of Noah and the Flood is an old Peanuts cartoon, featuring Linus and Lucy sitting at home, looking out of the window, and it’s raining!

Lucy says to Linus, “I can’t believe how long it’s been raining for! Perhaps it will just keep raining until everything is flooded and we are all drowned?” Linus replies, “No, in Genesis chapter 9 God tells Noah that He will never again allow a flood to take over the whole earth”. Lucy says, “Wow! Thanks”. Linus pauses and says, “Good theology is a beautiful thing!”

Good theology is a beautiful thing, and it’s the theology of Genesis 9 and the flood story that has interested me, as I think it’s a story with a very important message.

The Noah story is a tale of pain and passion – the pain caused by humanity on the one hand, through their violent and reckless behaviour, and the passion of God, who is grieved by His creation and seems to be ready to throw up his hands!

If you’re familiar with this part of the Bible you know that the Noah story is a component part in a series of similar stories that span the first eleven chapters of Genesis – starting out with the very beginning of creation – where things just seem to go from bad to worse.

First there is Adam and Eve and the incident with the snake. Next thing, there’s a murder in Adam and Eve’s immediate family, and things just seem to degenerate from there until, by the time of Noah, we’re told that “every inclination of the human heart was only evil all the time”. (Genesis 6:5)

And I appreciate that that’s a very black and white way of looking at the world, but if you look at what’s going on in the world today, you could be forgiven, I think, for coming to exactly the same conclusion!

And it makes you angry! I find myself getting angry about things all the time! I’ve been getting angry this week about Syria, though not so much over what’s going on in the country itself, but over the way it’s being reported out here!

I’m convinced we’re being hoodwinked again by our media on this one, and I spent extensive time on Friday evening with a guy who had just returned from Syria, and he said exactly the same thing. He said that he and his friends would watch the foreign media coverage from Syria, where CNN or BBC would tell them what was going on in the area they were living in, and it was clearly entirely inaccurate!

And it makes you angry, and people do crazy things when they’re angry. They take up arms and they strap bombs to themselves and they commit acts of violence.

But God is not exactly depicted as getting angry here, but rather as grieving.

“The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.” (Genesis 6:5-6)

And perhaps that depiction of God strikes you as sounding ‘all too human’, but perhaps that is the point!

The God we read of in these early chapters of the Bible is not one who sets the whole machine in motion and then steps back and lets it rip. On the contrary, this is a God who engages with his creation from the outset, and engages passionately!

And so this God gets frustrated, exasperated, and ultimately regrets ever having created the human race. And so the flood comes, not so much as an act of angry vengeance on God’s part, but more out of a desire for a fresh start.

Even so, the flood is a violent act, and there’s no getting around that. It’s exactly the sort of incident that leaves people shaking their heads and asking “why would God allow such a thing to happen?” to which we are generally respond by trying to excuse God from blame.

Here though God seems happy to take the blame, and yet the conclusion to the story is rather telling. God makes a covenant with Noah, and with all flesh through Noah, such that God will never allow another act of such universal cataclysmic violence to ever happen again.

And so God hangs up His bow as a sign to all flesh that such violence is never going to come from His hand again. Just as the modern-day farmer might lock away his rifle in the shed, or the master swordsman sheaths his sword, so the warrior-archer hangs up his bow! And this is what God is does – hangs up His bow above the mantle-piece (so to speak) as a sign that He will never be using it again!

And it’s a covenant. It’s a promise. And if you know your Bible at all you know that the concept of ‘covenant’ or ‘testament’ is a very key Biblical concept.

We divide our Bible into covenants (or ‘testaments’) – the Old Testament and the New Testament, which would suggest that there are only two covenants. In fact, Biblically speaking, I think there are five:

•#This one

•#The covenant with Abraham and his children forever (Genesis12)

•#The covenant with Moses and his people at Mount Sinai

•#The covenant with David – that one of his children will always reign as king

•#The ‘new covenant’ with Jesus

And in each case what we are dealing with fundamentally is a promise – a commitment on the part of God to His covenant partner.

And you can see that there’s a progressive narrowing of the focus of these covenants. They begin with Noah, with a commitment to all flesh. After that there is a commitment to a particular race of people, then to those members of that race that make it to Mount Sinai, then to one particular family within that group (the line of David) and finally to one particular individual (Jesus).

And my dad used to say that it was like a funnel, with the promises of God becoming increasingly focused – from the children of Abraham to Moses, to the specific line of David, and finally to an individual – Jesus, through whom the Grace of God becomes available again to everybody!

And that’s a good way of looking at it, with the funnel ending with a universal shower of love, and it’s appropriate too because it all begins here with Noah with a universal and unconditional commitment to ‘all flesh’, and it is a commitment of mercy – a promise on the part of God that He will deal gently with His children – with ALL His children, and with animals too!

God has hung up His bow. The days of divine violence are over. No matter how bad things get, God is going to find another way of working things through.

It’s a bit of a strange parallel, but I don’t know if you’ve been following the story of Khader Adnan Muhammad Musa –the Palestinian hunger-striker?

I find that story really fantastic, because Khader Adnan is a leader of Islamic Jihad, which is an organisation committed to armed resistance against the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. Islamic Jihad believes that dialogue and so-called passive resistance are useless. As I understand it, he’s openly encouraged people to strap on bombs and do whatever they have to in order to bring an end to the injustice.

And this guy has been arrested a lot of times, though it seems the Israeli authorities rarely have anything to charge him with. So this time when he was arrested, he insisted that he get a trial or be freed, and when they refused to do either he went on a hunger strike!

And he fasted for 66 days, which I believe is a world record (so long as you don’t count the famous Irish ‘terrorist’, Bobby Sands, who didn’t survive his hunger strike). Anyway, Khader Adnan was successful, and the Israeli authorities have said that they are going to let him go! Islamic Jihad, it seems, have one a victory though, ironically, it has not been through armed resistance but through using a form of protest that Mahatma Ghandi made famous!

Yes, there are better ways of dealing with evil and injustice than the resort to violence, and God Himself, according to this ancient story, has committed Himself to finding other ways of dealing with evil and injustice. God will not punish without mercy. God will be gracious because God has made a commitment – a solemn promise of love – to us and to all flesh!

‘Before I was a Muslim I was a Christian’, he said to me, ‘and before I was a Christian I was a Jew’. And my response is, ‘and before we were men of faith, we were men’ – brothers in the flesh (so to speak) and still, as brothers in the flesh, recipients of the promises of God and beneficiaries of His Grace!

For the Covenants begin here, with Noah, with a commitment from God to be merciful to all flesh.

And yes, we enjoy the Grace of God made ours through Christ, but let’s remember that the promises of God were extended to us first not as Christian people but simply as people – simply as creatures of flesh, for God has made a commitment of love to all creatures of flesh.

Good theology is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? And the story of Noah, while many elements of it may be difficult to come to terms with, is ultimately a beautiful story too, I think, for it affirms the fundamental equality of all flesh before God, and it proclaims the unconditional commitment of God to all flesh.

‘Before I was a Muslim I was a Christian and before I was a Christian I was a Jew’. And before I was a man of faith I was a man, and before being a man (in a sense) I am simply a human being – a creature of flesh. But that is nothing to be ashamed of. For on the contrary, it is creatures of flesh that God is committed to, and He has committed Himself to all of us!

Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

Looking through the Gospel text this week I was reminded of the story of the priest who gets pulled over by a policeman after running a red light, and when the window is wound down, the officer is immediately confronted with the smell of alcohol emanating from the car!

“Have you been drinking, Father?” the policeman asks. “Not a drop”, the priest replies.

“Well … would you mind telling me what you’ve got in that flask”, the policeman asks. “Ah … that would be water”, says the priest.

The policeman picks up the flask, opens it and sniffs it. “I believe this is whiskey, Father”, says the policeman.

“Mother of God!” says the priest, “Another miracle!”

And as I read through the Gospel reading today I find myself making the same response: ‘Another miracle!’

We’re actually only in the first chapter of the Gospel according to St Mark, and yet already we have been confronted with a whole series of miracles!

No sooner had Jesus entered the synagogue to teach than he was confronted by a wild, crazy man, screaming out at him, and Jesus healed the man.

And within a day of that event, or so it seems, everybody who is sick or possessed is crowding around Jesus, and Jesus is healing them of their illnesses and driving out demons, and the activity becomes all-consuming, though the irony is that Jesus seems to be engaging in the whole process a little reluctantly!

We sense a degree of frustration, I think, with Jesus early on, as He tries to quieten the testimonies of the possessed – “You are the Holy One of God!” – lest the whole thing get out of hand. And yet it does get out of hand, and Jesus seems frustrated by the hordes that press on him. It appears that He wants people to listen to what He has to say, and not just to get carried away with His miracles or His mysterious identity.

This is made quite explicit at the end of our reading today, where we see Jesus, having escaped from the crowds that were pursuing him to a ‘lonely place’ (vs.35), telling His disciples that it’s time to move on.

“Let’s go to the neighbouring towns so that I can preach there, too. For that is why I came out here.” (vs.38)

And it seems that Jesus, after having taken some time to think things through, realises that His priority has to be spreading His word of hope about the new world coming. The great well of human need that He sees round about him is, it seems, a distraction that threatens to divert Him from His real work.

Surely there were any number of others who could take up the task of healing the sick. Jesus must focus on spreading the word, “for that is why I came out”!

As I say, there is a fair degree of irony in this because despite Jesus’ words, He never actually acts in accordance with His own pronouncement!

Perhaps indeed the ordinary needs of ordinary human beings are a distraction from the greater work of spreading the Gospel, but if so, Jesus seemed to consistently allow Himself to be distracted!

So many people come to him, we are told, that there isn’t room at the door, and yet we don’t see Jesus standing up and saying, “Look! I want everybody to put their physical issues on hold for a moment. I have some things I’d like to say.”

No! There is a well of human misery surrounding Jesus as He begins His ministry, and Jesus wades right into it!

Jesus does not detach Himself. He allows Himself to be distracted. He reaches out. He heals. He liberates both the infirmed and the possessed, and He does so knowing full well that this is detracting from the work that He was sent to do, but He does it anyway!

Yes, at the end of the day he creates some distance for Himself and He decides that it’s time to focus on preaching, and yet the immediate follow-on from this pronouncement is that a person afflicted with leprosy finds Jesus and asks for help.

And Jesus doesn’t say, “Not now, buddy! I’ve got other things I need to be doing. At least wait until the end of the sermon!” On the contrary, St Mark records that Jesus was ‘moved with compassion’ for the man (vs.41), and so He healed him. And so the pattern of preaching AND healing (where there always seems to be a lot more healing than preaching) continues!

Now that story of the man with leprosy is in next week’s reading, I think, and I don’t want to snatch the thunder from next week’s sermon, so perhaps I should focus on the main healing that is dealt with in this week’s story – namely, the healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law – a healing that I must say has to be one of the least spectacular healing stories ever recorded in any of the four Gospels!

It is preceded by the healing of the crazy demoniac and proceeded by the story of the man with leprosy, and it seems like a rather innocuous example to focus on relative to those two!

We are told that Simon Peter’s mother-in-law had a fever, but there is no suggestion there that it was life-threatening. It may have been, of course, or she may have just had a slight touch of the flu!

It does make you wonder why the Gospel writer chose to include this particular incident when it does seem to detract from the action-packed nature of the adventure that’s unfolding.

Was it just that the Gospel writer and his first readers all knew Peter’s mother-in-law personally? If so, it’s a bit of a surprise that she doesn’t receive a name in the story!

Some scholars suggest that there is a movement in the story of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law that is archetypal for the process of discipleship.

As you read the narrative, you do feel that movement:

• Jesus goes to her

• He takes her by the hand

• He lifts her up

• She is healed!

And it’s almost like a dance that Jesus and the woman are sharing in together, where Jesus leads the dance but where, you will notice, the woman makes the final move, for we are told that no sooner has she been healed than she begins to ‘serve’ Jesus – literally, to ‘wait on Him’ but the implication being that she has now become a disciple, and so the dance of love and healing and service will continue!

I’m sure this story has deliberately been framed to encapsulate this movement, as a sort of template for discipleship. Even so, there’s no reason the Gospel writer could not have overlaid that template on any number of other more spectacular healing stories too

My guess is that Mark deliberately included this story of the healing of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, in all its ordinariness, simply because it is so ordinary, and hence so familiar!

We see healings like this all the time, don’t we? We are often involved in healings like this, are we not?

It may be that you, like me, have seen a handful of spectacular healings and/or exorcisms in your time, but for the most part it is these little miracles that we are familiar with, and perhaps part of the point of this passage is that little miracles are still miracles, and the fact that they are small and familiar does not mean that they are unimportant!

I think of all the little miracles I’ve been privileged to be the beneficiary of over the years – not normally directly from the hand of Jesus, but more often through the healing touch of one of Jesus’ people.

I think back to the time when I was struggling with depression, trying to survive my own family breakdown many years ago. And I remember all the little acts of healing that took place back then – the little miracle of a friend who would sit up with me and share a beer with me and let me talk until I was able to go to sleep.

We’ve been remembering the lives of dear old Margaret and Thelma today, and I remember well the small miracles that they would dispense – nothing spectacular, but a gentle word, a loving embrace – coming to me, taking me by the hand, lifting me up and giving me healing and strength. Life’s little miracles!

“Let’s go to the neighbouring towns so that I can preach there, too. For that is why I came out here.” (vs.38)

As I say, there is a subtle irony in this pronouncement, in part because Jesus seems to be incapable of following His own advice!

If Jesus really was psyching up the team for a more focused ministry where words came first and acts of healing second, it was a program He never carried through with. His compassion got the better of Him.

And yet there is another irony here too, and it’s found in the text of the Gospel itself!

Jesus’ priority, we are told, is preaching and teaching, and yet if you read through this extensive first chapter of the Gospel according to St Mark, there’s not a single word of Jesus’ teaching recorded! It actually not until we get to the latter part of Mark chapter 2 that we get any of the actual teachings of Jesus recorded!

I’m not suggesting that this makes the teachings of Jesus any less important – not at all – but I am suggesting that (at least so far as the Gospel-writer Mark was concerned) these were not the things Jesus was best remembered for!

And this is true to life!

As we are remembering today the lives of dear Thelma and Margaret, I must say that I remember them very well, but it’s not their wise words I remember, though I’m sure Thelma (in particular) had plenty for me. It was her compassionate touch, her loving looks, the affectionate kiss, the healing embrace …

St Francis of Assisi is said to have said, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary use words”. I don’t know if he really said it, but it makes sense.

Of course we don’t do anybody any favours by holding back the words of the Gospel, for indeed these words can be the source of life and hope. And yet words by themselves can be very hollow.

When we die it will most likely not be our words that we are best remembered for. Most likely it will be the little miracles that we were a part of. And it may seem sometimes that our contribution is not that great (‘ah … another miracle’) and yet every miracle – great and small – is a part of that great dance that Christ is leading us in.

For Jesus is more than just a teacher, just as His teaching is more than mere words. He is “the visible image of our invisible God”, says St Paul (Colossians 1:15).

Or in the words of Charles Wesley:

Jesu, Thou art all compassion.
Pure, unbounded love Thou art.
Visit us with Thy salvation.
Enter every trembling hear!

‘Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

5And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 6When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” 10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

When I decided that this week I’d preach on the book of Jonah I immediately started to think of fish stories that I could introduce my reflection with, and the only one I could think of is one I fear I’ve already mentioned.

It concerns a guy going fishing at his favourite spot by the river, but when he gets there he realises that he’s forgotten his bait, but he notices a lovely fat looking tree frog sunning himself on a lily pad, so he decides to stalk the frog and capture it and use it for bait. And he’s just about to grab the frog when he realises that there’s a brown snake alongside him who also has his eyes on the frog, and before he can do anything else, the snake has leapt forward and swallowed the frog whole!

Not thinking about what he was doing, but angry as hell at the snake, the guy leaps forward and grabs the snake around the throat and yanks the frog out of its mouth and drops the frog in his bait box. It’s then that it really strikes him that he has an angry, snapping venomous snake in his hand that he can’t simply pat on the head and let go.

Thinking quickly, he grabs his hip-flask with his free hand (which is full of whiskey), opens it, and pours a goodly amount into the open mouth of the snake. The snake goes limp and the fisherman places it on the ground and walks away to get on with his day’s fishing.

About twenty minutes later he feels a tapping at his shoe. He looks down and sees it’s the snake, with two more frogs!

It’s not really a brilliant joke, but what was less brilliant really was my knee-jerk reaction to the mention of Jonah – thinking that I needed to come up with a fish story. I hear the word ‘Jonah’ I think ‘fish’, which really only reflects my historic failure to really grasp what the book is about!

For the fish in the book of Jonah is only mentioned in three of the forty-seven verses of the book, which is in itself a solid indication of the fact that the fish is a minor character in the drama, and hardly the central theme of the book!

I’m not going to beat myself up about this, as Jonah’s under-water antics are indeed the only part of the prophet’s career that are generally remembered in our culture.

I still remember being introduced to the story of the prophet as a child by means of a picture book that had an image of Jonah and his fishy friend on the front cover – a book that I seem to remember was entitled, “Jonah and the Great Big Fish!”

Moreover, the association of Jonah with his scaly friend has so penetrated Western history that the pair long ago became a part of a distinctively maritime lingua-franca! I have read, at least, that the term used by sailors of the under-water grave, “Davey Jones’ Locker” does in fact go back to the book of Jonah!

Apparently there never was any famous underwater character named ‘Davey Jones’ (the lead singer of The Monkeys included). The name is rather a bastardisation of the Western Indian words, ‘Duffy Jonah’ (meaning ‘prophet Jonah’), which means that ‘Davey Jones’ Locker’ is in fact another reference to the fish!

Even so, as I say, the Book of Jonah is not really a book about fish (nor about whales for that matter [for those who feel a need to point out that if Jonah had been swallowed by a whale, a whale is not actually a fish, technically speaking]).

Let’s just clear the deck (so to speak) of fish and whales – neither of which are really significant themes in the book of Jonah. But if the maritime adventure of Jonah is not the key theme of the book, what is it all about? That is the question!

Personally, I stopped seeing Jonah as a fish story once I gave my life to Christ as a teenager and joined a youth group, for it was there that I learned that the book of Jonah was not really a book about fish but was rather a book about priorities and about obedience, and about the importance of submitting ourselves to the will of God, even when God’s plans for our lives conflict with our own personal agendas.

God had a plan for Jonah’s life. Jonah had other plans. Jonah had to learn that in the end it is God’s will that has to be done rather than your own. The book of Jonah, when seen from this perspective, is a challenge to each of us to submit ourselves to the will of God, lest we find ourselves thrown off a boat, drowning in the water, swallowed by a great fish, and spat out in the direction that submission to the will of God would have originally taken us anyway.

We might refer to this interpretation of the Book of Jonah as the pious interpretation, and there’s obviously a lot of value in this ‘Thy will be done’ application of this book, but in my view now, as an adult now, the pious interpretation of Jonah is as far removed from the central message of the book as is the maritime adventure theme!

In truth, I think it is very hard for us Sydney-siders of the 21st Century to grasp the central message of the Book of Jonah for one very simple reason: we just don’t harbor any real hatred towards the Assyrians!

The Book of Jonah was written a long time ago in a culture far removed from our own, and the issue that upsets Jonah in the book and the issue that would have upset most of the original readers of the book was not simply that God had a plan for Jonah’s life (in some a general sort of way) but that God called Jonah to prophesy in Nineveh, which was the capital of Assyria, and both Jonah and the Book of Jonah’s original readers hated Assyrians!

And the Jews didn’t just hate the Assyrians because they looked different either. They hated the Assyrians because the Assyrians had a history of killing them!

Assyria was once the world’s most fearsome superpower! From the middle of the tenth century B.C. right through to the end of the seventh, the Neo-Assyrian Empire dominated the Middle East, and, during the 8th century reign of Tiglath-Pileaser III most especially, their empire was vast – covering all of what is modern-day Iraq and Syria, and covering enormous chunks of what is today Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and, of course, it covered all of Israel and Palestine!

And it was an Empire built on violence! That in itself is in no way unique, of course, as indeed all the world’s empires have been built on violence, and yet the stories of the savagery of the Assyrian armies do seem particularly horrible.

Nineveh’s military machine was renowned for being sadistic. If enemies resisted surrender during the siege of their city, once defeated, the whole population would be horribly mutilated and slaughtered. Their houses and towns would be torn down and burned, and the flayed skins of their corpses prominently displayed on stakes as a warning to others who might have been considering resistance.

After their battles, public amusement would be provided for the people of Nineveh via a victory procession wherein enemy survivors were led down the city streets by leashes attached to rings inserted through their lips, with the vanquished nobles wearing the decapitated heads of their princes hanging around their necks. And all of this fun was accompanied by music from bands of minstrels playing merry tunes! Oh, the people of Nineveh knew how to enjoy themselves!

And they enjoyed themselves like this for more than 300 years! It must have seemed as if the arrogant might of Nineveh would never fade and that their power-hungry god, Assur, was unbeatable. The Assyrian war-machine enjoyed so many bloody victories over their enemies in those 300 plus years between the 934 and 609 B.C., but none was remembered in the Bible more clearly and more bitterly than the sacking of Samaria and the destruction of Northern Israel in 721.

The Jews did not hate the Assyrians because they looked funny or ate strange foods or just didn’t make an effort to mix in with the locals. They hated the Assyrians for far more obvious (and surely far more valid) reasons.

They hated them because the Assyrians had destroyed more than half of their country. They hated them because of the countless number of their kinsfolk who had been slaughtered, imprisoned, enslaved and/or humiliated by the Assyrians. And they hated the Assyrians because in 721 B.C. it seemed that their god, Assur, had been victorious over the God of Israel.

That day in 721 B.C. would forever be remembered by the people of Israel, not just as a day of mourning, but as a day of national humiliation. Their people had been butchered, half their country destroyed, and their temples desecrated.

It was all done by the Ninevites, and so Jonah hated the Ninevites as the readers of Jonah hated the Ninevites. And now God asks Jonah to go to Ninevah to preach to the people there, and call on them to repent! And Jonah did not want to go there. Why would he? The only Jews that went to Ninevah were dragged there in chains!

And yet it’s not only because he hates their city and might well fear for his life in such a place, but most of all because he feared that if he went to Ninevah, God might use him to do something good for the people of Ninevah, and in as much as Jonah might have feared that the people of Nineveh might do him some evil, his far greater fear was that he (Jonah) might be for the people of Nineveh the instrument of some good!

National hatred of an enemy race is a terrible thing, but something we are all familiar with.

I remember being told of a Jewish man and a Chinese man who, amongst others, are sitting at a bar, slowly drinking away the night. There were plenty of others perched between these two at the bar but the Jewish guy kept looking over at the Chinese guy with a surly expression on his face and was mumbling curses at him that got increasingly louder with each beer he consumed!

Eventually the Jewish guy gets up and walks over to the Chinese guy and pours his beer over the poor guy’s head! The Chinese guy says, “What’s that for?” The Jewish guy says, “That’s for Pearl Harbour! My uncle was killed at Pearl Harbour!” The Chinese guy says, “I’m Chinese. That was the Japanese, you fool!” The Jewish guy says, “Chinese, Japanese … what’s the difference?” and he returns to his stool.

Two minutes later the Chinese guy walks over to the Jewish guy and pours the contents of his beer over the Jewish guy’s head. “What’s that for?” asks the Jewish guy. The Chinese guy says, “That’s for the Titanic! My grandfather died on the Titanic!” The Jewish guy says, “What’s that got to do with me?” The Chinese guy says, “Steinberg, Goldberg, iceberg … what’s the difference?”

Humour can be an effective way of confronting racial prejudice. So can stories such as we find in the Book of Jonah.

The Book of Jonah is a book that is written with a purpose, and it’s purpose is not to encourage us to submit ourselves to the will of God (as important as that is) any more than it is to chronicle an ancient yarn concerning ‘the one that got away!’ It’s purpose is in fact summed up very succinctly in the final verse of the book of Jonah (chapter 4, verse 11) which I will read to you, but not just yet!

Before I do read it, I want to raise the question with you, very briefly, as to who might have been the original audience that the Book of Jonah was addressed to?

For the book is set in the 8th century B.C., but most Biblical scholars assume that the book wasn’t actually written till a great deal later – most probably in the post-exilic period, late in the 6th century.

If so, it is quite possible that it was published at around the same time that Ezra and Nehemiah were active in trying to rebuild the ancient city of Jerusalem – a city that had been lying in ruins since the Babylonians had destroyed it 50 years earlier.

And if you are familiar with the history of that time you will know that it was a time of great nationalistic fervour.

The Jews were returning to their homeland and they were rebuilding their ancient city and they were rebuilding their temple, and all of a sudden, for the first time in a great many years, it felt good to be a Jew again!

And leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah did a great deal to encourage the patriotic fervour of the returning Jews and to get them excited again about their city, about their religion and about their God.

And in the process of doing that the issue of racial purity became a sticking point for a lot of people, and indeed both those leaders – Ezra and Nehemiah – became very upset over the issue of inter-marriage between Jews and non-Jews.

Ezra indeed accused the men of mixing their ‘holy seed’ with the people of the lands (Ezra 9:2) and he encouraged large numbers of Jewish men to divorce their foreign wives and to send them away, along with the children of their mixed marriages!

And I’m not saying that the Book of Jonah was written specifically as a response to the nationalistic ‘reforms’ of Ezra (though a lot of scholars have suggested exactly that) but I am suggesting that at around the same time all that was happening, a little tract was certainly circulating that told a story of how God had called one of His prophets to minister in the land of the Assyrians, because the God of Israel loved and respected foreigners too – even the people of Nineveh!

In Jonah 4:11 – the final verse of the Book of Jonah – God says to Jonah “And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that cannot discern their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

Jonah is a remarkable book. Indeed, perhaps the only thing more remarkable than the book itself is the fact that our Jewish fathers and mothers, when it came time to put together the collection of books that have become known as our ‘Old Testament’ recognised that this book – the Book of Jonah – deserved to be included too, as one of the inspired works of God!

It is a book that strikes at the heart of every manifestation of religious nationalism, as indeed it is a book that confronts religious arrogance in all its forms, for it a book that reminds us that the God of Israel, the God of the faithful and the God of the upright, is also the God of the Assyrian, of the unfaithful and of the not-so-upright too!

And that’s why the Book of Jonah is a book our world needs to hear right now.
As our political leaders and media beaver away at dehumanising Arabs and Iranians and Muslim people in general, to prepare us for further bloodshed.
When being Christian has somehow once again become associated with being white!
And when refugees of all kinds are being treated with suspicion and contempt because of their strange foreign habits and strange foreign gods.

It’s time to once again hear the message of the Book of Jonah.

“And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:11)

‘Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

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I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ephesians 3:4-11)

It’s my privilege today to preach on Ephesians chapter 3 – our Epistle reading.

‘Oh great’ somebody says. ‘Finally somebody is preaching on Ephesians 3!’

Well, … somebody might say that. I’ve been here almost 13 years and no one yet, so far as I remember, has ever preached on Ephesians 3 during that time. It’s probably about time someone preached on it. Perhaps someone has been waiting anxiously for this to happen? It’s not likely of course. No one is likely to say ‘Great, Ephesians!’ You’re more likely to ask me to spell the word for you, and this despite the fact that we read from the book only a few minutes ago.

This is always the problem with the Epistle reading I think. And I’ve noticed that those who determine our weekly readings keep trimming the length of the Epistle reading down. And this makes sense to me, for unless you’re a bit of an enthusiast it seems to be pretty hard to keep the Epistle reading in your head for too long.

Oh, we remember the Old Testament reading, which was about David and Bathsheeba. And we can probably remember the gospel reading. But we have trouble remembering the Epistle reading, and perhaps especially this Epistle reading. It seems to be particularly forgettable.
Does anyone remember what it was about?

In Ephesians 3 Paul talks about the ‘mystery of Christ’.

“When you read this” Paul says, “you will perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ”.

This is one of Paul’s last letters. This is a letter written from prison. This is the sort of letter you write to people who you know you are probably never going to see again. It’s the sort of letter where, if you’ve got something important to say, this is the time to say it, because you don’t know how much more time you’ve got left. And for Paul, the important thing he wanted to talk about was the ‘mystery of Christ.’

“You will perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ” Paul says. It is a mysterious truth, he says, “that was not made known to the sons of men in other generations”, but that has been revealed to him and to his Christian contemporaries by the Holy Spirit! And what is this mysterious truth kept secret for so long but finally revealed in Christ?

1.#That Jesus is the Son of God?

2.#That He was crucified, died and was buried, but rose again on the 3rd day?

3.#That Jesus reconciled the world to Himself on the cross?

No. None of the above. The mystery of Christ, now made know, Paul says is … “that the Gentiles are fellow heirs” – that Jews and non-Jews are members of the same body, equally partakers of the promises of God, brothers and sisters in the same church!

This is not the climactic answer we might have expected from Paul. What’s so mysterious about the equality of the races? But listen to him eulogize further:

“Now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace.”

Is Paul talking about the mystical ‘peace’ between humanity and God? No, he’s talking about the peace that Christ brings between people of different races.

“For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility … that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.”
And so he continues.

This is the heart of Paul’s theology in Ephesians. Does it surprise you? Didn’t Jesus come into the world to save sinners? The death of Jesus on the cross spells for us forgiveness and the possibility of a new beginning. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Well, according to the book of Ephesians, the climactic work of Christ on the cross is that by his blood he broke down the dividing wall of racial hostility between Jew and Greek!

That may seem to trivialise the significance of the death of Christ for us. Of coursed this may be related to the fact that we don’t live in Israel!

It’s easy for us to preach the equality of all races when we live in a situation that is relatively tolerant of different cultures. Put yourself in Israel and start preaching that all Jews and Palestinians are sisters and brothers. See how popular you are. And don’t just preach it quietly over coffee to your friends. Preach it the way Paul did – setting up churches made up of Jews and Greeks and Palestinians and Arabs – all publicly worshipping together in the middle of the hostility.

If Paul were alive today, I believe I know exactly where he’d be right now on a Sunday morning. He’d be in the middle of the Gaza strip, leading a magnificent service of joint worship between Jewish and Palestinian Christians. He’d be doing it in the open air, with tanks visible in the background, and people looking on through cracks in the wall out of their bombed-out homes. And he’d be preaching ‘Peace to those who are far off and peace to those who are near, for Christ has made one new man out of two and has brought our hostility to an end.’ The message of reconciliation takes on a different feel altogether when you relocate yourself a bit.

Some of us have just returned from a historical tour of the US. One of the places we visited there was the John Brown wax museum in Harpers Ferry. John Brown was a fiery preacher in the mid nineteenth century who preached the equality of blacks and whites, and who tried to start an armed rebellion amongst the slaves, beginning at Harpers Ferry. Whether you agree with Brown’s methods or not, no one could doubt the integrity of his zeal, nor the fact that his convictions grew out of a fundamentally Biblical mandate that through the death of Christ all the races have been made one!

John Brown was hanged in Harpers Ferry. In the years that followed his death many thousands and tens of thousands went off to war because they believed that they had to fight in order to make that proclaimed equality a physical reality by ending slavery.

Preaching genuine equality is dangerous business. It cost Paul his life too.

The details of Paul’s ultimate end have always been a little hazy, but we know that the prison letters were the last letters he wrote, and we believe that he was executed by the government – probably beheaded -not long after writing this letter to the Ephesians.

Why did Paul have so many enemies? How is it that he stirred up so much trouble such that the authorities had to keep stepping in to silence him, and eventually felt the need to silence him altogether? Was it because he went around telling people to be nice to each other and to live good middle-class lives? I don’t think so. It was because he challenged what was at the heart of the religion and culture of his own people – the idea that his people (the Jews) were God’s special people, and that the rest of the world were not.

In my understanding, there are some things that are essential to being Jewish in this world and there are other areas where there is a great degree of flexibility.

As to how you envision God and His relationship with the world, I understand that there’s plenty of room for discussion within the Jewish community. As to your beliefs about the Messiah, again, traditional Judaism, I’m told, takes a fairly liberal attitude in terms of allowing different people to believe different things. You might think Jesus is the Messiah. I might disagree. This in itself would not necessarily mean that we can’t worship happily together in the same synagogue.

But there’s one point of dogma in Jewish understanding where there is really very little room for maneuver. That’s the understanding that the Jews are God’s chosen people. That’s the fundamental basis of the faith. The Jews are God’s chosen people and for that reason they are different, and so much of what we associate with traditional Jewish religious practice was developed to reinforce exactly that point.
As a Jewish parent you would teach this to your children – that we dress differently and eat differently and live differently because we are different. We are God’s special people – chosen at the beginning of history to be the guardians of God’s law and the messengers of God’s truth to the rest of the world. We are a holy people, a separate people, and that’s why we don’t associate with people who are not of our race.
Paul comes along and says ‘Well, that was yesterday. But now that Christ has come, that wall of hostility has been broken down, and these two people have become one!’

Paul started out on the other side of the fence of course. He was brought up as a strict Jew and trained as a Pharisee. And we know that he spent much of his early career trying to wipe out the church for exactly this reason, because he saw the threat that the inclusive attitude of the Christians posed to his own community. But Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, and so he came to say that all that good breeding and upbringing that had once made him feel so self-important and unique he ‘counted as crap’ for the sake of knowing Christ and making him known.

In Paul’s understanding, whatever distinctive role the Jewish people had to play in the historic plan of God for the world – whatever role they had as guardians of the law and messengers of the truth – was now over. The time of separateness was finished. Through Christ all people were being reconciled and brought together. The hostility had to come to and end! This was the stand that would ultimately get Paul killed.

They say that Martin Luther King Jr. was a very shy and retiring man who probably would not have upset anybody too much if he’d kept his radical preaching and ideas about equality squarely inside the walls of his own church. The problem was that he started doing those marches, and thrusting the whole thing into everybody’s faces.

Paul, likewise, was a guy who pushed the issue of racial equality into everybody’s faces. He had a public showdown over the issue with the apostle Peter early on (you can read about that in his letter to the Galatians). He organised a worldwide aid fund at the end of his life, designed both to relieve the poverty in Jerusalem and also to bring together the churches of the different cultures. And throughout his ministry Paul deliberately fashioned the churches he was involved in to be living testimonies to the rest of the society of the new reality of racial integration and harmony that Christ made possible.

This brings us back to what I think is the climax of Ephesians chapter 3:

Paul says that it is his mission in life ‘to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.’

Let me unpack that for you a little. Paul’s mission is to make known the mystery, which, as we have seen, was the mysterious coming together of the different peoples of the world through Christ. Paul now goes further and says now that the wonderful consequence of this mysterious coming together is that through the church the manifold wisdom of God is made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.’

Here is one of the few times that I, as a preacher, am glad that I know a little Greek (the original language in which this letter was written) for I can tell you that the word ‘manifold’ here (the ‘manifold wisdom of God’) can more be literally translated as ‘multicoloured’.

The church proclaims, Paul says, the ‘multicoloured’ wisdom of God around the world – and not only around the world but even beyond the world and into the heavenly realms, so that even the principalities and powers in the heavenly places can see the wondrous mystery of Christ made known! And they see it through the church, not simply because we’re talking about it, but because, as a multicoloured community, we proclaim the wisdom of God just by being who we are!

•#Think about that friends! We proclaim the coming of a new Kingdom:
•#A world where every tear will be wiped away
•#Where lions and lambs lie down side by side
•#Where war is no more because people can genuinely get on with one another
•#Where black and white, rich and poor, male and female, slave and free are all equal.

We proclaim the coming of Christ’s kingdom, but we must admit that there are very few indications in this world that this Kingdom is really on its way.

Someone said to me only the other day “I’ll bet you all I’ve got that this Kingdom of yours ain’t coming”. I said “I’ll take that bet”, but I know full well that as you look around the world you don’t see people coming together everywhere. You see more and more people and nations splitting further apart!

But this is where St Paul says to us, ‘But wait. Look at the church! In the church you see people living in genuine community. In the church you see black and white, slave and free, rich and poor, male and female all living together as one! In the church we see a living sign of the world to come, for in the church the multicoloured wisdom of God is being proclaimed to the very principalities and powers in the heavenly places!’

Of course the church doesn’t always look quite that good. Often the church is just as divided as the rest of the world.

Even here, we have not been immune from the natural phenomenon that ‘birds of a feather tend to flock together’. OK. We don’t have a huge issue with Jewish people not being treated as equals in our midst, and I’m sure that we would state very dogmatically that nobody is consciously excluded from our community. And yet, like any group of human beings, we’ll tend to mix with people we feel natural with. We’ll tend to gravitate towards people who have a similar cultural background to what we do and a similar educational level to what we have, because those are the people who are likely to understand us best and so those are the sort of people we are most likely to enjoy.

What would St Paul say? I think he would simply urge us ‘people, be the church!’ You are the church of God, called to be a sign to the rest of the world of the Kingdom coming, called to be a living example of true community, assigned the privilege of proclaiming to the world, and to the worlds beyond our own, the multicoloured wisdom of God through the very multicoloured beauty of your own congregation!

Let’s not forget! It’s too easy to forget the Epistle reading, to easy to forget what Paul was talking about in Ephesians 3, and to easy to forget who we are supposed to be as the church.

Around the world I think much of the church has forgotten who we are supposed to be, and it is quite possible that we will let this go in one ear and out the other, just as we did with the Epistle reading when it was first read to us today.

Let’s not let that happen. Let’s not forget who we are and who we are called to be. We are the church of God. We are the people who, in our very communal life, make known the mystery of Christ to the rest of the world. We are the people who proclaim to the principalities and powers in the Heavenly places the multicoloured wisdom of God. And we do this just by being the church, and by living together in love as Christ taught us to.

‘Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

In Acts chapter 11 we are told that Peter had a dream, and the thrust of these two dreams is remarkably similar!

In a bar in New York there are two guys sitting at opposite ends of the bar eyeing out each other as they sink a few beers. One guy is a Jewish American. The other guy is a Chinese American. After his third beer the Jewish guy takes what’s left of his glass, walks over to the Chinese guy, and pours it over his head saying “That’s for Pearl Harbour. My grandfather was killed at Pearl Harbour.” “Pearl Harbour!” the Chinese guy says. “I’m Chinese. It was the Japanese that bombed Pearl Harbour.” “Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese – all the same to me!” the Jewish guy says. The Chinese guy then takes his beer and pours it over the Jewish guy’s head, saying, “That’s for the Titanic. My great Uncle was killed when the Titanic went down.” “The Titanic” says the Jewish guy, “what have I got to do with the sinking of the Titanic?” “Goldberg, Steinberg, Iceberg – all the same to me!” the man replies.

“Prejudice is the child of Ignorance” said William Hazlitt a couple of centuries ago. For the most part he is surely right, but not in some situations. Having just emerged from two weeks in Israel, I’d have to say that the prejudices that vibrate across that country are deep and complex – not a matter of simple ignorance. When I look at the way battle lines were drawn between different ethnic groups in New Testament times, the situation there is also complex.

The Jews of 1st century Palestine did not mix with the Greeks and the Romans. Why not? Partly because they (the Romans) were an unfriendly foreign power that had invaded their land. Partly because they represented a style of life that the Jews saw as idolatrous and self-seeking and that threatened to corrupt their youth. Partly because Biblical piety demanded that the Jews remain a separate people – distinct in appearance and in lifestyle from their neighbours. And partly, I suppose, because they just looked different.

Visit Israel today and you will likewise find a situation that is complex, yet the reality of prejudicial hatred and violence is everywhere. It was a good learning experience for me – being on the wrong end of prejudice. Being male, middle-class and white, I’m normally well ensconced on the comfortable side of racial tensions. Not so when I went to Israel. It was a first for me to feel looked down upon, to be threatened, kicked and spat upon, though I was always conscious of the fact that I was just a tourist. Others had to live with this every day.

If we had met the Apostle Paul before his conversion – when he was still known as ‘Saul’ – we would have found him hard to get on with. Well … I suppose he would have had no dealings with us. Even so, if we caught a glance from him as he was passing by we would have felt him looking down his nose at us. He wouldn’t have deemed us worthy of his conversation, let along his presence at a meal.

I imagine Peter to be naturally warmer than that. My guess is that Peter would have managed a smile for just about anyone – from his fellow Jews to Samaritan women! Even so, the early Peter would never have consented to sit down to have a meal with us, as he would not stain himself by coming under the same roof as us.

And it’s not a case of simple prejudice based on ignorance. God Himself had given the people of Israel a variety of rituals with which they circumscribed their lives, and the whole point of those rituals was to make themselves different as a people.

To be ‘holy’ always meant to be ‘separate’ or ‘different’. The Jews were self-consciously different. And they wanted to remain different because God wanted them to be different!

It was written: ‘every male among you shall be circumcised’. That made them different.

It was written: you don’t eat pork (Leviticus 11). That made them different too.

Indeed there were lots of things written that were designed to remind you that you, as a child of God, were different from the rest of the world – holy, pious, focused on God.

Of course this sense of thinking that you were different from others easily lends itself to thinking that you were better than others, which is where the critique of Jesus upon the whole system begins. According to the dream in Acts 10 and 11 though it appears that the entire system is to be abandoned! The actions runs as follows:

1. Peter has a dream of a great picnic where God is telling him to have a bite of all the things that he isn’t supposed to eat. Peter has this dream three times!

2. As he finishes dreaming, representatives of Cornelius the Roman centurion come to his house and ask him to accompany them to meet Cornelius.

3. Peter goes with them, enters Cornelius’ house, starts talking, and everybody starts speaking in tongues, reminiscent of the day of Pentecost!

4. Peter says, “These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have”, and so everybody gets baptised.

This is my summary of Acts 11, and Acts 11 is actually just a summary of Acts 10. This is a story that gets repeated over again in the book of Acts, presumably because it is important.

I think I’m right in saying that there is only one other story in the book of Acts that gets this sort of treatment. It’s the story of Saul’s experience on the road to Damascus – where he’s thrown of his horse and blinded and where he hears Jesus speaking to him.

Ironically, in both cases, the truth that God brings to the men is roughly the same – that God does have a place in His heart and in His Kingdom for non-Jews.

What we need to understand is that this was the big issue in the first century church. This was why the early Paul (or ‘Saul’) and so many of his pious contemporaries hated the Christians.

It wasn’t just because the Christians thought that Jesus was the Messiah. That might have been a sticking point for some, but within the Jewish faith there were then (as there are now) different beliefs about who was the Messiah.

It wasn’t just about who the Messiah was. It was most fundamentally about the fact that the Christians were dissolving the dividing wall between Jew and non-Jew, and this was seen as a threat to the entire fabric of their faith and their society!

There might well have been room within Jewish society to accept different beliefs about different Messiahs. Look at the literature of 1st century Israel and you will see that different groups had different Messianic expectations. Most people were waiting for a warrior leader. Some were waiting for a priest. If you look at the Dead Sea Scrolls, it seems that the Qumran community, who were a group of Jewish monks, were expecting both!

1st century Judaism might well have been able to absorb within its ranks any number of godly Jews who recognised Jesus as the Messiah, and had not God given Peter this dream, and had not God struck down Saul and turned him into Paul, and had not God very deliberately forced the church to burst the bounds of any narrow ethnic exclusivism, then we might still be a small sect within the larger body of Judaism.

But it was not the will of God that his people should remained defined by any one ethnic group, just as it is not the will of God that we remain defined by any one social group, just as it is not the will of God that we be defined by any homogeneous unit that separates us from our fellow men and women.

On the contrary, as we read about God building the church in the book of Acts what we see is that He was very deliberately building a multi-coloured community where in Christ there was ‘no Jew nor Greek nor Palestinian nor Arab, no rich or poor, no slave or free, no male or female, but where all are one, for all are in Christ as Christ is in all.’

Peter had a dream. Martin Luther King had a dream. Some of us find that this dream continues.

It took us some 2000 odd years, and it is taking the church longer than most, but we seem to be finally discovering that there is indeed no male nor female in Christ, but that women are in fact equally capable of ministry and service as are men. It turns out that “These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we did”. By the grace of the Spirit of God some of us have discovered that, and so the dream continues.

For me the biggest personal spiritual breakthrough in the last ten years has been a realisation concerning my brothers and sisters who share a different sexual orientation to mine. By the grace of the Spirit of God I came to see that “many of these people had received the Holy Spirit just as I had”. And so the dream continues.

For many of us here the Spirit of God is still at work expanding our vision and enlarging our hearts, helping us to realise that young people as well as old, uneducated as well as educated, working class as well as middle class, people of all types and colours and backgrounds are all one in Christ Jesus, indeed, that “these people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have”.

It is a dangerous thing to dream. And it is certainly unsettling for the church leadership. Things would be so much easier if God restricted Himself to communicating with us only through the direct study of the Scriptures. Such a God would be a lot easier to contain and to predict. But it seems to be built in to the package, that if we are going to worship a living God, then we are going to have to put up with ongoing surprises.

And the surprises, I believe, keep coming in this same area – that God is continuing to open us up as a community to become the truly multi-coloured family that He always intended us to be. They tend to keep being in the area of pushing us beyond our comfort zones and moving us from ‘me’ to ‘we’ and from ‘us and them’ to just ‘us’.

I must admit that spending a couple of weeks in Israel has deepened my perspective on these matters. I’ve now had the experience of being kicked and spat upon because I am different. This is not the way things are supposed to be. This is not the way that things one day will be. And God has very deliberately constructed the church so that it might be a sign to the world now of the fact that things don’t have to be this way.

We are not there yet, but we can keep building and we can keep praying and we can keep dreaming, of that great feast when all peoples will come together and share together in the good things that God has given us, of that day when former slaves and former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of fellowship, of that day when every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

‘Fighting Father’ Dave – Parish Priest, Community Worker, Professional boxer, Martial Arts master, Father of three. Dave’s goal is to offer an alternative culture for young people, based on values of courage, integrity, self-discipline and teamwork. He is available to help work your corner as you fight the good fight. Visit http://www.fatherdave.org for more information.

This is where it is a sensible idea to employ professional asbestos lawyers to look into your illness. It can take between 15 and 50 years for someone exposed to asbestos to develop a cancer, although they may have earlier lung conditions such as pneumonia which can be a warning before the cancer emerges. However, doctors rarely realize that their patient is at risk for asbestos cancers unless they develop, and by now it could be difficult to heal the sufferer. More often than not the former employee and his family could be left looking for compensation which will assist prolong his life for a brief period, however will not be ready to let him live through the condition.

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This suggests that coaches, hardcore self-developers and similar people usually go around with a really positive state of mind, apparently inhabiting a life where the sun shines at all times, and where for each of life’s difficulties – oops sorry! – “challenges”, there is a soothing belief/rationalisation/slogan that makes it all sound like something that they wanted all along. Lost your job? “At the moment I’m free to follow my true purpose!” Boyfriend left you? “It was not ‘meant’ to be!” Best friend just died? “Each and everything happens for a reason!”

Now do not get me wrong, I believe that many of these people truly do live through really happy lives. I am aware that I usually do Nevertheless … I don’t believe in the conveyor belt, in “one size fits all”, when it pertains to the way we react to what’s happening in our lives.

So maybe there are times when the relentlessly positive is just not what we may want to hear. For those times, we want an alternative – one that acknowledges that we sometimes can’t elude or spin our situations. As there is success in our lives, and there is also unsuccess, in several other forms: big and small, material and psychological, internal and external.

Obviously saying this is merely a reminder of what we actually already know. But it’s even an invitation to act like we did really were aware of it, and to choose, to the best of our power, to be completely unbothered by the truth that the world is constructed the way that it is (because let us face it, it is, is it not?)

The old life-coachy cliché, “There is no failure, only feedback” could be an incredibly empowering slant. But so can “It is natural and really OK that we don’t always get, or get to keep, what we determined to put on our wish list”. Since once we bear in mind that the universe wasn’t created to be an endless pleasure machine for our every need and wish, life becomes not harder, but considerably simpler!

It disappoints me that in the self-development industry the role models held up are those who have achieved success to a great extent (which invariably translates as raking in inconceivable numbers of dollars or by accomplishing international celebrity status by “selling” their ideas). Surely a happy and meaningful life doesn’t have to be like this?!
It may just be me, but individually I’m a lot more impressed by those who have learnt to accept and live tremendously well with the unsuccesses they come across on their path.

Live the difference Life Coaching is based in Melbourne which offers transformational one-on-one coaching both face-to-face and on the phone. People come from all walks of life and live in and around Melbourne, interstate and overseas. Visit http://livethedifference.com.au for more information on Life Coach