Dedication festival: 2 August 2009

This Sunday St Peter's celebrates the anniversary of its dedication in 1848. Please join us at any of our regular Sunday services. The pew sheet for High Mass can be found on our website. Music this week includes Byrd's Mass for Five Voices and Bruckner's Locus Iste, together with a postlude by JS Bach. Fr John Davis will preach, and we will also be celebrating the sacrament of baptism.

Ordinary Sunday 17 - 26 July 2009

Please join us at St Peter's this week - details of our Sunday services are below. You can find more information and a link to the full Sunday pewsheet at our website.

Readings this week
2 Kings 4.42-44 Psalm 145, Ephesians 4.1-6, John 6.1-15

8am Family Mass
Celebrant & Preacher: Fr John Davis

9:30 Mass - special Children's service
Celebrant: Fr John Davis
Preacher: Fr Matthew Healy
Hymns: 397, 294, 368
Postlude: Fantasia in G - JS Bach

11am High Mass
Setting: Missa Aeterna Christi Munera - Palestrina
Anthem: Ave Verum Corpus Natum - Byrd
Celebrant: Fr Matthew Healy
Preacher: Fr Tat Hean Lie
Hymns: 397, 368, 294, 280
Postlude: Fantasia in G - JS Bach

5pm Solemn Evensong & Benediction
Preces & Responses: Plainsong
Canticles: Dyson in C Minor
Anthem: Litany to the Holy Spirit - Peter Hurford
Hymns: 150(ii), 242, 307 (vv1,4) 308 (vv 1,4)

6:30pm Mass
Celebrant & Preacher: Fr Matthew Healy

Meeting at The Hill for the Society of Catholic Priests.

Monday July 27th at 6 pm.

SCP is 'in formation'. This is the third such meeting : testing the water, exploring this aspect of vocation and mutual support, discerning the level and degree of interest. Former Dean of Newcastle Graeme Lawrence will be speaking . Mass at 6 pm, followed by a meal and a meeting. SCP flows from the tradition of priestly societies of the last century and a half . It offers a sustaining collegiality for priests and those preparing for ordination that is catholic and inclusive, seeking to embrace mission and service with a generosity of spirit. Contacts about this step are being made around the country. The level of positive response is very encouraging.

"Be aware of the limitations of ministry" - this week's sermon from Fr Matthew

In the movies you come across all sorts of images of burnt out, ministry-fatigued priests, but there is one such image that remains firmly fixed in my mind. It is from the film "Priest", which incidentally depicts a number of burnt out priests. The opening scene shows the figure of a late-middle aged Irish priest marching up the street of one of the poorer suburbs of Liverpool in the UK. He is holding a rather large crucifix under his arm. In his face you can see that he is determined, that his march with the crucifix is deliberate, it has a purpose — and sure enough within a few shots you gain a glimpse of his intended destination — the Bishop's house. Once he has climbed over the secured area, he stops, takes the large crucifix, holding it forward like a sword, and then charges the windows of the bishop's study. He drives the crucifix through the lead light glass, the fragments of glass shattering all over the floor of bishop's study, with the whooping big crucifix landing amidst the detritus. You never saw the face of the bishop (which is a shame!) but as the audience we are aware that at the time the bishop was seated in his plush leather chair behind his grand mahogany desk drinking tea from a fine bone china cup. It is clear that the Irish priest is not happy with his bishop!

This same priest appears in another scene sometime later in the film. A younger priest, who is the film's central character, comes to visit the Irish priest so as to obtain some advice. The young priest is struggling with internal tensions revolving around his failure to live his vow of celibacy in a chaste manner and his very conservative theological views — no easy combination! So the young priest pours out his heart to the Irish priest (naturally over a heavy session of whisky!). The young priest states that he has no doubts about his vocation, but he just can't live it celibately. The Irish priest responds by explaining that he personally has never had a problem with celibacy but he knows for sure that he doesn't have a vocation to the priesthood nor does he any longer hold to much of a belief in God. The older priest argues that at this stage of his life it is all too late, for what else can he do? He just has to stick it out and put up with it. It cuts for a very sad, lonely and desperate depiction of ministerial life — but unfortunately for some it's not far off the mark. We have all seen priests come and go — and sometimes sadly because of scandal or loss of faith or sense of vocation. The eyes always give it away. The collar is on, but the 'priest' left years ago.

For both clergy and laity I think that today's gospel is about the need to be aware of the limitations of ministry; I think it is also provides some preventative measures to avoid the pitfalls that will be faced by anyone involved in active ministry — lay or cleric. But the most important underlying truth of this gospel is about whom we rely upon in this ministry — either as priests or as lay ministers or collectively such as a vestry or as a parish. Do we rely upon our strength and willpower for ministry or do we believe and trust that God is working his grace through us, or despite us, for his ministry to his people?

Today's gospel is not about burnt out disciples — though perhaps it does hint at their fatigue — but is about the limitations and the model of ministry. We hear of the disciples having just returned to Jesus after they had fulfilled his commission to them to go out to all, to teach and heal in the power of his name, as heard in the gospel proclaimed last week (6:7-13). In the immediate scene prior to today's gospel we hear of the arrest and beheading of John the Baptist at the order of Herod, a Jewish Roman collaborator — a suitable reading for any overly enthused or reforming cleric. But back to the return of the disciples from their commission — they are excited about the results of their work performed in the name of Jesus. Jesus senses their surprise and like any good novice master knows that at this stage they can't be pushed too far — so, with all the activity and busyness that surrounds the work of Jesus, he invites them to go and get some rest, to take stock of their share in Jesus's ministry. They will need to be rested if they are going to take in the profound revelation of who Jesus is. In the two scenes that follow on from today's gospel we see how Mark makes deliberate parallels with two Old Testament motifs to show that Jesus is indeed the Son of God.

Firstly, the people keep on harassing Jesus and, now also, his disciples, for they have seen the work they have performed. They want more. The people are hungry and thirsty for spiritual and personal direction and fulfilment, having become disillusioned with the empty, unsatisfying diet offered by their religious leaders. So they just keep hanging around. Jesus sees their need and has compassion for them, for they have no shepherd to lead them. The disciples, still exhausted, suggest a very practical solution — send them into town to obtain their own food. This will relieve them of their physical need and it will also get them out of the way of the disciples. Jesus retorts to the disciples: no, you feed them. The first revelation of the reality of Jesus commences. The ever practical disciples suggest that they will go to town and bring food back for all 5,000. But Jesus asks them as to what food they have with them: five loaves of bread and two fish. Now, even the disciples know that the best Parish Ladies Guild couldn't stretch that to meet 5,000 people! But Jesus tells his disciples to put the food before the people. They do and at the end of the gathering they manage to collect 12 full baskets of scraps. Mark is drawing upon the Old Testament image of feeding in two ways: the Exodus tradition which narrates the time the Hebrews grumbled of hunger in the desert of the Sinai peninsula and God gave them quails and manna from heaven; and the model of the Shepherd-King David, who gathered into unity the split kingdoms of the north and south, nourishing his people in a united Kingdom of Israel. So the feeding of the 5,000 is a about a God who gathers and feeds his people — Jesus as the new Moses and new Davidic king.

Secondly, a little further on Jesus tells his disciples to board their boat and head back. He stays behind. Once they are out on the deep waters, a storm arises and the disciples are in trouble. They are fearful amidst the powers of the chaos. Then Jesus walks over the watery tumult toward them. They think he is a ghost. He questions their doubt and calms the storm, bringing hope out of their fear. Order is brought to the watery chaos, reminiscent of the Genesis creation story. This is a God who is triumphant over the underworld, who has power over sin and death, of the forces of destruction. It is a mini resurrection parable — Jesus as the Lord of all creation, of life and death.

Now let us return to today's gospel passage. If scholars can interpret Mark to be making bold theological claims about Jesus as being the Son of God, of drawing parallels with the dominant motifs of the Old Testament, then I think we can pursue an interpretation of the 'rest time' offered by Jesus to the disciples as being another Old Testament motif at play within the text: namely the observance of the Sabbath. It is taking time out for recreation, rest, worship, contemplation; the space to put things into their proper perspective. It is here in this Sabbath time that we can stop and just be. Sabbath time is not an optional extra, it is essential for the effective and meaningful ministry of Jesus exercised by those called to such a ministry.

In a book I read some time ago a story is told of a pastor who resigned from her pastorate. She told her parish, "I can no longer meet all the needs of this parish, any more than I can chase down all the cicadas on a hot January night." The author of the book simply asks: who had told her that she could meet all the needs of his parish? In another part of the same book there is the story of a businessman with a lot of influence, who goes bushwalking for a week every year. While he is gone he asks his wife to save all the newspapers delivered during the week. Upon his return he reads every one, and reminds himself that all the news events he read about occurred without him!

People who are caught up in the mystery that is the gospel of Jesus and who are under the sway of his teachings also require this type of reminder. The apostles of today's gospel gained two lessons from Jesus about ministry: that God's power can work through them, and that God can also work without them. When their level of compassion and empathy was low and their capacity to respond was exhausted, the people were fed regardless, as like manna from heaven, as the apostles observed from their boat upon the waters. Dr John Westerhoff, an educationalist and an Episcopalian priest of the TEC in the USA, says that the modern line of atheism can be summed up in one proclamation: "If I don't do it, it won't happen." It's a line I have certainly heard from many a priest and also from many a 'vital' and 'essential for the existence of the parish' parishioner. "If I don't do it, it won't happen." I suspect the real subconscious and unspoken fear is truly: "If I don't do it, someone else may do it better!"

Jesus invites his disciples to "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while." Jesus's thoughtfulness toward the Twelve beckons them to be balanced in their ministerial life. He teaches his disciples, as indeed he now teaches us, that the lifestyle we choose to adopt is to be one modelled upon his life — a balanced life of pastoral care, of mission, of worship, of being in community and of periods of solitude. Being a people that obverse a Sabbath is a necessary and integral aspect of the lifestyle we are called to live as disciples of Jesus.

Henri Nouwen in his book The Way of the Heart: Desert Spirituality and Contemporary Ministry states "In a world that victimises us by its compulsions, we are called to solitude where we can struggle against our anger and greed and let our new self be born in the loving encounter with Jesus Christ. It is in this solitude that we become compassionate people, deeply aware of our solidarity in brokenness with all humanity and ready to reach out to anyone in need."

God convokes the Christian assembly to celebrate the Eucharist, wherein Christ is broken and shared in Word and Bread. Then, having fed his faithful by giving himself to them through Word and Sacrament sends them into the world to announce to the crowds, who wander about lost like sheep without a shepherd, the good news of salvation. In announcing this good news it is hoped that all of us may one day share the same joy and unite ourselves to the thanksgiving of God's children finally gathered in his eternal banquet hall. The call to this ministry is also a call to live balanced lifestyle of Jesus in prayer and reflection. It is a lifestyle of action in ministry for the salvation of all people, trusting and knowing that God will work in us for others, and he will also work for others without us. Solitude and space for reflection are essential aspects of a balanced Christian life. Essential because they remind us that God is at work, and they give us the wisdom not to get in the way of God's work and mission in Jesus Christ.

From the Vicar - this week's major news item for Anglicans

Both the Church of England General Synod and the US Episcopalian General Convention have been meeting this week. Cyberspace is full of commentary. In our Anglican dispersed authority way of doing things, these are the highest-level legislative bodies for those Churches. Together bishops, clergy and laity discuss, consider and decide. This does mean that there are differences of approach and style and even content across the various national Churches flowing out of the English tradition. As we all know, some of these differences are becoming more pronounced. They exist here in Australia. A mutual respect for difference across cultural and historical divides would be helpful. And perhaps a large dose of those gifts of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22. Instead there are calls everywhere for division or schism. We are not, it is declared, able to stay in the same institution with such differences.

The key issue that divides is same-sex relations and in particular the ordination or consecration of otherwise qualified people who are in committed relationship. The American vote was on Tuesday July 14th.

The Episcopal Church General Convention 2009 Resolution D025

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm the value of "listening to the experience of homosexual persons," as called for by the Lambeth Conferences of 1978, 1988, and 1998, and acknowledge that through our own listening the General Convention has come to recognize that the baptized membership of The Episcopal Church includes same-sex couples living in lifelong committed relationships "characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God" (2000-D039); and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention recognize that gay and lesbian persons who are part of such relationships have responded to God's call and have exercised various ministries in and on behalf of God's One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and are currently doing so in our midst; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm that God has called and may call such individuals, to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church, and that God's call to the ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church is a mystery which the Church attempts to discern for all people through our discernment processes acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention acknowledge that members of The Episcopal Church as of the Anglican Communion, based on careful study of the Holy Scriptures, and in light of tradition and reason, are not of one mind, and Christians of good conscience disagree about some of these matters.

Our own General Synod is here in Melbourne next year. Without question this will be on the agenda. What might we say and do?

Upcoming events at St Peter's

For details of special services and ISS events in the coming weeks, please visit the events page on our website.

"Watching, asking, learning, growing" - this week's sermon from Fr John

Jesus summoned the twelve and began to send them out. (Mk 6:7)

The gospel today is about the Lord starting to share the load of ministry in this first instance with the twelve. This is a good model. He decides to give them a task and to send them out two by two into the surrounding communities. We are told that they preached the need to turn lives around; they (to use our own language) brought comfort and peace to people who were mentally and spiritually ill and similar healing to the physically ill. This was then an extension of what Jesus himself had been doing. These disciples had been gathered from the first - Peter, James, John, Andrew and the rest – and now against the coming time when Jesus would not be there, they went out.

As I noted in this morning’s pew sheet, Amos the prophet in today’s first lesson had not made himself at all popular at the royal court. He was advised to take his ministries elsewhere at once if not sooner. His reply was God had taken him away from looking after sheep and trimming sycamore trees for something bigger.

Similarly, the twelve disciples are sent out today by Jesus with a big task in the face of considerable opposition and plain cynicism. Furthermore, they are told just to take the minimum of material things with them, in a venture born of deep faith and trust. They are called to show in this most obvious of ways that they are not depending on their own resources. God is to speak through their example, as even at this earliest stage, the tasks of sharing the Good News are shared and spread out amongst those who have already responded to the call to discipleship. The goal is surely to result in the small groups of people whose lives have been changed for the good by this contact to continue to gather together in prayer and support, where they are.

Because hearing of the Good News is one thing. Coming to be part of a community of faith that lives out this gospel is even bigger. And harder: both for those who are coming fresh and for those already around who are urged to be welcoming and including, always.

From the earliest records, particularly in Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, we can see these challenges and tensions; especially relating to the arrival in great numbers of people whose background was not Jewish but Greek. Around the whole Mediterranean basin this was to be the experience, firstly in the synagogues and then beyond in the new congregations left behind by Paul and many others. But always there was the call to live this response to the Good News out in community with others. A very considerable family of the community of faith, first just with ties locally and then with the growing number of similar congregations all over the known world.

I always find it helpful to remember that Paul's letters to the churches in places like Corinth or Ephesus were most unlikely to have been addressed to groups of more than fifty or sixty new Christians. These were followers who were, as often as not no doubt, a very unlikely composite group. So, if it comes to that, are we. Certainly so were the original twelve sent out by Jesus in the gospel for today. But they had each individually responded and already turned their own lives upside down. They had been alongside Jesus for some time – apprentices, watching, asking, learning, growing. These disciples had a remarkable impact. We have record of this both in the Scriptures and in the wider tradition, for example relating to Thomas in south Asia. And Paul was in a class of his own in this regard. Paul was constantly to assure the small and young communities of faith that he was nurturing that they themselves had everything, everything that was necessary, to live and to work and to grow as a community of faith.

And this proves true. Out of a diverse group of individuals can grow a group, a community. Out of disbelief can come faith, out of a lack of direction can come purposeful service. This is the language of covenant, of relationship, of the community of the people of God. The Scriptures are full of this language. For God's people are given grace and strength and help in time of need. Together, not as a collection of individuals, but together: sharing, supporting, encouraging, receiving, even a very small and inconsequential group can be given new heart and strength. They can step out again on that journey which is the way of being God's people, wherever they find themselves. People will look at them, people will look at us, and want to see something of God.

Week by week, the Scripture readings make the point that the lives of believers are to be shaped and expressed, not merely by that which is intellectually expressed in appropriate dogmatic forms that remain in the head, but rather by concrete actions of love. This is about the acceptance and recognition of God in Jesus Christ. This flows into discipleship. This finally reshapes lives. It is in lives shaped in prayer, nurtured in worship and characterised by loving service with a special care for the weak, the vulnerable and the marginalised that we see best exemplified the model that is presented to us by Jesus. Often the priorities lived out by Jesus seemed at odds with the priorities of the world around – an upside down gospel of expectations. But then the ways of the regular world so clearly do not work out, so often.

The great reforming times in the life of the Church, those great upsurges of renewal and reconsidered response to the radical implications of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth have been times of great turbulence and no little distress. We are in such times again. Today’s gospel asserts that the best resource is utterly simple and bare. Francis received and lived that same message in his time. In the midst of all of this, there has always remained the never-changing challenge, put before a largely skeptical Church and world, of these fundamental gospel propositions and imperatives of other-regarding service and compassionate care – out of love for the Lord and out of his love for us.

The follower of Christ, any Christian person and any Christian parish, is not free from all trials and troubles, misunderstandings and hurts. But there is a focus, a centre, a heart, that comes from a life lived in the company of God. The gospel declares that we travel this journey in God’s company and that we are infinitely the better for it. We know in our hearts that that truth needs to be affirmed and nurtured and cherished, as we like the disciples this morning are sent to live out our tasks and our responsibilities. May we go well.

Ordinary Sunday 15 - July 12 2009

Readings this week
Amos 7.12-15, Psalm 85, Ephesians 1.3-14, Mark 6.7-13

8am Family Mass
Celebrant & Preacher: Fr John Davis

9:30 Mass
Celebrant: Fr Matthew Healy
Preacher: Fr John Davis
Hymns: 239, 170, 351

11am High Mass
Setting: Mass for Five Voices - William Byrd
Anthem: Beatus Vir - Claudio Monteverdi
Celebrant and preacher: Fr John Davis
Hymns: 239, 170, 351, 272

5pm Solemn Evensong & Benediction
Preces & Responses: Plainsong
Canticles: Posch
Anthem: O bone Jesu - Claudio Monteverdi
Hymns: 150, 248, 305, 269 (vv5,6)

6:30pm Mass
Celebrant & Preacher: Fr Matthew Healy

Welcome

This blog is intended to provide the friends of St Peter's Eastern Hill with regular updates on services, events, and sermons. It will be updated each Monday and Friday.

If you are interested in St Peter's, please visit our website at www.stpeters.org.au for information about us, our services, and our activities.

Last week's sermon from Robert Whalley - when we know Jesus too well.

Read the Vicar's Keble-tide address at Castlemaine on Claiming our catholic inheritance.