A sacrifice of blood

Although the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is the only feast day during the year where the traditional Latin name is still well-known, to call the feast Corpus Christi seems to do some injustice to the richness of what today's liturgy offers us. The readings today do not focus on the Body of Christ - but indeed on the Blood of Christ. Each reading, beginning with the description of the people of God entering into the covenant in Exodus 24, through the description of the feast of Yom Kippur - the annual Day of Atonement celebration in the Book of Hebrews 9, through to the remembrance of the Passover celebration with Jesus and the disciples in the Gospel of Mark 14 focuses on the blood of sacrifice.

Play MP3

Recorded at St Paul's Camden, 5.30pm. (9'09")

Seated at the right hand of the Father

The Feast of the Ascension can strike us a quite bizarre affair - especially to one who grew up on a diet of science-fiction and imagined that Jesus somehow managed to add flying and living outside of the atmosphere to his walking-on-water and multiplying food - as well as raising the dead and getting through locked doors (after being resurrected from the dead). So today I want to allow St Paul's powerful prayer in Ephesians to inspire us to look deeper into the truth behind the feast, and particularly to consider what it meant for Jesus to be seated at the right hand of God. We begin with the description of the burnt offering in Leviticus 1.

Play MP3

Recorded at St Paul's, 5.30pm (12'29")

The Hunger Games and Sacrifice

Last weekend I joined the throngs - not in welcoming the Messiah to Jerusalem - but in watching the new hit movie, The Hunger Games - based on the first part of the popular trilogy written by Suzanne Collins. The action takes place in a future post-apocalyptic north America, where all that is left after the unnamed devastation are the capital (somewhere deep in the Rockies) and twelve districts. The heroes come from District 12, where the main industry is coal-mining. We discover that to 'celebrate' the quashing of the uprising that had happened 74 years earlier, when there was a 13th district that led the rebellion [apparently no longer in existence] a contest is held to choose two delegates from each of the districts - one boy and one girl aged between 12 and 18 to compete in the so-called Hunger Games. The object of the games is to fight to the death so that of the 24 competitors that enter the arena, only one is allowed to survive - and all of this is captured by hundreds of cameras and broadcast as compulsory viewing to the whole nation. Charming!
As I watched the movie (and then read the book this week), I was struck by how often stories and movies set in some distant future are so dark - the world and its peoples are scratching to survive in an environment marked by violence, warfare and hatred. Dozens of examples come to mind. So this scenario - as horrible as it is - only joins a very long list from human history or societies and cultures that have demanded no less than mortal combat and human sacrifice either as entertainment or as an attempt to deal with the angst that we have felt and continue to experience. The Capital here needs a scapegoat to remind the citizens in these far-flung districts that it is in charge.
When we gather today to remember the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, welcomed by hundreds of pilgrims from equally far-flung regions of the Jewish diaspora - perhaps many of them from Galilee and other northern districts, it seems that the liturgy barely allows us to catch our breath before the action moves to the final anointing of Jesus, the last supper, the garden, betrayal and arrest, trial and then the crucifixion. The need for a scapegoat - seemingly so strong in the human psyche - is answered in Judaism by the annual remembrance of the Day of Atonement, where a goat is brought through the crowd of pilgrims and then banished as a way of acknowledging the seriousness of our sin and dysfunction. But the goat is not enough. To only allow another to take on our sins is not enough if we know that we have to turn around and repeat all this again next year. The difference that Jesus brings to this reality is that he is not only a scapegoat - he becomes something unique in human history, because he is able to make this offering once and for all. He is not only one like us, but he is also God. So when he offers himself for our sins in our place, this sacrifice radically subverts the standard model because he freely offers himself in our place. He is not the scapegoat for he offers himself - not as something that has to be repeated each year - but as the once and only sacrifice that we have the wondrous privilege of remembering so powerfully each year.

Play MP3

Recorded at St Paul's, 10am (4'45")
L6B; Palm/Passion Sunday, Year B.

Sacrifice, obedience and the lamb

Our first reading from Genesis 22 contains what is often regarded as one of the finest examples of a short story in all or Western literature. In 19 short verses, the reader is taken on a terrible and shocking journey along with Abraham and Isaac - your only son, the son that you love - for three days until they reach the mountain of Moriah (which 2 Chronicles tells us would become the temple mount in Jerusalem). Although the reader knows that this is a test for Abraham, he is not in on that little secret; so we can only wonder how he endured these three days while he would have been beside himself in grief as he walked along with Isaac, prepared camps, ate meals together and shared stories around a camp-fire - and yet pretended that nothing was amiss in this horrible pilgrimage.

The lectionary reading skips over some of the details, so it well worth reading the full passage to see all the details - and especially the poignant exchange between Isaac - now carrying the wood that would be used to burn the sacrifice and his father, as in innocence Isaac looks up at his father and asks the powerful question: 'here is the flint/fire and the wood - but where is the lamb of sacrifice?' With the faith and obedient trust that has become Abraham's greatest mark and honour, he answers with powerful prophetic insight: 'The Lord himself, will provide the lamb - my son.' We are left to wonder whether 'the son' is meant to be ironic - a hint from Abraham to Isaac of the darker purposes that he is being forced to embark upon. When they reach the summit of the mountain, there Abraham binds his son - an act that provides the title for this sacrifice - the Akedah of Isaac (or in Hebrew, Akeidat Yitzchak). We are not told how old Isaac is at this point - at the end of Genesis 21 we are simply told that 'a long time passed' so Isaac could be a young boy (yet old enough to carry a pile of branches), or a young man. Whatever his age, it seems that Isaac, who now knows that he is to be the lamb of sacrifice, allows himself to be bound and so offered to the Lord.

It is only after Isaac, now bound, and placed upon the newly constructed altar, and as Abraham - presumably racked in grief and tears - reaches out with the knife to lunge it into the neck of his beloved son. As he begins to bring the knife down, it is then that the angel of the Lord intervenes to prevent this heinous crime of human sacrifice from taking place. Then we are informed that a short distance away, a ram is caught up in the bushes, and so is available to take the place of Isaac and be sacrificed. Note it is a ram - not the lamb that Abraham prophesied. After this passage, any careful reader of scripture should be looking for this lamb - when will God come through and answer this promise? When will God finally provide the lamb of sacrifice?

Play MP3

Recorded at St Paul's 10am - with the assistance of Lachlan, Matthew and Ben, and a whole lot of rope from Bunnings and a huge knife from the presbytery kitchen.
The recording from the 8am Mass is also available: http://www.fecitmihimagna.com/

Longing for the Lamb

In last Sunday's feast of the Baptism, we saw that Jesus - despite the expectations of John the Baptist - identified with sinners and went down into the muddy waters of the Jordan River. This week in Brisbane we saw first hand the destructive power of nature in the floods that have devastated so many communities and destroyed so many lives and properties. The question naturally is asked - where was God in the midst of all this. In light of last Sunday's Gospel, and our first reading today (1 Corinthians) we can see that God is where Jesus is - right in the  midst of the water. Where was God? Well, where was the body of Christ - the Church? And we saw that the Church was right in the midst of the Brisbane community - helping people to evacuate, preparing houses, providing shelter, helping to clean up, offering couselling, praying for protection.

Play MP3

Sunday 02A.
Recorded at St Mary Magdalene Church, Bardon (9'11")
Isaiah 49; I Cor 1:1-3; John 1:29-34

Lent 2B - The binding of Isaac

When studying Biblical Studies at Sydney University many years ago, I studied under a lovely Rabbi who highlighted the significance and power of this passage from Genesis 22 - the binding of Isaac - called the 'aqedah sacrifice'. It still disturbs and challenges us to reflect deeply on the nature of faith and the call by God to give everything we have to him, following the example of our father in faith, Abraham, who said this complete 'yes' to God, and knew that God will provide the lamb of sacrifice for us.

Recorded at St Michael's, 9.30am (9'03")

Play MP3