Today, the second Sunday of Advent is traditionally devoted to the prophets – and in particular to the voices of second Isaiah and of John the Baptist as recorded by Mark’s gospel. Those voices, spanning the centuries, call us home from various kinds of exile...
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I have to admit that my night vision is pretty terrible. In fact, I avoid driving at night for this very reason. I know I should be exercising my eyes and eating more vitamin A, but the reality is that I have never been able to see very well at night and age is only making things worse. I am not asleep – I just don’t see too well in the dark. But being awake and seeing in the dark are key to today’s gospel reading...
 It is one of those lovely quiz questions, isn’t it – what do Barbados, Romania, the Ukraine and Scotland have in common? The answer is St Andrew of course, as their shared patron saint. In this COVID-19 year, that is something for which it is particularly important to wonder and give thanks. For in recent months we have, as a world together, been both divided by border closures, and united in suffering. On this Advent Sunday therefore, it is good to be reminded of our even greater connections in the immense hope to which St Andrew responded and shared with others. For Andrew’s witness is not least to the central importance of relationships, with God in Jesus Christ, with one another, and with the wider world. Today, as we celebrate the feast of St Andrew, and Advent hope, it is into such mission into which we too are called, and the joy which lies in such relational hope, beyond all the divisions and sufferings of our lives and world. Thus St Andrew should empower us to trust, and find new life, across our human borders and in the borderlands of suffering and joy, despair and hope…
 As you may be aware, there is a tradition in more Catholic Christian circles of using rose pink as a colour for this Sunday. For the third Sunday of Advent has often been known as “Gaudete’ – or ‘Rejoice’ – Sunday, and rose pink, became linked to it, as rose pink is also associated with Mary the Mother of Jesus. So, being a bit into colours at the moment, especially pink ones, I thought I’d do a little investigation into the subject. The first thing I came across was the Readers Digest guide to rose colour meanings It begins very interestingly. The red rose is said to symbolise love, and, I quote, is ‘Perfect for: freaking out your first date; covering beer stains; wooing a hunky bishop.’ So, something to bear in mind there? In contrast, according to Readers Digest, the pink rose is said to express grace and elegance, as well as sweetness and sympathy: and thus: ‘Perfect for: sick secretaries, (and) the platinum blonde in your life.’ Again, is there something useful for us to remember there? Well, maybe just a teens-weensy bit of gender stereotyping in that, don’t you think?! It is a little like many approaches to Mary, the Mother of Jesus …
Four words to sum up the heart of the Advent season we enter today. Wait, wake, want and work. Wait, wake, want and work. I hope you’re listening because there will be a quick quiz later! Chocolates to those who can still remember those four over morning tea...
‘No room, no time, no way’
As the calendar flips over and we come to Advent, life can often seem this way. It can seem as though we simply have no room in our over crowded world for the ideas so central to Advent - silence, stillness, waiting. It can seem as though the time to attend to the things of God, is eroded by demands of hospitality, celebration and preparation. It can seem as though there is no way to change this, or to change the relentless patterns of our lives and world. Yet this is to misunderstand the nature of waiting. I don’t know about you, but waiting is not something that comes easily. It can seem easier to rush onwards, seeking the next activity or the next opportunity. The slow natural processes of change and transformation can be a challenge to those of us raised to the high tempo of modern life. Our consumer culture reflects this, taking as its subtext ‘why wait’? Why indeed?...  Just before Christmas last year, I was visiting Brisbane’s South Bank cultural precinct and stumbled into the end of year concert of the School of Hard Knocks. It was a wonderful occasion. Full of joy and humour, resounding song and moving poetry, it shared the lives and love of many of Brisbane’s homeless and disadvantaged people. This year’s concert is again at the State Library, at 2 pm on 16 December. Check it out if you are down that way. It will lift your spirits and encourage you. For in some ways it could be said to be an embodiment of the hope of the season of Advent which we begin today. In the face of the pain and struggle of our lives and world, all of us are encouraged by the promise of God’s coming salvation to start again. The invitation is there, in the closing words of our reading from Isaiah: ‘come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!’…
Do you have a womb? - literally, or spiritually? Most females are literally born with a womb, but not all. It is just one of those aspects of life which point to gender and sexuality being slightly more complex than some might think. This can be quite distressing, as we know in the lives of others who are not able to bear children literally. Yet it can be the source of amazing grace. One of my own close female blood relatives for instance was born without a womb. She has been, and very much still is, a wonderful woman in so many respects. Yet, literally speaking, she has never had the biological capacity to bear children. By the grace of God however, she does have two children, both of them fully genetically those of herself and her husband. That was a kind of miracle, assisted by the miracle of modern science. So, perhaps, when we reflect on the doctrine of the virgin birth at this time, such diversity in our lives and families may give us pause to wonder about the marvellous complexity of human gender, sexuality, and creativity. For what the Catholic Church calls the Joyful Mysteries of Mary are much more than ancient accounts of the participation of one remarkable woman in the creativity of God. They are also profound and immensely fertile symbols for us: grace-filled invitations to bring Christ to birth in our own bodies and lives. Not least this is the case with today’s Gospel story of the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth. Indeed, this is a story of two wombs, one of them, which was formerly barren, actually jumping with joy. It is also a story which encourages us to discover our own womb-like capacities, and to participate, in our different ways, in the bearing of God’s new life. So let me offer three pointers on the way…
 Rejoice! For this is the Sunday for joy! By tradition this Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin word for the first word of our second reading today, Rejoice! Just as Refreshment Sunday comes half way through Lent, and is a day for feasting and letting go of the Lenten disciplines for a day, as we rejoice in being half way to Easter, so Gaudete Sunday comes half way through Advent, and tells us that we are half way to Christmas. The note of warning is still present as we heard from John the Baptist in our Gospel reading, but the other readings begin to sound a note of celebration. On this day by tradition the pink candle of our Advent wreath can be lit, and rose coloured vestments worn in those wealthy churches that own them - it is an expensive matter to have vestments that you only use once or twice a year!
So why is any of this important?...  How do you picture peace? I wonder if your vision is quite the same as that of the prophet Isaiah in the John the Baptist story in our Gospel reading today? Isaiah says this: “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;6and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” Well, that definitely doesn’t work for me if it were taken at all literally. For I was born in the North Pennine hill country of England, which owes so much of its life, history, wildness and picturesque beauty to the variety of its landscape, its hills and valleys. I certainly know that the folk of the Durham Dales would do all they possibly could to avoid every valley being filled, every hill being made low, and the winding paths and rough ways being made smooth. I suspect too that few people in Toowoomba would take kindly to such an environmental transformation of our own Range, valleys, hills and landscape. No. On this second Sunday in Advent, as we centre on the theme of peace, we need to look deeper if we are to find fuller meaning in today’s Gospel reading. Perhaps we are helped by re-casting Isaiah’s words a little. To that end, I offer some words of the great El Salvadorean archbishop and martyr Oscar Romero: words which I believe catch up the spirit of the Advent prophets, that “Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty.” Let me return to that, and to John the Baptist in our Gospel, again, in a moment…
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sermons and reflections from Penny Jones & Josephine Inkpin, an Anglican married clergy couple in Brisbane Archives
December 2020
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