Pen and Ink Reflections - Pen and Ink Reflections

bread and roses - the song of Mary

12/12/2017

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 …

a time to wait

11/25/2017

‘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?...

looking again at the picture of the nativity

12/25/2016

All through Advent we have been enjoying a wonderful art display here at St. Luke's exploring the themes of advent and incarnation. It has set me thinking about what I would paint on this theme if I was an artist. I wonder what you would put into a picture of Christmas for instance. Any one like to suggest something?

I want to go back to the picture of the nativity - Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the angels and the wise men. It is the picture familiar to us from our crib scene here in church and as a symbol of Christmas it cannot really be bettered I think. We have of course St. Francis of Assisi to thank for our Christmas crib, for it was he who first set up a manger scene, with ox and ass and invited local villagers to celebrate the Eucharist around the manger. And I have been struck very much by this year by the power of this scene as an expression of the gospel, understood as the good news that in Christ every division is overcome and brought to wholeness...

whoever is not busy being born is busy dying

12/23/2016

The first Christmas sermon I preached here in Toowoomba empolyed words of a great poet songwriter singer: Leonard Cohen who, sadly for us, died recently. Let me then preach my final Christmas sermon here with reference to the words of another great poetic songwriter singer: Bob Dylan, who was recently awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature. For like Leonard Cohen, Dylan’s lyrics have typically been grounded in a relationship to existence which we can call religious, in the very best sense of that word: namely a relationship which is not always conventional, and certainly not ‘churchy’, but which is always seeking to connect with the deepest ground of our being. It is from this place that we find our truest meaning, both for our individual lives and for our families, communities and wider world. For, in Dylan’s words which take us to the heart of the feast of Christ’s nativity, whoever ‘is not busy being born is busy dying.’ In the nativity we see the ultimate meaning, source and purpose of life. We are invited to share that light and love, by allowing it to be born more fully in us and the world around us…

Joseph's problem - and invitation to something more than righteousness

12/17/2016

Joseph has a problem! Mary's pregnant and the baby is not his. It is not exactly a unique problem. This is the kind of scrape that appears somewhere in most people's family history, no matter how much pontificating and covering up goes on. I am sure we all have tales we could tell of the judgments that family members make of one another, and of the harshness of some 'good Christians'...

wrestling God, holding our hurts and hopes

7/29/2016

One of the wonderful things about many Jewish people I have met is their capacity to wrestle with our human experience and ideas of God. They just do not settle for simplistic answers, especially when it is comes to the really big human questions of hope and suffering, life and death. Indeed there is a famous saying: ‘ask two Jews, get three opinions.’ Now, of course, this, can occasionally lead to a certain stubbornness and unnecessary conflict. It points us however to the very heart of biblical religion, especially as we find it in the Hebrew Scriptures. For the God of the biblical tradition is very much a God with whom to wrestle. We see this, not least, in the book of Hosea, from which we hear again today. Indeed, the God whom Hosea reveals is very much a God wrestling with God’s own compassion, very much as a parent wrestles with their own hurts and hopes for their child. This is the deepest, most mysterious, heart of love, and it is into this kind of love we baptise Margaret Rose today…

stop, look, listen - to God's heart

7/13/2016

When I was a child I was a member of the Tufty Club. Quite possibly I still am. I’m not sure the membership ever really lapses. Certainly almost every child of my generation in the UK was encouraged to be a member. For Tufty (or Tufty Fluffytail to give him his full name) was the brainchild of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. He was, and still is, a squirrel created to tell stories and messages and be the emblem for the road safety of children. So all kinds of merchandise has been produced around Tufty, including films, games, and badges. At one stage there were indeed as many as 24 500 registered Tufty Clubs in the UK, mostly based in schools. All of which was great fun as well as learning for children, not least red-headed children like me who loved Tufty’s life, colour and native character. Sadly, the native European red squirrel is today under serious threat of extinction in the UK, due to the advance of the larger, aggressive, North American grey squirrels and the continuing loss o habitats. Yet Tufty’s message – to ‘stop, look and listen’ – lives us on today. For it is good advice not only for children and road safety, but also for all our lives and spiritual journeys. It is indeed close to the heart of today’s Gospel story and Jesus’ own words for Martha and Mary…

wine, woman and wedding

1/23/2016

I want to talk about wine, woman and wedding; and about what Jesus's first sign can teach us about our Mission Action Plan and our giftedness in this parish. First of all however, just notice how our gospel reading begins. It starts with the words "on the third day" - and that's very odd, because in the previous chapter we have had a day when the Pharisees question John the Baptist, then a day when John sees Jesus, then a day when he declares Jesus the lamb of God, and then a day when Jesus calls Philip and Nathaniel, so that by the count of the narrative we are now up to at least the fifth day not the third. Which should alert us that the counting that is happening here is not literal but symbolic. So if symbolic, what as Christians do we all know happens on the third day? ...that's right, Jesus is raised from the dead. So this tells us that the story that follows is a highly symbolic story, all about Jesus's resurrection and what it achieves. This is going to be a story about transformation, that is for the whole church. And if we are in any doubt about that we need only look to the last sentence of the story, ' Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him'. There are to be six more 'signs' in the gospel of John, each of them revealing more of the glory of Jesus, culminating in the raising of Lazarus, before John turns to the final story, the story of the death and resurrection. So this story, which appears at first glance to be about a good time at a wedding, is in fact all about Jesus and the transformative power of his death and resurrection...

wombs, reversals and theotiki

12/20/2015

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…

do we know what we are doing?

4/1/2015

by Penny Jones, for Good Friday 2015

They crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.

When we think of Jesus hanging there on the cross, I think the picture that most often comes to mind is the classic icon of the crucifixion, with the body of Jesus flanked by Mary and John – his mother and his most faithful disciple. It is the picture of course from the Gospel of John, which tells how Jesus gives His mother and His friend into one another’s care. Iconographers chose that image because it allowed them to place three holy figures, Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John in the one composition. As viewers we are drawn into this holy triad of figures, mutually supporting one another around the cross that brings salvation to the world. It is, like John’s gospel as a whole, an expression of the glorification of Christ on the cross. While it challenges our faithfulness, our ability like Mary and John to dwell with and in Christ in His moment of greatest need and greatest triumph, it does not fundamentally unsettle a view of the world in which good triumphs and evil is punished.

It is a picture very different from that which we just heard in the gospel of Luke. Throughout his gospel Luke tells of a God who, like the father in the story of the prodigal son, does not wait for reparation, does not demand punishment, but overwhelms his wayward child with love and forgiveness, no matter what. So here, as Jesus is nailed to the cross, he prays, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’” They do not know what they are doing’...