Last Tuesday we looked at our gospel reading for today, and essentially the concensus we came to was that none of us in the room could see how this story has anything to do with our lives today.

So what’s it about? Why does Mark choose to include this story in his gospel? What role does it play in his narrative, what is it about Jesus that we are supposed to read through, in, or behind these words?

For this is a story rich in imagery, rich in allusions, designed to communicate truths about Jesus to the reader. Starting at the end, with God’s words – “This is my son, the beloved, listen to him”. You recognise those words? Remember where else you’ve heard them? Those were the words of God at the baptism of Jesus, right at the start of his ministry. And now, as he starts to move into the final phase of his ministry, as he starts to teach the disciples about his forthcoming death and the persecution they in turn will face (the main themes of chapter 8 in Mark’s gospel), the words come again. As if to say – don’t stop listening. Now the message is getting hard to hear, hard to accept. Now being one of Jesus’ friends is starting to get controversial, even dangerous – don’t stop listening now.
 
But let me backtrack. Before God speaks, Jesus has been seen in conversation with Moses and Elijah. To the Jewish Christian reader of the first century Church, this image of Jesus meeting with, and presumably being endorsed by, Moses and Elijah was a crucial declaration – that by becoming a follower of Jesus they were not betraying their heritage, not leaving the faith of their forefathers, but continuing in their footsteps.

But why Moses and Elijah? Though they are very significant figures in the Hebrew scriptures which we call the Old Testament, they are perhaps not the most obvious. It was to Abraham that the people of Israel traced their heritage, to whom the promises of God had been made; and it was the kingdom of David that they looked back to as the high point of the nation’s life.

But perhaps that’s the point. For Abraham represented the genetic, family and cultural heritage from which the people of Israel arose, and David represented their success as a nation and their political ambitions.

Moses and Elijah stood for two different strands of Jewish identity – Moses, the giver of the law, and Elijah, the great prophet. Here on the mountain with Jesus were personified the Law and the Prophets, the great tradition of holy and right living laid out in painstaking detail in the law of Moses, and the great tradition of justice heard in the voices of the prophets. And to strengthen that association, they met on a mountain – for it was on a mountain that Moses met with God to receive the law, and on a mountain that Elijah heard the still small voice of God.
 
But hold that thought, and backtrack a little further.

You might have noticed that today’s reading began at verse 2. Let me read you verse one:

“Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”
The context for Jesus’ encounter with Moses and Elijah was this declaration of Jesus that, very soon, those present would see the Kingdom of God come with power.

And then on the mountain top, in a fairly clear demonstration of God’s power, Jesus becomes dazzling white (in an obvious echo of the way Moses’ face shone when he had been speaking with God), meets with Moses and Elijah, and his followers hear God’s confirmation of of his work in the voice of God.

The Kingdom of God, is at hand, Jesus has said elsewhere. The kingdom of God is powerfully advancing, he has said elsewhere. The kingdom of God has come with power, he declares on the mountaintop.

And the meeting with Moses and Elijah is more, then, than just a confirmation of the Jewish-ness of Jesus’ message. Moses and Elijah are a declaration of what the Kingdom of God represents, what it stands for.

Jesus doesn’t meet with Abraham – for this Kingdom that he has come to proclaim isn’t a matter of birth, isn’t a matter of culture or heredity or descent.

And he doesn’t meet with David, for this Kingdom is not a political structure, or a military force.

But the Kingdom has come with power. Power personified in Moses and Elijah.
 
Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets, did not represent who the people were by birth, or nationality: they represented how we live before God and with one another. And this is the power of the Kingdom. Not one that derives from a successful army, as David’s did, or from being the father of a great family, as Abraham was, but from living in the way of God.

Striving to living in obedience to the high law of God – to love the Lord your God and love your neighbour – Moses’ words
And living according to the ethical standards of the prophets, with their concern for the poor, the outcast, the foreigner, the widow, the orphan, the sick.

It is these strands of Jewish life, these elements of the story of the people of God that Jesus names, over and again, as the heart of his Kingdom.

It is these things we hear God confirm at the transfiguration.

And its these things, that in a few weeks time, will get him killed.

Amen.

Image courtesy of the online Bushwalking Guide Book, Wildwalks

The next day walk for the Cartophiles Bushwalking Club follows the Great North Walk from Cowan Station to Jerusalem Bay on Cowan Creek.   Jerusalem Bay has one of the most iconic views along the Great North Walk, and this is good walk for kids.  It’s about 2.5 km each way.

We’ll meet in the car park at Cowan Station at 10.30am on Saturday 17^th March.  The total walk will take about 3-4 hours, depending on how much time we spend having a picnic lunch overlooking the bay.

For more information go to 2012 Walk 4 (Jerusalem Bay).

To register for the walk, or to get more information, contact Kit Craig at cartophiles@stjohnswahroonga.org or on
0411 507 422.

This pretty walk includes camping at a very pleasant site near Heathcote Creek.  The trail is mostly flat.   The first day’s walk is 6¾ km from Waterfall Station to the Mirang Pool campsite.   The second day is just over 5km along fire trails and management trails to Heathcote Station.

We will meet at the Wahroonga Station at 7.30am on Saturday, 3^rd March and should return there before 4.00 pm on Sunday 4^th March.

For more information see 2012 Walk 3 Heathcote NP.

To register for the walk, or to get more information, contact Kit Craig at cartophiles@stjohnswahroonga.org or on
0411 507 422.

The weather was delightful when we gathered at Woolwich ferry wharf for the short trip across to Greenwich and the start of the walk.  Michael, Gabriel, Annie, James and Kit backed up from the last week’s rogaine with stalwart Cartophiles Sue, Aida and Doug.  They were joined by new Cartophiles Kaaren, Rachel, Tertius and Amanda.

Annie & Sue at Burns Bay

With Kit and Doug navigating we should have simply followed the well-documented course, but somehow we took several accidental shortcuts that reduced the walk to 12 km instead of the planned 15½ km.  Well, one shortcut was planned: the one that took us to the Hunters Hill Hotel for lunch.  The walk varied between busy streets, cool creek-side trails, scenic harbour edges and the stately old houses of Hunters Hill.

The first half of the walk was the hardest, with a few steep sets of steps and some grinding road hills.  After about 3½ km Gabriel’s seven year old legs were showing the effort of doing the rogaine the previous weekend, so he and Michel decided to wait for ‘Mum’s taxi’ to come and get them.  Then there were ten.

In another kilometre, as we descended steep stone steps towards Tambourine Creek, Amanda slipped and twisted her ankle so badly she had to turn back and catch a cab home.  Then there were nine.

From Tambourine Bay we climbed to St Ignatius College at Riverwood, where Kaaren had to leave to meet her family.  And then there were eight.

No further casualties occurred, and all eight finished the walk.  After the walk we retired to the Woolwich Pier Hotel to congratulate ourselves on another successful walk.

The next Cartophiles walk is an two day hike from Waterfall Station to Heathcote Station on 3rd/4th March.  The next day walk is from Cowan Station to Jerusalem Bay and return on Saturday, 17th March.

A powerful man, used to winning, used to getting his own way.

But he has a problem. For all his military success, all his armies, all his influence with the king cannot cure him of a disfiguring skin condition (normally translated in English versions of the Bible as leprosy, although lacking modern medical categories the word probably included a wide range of skin diseases). None of his power or influence can help him – but help comes, from the most unexpected of sources.

The slave girl. Taken from freedom into slavery in a military raid – a raid which likely involved others in her village being killed. I imagine most of us, in such a situation, would be reluctant to offer unsolicited help to the leader of the army that had invaded her country. But those of you who were here and paying attention last year, when we thought for a few weeks about the story of Daniel in exile, may recognise in her attitude the words of the prophet – seek the welfare of the place you find yourself in. Or perhaps we might hear instead a foretaste of the words of Jesus – love your enemies, do good to those who harm you.

For whatever reason, she tells him – there is a prophet in Samaria, he would cure you.
 
Now maybe Naaman, in his various military travels had come to recognise that the people of Israel had some insight into the ways of God. But then again, in the midset of the day the power of the national God was reflected in the success of their nation – by which count the God of Aram was a far better bet than the God of Israel. Perhaps Naaman had that sense of the mystery of the ‘other’ that we see in the mystical respect many westerners will pay to the gurus and traditions of the east – the whole ‘travelling in India to find yourself’ thing. Perhaps he’d been impressed by his wife’s servant and was prepared to take her seriously. Or perhaps he was just running out of options, and willing to try anything.

For whatever reason, he ends up outside Elisha’s house, with, we’re told, his horses and chariots – a show of strength, no doubt, intended to make sure this prophet knew he was dealing with a man of considerable note. A man, not to put too fine a point on it, capable of crushing Elisha’s nation if he did not give him what he was looking for.

But Elisha, it turns out, isn’t so easily impressed – or daunted. In fact, by the standards of hospitality of the day – even by the much lower standards of hospitality of the modern day – his response is downright rude. He doesn’t invite Naaman in, he doesn’t even go out to see him. He just sends a message out via a servant. “Wash in the Jordan. Seven times. Then you’ll be clean.”. If he’d been setting out to offend Naaman, to bring the might of the armies of Aram down on his own head, he couldn’t have set about it better.
 
There’s so much in this story that when you come to preach on it the difficulty is choosing what to go with. The slave girl’s generousity? The king of Israel’s faithless cowardice? Elisha’s confidence, or his rudeness?

But for me, its what happens next that stands out. Naaman’s anger, and the perceptive wisom of his servants. For they go to him, and they say “If the prophet had asked you to do something hard, you’d have done it. Why won’t you do this thing, which is easy?”
What a pointed, cutting question. And what an incredibly human, recognisable attitude. What was it that made it so hard for Naaman to do something ostensibly so easy?

Perhaps it was simply a matter of pride – pride that had been injured by Elisha’s rudeness. Naaman was a man of power, a man of authority – perhaps he simply felt it was beneath him to follow the directions of a man who didn’t even show him the basic respect of coming out to meet him.

Or perhaps it was a matter of control. Naaman had come along with his horses and chariots as a show of power – and had brought with him considerable wealth, expecting, perhaps, to make a deal. Power, wealth, control – these were the things that Naaman understood. In his worldview, Elisha’s response made no sense.

Or perhaps it was simply as the servants named it – this solution was too simple. Something hard – whether hard in terms of expense, or in terms of some sort of labours of hercules, would have appealed to a man of action, a man of power. A man in whose world nothing of value came easily, where everything had to be earned.
 
I wonder if you recognise yourself in any of those pictures of Naaman? I wonder if there is some part of you that responds to the call of God in the same ways?
Some part of you that sees the blessings of God as something to be earned, something to be worked for, something to be deserved?

Or some part of you that sees the simplicity of Jesus’ teaching as an insult to your intellect, your pride?

Or some part of you that demands to retain control, that hears trust as weakness and faith as abdication of responsibility?

For I can certainly recognise the accusation of the servants: if it were hard, you’d have done it. The desire to be a hero for God – to achieve remarkable things. The romantic image of the struggle against the odds, of advancing the kingdom not in some corner, but across the board, not by doing things anyone could do, but by something special, something unique. To be a Bill Cruz, or a Billy Graham, or a Nelson Mandela, or a Mother Teresa, not just an ordinary foot soldier in the struggle for the Kingdom.

If what the prophet had asked of you were hard, you’d have done it. In a sense, a very practical sense, what Elisha asked of Naaman was trivially easy. Go and wash in the river. There were no external obstacles to prevent Naaman from obedience.

But in another sense, what Elisha asked was the hardest thing in the world for Naaman. Swallow your pride. Give up control. You can’t earn this.
There were no external obstacles to make it hard for Naaman. All the obstacles were internal.
 
That ring any bells?

Much of the time – probably most of the time – God does not ask of us dramatic gestures, romantic, heroic actions, desperate, against the odds, struggles. Most of the obstacles that lie before us are not external.

When you’ve wronged someone, take responsibility. Admit it. Apologise. Externally trivial. Anyone can say the words.

Pray for those who persecute you, do good to those who harm you. Externally it’s no harder to pray for an enemy than a friend, to do a good deed for a foe than for family.

Welcome those who are very different – the homeless, the stranger, the refugee. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, look after the sick, befriend the lonely.
Forgive, as you have been forgiven. Seek to live at peace.

These, as much or more than the grand gestures, the dramatic changes, are the works of the kingdom.

It’s not that these things are easy. They aren’t. It’s that the heroism, the struggle, isn’t obvious, isn’t glorious, isn’t external. They might look easy, as washing in the Jordan looked easy to Naaman’s servants. But to live this life, this Kingdom life, this life in which all will see your good works and give glory to your God in heaven, this life of choices which are born of love instead of indifference, of forgiveness instead of resentment, of justice instead of self interest, this kingdom life demands of you something far more heroic than winning a battle against a Goliath.

It demands that you, like Naaman, win the battle against yourself, and do the superficially easy things, the supposedly small things, that are in truth hard and huge, and make all the difference in the world.

Amen.

Our family team, Michael and 7yo Gabriel, stuck with the adults for the first three checkpoints, then went their own way to lunch at Birkenhead Point.  They covered about 15km and scored 900 points.  The two adult teams, Annie & James and Adam & Kit, stuck together for the full six hours, travelling 23½km and scoring 1350 points.  Unfortunately, they never made their lunch date with Michael and Gabriel as cramps, blisters and sore muscles took their toll.

Cartophiles at the top of Gladesville Bridge

The adult teams left the start/end point at the Orange Grove School in Lilyfield and walked around the bottom of Iron Cove and through Five Dock to Abbotsford.  From the tip of the point we followed the shoreline around Fig Tree Bay and Five Dock Bay to Five Dock Point.  After climbing to the top of Gladesville Bridge, we dropped down to Wrights Point and followed the Drummoyne shore to Birkenhead Point.  After lunch we crossed the Iron Cove Bridge into Balmain before following Darling Street, Balmain Road and Perry Street back to the start point.

Although none of the teams achieved top 3 status in their categories we enjoyed challenging ourselves in a walk that was different to any other the Cartophiles have undertaken.  We saw parts of Sydney we might never have looked at, and the weather was kind enough to hold off the rain until we were finished and under shelter.  This was the Cartophiles’ first rogaine, but won’t be our last.

The next Cartophiles walk is the lovely second part of the Harbour Circle Walk on Saturday, 18th February.

The graciousness of being
so inspired
the all-encompassing love of Jesus,
that whosoever shares his passion
in their hearts,
shall not suffer
the confining limitations
of shallow existence,
but shall know
the ever-expanding
eternal wonder
of abundant life
in all its fullness.
Thanks be to God.

A few weeks ago,
I was driving between Orange and Millthorpe,
when I suddenly heard this crystal clear voice in my head saying
“Slow down, there’s an animal in the middle of the road out of sight around the next bend”
along with a vision of my car screeching to a halt
so as not to hit this out of sight animal.

Not an experience I have ever had before

Well I felt pretty silly,
but I slowed down as I went round that bend,
and that was just as well because there,
strolling nonchalantly down the road towards me
was a large orange marmalade cat.

Now I would have to say that I was somewhat taken aback
by this extraordinary event
which left a niggling question mark in my rational universe.

It was, of course, I keep telling myself,
just an extraordinary coincidence,
so you will be surprised to hear me say
that I saw God in that event.

Now whatever do I mean by that?

Well, first of all, what do I not mean?

Well I do not believe in an interventionist deity
who interferes with the laws of nature
to save marmalade cats,

(although I have to admit that there is a minuscule corner of my brain that can’t completely rule that out).

No , what I mean is
in that event I saw just another one
of the great unfathomable mysteries of our being.

Some things just take us so much by surprise
that our response is one of amazement and awe and wonder.

Now this is not a God of the Gaps theology,
rather it is a God of Sublime Silence theology,
when we are so astounded by the wonder of being
that we are reduced to silence.

In 1933 Dietrich Bonhoeffer opened his first lecture on Christology with the words
“Teaching about Christ begins in silence…
when the Church proclaims the Word,
it falls down silently in truth before the inexpressible”

And we are daily surrounded
by the wonder of the inexpressible.

In our Old Testament reading
we hear Joshua challenging his people
“to forego foreign gods and incline your hearts to the LORD”.

He is offering them a choice, just as we are offered a choice.

We can worship the foreign gods
of pride, indifference, disdain, shallow relationships
- the list is endless –
or we too can choose to incline our hearts to the LORD

to “fall down silently before the inexpressible”

We can choose to stumble ad hoc through life
barely conscious of the beauty around us
or we can allow ourselves to marvel
at the sublime wonder of our universe

or, to use our familiar religious terminology,
we can choose to see the hand of God in all around us.

Even the mundane, the dirty,
the broken, the decayed, the filth
can reveal the hand of God if we allow it to.

In Kevin McCloud’s recent TV documentary
on life in the slums of Mumbai,
we were appalled by the physical conditions
endured by one million people
crammed into just one square mile,
the scavengers on the rubbish dumps,
the drinking water contaminated by open sewers,
the children labouring in sweat shops,

but at the same time we were inspired
by the positive sense of community,
by the mutual support, by the warmth of relationships.

But what about when the negative comes close to home?
When we are so overwhelmed
by sorrow or worry,
that we lose sight of the beauty around us,
when all sense and awareness of the sublime
disappears behind a cloud.

Well I would suggest
that that is one of the reasons we are here,
week after week, to practise the presence of God,
centring the core of our being in compassion,
encouraging each other
to practise the presence of God.

The more we practise the presence of God,
the easier it may be for us to face the times
when we lose our way.

Time and again throughout the Hebrew scriptures
we hear the people being reminded
of how there came an end
to their time of slavery in Egypt,
an end to the wandering through the desert

They were being encouraged to remember
that God was there throughout their trials,
even though he may have been hidden from them at the time.

And one of the reasons they kept reminding themselves
of the ever present love of God
was to strengthen them if bad times came again.

They knew that just as in the past
they had been blessed by God to be a blessing to others,
so in the present they should “incline their hearts to the LORD”
to be a blessing in the future.

If bad times come to us
we may have nothing to cling to
but the memory of God’s past love for us.

Victor Frankl, the great Viennese psychoanalyst,
who lost almost his entire family in Auschwitz
wrote, after contemplating a mental image of his wife

“ for the first time in my life
I… grasped the meaning of the greatest secret
that human poetry and … thought and belief have to impart:
The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

Where was God in Auschwitz?
He was right there for those with eyes to see.

Like the wise bridesmaids in Matthew’s story
we need to keep the oil in our lamps filled
so we can see,
ready to light the way
wherever and whenever we find darkness in life.

And what do we fill our lamps with?

Jesus made the answer very clear and unequivocal: With the love of God.

Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind all thy strength, and thy neighbour as thyself.
But how do we “love God”?

Well the beauty, the genius, of the Christian faith
is that we have a focus for our inexpressible thoughts
and that focus is the very real human being Jesus.

Remember how Jesus said
If you cannot love your brother whom you have seen,
how can you love God, whom you have not seen.

So to learn to love God, we learn to love our neighbour.

We practise seeing the Risen Christ in our neighbour,
whether that is Colonel Gaddafi,
Adolf Hitler,
Osama bin Laden,
the waiter who short-changed us in the coffee shop,
or that member of our family or our congregation
that we just can not stand.

Now this is pretty shocking advice from Jesus
and it is the very stumbling block
that just proves too much for many people.

The desire for vengeance, for revenge,
so often masquerading under the benign name of “justice”
is so ingrained in the human race
that we often fail to take Jesus seriously.

To love one’s enemies
may be considered hopelessly naive
but it is not
rather, it is hopefully naive,
maturely naive.
It does not mean
that we do not confront tyranny
or fight against injustice,
quite the contrary,
but it does mean that we see our enemy
as another child of God,
another member of God’s human family,
not an easy concept to embrace.

We need to practise looking for the beauty in life,
not with a childish innocence
but with eyes wide open
to the reality of ugliness and evil in the world.

And then we look through the ugliness,
through the evil,
to the potential for beauty and goodness
in the depth of everyone and everything,
and do what we can to bring it out.

This is mature naivety.

And when we do this
we are taking up Joshua’s challenge
and inclining our hearts to the Lord,
loving the Lord our God with all our being.

This is the very basis of all Christian activity.

If we do not incline our hearts to the Lord,
if we do not see the Risen Christ
- eternal dignity, and worth, and beauty –
in our neighbour,
whoever that may be,
then all our Christian service is diminished
and all our Christian justice is compromised.

To experience God
we do not need to wait for the miracle of a marmalade cat.

We need only respond with ours hearts and hands
to the eternal wonder of life
that is within us and around us,
each and every one of us,
and then we shall discover
that that inexpressible, gracious mystery, our God,
has found us and transforms us,
that we may be inspired to transform our world.

And then we shall have glimpsed what John called Life in all its Fullness, Eternal Life.

And that is Gospel, that is Good News. Amen.

We’re meeting at the start of the Gibberagong Track, at the north end of Grosvenor St, North Wahroonga. Park anywhere on the street.

Click here for link to map.

Pack a picnic dinner for your kids and bring along some wine and nibbles for the grown ups. We know everyone has young kids, so we’ll only walk a very short way and then find a clearing to sit together.

(Wet weather plan is to meet at the church, so please check your emails in the late morning if it looks like rain).

The workshop may be rescheduled in the future if there is sufficient demand.  It is aimed at hikers who want to start walks that include overnight camping, and discusses some of the ‘hundred little dodges’ that will enable them to get maximum enjoyment out of the experience.

The workshop is free and is open to anyone, irrespective of age.  There is no requirement to be a member of the Cartophiles Bushwalking Club or to commit to joining the club.

The workshop covers what to carry, what to wear, footwear pros and cons, choosing & pitching a tent, selecting & wearing a pack, hiking food & drink plus a few handy ideas to maximise comfort while minimising weight.  For more detailed information go to 2012 Bushwalking Workshop.

To express interest in attending  a future workshop, email your name and contact telephone number to cartophiles@stjohnswahroonga.org