Being reborn – with Nicodemus

February 28, 2026

Lent 2 – 2026

John 3:1-17

Marian Free

In the name of God who calls us out of darkness into light. Amen.

“He dunks me. He leans me back into the darkening water and I go under.

I feel like I’m drowning but I know I’ve got breath. There’s something choking me, something’s trying to get out. I start to panic, and with the water flowing over me, I cough up this ball of darkness and pain and regret– this wad of sorrow and sadness, that holds every dumb thing I ever did and more – and I spit it into the water with the last of the air in my lungs. And I know I’m gonna die. The water’s gone black and I don’t know where the surface is. I got nothing left and I just want to drift away like a leaf in the current.

Then he lifts me out of the water, and I’m hacking for breath and wondering why I’m alive and I just laugh. Laugh like I’ve never laughed in my life – or not since I was a kid. Like a dam breaking. Like a chain snapping. Like a kid who’s just heard the words he’s been longing to hear all his life. 

Stephen Daughtry, in his Lenten Study Holiday – Stories of Jesus set in an Australian Landscape, imagines what it might feel like to have been baptised by John the Baptist.  For his character, baptism was a dramatic, wrenching, life-changing experience – a movement from dark to light, from death to life, a form of rebirth which changes him forever[1].

For some people, meeting Jesus or experiencing the Holy Spirit for the first time is like being hit by a train. It is an overwhelming experience – like having one’s eyes opened, seeing oneself clearly (the bad and the good) and, most importantly, knowing for certain that God’s love overlooks all their faults and that they are held, now and forever in God’s loving arms. No wonder such people talk about being born again. They have left behind the person they once were and have stepped forward into a new life in which God (Father, Son and Spirit) is the centre and the guiding force.

Not all of us have such a powerful beginning to our faith. Those of us who were born into Christian families and who were baptised as infants (without our knowledge or consent) may not have a sensational conversion experience or be able to point to a specific time and place when we knew for sure that we believed and that we were loved, it may have come upon us gradually or it may be that there was never a time when you did not believe.

For all of us though, those who have a sudden conviction that they are loved by God, those who come to that belief over time and those who always knew, faith is not a one-off event, but a journey, a growing into the fulness of Christ which involves a series of rebirths as we constantly shed our old selves, allowing ourselves to be renewed so that we might become more truly children of God.

Abram is a good example of this step-by-step growth in faith. Abraham was minding his own business in Ur, almost certainly worshiping the gods of his own people. Out of nowhere God, Yahweh, asks him to pick up everything – his wife, his servants, his animals and all his goods – and to leave behind everything that he knew and loved – his family, his friends, the customs of his people – and to travel to God knew where. Without question (at least as the story tells it), Abram does just that – a form of re-birth.

Over time Abram’s confidence wavers. He fathers a child with Hagar instead of trusting that God will bless Sarai with a child. God appears to Abram and makes a covenant with him, giving him a new name – if you like, a second re-birth. There are many twists in the story, but a constant is Abraham’s faith and his continual dying and rebirth.

Another character who illustrates the idea of faith as a journey, or as a gradual unfolding, is Nicodemus whom we meet in John’s gospel today. Even at this early stage in the gospel Nicodemus recognises that Jesus comes from God, but he is not willing to commit. He has yet to understand that faith in Jesus must be wholehearted. It means letting go of his past ways of thinking and allowing himself to be guided by the Spirit. In other words, as Jesus says, he must be born again. 

Thankfully, that is not the end of the story, Jesus has made an impression. Nicodemus might be puzzled, but he can’t dismiss Jesus. We meet him again in chapter 7. Jesus is in Jerusalem. His influence on the crowds and the content of his teaching is causing the Chief Priests and Pharisees a great deal of anxiety (it contradicts what they teach, and the enthusiasm of the crowds might capture the attention of the Romans). He must be stopped! So they send soldiers to arrest him. Only Nicodemus speaks for Jesus, reminding his peers that the law does not judge people without giving them a trial. (Nicodemus has moved from secretly meeting Jesus at night, to publicly defending him – a form of rebirth.)

We meet Nicodemus for the last time on the evening of the crucifixion. Joseph of Arimathea has received permission to take Jesus’ body away. He is met by Nicodemus who brings with him about a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes – in today’s terms $150-200,000 worth of spices! By now he is fully committed – another rebirth. No doubt Nicodemus experiences many more rebirths before his final birth into eternal life, but we do not know the end of the story.

One way of looking at Lent is to see it as a preparation for rebirth, as a letting go of the things that hold us back so that we can restart our relationship with God, released from the burdens that have kept us apart. Whatever discipline we have taken up for Lent we have done so in the hope that we will emerge at Easter as a people who have been changed and renewed. Whether we have chosen to give something up, to let something go, to expand our minds through reading, or to deepen our understand through prayer; we will come to Easter with new insights about ourselves and about our relationship with God that will enable us to embrace more fully the life that God gives us and to be formed more completely into the image of Christ.

On Good Friday we can say ‘goodbye’ to the person we were when Lent began so that on Easter Day, we can be born again into resurrection life. And we will do this again and again, every Lent, every Good Friday, every Easter Day as day by day, year by year, we are reborn, transformed into children of God. 

[1] Daughtry, Stephen. 2025. Holiday Stories of Jesus set in an Australian Landscape. Sydney: A Mission Australia publication. The Anglican Board of Mission.

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Lent 1 – competing with God

February 21, 2026

Lent 1 – 2026

Matthew 4:1-11

Marian Free

In the name of God, Source of all being, Word of life, Enlivening Spirit. Amen.

All around the world scientists and other professionals are doing research and offering advice to third world countries in the belief that they can help reduce food-scarcity, increase access to clean water and provide cheap, easy to construct housing that will withstand cyclones. One such programme developed bananas that contained a vitamin that was lacking in the diets of some populations in East Africa. Another produced amazing results simply by delivering salt to an isolated population in the Himalayas. The absence of salt in their diet had led to stunted growth and the early loss of teeth.  When salt was added to the diet the effect was phenomenal.

Such achievements are all well and good, but it is not always easy to predict all the consequences of these sorts of interventions. Many years ago, I watched a documentary on the effects of aid in third world countries and in particular on the unintended results. I no longer remember the country involved, but I clearly remember that the crop that was genetically enhanced was rice – the staple food of the local people. Scientists were able to develop a rice that produced a much higher yield than the rice that was traditionally grown and they were very successful in encouraging farmers to grow it. Unfortunately, while the rice produced abundantly in good years, in bad years it produced barely any grain. Before the introduction of the “new improved” rice farmers had sown a variety of rice seeds with the result that at least some of them produced a crop even in bad years. Now they no longer had those native seeds they were, at times, even worse off.

Human curiosity and the desire to push the limits of what we learn and what we can do knows no bounds, but humans have their limitations and we cannot always see the end result of what at first seems like a lifesaving, world-changing discovery.

No matter how clever or wise we think we are, only God has access to the full picture. Only God really knows what will really work long term and what will not. Only God can see the unintended domino effect that an action in one place might have in another place and time. Only God can see the length and breadth of human history and the impact of humans on the world and its peoples.

Two of this morning’s reading address the issue of the arrogance of humans who, in their desire to know and their longing to make a difference live in constant competition with God.

In both Genesis and Matthew, the devil (serpent, Satan, tempter) (1) offers human beings what appears to be a really good idea (or ideas).  In Genesis the serpent encourages the woman to eat from the forbidden tree so that she, like God will have the knowledge of good and evil. Surely it would be useful to be able to distinguish good from bad? Thousands of years later, in the desert, the devil makes a number of suggestions to Jesus, all of which have the potential for good, the potential to solve the problems of the world – bread to feed the hungry of world, power to govern justly and wisely, authority to eliminate poverty, violence and oppression and fantastic displays of God’s intervention so that the world might have absolute certainty in the identity of Jesus.  

The reactions of the humans in the two stories are polar opposites. In Genesis, Adam and Eve are seduced by the serpent.  Surely the knowledge of good and evil is just what they need to create a safe and secure community on earth? If they have the wisdom of God, what on earth could go wrong?  God’s reaction in the story indicates that God thinks that things could go very wrong indeed. God knows, as most of us do not, that knowledge in the wrong hands is a very dangerous thing. God knows too well the limitations of humankind and that humanity, represented by Adam and Eve is not ready to know all there is to know.  Indeed, there are few, if any, who have the foreknowledge, the insight and selflessness to see clearly the end results of even good intentions, few who have the maturity to understand that sometimes holding back is of more value than rushing headlong to solve a problem, or to condemn a person who does not conform and few who have the wisdom to know that power, even if used benignly has the potential to oppress and confine.

Jesus’ interaction with the devil is the exact opposite of that of Adam and Eve because Jesus, understands too well the dangers of believing that only good can come from the devil’s suggestions.  He knows that good intentions are not enough, that the issues at hand are much more complex than giving the hungry food (think of the rice), or taking it upon oneself to make changes for the better rather than empowering others to create the change they need, and that dramatic and showy interventions are more convincing than faithful, steady actions that prove one is who they say they are.

Faced with the temptation to take up the devil’s offer of short cuts to recognition, power and a world in which no one is hungry, Jesus responds with the wisdom that demonstrates that he understands that there is no magic wand. He knows that what to the devil, look like obvious solutions may create more problems than they solve.

There is only one way to bring about heaven on earth and that is to follow the example of Jesus, to entrust ourselves and the future to God and to encourage others to do the same. It is only when (like Jesus) we submit ourselves to the greater wisdom, power and foresight of God, and only when we stop trying to compete with God that God’s kingdom will come and God’s will be done.

Lent is not simply about whether or not we can spend forty days going without, it is more about what we learn about ourselves when we give up trying to be in control.

May this Lent be a time, when we see ourselves for who we really are and let go of those things that put us in competition with God.

 

  • I have used the words used in scripture, but I believe these are just ways of expressing the human desire for power, independence and control which prevent us from being in relationship with God. It is a sign of our unwillingness to take responsibility for our behaviour that we attribute our failings to an external source.

 

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Ash Wednesday – Lent

February 17, 2026

As I write this, I am conscious that my calendar announces that today is the beginning of Ramadan, the time of fasting observed by Muslims. From today practicing Muslims will not consume food or drink between sunrise and sunset. This may mean rising at 4am for breakfast and then eating and drinking nothing until 8pm. I know this because my visit to Israel in 2015 coincided with Ramadan. In Old Jerusalem a canon was fired to indicate the beginning of and the end of the fast and the empty streets in the Palestinian districts filled with food carts only. after 8pm. Ramadan and its concluding celebration of Eid are now well-known in the Western world. The ABC news site has even published recipes for Ramadan. In my childhood, newspapers and magazines would. have featured recipes for Lent. Today Ash Wednesday and Lent do not even warrant a mention on my calendar!

Image of smoke from canon. Jerusalem 2015

Culturally Lent has become irrelevant and in the churches we seem to have lost the sense of solidarity that came with giving something up for Lent. This is due in part to the increasing secularisation of our society, but also relates to a more relaxed attitude in the church and the trivialising of the practice by making it a test of will-power rather than a freedom to focus on God and not on oneself.

I don’t have a solution, just a sense of grief that the traditions which enriched our faith and which were evident to the culture around us seem to have lost their place and we haven’t yet found something which unites us as followers of Christ.

The purpose of fasting is to pare down our lives to what is essential such that we can pay attention to God’s provision and can fully appreciate what we do have. We try to give up those things that prevent us from focussing on God. This might include meal plans that are less extravagant and easier to prepare – freeing us from the distraction that food can be in our lives. Equally, it might be useful to give up the self-absorption that reveals itself in resentment, self-pity, envy, ingratitude. If instead we practice gratitude and forgiveness, joy in other’s successes, we will (over time), rid ourselves of the negativity and bitterness that cause us to look inward rather than outward into the world and into God’s creation. We will make room for God and the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – will be evident in our lives and be visible to the world.

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Transfiguration – coming down from the mountain top

February 14, 2026

Transfiguration – 2026

Matthew 17:1-9

Marian Free

In the name of God who knows what it is to be fully human. Amen.

Two years ago, Michael and I were privileged to visit the Segrada Familie in Barcelona. We had seen it some twenty years previously when the interior was far from finished. This time we were utterly transfixed. Not only is the church beautiful it is, as Gaudi intended, filled with a sense of peace. After spending some time there, we literally had to force ourselves to leave.  We knew that no matter how long we stayed it would not seem to be enough and we knew that life awaited us beyond its walls.

Today is Transfiguration Sunday. On this day I particularly like to sing the hymn “Tis good Lord to be here”. Quoting Peter’s words in Matthew 17:3, the author of the lyrics, J. Armitage Robinson draws us into the scene on the mountain and imagines its impact on us – we see our redemption and the promise of the kingdom and we long to stay. In the final verse we sing: “Tis good Lord to be here! Yet we may not remain; but since you bid us leave the mount, come with us to the plain.” These final lines have a poignancy that always hits me. “But since you bid us leave the mount, come with us to the plain.” 

Interestingly though, nowhere in the accounts of the Transfiguration does Jesus suggest leaving the mountain – Luke doesn’t even bother to mention the descent. Leaving the mountain is just the logical next step – having gone up, one has to go down.

While they may not reflect the biblical text, Robinson’s lyrics articulate a temptation that is common to all – the desire to hold on to moments of pure joy, moments of transcendence, moments that take us out of our pain or our humdrum existence. He knows how hard it can be to tear oneself away from a moment or place that inspires awe and wonder,  how tempting it is to want to remain in a place where one experiences a feeling of being above and beyond the pressures of life, of being removed from the mundane, and the stressful and being in the presence of the eternal. Why would one ever seek to leave a place in which one felt safe, happy and at peace? Why would one ever want to leave a place in which one felt invincible?

Like Robinson, scholars have long thought that as important as the Transfiguration is, the message that one should return to real life is of equal value. One cannot stay in the rarefied atmosphere of the clouds (isolated and insulated) but must descend to the messiness that is daily living. As followers of Jesus we are obligated to immerse ourselves in the lives of those around us, to be part of the world, not separate from it, to shine our experience of Christ’s light in the darkness that can be human existence. 

It is certainly true that we are called to come down from the mountain and to share in the lives and experiences of our fellow human beings but, as I reflect on the Transfiguration one more time I wonder if that is what the author of Matthew is trying to tell us here. 

Is Matthew talking about the disciples or is he talking about Jesus? It is Jesus who leaves the exalted atmosphere of the mountain top. It is Jesus who as he is descending reminds his disciples that he is about to suffer and die. Jesus leaves the relatively safety of the mountain to face the agony of the cross. He chooses not to take advantage of his privileged status – not to be protected by God from the torment and pain that lies ahead. Jesus boldly leaves the mountain to bury himself once more in the stark realities of human existence. Despite being declared the Son of God, he makes the decision to face whatever it is that lies ahead of him as a human being.

 The Transfiguration and what precedes and follows it, is part of the pattern and tension of Jesus’ life. A life in which times of exaltation are followed by times of dejection, times of being accepted are followed by times of being rejected, times of being understood are followed by times of being misunderstood, times of revelation are followed by times of concealment, times of clarity are followed by times of paradox, and times of certainty are followed by times of confusion. 

At his birth Jesus is celebrated by the magis but then he is forced to for his life. At his baptism Jesus hears God’s voice declaring him to be God’s Son, but immediately he is thrust into the silence of the desert and the temptation to avoid the discomforts that that entails. On his entry to Jerusalem Jesus is cheered by the crowds only to be jeered by them when he stands before Pilate. Jesus’ disciples follow him when all seems to be going well but abandon him when he needs them most. 

Jesus’ life is anything but monochrome. All three evangelists point us away from the mountain to the cross. They want to be absolutely certain – not that we leave the mountain – but that we don’t leave Jesus on the mountain, that we see the tensions and paradoxes that exist in life of one who is fully human as well as fully divine. If we forget Jesus’ humanity, his frailty and his vulnerability, if we leave him on the mountain, we miss the whole point. Jesus, fully human, suffers as we suffer and knows joy as we know joy. There is no armour of godliness that protects him from the realities of human life. 

Jesus’ divinity might show us what God is like, but Jesus’ full humanity tells us that God knows what it is like to be us. To leave Jesus on the mountain is to focus on his glory to the detriment of his humanity, to allow him to come down is to embrace the complexity of who he really is. 

I will still love singing: “Tis good Lord to be here,” but from now on, I will ask myself whether it is Jesus who comes with us to the plain, or whether it is we who follow him into the breadth and depth of what if means to be fully human. 

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“Being more righteous”?

February 10, 2026

 

 Fifth Sunday after Epiphany – 2026

Matthew 5:13-20

Marian Free

In the name of God, Earth-maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver. Amen.

Context is everything. If someone says to you that: “it was really dark”, they could mean a number of things. They could be saying that it was a moonless night, that they had read a book or seen a film with a depressing theme, or that it was an especially dark chocolate that they had eaten. The only way to know for certain what they mean is to know the context of the sentence – either by paying attention to what was said previously (were they talking about a time or place or were they referring to something they had read or seen) or by noticing their physical surroundings (is there evidence that they have just eaten a piece of chocolate?)

There is no reason why we should imagine that the gospels would be any different. On Sundays we hear only small segments of the gospels, but to fully understand what we hear, we have to read the text surrounding our mornings’ set piece and we have to have some understanding of the social, historical, geographical and political context of the writer and/or the community whom the writer is addressing.

I find this particularly important when it comes to the gospel of Matthew. Read in isolation, Matthew’s gospel can appear to be harsh and legalistic. In fact, in the first year of my ordained ministry I struggled to preach on Matthew. It seemed so oppressive and so lacking in the grace that I found elsewhere in the gospels, setting standards that few but the most holy among us could achieve that it was difficult for me to find something inspirational and encouraging to say.

Take for example the last saying from this morning’s gospel. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all I accomplished. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:17-18, 20).

At first glance the emphasis on the law, in particular on keeping the letter of the law, contradicts what we know about Jesus’ general antagonism towards the law, and his general disregard for laws that had become burdensome rather than liberating. (His insistence on working on the Sabbath being just one example.)

So what is going on the background of this gospel, that the author of Matthew should be so insistent that Jesus had demanded that the law in its entirety should be kept if one is to enter the kingdom of heaven?

As I often tell my students, the only way we can build up a picture of the situation in which and into which Matthew is writing, is through the clues that we find in the gospel. While the social/historical situation at the time of writing can provide us with some background, there is no external evidence for the life of Jesus or the life of the Jesus’ communities.

It is generally agreed that all the gospels were written after the fall of Jerusalem in 70CE. Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans and with it the Temple. Any who survived the slaughter were forced to leave the city and to begin life again. Without a Temple, there was no central focal point for the Jewish faith and no place in which to practice the sacrifices and rituals that were the established means of expressing and maintaining a relationship with God. As a consequence, there developed a reliance on the law as a replacement for the Temple – a practice which had already begun with the Pharisees (who rejected the Temple) and which, after the destruction of Jerusalem developed into what we know as Rabbinic Judaism. The development of Rabbinic Judaism explains a post-Temple emphasis on the law, but not why this emphasis impacts on the Matthean community, for this we have to turn to the gospel itself.

From the way in which the gospel is written, and from certain sayings and inclusions, it is possible to discern that the author of Matthew was writing for followers of Jesus whose origin was Jewish. For instance, unique to Matthew is an emphasis on the ways in which Jesus fulfills Jewish scriptures, Jesus’ genealogy which goes back to Abraham, the father of Judaism, (not Adam as in Luke), Matthew’s use of the title ‘Son of David’ for Jesus and the comparison of Jesus (new law-giver) with Moses (the giver of the law), not to mention the command “to go only to the lost sheep of Israel”.

Historically, there is some evidence that post 70CE a number of Pharisaic Jews found a home in a place called Jamnia. Here they were able to pursue their focus on the law unimpeded. Scholars believe that a community who believed in Jesus likewise found a refuge in Jamnia and that these two “Jewish” groups both claimed to be the true continuation of the historical Israel and in some small way competed with each other for that title.

It is this that helps us to make sense of Matthew 5:17-20.  “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees” could well be an incentive for the Matthean community to prove themselves as the true Israel by being more righteous than the Pharisees whom they viewed as their competition.

When it comes to reading the scriptures we should not be naïve or simply take the words at face value. We should do all that we can to understand what is really being said and why. The alternative to this spirit of inquiry is at best to risk misinterpretation, but at worst is to impose burdens on ourselves and others that were never intended by Jesus.

Faith is not a competition, but a relationship, a relationship based on God’s unconditional love as revealed by Jesus, a gift to be received not earned. Any other reading of scripture risks being coercive and even abusive.

We owe it to God, to ourselves and others to delve beyond the surface into the truer meaning.

 

 

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Blessings (and responsibility)

February 7, 2026

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Matthew 5:1-12 (some thoughts)

Marian Free

 

In the name of God whose thoughts are not our thoughts and ways are not our ways. Amen.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Right there we have a clear indication that Matthew’s voice is very different from that of Luke who doesn’t qualify or try to expand the meaning “of poor”.  Luke simply says: “Blessed are the poor,” making it quite clear that those who are not poor are not included. He makes this even more explicit in his second major departure from Matthew’s wording: “Woe to you who are rich.” Unlike Matthew, Luke’s beatitudes are followed by a list of woes – to the rich, the full and the laughing. (This is consistent with Luke’s agenda which is to make explicit God’s preference for the poor and marginalised – think of the Magnificat which is mirrored here.)

 

It is often assumed that Matthew has spiritualised the Beatitudes, taken the sting out of them – we don’t have to actually be poor to belong to the kingdom of heaven, we can simply be humble, aware of our spiritual poverty. That said, being “poor in spirit” doesn’t seem to be a commendable state of being, certainly not one that would seem to warrant the status of blessedness! So we are left with something of a mystery.

 

Beatitudes simply means blessings. They are not unique to the gospels but are found throughout scripture. There are seven individual beatitudes in the Book of Revelation. What we know as The Beatitudes is a group of blessings which are found only in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.

 

Scholars believe that the authors of both Matthew and Luke used Mark’s gospel as their starting point and that they had another common source (for convenience called Q or ‘source’) from which they drew material. Each them also appears to have had access to teaching that was unique to them. (For example, only Luke records our favourite parables – the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son.) Both authors follow Mark’s ordering of events, but because they were writing independently, they have used their common material quite differently. Matthew for example begins his first block of Jesus’ teaching with what we call “The Sermon on the Mount”. Luke includes much of the same material, but splits it into two parts – a sermon and a travel discourse. Another difference between the two gospels is that while Matthew places Jesus on a mountain for this important block of teaching, Luke places Jesus on the plain. It is possible that Matthew, addressing a largely Jewish audience, uses the mountain to draw out the similarities between Moses the giver of the law and Jesus the new law-giver. For the writer of Luke who was writing for a largely Gentile audience, the allusion to Moses would have been missed.

 

In Matthew, this block of teaching or “Sermon on the Mount” takes up all of chapters 5 through 7 and, while links between the different sayings can be discerned, it is basically a collection of individual sayings which have been collected by Jesus’ followers and recorded together. It is very unlikely that Jesus would have simply have stood on a mountains and reeled off a list of proverb-like sayings. It is much more feasible that Jesus said many, if not all these things, but said them in conversation, over meals, or while journeying with his disciples as the occasion arose. Then after his death his followers would have repeated them when they met together and finally someone would have gathered them into a collection something like that which we have today.

 

Returning to Matthew’s record of the Beatitudes, perhaps they are not as starkly different from those of Luke as I have made out. Warren Carter suggests that, in much the same way as Luke, the first four beatitudes that are recorded by Matthew, refer to the oppressive situation in which believers find themselves and the Sermon as a whole addresses the ways in which the Kingdom of God is breaking in to address those situations. He argues that the first beatitude has less to do with being humble and patient as I suggested above, but refers to those who are “materially poor and whose spirits are crushed by economic injustice, deprivation of resources and few options.”

Blessing of the meek (the third beatitude) is proclaimed in Psalm 137. The first four beatitudes emphasize God’s actions “promising divine reversals in both the present and the future.” Carter suggests that the next five beatitudes turn our attention to human behaviours which contribute to the building of the kingdom – doing mercy, making peace and, when necessary accepting persecution in the cause of justice and peace.

Jesus begins his ministry saying: “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” In this collection of sayings, beginning with the Beatitudes, Jesus begins to set out what the kingdom might look like – what God will do, and how we are called to respond.

Whatever Jesus’ original meaning, we who are relatively well-off and who are not under the thumb of an oppressive and exploitive colonial power are blessed. We are blessed because we already have glimpses of the kingdom. We are blessed because we know what it is to be in relationship with the living God. We are blessed because Jesus has shared our existence and demonstrated that it is possible to grow into our divinity. And we are blessed with the power of the Holy Spirit.

With those blessings comes responsibility – the responsibility to play our part in making the kingdom a reality on earth, to work for justice and peace, to hunger and thirst for righteousness to challenge unjust structures and to confront oppression of any kind.

Like most of Jesus’ sayings, the Beatitudes come with a sting – the blessings are ours, but so too are the responsibilities. We who are blessed should become a blessing for others.

 

 

 

 

 

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Repent! (or Pay Attention)

January 26, 2026

Third Sunday after Epiphany – 2026

Matthew 4:12-25

Marian Free

In the name of God who is all around us –  if only we would pay attention. Amen.

The fourth verse of the poem “Sometimes” by Mary Oliver reads:  

“Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”

“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”[1]

Today we are quick to criticise our youth (or chastise ourselves) for spending too much time on our devices – phones, tablets, computers – and not enough time noticing, socialising, reading or whatever else we deem they/we are missing out on. It may be true that modern technology has made it easier to communicate, to seek out information or to be entertained, but I would argue that those of us with leisure to do so have always been easily distracted, have always wanted to be entertained and have often failed to notice what is right in front of us. Why else would the saying: “Take time to smell the roses” be used so often.

We may not always have had devices, but we have always had other excuses for not paying attention. In fact, sometimes we make not paying attention a virtue. I am just too busy; my children/parents/work need me; if I don’t do it (cook/clean/teach) who else will and so on? 

Interestingly, both John the Baptist and Jesus begin their ministry by calling for repentance: “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Where? How? What is this kingdom and why should we “repent”?

As I prepared for this week’s sermon two reflections caught my attention and made me think very differently about Jesus’ announcement of the kingdom, his demand for repentance and his calling of the disciples. Even though they make the same sort of argument I’d like to quote from both – partly because the thought is new to me as well.

The first reflection comes from the sermon commentary in The Christian Century which lands in my email box each week. In it, Christine Chakoain points out that Jesus calls for a redirection of priorities. Reflecting on repentance she writes: “‘Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.’ What,” she asks, “if Jesus doesn’t want us to miss the kingdom that could be right here, right now, if we just focused on the things that really matter? What if he’s calling us to set down what’s getting in our way?” 

In his comment on this week’s gospel Archbishop Jeremy Greaves stated that: “When Jesus announces that the kingdom of God has come near It is not an abstract theology statement. It is a declaration about God’s presence here and now. It is not somewhere we escape to nor simply a promise of something in the future. It is God’s life breaking into ordinary human existence – in fishing boats and on dusty roads among the anxious the hopeful and the overlooked. When Jesus heals, gathers and teaches, we get a glimpse of what God’s reign looks like: wounds attended, dignity restored, communities reconciled.

To repent then, is to turn towards this reality, to realign our lives with God’s compassion and justice.”[2]

When I preached about John the Baptist recently, I reminded you that the Greek word “metanoia” which we translate as “repent”, doesn’t mean to be sorry, but to turn around, to turn our lives to face the kingdom, to turn away from the world and towards God. Chakoain and Greaves make this point even more clearly. To repent is to pay attention to the kingdom moments in the present to see that God is already present and at work among us.  Jesus calls us to “repent”, to pay attention to what is happening around us. Jesus does not want us to miss out.

This extraordinary (to me) insight makes sense of both the Synoptic and the Johannine versions of Jesus’ calling of the first disciples. It explains why Peter and Andrew, James and John were so willing to abandon their livelihood (and possibly those who depended on them) to follow Jesus and why Andrew and the other disciple of John left him to see where Jesus was staying.  They didn’t “repent” in the way that we normally understand that word (nor did Jesus ask them to). They were already paying attention and because they were paying attention, they saw Jesus for who he was, somehow, they understood that in Jesus the kingdom was breaking through and they simply could not wait to be part of it. They did not abandon their master (in the case of Andrew and the other of John’s disciples) nor did they give up their trade (in the case of Peter and Andrew, James and John) for a random stranger. They left everything behind because, in Jesus they recognised that the “kingdom of God” was already here.  

Archbishop Jeremy contended that: “The nearness of the kingdom is both comfort and calling: comfort, because God is closer than we imagine; calling, because we are invited to participate.” 

Jesus announces the nearness of the kingdom and this is why Jesus’ public ministry begins with a call to: “repent”. Jesus is not calling us to consider our worthiness for the kingdom or not, rather Jesus is anxious that if we don’t pay attention, if we don’t open our eyes to the presence of God (in him and in the world) that we will miss out, that we won’t see God already working among us, the kingdom already beginning to be present.

The kingdom of God has come near: “Pay attention, be astonished, tell about it.”

Open your eyes, your minds and your hearts. Don’t miss out!

[1] https://readalittlepoetry.com/2014/09/10/sometimes-by-mary-oliver/

[2] For the full recording go here: https://anglicanfocus.org.au/2026/01/09/sundayiscoming-reflection-25-january-2026/

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Being fully aborbed into the Trinity and fully absorbing the Trinity in us – Jesus’s baptism according to John

January 17, 2026

Epiphany 2 – 2026

John 1:29-42

Marian Free

In the name of God who invites us to be part of God’s very self. Amen.

Today we break our journey through Matthew’s gospel to gain an insight into the theology of the writer of the John. Given that we read Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism last week, you may have noticed some significant differences in John’s version. Familiar elements of the story include the detail that John was baptising in the Jordan when Jesus appeared and that at some point prior there was a dove which descended from heaven as prophesied and which enabled the Baptist to confidently declare that Jesus was the Son of God. Missing from this story is Jesus’ actual baptism by John and the voice from heaven declaring Jesus to be God’s beloved Son. 

In this gospel the Baptist sees Jesus approaching and announces: “Here is the Lamb of God” (assuming that his listeners, who are not mentioned, will understand what he means). In John’s version the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry has no temptation story, and Jesus does not walk along the lake to call Peter and Andrew, James and John. Rather, when Jesus reappears the following day and once again John states: “Look, here is the Lamb of God” two of John’s disciples, Andrew and one other leave John and follow Jesus. Andrew then identifies Jesus as the Messiah, and it is he who brings his brother Simon to Jesus. 

This morning’s reading introduces a number of complex themes that will be repeated throughout John’s gospel. These include bearing witness or testifying to, looking or looking for, seeing, and abiding, each of which is used in a particular way in this gospel. For the initiated, (by whom I mean scholars who study John’s gospel), it seems that the author is writing in code, a code that he is confident that his listeners are already privy to, and which therefore does not need to be elaborated. There is however no codebreaker for those of us who are trying to unpack this gospel two thousand years later. It is left to scholars to notice patterns and repetitions and to try to discern the meaning behind the words and symbols that John uses.

Today, I’d like focus on the word “abiding,” (μενω in Greek), which occurs five times in these verses and is one of the key words in John’s gospel – it occurs 40 times in total. You will of course be familiar with the expression from the discourse on the vine in chapter 15. There Jesus says among other things: “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” (4). The word “abide” describes the sort of intimacy with another (in this case Jesus) that it is so close that it is as if the two are one. Abiding in Jesus means being absorbed into Jesus and allowing ourselves to absorb Jesus into our very being. 

In English, “μενω” or “abide” is translated as “remain” or “stay”, which means that we tend to miss when it occurs and therefore are unable to discern John’s deeper meaning. Today for example, you will not have heard “abide” at all despite the five repetitions. 

In verses 32 and 33 “abiding” describes the relationship between the members of the Trinity. John says: “I saw the Spirit descend and it abided in him” (32) and “The one on whom the Spirit descends and abides, is the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit” (33). The Holy Spirit descends as a dove and takes up residence, “abides”, in Jesus. 

Later in the gospel, Jesus makes it clear that Father is also part of this intimate relationship. He says: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The Father who abides in me works through me.” (14:10). Perhaps, more astonishingly, the fourth gospel claims that those who abide in Jesus, by extension, abide in the Trinity. If Jesus abides in the Father and the Spirit, then we who abide in Jesus, likewise abide in the Trinity.  “You know the Spirit of truth, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” (14:16) Later, when Jesus describes the relationship between himself and believers as that of a vine and its branches he says: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (15:10). 

This concept of being absorbed into the Trinity and absorbing the Trinity into ourselves is perhaps most fully expressed in the language of chapter 6 where Jesus says: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them.” (56). According to the author of the fourth gospel then, the relationship between the members of the Trinity and between a believer and the Trinity, is so close that it is if they are indistinguishable one from another.

Given this background, the next three occurrences of “μενω” in today’s gospel have a deeper meaning than we might otherwise give them. Andrew and another of John’s disciples, follow Jesus. When Jesus notices them he asks what they are looking for. Their response is to say: “Where are you abiding?” Jesus responds: “Come and see.” “They came and saw where he was abiding, and they abided with him that day.”

From the very beginning the author of the fourth gospel describes the relationship between members of the Trinity and the relationship between believers and the Trinity as one of union – of each abiding in the other to the point that they are almost indistinguishable one from another.

There are many challenges in the fourth gospel, but perhaps it is this concept of abiding that is the most confronting and the most difficult for us to attain. Jesus describes his relationship with the Father and the Spirit as one of complete union and he invites us to allow ourselves to be absorbed into that union. 

Too often in matters of faith, as in other relationships, we hold something back. Jesus asks for nothing less than full participation in the Godhead and for us to allow the Godhead to fully dwell in us. This, for many of us an impossible goal, but it is a goal to which we must aspire if Jesus is to truly abide in us and we in him.

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Jesus’ baptism – complete surrender

January 10, 2026

Baptism of Jesus – 2026

Matthew 3:13-17

Marian Free

Loving God, open our minds to your word, our hearts to your spirit and our lives to your will. Amen.

There are only five verses in today’s gospel, but they contain so many complexities that I am not sure we will get to the bottom of them today.

If you read all four accounts of the baptism of Jesus you will see that there are substantial differences between them which means that each author, or the communities for whom they wrote, has interpreted the story in a way that was helpful for them. What the accounts have in common, is that Jesus came to John and that something called baptism happened. Also, all four gospels try, in some way or another t play down the role of John the Baptist which reflects a certain embarrassment concerning Jesus’ baptism by John. This is most clearly articulated in Matthew’s gospel in which John says – “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”   

Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism raises a number of questions for me including:
What is actually happening here? What were the Jewish practices – if any – of baptism? How much has the early church read their practice into the story? What does Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism tell us about his agenda? And, for me, the most challenging question: What does it mean when Jesus says: “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

The beginning of the first century was a time of religious upheaval in Judea. Many Judeans were disillusioned with the Temple and its rituals not least because the priests were political appointees and therefore owed an allegiance to Rome. The Pharisees responded by developing a practice based more on law than ritual and the Essenes withdrew into the desert to practice a more aesthetic version of Judaism. John, and his call for the people to return to God, is representative of this situation. Like the Pharisees and Essenes, he appears to have believed that there was a need for the nation as a whole to purify itself and he does this by calling people to turn their lives around and to wash themselves in the Jordan. That he touched a chord among the people is evidenced by the fact that people from all over the country, including the Pharisees, Sadducees and even soldiers and tax collectors came to him for baptism.

I use the word “wash” because this word more accurately represents Jewish practice and the meaning of the Greek word – baptizo. To really grasp what is happening we have to remember that a person was a Jew by virtue of birth. There is little evidence of Jewish evangelism in the first century and what we call “baptism” was not a rite of entry into the Jewish faith. Immersion in water was a rite of purification and there were a number of pools at the Temple for this purpose. This was a personal action and did not require anyone else to be present. John’s call for people to immerse themselves in the Jordan indicates a rejection of the Temple and its practices. The Jordan had the further advantage in that it symbolised a movement from wandering in the desert to life in the promised land.

John calls the people to “repent because the kingdom of heaven has come near.”   “Repent,” the translation of the Greek “metanoia,” is commonly understood to mean being sorry for one’s sins (as it is in our form of the Confession). In its original context however it simply meant to turn around. In calling people to repent John – then Jesus – was challenging people to stop going their own selfish way and to turn around, to return to God. This means that we don’t have to worry about a sinless Jesus being baptised to cleanse him from his sins. Instead, we can see that baptism, immersion in water by or in the presence of John, was for Jesus, a public declaration of his willingness to give his life entirely into the hands of God.

At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus has come to John in order to demonstrate his complete submission to God and his readiness to live a life directed by God’s will and not his own.

We still have to explain the mysterious statement that we find only in Matthew’s gospel. In response to John’s objection Jesus justifies his baptism by saying that it is “to fulfill all righteousness.” Matthew is fond of both expressions “fulfill” and “righteousness. He wants to make it clear that Jesus is the fulfillment of scripture and also that a key characteristic of the Kingdom of Heaven is righteousness.  

Righteousness is a difficult term to define, especially as we commonly use the word to refer to the observance of a religious or ethical norm. Being “righteous” in our minds is associated with being “good.” In Old Testament terms though and in Matthew’s usage, righteousness refers to a quality of God – God’s dispensation of justice and salvation, or as Albright and Mann suggest, it is a term that refers to “the whole purpose of God for his (sic) people”[1]. It is God who makes righteous. Righteousness as Paul makes clear is not earned but is a gift. So, when Jesus states that his baptism by John is to “fulfill all righteousness” he is saying that his submission to the ritual of washing demonstrates his complete identification with God and God’s purpose for God’s people. Through him, God’s purpose for God’s people will come to fruition and as a consequence, “all righteousness will be fulfilled”. Through his baptism, Jesus makes it clear that he is the prototype of the peopel we are all called to be.

Through his baptism by John, Jesus signals his complete submission to the will of God and his desire to have no life of his own but only a life that is given over completely to the will of God, directed by the presence of God within.

Our modern practice of baptism with its emphasis on turning from sin is a poor imitation of Jesus’ baptism. Kingdom people are people who have utterly surrendered their lives and their wills to God.

What are we prepared to surrender in order for God’s righteousness to be fulfilled?

 

[1] Albright, W. F. and Mann, C. S. (1971). Matthew: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Sydney: The Anchor Bible, Doubleday, 31.

Hezekiah’s tunnel which directs water to the Pool of Siloam – one of the pools for ritual washing at the Temple.
Steps leading to Pool of Siloam

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Holy Innocents

January 5, 2026

Holy Innocents – 2025

Matthew 2:13-23

Marian Free

In the name of God Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver. Amen.

This morning I would like to begin with a story, the story of Marmour an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Brisbane. He shared the story in Anglican Focus and I’d like to use his own words. 

He wrote: “I fled South Sudan for Ethiopia when I was 11. The journey across the desert without clothing or shoes was very bad. We travelled for many days – we walked for more than a month across the desert to escape the persecution of the Khartoum government who wanted to abduct boys so they couldn’t join the rebel groups once they became older.

More than 20,000 boys walked across the desert as unaccompanied minors. We are known as the ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’. There were seven from my extended family and we walked with 13,000 others. I left my parents with only the food I could carry, which my mum packed for me, and a two litre container of water. My mum packed simsim for me, a sort of produce like peanuts that doesn’t need cooking so it was easy to eat. I didn’t see my parents again.

We travelled at nighttime, mostly so the Khartoum government military in helicopters could not find us. We ran out of food quickly and ate wild animals, although not all of us would get a portion. It was a struggle.

The desert was very dry and it was dangerous. We could be abducted. Some children were eaten by lions. Most children who died just fell asleep and did not get up as they were too weak to walk any further.

Arriving in Ethiopia was another bad experience. We had no food at all and we arrived in Ethiopia with no place to go. So we had to sleep under trees. There was nowhere to go to the toilet so the children defecated anywhere, which spread cholera. Children also died of tropical diseases, which spread quickly because we lived close together. Many of us also died of malnutrition.

It took three months for the United Nations to come with food and medical supplies, although the strongest medicine they had was Panadol and hydration salts. They did not bring water so we had to keep drinking from the diseased river. There was no clean water until more than four years later in 1991.

Around 1991 we were forced back to the Ethiopian-Sudanese border to Pochalla. The United Nations moved us out because of the threat of the Eritrea-Ethiopian rebels’ movement. Because there was no airstrip, the United Nations could not fly us in food. We left the Panyido refugee camp in Ethiopia in two groups, going in separate directions. It took me and my group three weeks to get to Pochalla on the border. It was easier the second time for me as I packed more food and was a few years older. Many of the children in the group that went in the other direction were shot at by rebels and either died in the gunfire or drowned as they tried to escape across the river Gilo. Some managed to get safely across the river.

We lived in Pochalla for a couple of months. The Khartoum government bombed the area from helicopters a few times and sent troops to attack us on the ground. Because of this, the United Nations decided it was an unsafe place for children so we had to move again, this time to Kenya.

The walk to Kenya was more than two months. It was bad. There wasn’t much food. We walked at night to keep safe. The United Nations did not have enough vehicles to transport the children so we had to walk across Kothngor desert. They did not plan well.

We arrived in northwestern Kenya at the Kakuma refugee camp in 1992. Over 15,000 of us had travelled there. We were very weak when we arrived, but life was better in Kakuma.

In 2003, more than 15 years after I first left my parents, I came to Australia. When I first came here, I went to Tasmania. So – I went from Kenya, which is extremely hot every day of the year and where I lived for over 10 years to Tasmania. As the Tasmanian weather was too much for me, after two months I moved to Sydney.

Can you imagine being a parent so desperate to keep their child safe that they would send them into the desert alone knowing that they might never see them again? Or imagine watching your child slowly fade away from hunger because war, drought or other natural disaster means that you cannot find enough food to feed them? What must  it be like to be the parent of a daughter kidnapped by ISIS or Nigerian ISIS fighters – knowing that they will almost certainly be forced into a marriage with their captors? 

On the first Sunday of Christmas, we are brought down to earth with an awful jolt. The account of the slaughter of all the male children under two stands in distinct contrast with the irenic scenes of the Nativity. All the hope and possibility that Jesus’ birth represented seems to have been a false promise. But, as we witnessed in Australia just three weeks ago, the world is a cruel and unpredictable place – joy can turn to tragedy in a moment and as the last few years have illustrated there is far too much tragedy in the world.

There is no historical evidence for the account of the slaughter of the innocents but this story, on this Sunday is a reminder both that faith is no protection from the .. of the world and that God is not unaware of the cruelty of which humanity is capable.  This story is for every parent who has lost a child to preventable disease, to a bomb or a terror attack, for every parent who has held a child whose stomach is swollen thanks to malnutrition, for every parent who this Here, in our holy scripture is a story that tells them that their story is part of the story.

Our scriptures don’t sugar coat what it means to be human. In its pages are almost every human experience. THE story is our story, in scripture we can find a story that matches our own and which tells us that we are not alone but part of the vast expanse of human experience. THE story tells it how it is, and in so doing reminds us that no detail of human existence – however awful is beneath God’s attention.

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