Opening Hymn                  Tune Tis 47

O God our help in ages past
Our hope for you and me.
Help us to be the catalyst
that all may surely see.

The strangest sign with us today
Is terror in God’s name.
It shows how far we’ve lost our way
It is a deepening shame.

Some make the claim that when they kill
They do it for some good;
It does not show a gracious will
It’s not where Jesus stood.

If God is in a war at all,
It is with those who bleed.
It is with wounded as they fall
No matter what their creed.

Some claim they have the right to say
That God is on their side;
But Jesus shows us love’s true way
And there we should abide.

Call to Worship

We gather together to express the worthship of God. What we understand by the word God may differ but on one thing we are united: that Jesus of Nazareth reveals the nature and purpose of God and we are called to find our place in his-story.

Prayer

We watch and we wonder about war and peace,
about horror and hope.
We weep and wonder about jets destroying cities so that they can be saved, Ben Tre in Vietnam and Kobane in Syria
And in the background we hear the murmuring of the crucified one about loving one’s enemies and doing good to those who persecute.
We come to listen again, to hear, to forgive, and to be saved from ourselves and the violence of war.
The world today is out of control, like a ship without a rudder.
Violence is in plague proportions in the home, in society and in the world.
Fear, not faith, is our way of life – from Syria to Canberra where billions of dollars are being spent on weapons of war.
We live in an orgy of violence that should cause us to tremble, tremble, tremble for the future of the human race.
And on this day, and in this context,
we come to hear again of he who said:
“Do good to those who persecute you, love one another, love your enemies rather than kill them.”
We have learned so little of your love, and once again we seek the gift of a new beginning, a new pregnancy, and a new birth.
Teach us to see our lives and our living in a new way,
and to value our children, and our children’s children, more than we do.
May our weapons of war be turned into acts of mercy, our missiles into gestures of friendship, and our bombs into explosions of love and care
so that, instead of destroying each other, we may together live life to the full
as evidenced in Jesus of Nazareth and of the world,
our leader, and the one whom we boldly assert to be the Saviour of the world who blessed the peacemakers over and against the promoters of violence, who calls each and every one of us to be Peacemakers

In his name we gather this morning and express his worthship to be seen as the Saviour of the world.
So be it; and if it be so, then to him be the honour and the glory.
Amen

The Sermon “The New Commandment”

Let me say two things in introduction

(1) The first is that there comes a time in every preacher’s life when he knows that what he says will not be popular. I suspect that this morning may be one such occasion. You will remember that Jesus himself endured many such occasions. Without I hope any delusions of grandeur, let me remind you of one of them, the time when he visited his home synagogue and the congregation were most impressed with the eloquence and understanding of Joe’s son, back home in the family pew. And then Jesus starts explaining the scriptures and the atmosphere dramatically changes and the temperature rises. As Robert MacAfee Brown puts it:
                  “The story literally becomes a cliff-hanger. The irate listeners hustle Jesus out of the synagogue and all of them jostle their way to the top of one of the high hills surrounding Nazareth. They have a plan: they are going to swing him three times out over the steepest cliff they can find and let go on the third swing. So much for hometown boys who try come back and try to tell off their elders.
                  Somehow, Jesus gets away and there is no lynching that night. But instead of learning from the experience, he obstinately continues to preach the same disturbing message elsewhere. A couple of years later another mob gets their hands on him, takes him to another hill outside another city and makes sure that this time he does not get away.”
                  It is of some comfort to me that I know of no cliff tops in Wembley Downs, and those who are older than me probably haven’t got the energy to do anything anyway.

(2) It was my original intention to entitle this sermon “The Heresy of the Beatles” and I then realised that not everyone would remember the Beatles pounding out “All you Need is Love” – an assertion that in one sense is right, but in another is woefully wrong. It all depends on what you mean by love. And the assertion of the Beatles that “It is easy” is complete nonsense. If anyone thinks that loving one’s enemies is easy, they want their head read! Loving one’s friends is hard enough. Loving one’s enemies is almost impossible. As Ashley pointed out in the latest Church magazine “Love is really hard work. It hurts, but we need to love anyway.” In the end I decided not to give my remarks a title but just a text: “The New Commandment: Love one another as I have Loved you” (John 13:34) The words are so important that they are repeated twice within the course of two chapters, the second occasion having added to it the words “Greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends” – a sentence that sadly is often wrenched from its context and used to justify the monstrosity of war. The more pertinent words of Jesus are “Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.” People don’t go to war to offer up their lives. They go to war to kill the enemy. More of that later!

                  Let me first look at the lectionary text “a new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you “. From this I understand two things

Firstly, that the nature of the love to which we are called is defined by the love we see in Jesus of Nazareth – and that I would suggest is very different to the kind of love of which the Beatles sang, and indeed love as it is understood today, varying from a warm fuzzy feeling towards another, to sexual activity, to loving icecream, money or one’s country and so on. The striking one on TV of late is “What would you love to do? You can do it in the army”, which I would suggest is a very mixed message. There is a huge range of meaning to the world “love” and we desperately need to clarify what we mean by the word love – even more so what Jesus means by the word love. It is very different from a warm fuzzy feeling, very different to how we use the word love today. As Jesus said “If you love only those who love you, what good is that. Even the heathen do that.” What’s the big deal if you love only those who love you?” Loving those who love you is not what the Christian faith is about. To coin a phrase, it is about “loving those who spitefully use you.”
                  As many of you will be aware there are four words for love in the Greek language, the language in which the early versions of the scripture were written. The first is “eros”, from which we get the word erotic, sexual love. The second is “storge” which is the loving relationship within families, motherly or brotherly love. The third is “phileo” which is about deep relationships that extend both within and beyond the family. And the fourth is “agape” which is the “highest” form of love and includes such things as commitment and selflessness. The problem is that, as with language generally, the meaning of words flow into each other.
                  The words Eros and Storge do not appear in the Scriptures. Phileo and Agape do and the distinction between the two is both fascinating and important. For example the conversation of Jesus with Peter in John 21:15 which starts off with Jesus saying
“Simon, do you love me” says Jesus and the word used is Agape – the highest form of love.
Simon Peter replies Lord, you know I love you – the word used is Phileo, the word for deep affection. What he is saying is “You know how I feel towards you”
Jesus picks up the difference and asks the same question again
and the reply is the same.
And then Jesus asks the same question but using phileo instead of agape as if to say “So it’s just deep affection is it? ”Finally Peter gets the point. Jesus is calling him to a higher level of commitment and Peter gets upset. Jesus is questioning his commitment, and using the difference in the words Phileo and Agape to do it.
                  The meaning and use of words today is just as big a problem as it is was then. Language is a very imprecise tool to convey meaning. So what does Jesus do? He goes beyond the vagaries of language and lays it on the line “Love one another as I have loved you” – not what you think love may be but love as you see it operating in my life. A new commandment, a new operating principle I give you to counter the vagaries of language: Love one another as I have loved you. Jesus was non violent, we are to be non violent. Jesus respected women, we are to respect women. Jesus confronted the culture of his day, we are to confront the culture of our day. The principle is as clear as it could be. We are to love one another as he loved! That is the meaning of love. We are not called to have a warm fuzzy feeling towards others and call it love. That’s the gospel according to the Beatles. The warmth and glow of family love and friendship is not what it is about. It is about loving as he loved which in Peter’s case, and our case too , means going beyond our feelings. Emotion has a part to play in love but if we see love primarily as emotion we lose the plot. I shudder when I think of learning at Sunday School the song “I’m h-a-p-p-y, I’m h-a-p-p-y, I know I am, I’m sure I am. I’m h-a-p-p-y” – which, when you come to think of it is not much difference to the mega churches we have today. They have lost the plot. What Jesus is saying here and elsewhere is that how you feel is not the point. Love one another as I have loved you. And if there is this love among you, everyone will know that you are my disciples. Christian love goes way beyond our feelings. Christian love can get you crucified and there’s no joy in that. We as a congregation are not called to have warm fuzzy feelings towards each other. We are called to love each other as Jesus loved and if there is this love amongst us then people will know that we are his disciples. He gives to us a new commandment, that we love one another as he loved, and by this will all people know we are his disciples.
                  “Peter (and here we could well put our own name), do you love me? “ “You know how I feel towards you Lord!” “That’s not what I am talking about, Peter. I am talking about carrying a cross” – and that’s not easy. The Beatles may think it is but believe you me it is not easy to lay down your life for others, to put their welfare before your welfare, to put their interest before your interest – but this is precisely what Jesus is on about here – not having warm fuzzy feelings but laying down one’s life for others. The second century writer Tertullian put it in an interesting way with his attributed saying “See how these Christians love one another” Actually he said a lot more, amongst it being that of pagans killing each other, and Christians being prepared to die for each other.
                  All of which, of course, brings up the fact that tomorrow is Anzac Day – probably the most religious day on the Australia calendar with wreaths being laid and hymns sung and prayers offered in solemn services at war memorials throughout the country. I know of no other event that sends Australians on pilgrimage half way around the world.
                  And I have no problem with this. Anzac day is an occasion for grieving. It is an occasion for expressing pain that that cannot be reduced to reason. of struggling against impossible odds, and the resulting sense of community or mateship that developed in so doing. These are things worth remembering and we should not forget them.
                  Let me be very clear that I too grieve deeply over every victim of war: soldiers and civilians alike. I have experienced the violence of war. The Shock and Awe bombing was shocking and it was awful and I have etched on my mind scenes of horror and violence – as do thousands of others. So much so that every day in the US 22 Veterans commit suicide (US Department Veterans Report 2013) I grieve the loss of lives killed in war and because of war. But what I will not do and will not tolerate that God had anything to do with it, nor will I sing “God of the far flung battle line beneath whose awful hand we hold dominion over palm and pine. Rudyard Kipling may have been a great writer but he was a lousy theologian.
                  Let there be no misunderstanding – the Christian approach to Anzac Day is very different to that of the R.S.L.’s “For God King and Country . I read the other day of a father grieving at the loss of his son in Afghanistan who said “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Nothing more needs to be said”. I grieve with him the loss of his son, but a lot more needs to be said. To use those words with relationship to war is heresy of the worst kind. Jesus was about loving, not killing, one’s enemy. It is so important for us to understand the nature of Christian love – and this is precisely what this morning’s passage of scripture is about.
                  That Jesus was non violent I believe is beyond dispute. It is sometimes asserted that the cleansing of the Temple was violent but that is pushing the envelope far too far. The turning of the tables of the money changers was in terms of a demonstration concerning the corruption of the system. The money changers were cashing in on a primary activity of humanity – the consideration of the meaning and purpose of life. I sometimes think a few more tables turned in our banks wouldn’t be out of place. Time after time they are exposed and it seems to make no difference. it is going to take more than a Royal Commission or a self financed investigation to deal with the corruption inherent in the system. The money changers did not rank highly in Jesus’ book – and for good reason. As far as the whip is concerned I hope you are aware of the fact that this is with reference to driving the animals out of the Temple grounds in much the way I would suggest a stockwhip is used to move cattle today. The demonstration in the temple is more than offset by the constant insistence on non violence such as in the sermon on the mount and the direction to love ones enemies. But it wasn’t just a case of words. The last week in Jerusalem from the donkey to allowing himself to be crucified is the story of non violence in the face of terrible violence.
                  Non violence was of course only one aspect of the love he demonstrated. Another was the infinite patience (and infinite is the right word) with his disciples who were as obtuse as any of us might be. Many of them were right proper twits and yet in the end they changed the course of history in so many ways. To be sure they lost the plot with the takeover of the Christian faith by the Emperor Constantine but that is now rapidly changing and the church exercising power is now on its last legs and thankfully so. There is even a move within the Vatican to revise Augustine’s concept of the just war.
                  There are of course exceptions and tomorrow is one of them with Anzac services of worship being held by clergy in their regalia. And let me be very clear I am as concerned about war as the next person but I see it from the viewpoint and suffering of the soldiers and not the propaganda of the war machine. I will be thinking tomorrow of a teenage soldier who sought me out in Iraq.
                  When the troops rolled into Baghdad I was on a balcony holding a large sign with the words “War is Terrorism”. It was quite prominent, so much so that a tank stopped and the gun turret turned towards the balcony on which I was standing. The gun remained pointed towards me for about ten seconds and then the tank rumbled down the street. I have no idea what was in the Tank Commander’s mind. I like to think he was making a point – and the point was well taken! The next day I was talking to a teenage American soldier who poured out his heart to me. He was on duty at a check point and was ordered by his Commanding Officer to open fire on a car that did not stop. He then had to pull out the bloodied bodies of a woman and her four children. He said that he had not slept a minute since that night and was a mental and physical wreck. We talked about forgiveness and I comforted him as best I could. I have no idea, of course, what happened to him. I suspect however that he may have taken his own life. More US Veterans have committed suicide than were killed in the war and I grieve for them and their families. I also grieve for the civilian casualties which far outweigh those of the military. No Australians soldiers were killed in action in the Iraq war but tens of thousands of civilians were. The shock and awe bombing was shocking and it was awful. Take a look at some of Syrian cities and you get some idea of the nature of the suffering caused by bombing and the horror of war. And to think that the bomber that destroyed Hiroshima was blessed by a Priest before it took off is to me beyond all comprehension – as was the comment the other day by Obama that if terrorists got their hand on nuclear weapons they would certainly use them. They already have – and please no nonsense about it stopping the war. The War was over and the Russians were coming. Glory to war in the highest and on earth misery and murder, for that is what war is: people killing people.
                  What then should be our attitude to Anzac Day. I have no problem with remembering the victims of war. I have a deep concern for the victims of war – including the soldiers – but I oppose the system and the philosophy that sacrifice them on the altar of war, the system and philosophy that Jesus opposed, and which is evidenced in our government. What is evidenced on Anzac day is the futility and stupidity of war and the more we remember it the better it will be! The assault on Anzac Cove is not to be associated with heroism. It was an act of crass stupidity with terrible consequences. It had nothing to do with defending of one’s country. It was the invasion of a foreign land. And let me state at this point that I do not see Anzac Cove as the birthplace of a nation. That is a fiction designed to offset the fact that the birthplace of our nation was the invasion of Terra Australis and the supremacy of rifle over spear, and the fact that Australia was not settled but invaded. My mind goes back to the bicentenary when some of us organised a March Across Australia when indigenous people from all parts of Australia travelled to the Bicentenary Celebrations in Sydney under the banner of “We Have Survived”. What a day it was, what an insight it was, and what a tragedy it is – ten year olds committing suicide, 27% of people in jail being indigenous when they constitute only 3 per cent of the population, increasing drug use and the highest rate of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder in the world. I am, you are, we are Australian, and it has nothing to do with what happened at Anzac Cove. That is a fiction worthy of the Booker Prize! Anzac Day wasn’t about defending one’s country, nor was it the birth of a nation. It was about invading another country and the stupidity of British Generals and politicians. It was about the death of 9,000 Australians for nothing – absolutely bloody nothing!
                  At the rising of the sun and the setting of the same let us remember the victims of war. Let us also remember that although no Australian soldiers were killed in action in the Iraq war, hundreds of thousands of civilians were.
                  I grieve for the men and women whose lives have been wrecked by war. Every day in the US 22 Veterans commit suicide (CNN 17/4/14) I grieve for those who are the collateral damage of war but I have no time for the war machine. The adverts on telly describe it in terms of adventure. It is no adventure when you shoot up a car that goes through a check point. It is no adventure when tens of thousands of civilians are killed in the bombing of a few soldiers. Let me say it as clearly as I can: the Christian faith is about loving, not killing one’s enemy. It is about non violence in the face of violence. The old covenant, the old commandments were about killing one’s enemy. The new commandment is about loving one’s enemy. It is about loving as Jesus loved and to use on Anzac Day Jesus words “Greater love has no man than this that he lay he lay down his life for his friends” is heresy of the worst kind . As Nathan Nettleton says “Jesus gave us no endorsement and no precedent for taking up arms in military conflict. We are not followers of one who took up arms to fight the enemy.“

                  How to conclude? I do not know how to conclude. I am prepared to concede that we will have war for many years to come but please do not associate it with Jesus of Nazareth. The Christian faith is about loving as he loved. And love isn’t about warm fuzzy feelings. It isn’t about being happy. It isn’t about liking the other person, it is about acting towards them with love – the kind of love as exhibited in Jesus of Nazareth.
                  As Martin Luther King put it “I have long since learned that to be a follower of Jesus means taking up the cross. Let us bear it, bear it for truth, bear it for justice and bear it for peace”

Prayers of Awareness/Intercession

                  In our prayers of Awareness we usually take a number of issues and consider them in the light of the Christian faith. This morning I would like us to look at three
(1) The directionlessness of our society. We are like a ship without a rudder with our theme song being “Que Sera, sera – whatever will be will be. In a society that worships the free market there are real doubts emerging whether it is adequate, with anti trust and dumping laws becoming more important, and such things as transfer pricing pointing up the immorality of globalization. Don’t start me on it or we will be here for hours. Sufficient to say that we have real problems emerging. Australians now have now some of the highest debt to income ratios in the world. National debt levels are rising with only the printing of money and negative interest rates being afforded as a solution. If it wasn’t so serious it would be laughable!

(2) The second issue is youth suicide and the reason for selecting this issue is because of its growing significance. A recent issue of the West Australian referred to it as a “Crisis” with the local member of Parliament asking for more funding to deal with the problem. When are we going to learn that you don’t solve a problem by throwing money at it. He must have missed the comment about the latest casualty that he knew help was available and did not want it. The problem lies far deeper than lack of funds.
                  I have read a number of studies on the problem, the best being that of the organization “Suicide Prevention Australia” which sets out the individual, social and contextual risk factors. That study, however, as indeed all the others, overlooks a very simple factor: that people need a reason for living, and the present goal of pleasure/ happiness is not enough. It is a goal that can be, and is, satisfied by the taking of drugs. The pleasure principle is one dating back to antiquity and was concisely stated by Aristotle “Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the aim and the end of human existence.“ As I have tried to indicate this morning, we of the Christian faith strongly disagree with this and point to Jesus’ statement that “if any would be my disciple, let them take up their cross and follow me.” Or as Dietrich Bonhoeffer so bluntly put it “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die”. Drugs are not the real problem in our society. It is the pleasure principle of life that they represent that is the problem, and to spend one’s efforts in controlling the “supply” is to miss the point completely. It is the “demand” for drugs that is the problem. The pleasure principle is what it is about. People need a reason for living – and the pleasure/ happiness principle is woefully inadequate. All of us have that desire within us. Pleasure is part and parcel of life but God help us if we make it the reason for our living.

(3) A third problem facing us today was evidenced by a few inches of reporting in our newspaper, about the reduction in the sentence of a 15 year old father who killed his two week old child. The reason for the reduction in sentence was that he was found to be suffering from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder. The aboriginal community in the North West has the highest proportion of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome in the world. It is caused by drinking alcohol during pregnancy, which has an effect on the brain of the fetus and I remember some years ago saying that we are going to have real problems when children suffering from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome start having children of their own. That time has now arrived. Alcohol remains the primary pleasure drug of our society and is directly affecting the future of our society’s children. The fifteen year old boy’s sentence was reduced from ten years to seven. Big deal! The Chief Justice at least raised the question of whether the boy was capable of learning anything from a deterrent sentence.
                  It makes one wonder – as did the report from Curtain University on the research that says alcohol is good for your health. The research was found to be faulty because they couldn’t find a sufficient sample of teetotallers and used people who had stopped drinking! There is no safe level of consumption as far as Foetal Alcohol Syndrome is concerned. A recent report to the NDIS put the rate of affected children in the North West as over 20%. One of the problems with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome disorder is that 50% of pregnancies are unplanned and the child may be affected before the mother is aware she is pregnant. Foetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder is a huge and growing problem, not only for families, but for our society and its future. The costing for the NDIS is already at $20 billion. To carelessly increase the number of people requiring its services is a recipe for disaster.

Let us in silence remember the directionless nature of our society, the problem of suicide and the place of drugs in our society.