St Mary's

Over the last nine months I have had the privilege of journeying with this community through some of the most amazing times; none greater than last week when I walked with you all from the St Mary’s Church to this TLC building. As I arrived, I was interviewed by some media people who asked me what my plans would be, whether I will be staying with the community.

I paused.

I briefly looked behind me to see a huge crowd walking quietly and respectfully down Peel St and crossing Hope St to enter the TLC building:

“My place is with this community”, I replied, “This people of faith.”

Today they have truly demonstrated that what they possess is not mere belief but concrete faith. It takes faith to leave the certainty and security of what they have known, the church which many have grown up in, and many have literally grown up with the building of St Mary’s church. Many have been baptized in the church, or had their children baptized there. A countless number of them have been married and formally acknowledged loved ones and partners surrounded by family and friends and numerous individuals and families. It’s been a sacred space where loved ones have been grieved for, where they have been embraced, kissed and seen for the last time. It takes courage and faith to leave that behind and move into an unknown future; to move into unfamiliar territory; a building unbeknownst by most. I want to be with a community of people who are prepared to do this. This courage and faith gives me courage and faith. I have entered into a building with so many of you who dared to begin this new journey.

The Lenten and Easter readings which have accompanied us on our journey of faith over recent months have been truly amazing. Today’s Gospel where the disciples are gathered in the upper room; Jesus stands among them and says to them, “Peace be with you.” Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts? I think that the majority of us can recall moments over the last nine months of being agitated, or having doubts about what we were doing and how we were going about things.

But look at my wounded hands and feet, says Jesus. The same wounded, marginalized, persecuted, crucified one is among you. We may then ask ourselves, “Is the same wounded, marginalized, persecuted ones among us at Micah and St Mary’s in Exile? Is it not our stance with those same ones why we have been ostracized by the Institution? Women, the voices of the feminine, who continue to be marginalized by the church, people who are gay and lesbian or transsexual, people who are of other faith traditions and cultures such as the Buddhist communities. We continue to touch and see for ourselves that this same wounded one is amongst us, and with the disciples in that upper room who recognized Jesus. Therefore, our joy is often great, knowing deep within that this is where the persecuted and risen one is present.

We stand with the risen one for we can stand nowhere else.

If to stand means to leave behind the familiar and secure, we do it, because this is where true joy is found.

Jesus says to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” and so it is that in the ordinary, everyday things we do, like eating, we find the risen one, the eternal, the ground of Being.

In the Easter readings, the disciples return to their old lives, fishing on the lake. This is where they discover Jesus. Walking down a road, (the story of the journey to Emmaus), the cooking of fish on a beach and the breaking of the bread. In our ordinary lives, in the simple things, like cooking a meal, pegging clothes on the line, and we can often think, “This is not where my life is, my real life is when I am teaching students or building a house or being a mother or father.” We can always be living for the next moment, and hence never live in the Now to encounter the ever present eternal Now, the ever present one life, the ground of our Being.

The Easter stories are about truly embracing the ordinary and often overlooked and simple things of life; this is where God is found. As we embrace this simple, ordinary unremarkable TLC building, may this be a metaphor for our embracing those same ordinary and unremarkable moments where God is seemingly absent but truly and remarkably present. The Easter invitation is to open our hearts to embrace it all, AS IT IS.

From this embracing comes the peace that Jesus promises when he stands among them and says,” peace be with you”.

This same Jesus stands among us in this ordinary TLC building and says to us, a community like the early disciples in exile,

“Peace be with you.”