Cleaning Up the Mess We Make of God’s World

(An Easter message from the Moderator of the New South Wales Synod of
the Uniting Church in Australia, the Rev. Dr David Manton)

The other day I was having a cup of coffee and some fun doing a
simple crossword as quickly as I could, and I came across the clue
“holiday season”. The answer turned out to be “EASTER”!

For many people that is just what Easter is … a holiday time for
the family, for friends to relax, have a break, go somewhere
different, a rest from studies, or work or whatever fills the routine
of our days.

The weather is usually good at Easter, isn’t it? Autumn freshness
with mild to warm days, autumn leaves and colour in the gardens: a
rest from the heat of summer before the cold of winter sets in.

It is a good time. Of course, in the Northern Hemisphere it is
spring. And the symbolism of new life bursting out in nature is
captured in the Christian festival, and we are reminded again of the
new life God gives as a gift.

A few years ago my wife and I were enjoying a holiday in England, and
at Easter we joined a group of local church people to celebrate at
sunrise on Easter day. We had often done the same thing here in
Australia, but this was our first Easter in England and it would be
different!

We met on the paved area above the “beach” at Western-super-mere ·.
Facing WEST across the water, or at least across the vast mud plane
left by the receding tide. It was a shame about the fog! We could
hardly see each other, let alone the water or the mud. The musicians
of the local Salvation Army brand played bravely, ’til their hands
got too cold, and we sang and our breath made the fog thicker!

Just then a street-sweeping machine came trundling out of the gloom
and drowned out our voices. (What a disaster, I thought, what a way
to celebrate Easter morning!) Then, as the sweeping machine slowly
moved on into the fog, the leader, a local Methodist, said into the
silence left behind, “That’s what it’s all about really, cleaning up
the mess we make of God’s world.”

And he was right.

That is what Easter is about.

Sometimes around us is the fog that keeps us from seeing life as it
can be. We don’t know which way to face any more in order to build a
good future. Sometimes our feeble efforts to celebrate our faith seem
to hang in the air, hollow and impotent, and the vision of a renewed
world seems an impossibility.

Traditional religious practices don’t seem to fit, and modern
individualistic “spirituality”, and the “new age” doesn’t really
provide any alternatives that satisfy. We try to make music, but the
noise of the world drowns it out.

Now, once again, the world is trying to resolve conflict between
ethnic groupings of people by bombs and bullets! The stream of
refugees pouring across the borders of neighbouring countries
represents the massive misery and pain when hatred is allowed to
determine how we relate to one another.

The decision to bomb the Serbian military can only create more
devastation and horror. We have yet to discover an effective way to
deal with racial conflict and disputed territory, despite the vast
resources and technology of our time.

God has taken decisive action to clean up the mess. The news of
Easter is that in the resurrection of Jesus, death and its way of
working has been defeated, and ultimately the horror of the Cross
gives way to life offered to us all.

Now that is something to celebrate!

On that Easter morning in England we all moved off to a nearby church
hall and shared hot coffee, tea, and scones, and the hospitality of
the Salvation Army. And discovered who we were together: Uniting
Church from Australia, Methodists from England, Anglican, Catholic,
Salvation Army, some local, some from other parts of the world like
ourselves. Young and not so young.

The common link was the gift of Easter, new life for all, shared
across all the things that would have divided us, we were “family” on
this most “holy day”.

At Easter, God invites us to join in the task of “cleaning up the
Mess”, to discover God’s gracious invitation to become partners
together in building a new kind of world:  ¡ a new set of values that
might replace the litter and the rubbish of our ways;  ¡ that war may
give way to peace, corruption be replaced by compassion for the poor,
children be cared for with generous affirmation, and the aged gently
loved and treasured as they hold the story and wisdom of life’s
experiences;  ¡ that power may be for serving the common good, not
gaining privilege and possessions;  ¡ a world in which people can make
good judgments without having to be bought, in which the provision of
food and shelter and self esteem for all are more important than
“doing my own thing”;  ¡ a world in which religious rivalry and war
will give way to the ways of the God of peace, where people will
learn to respect each other and defend each other’s rights.

May God’s gift of new life come to you, as God “cleans up the mess”,
grants you the gift of a new community of friends, and helps you
celebrate Easter 1999, a truly Holy day.

The love and generosity of Jesus, grant you joy and peace.