Why did Elijah feel so ALONE?

Posted on June 23, 2025 by Father Dave

“Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.” (1 Kings 19:11-13)

So many stories in the Bible follow a predictable plotline. This is not one of them. The prophet, Elijah, was depressed. He’d lived an amazing life and seen so many miraculous things happen, and perhaps he’d been thinking that after so much hard work and after so much success, things would settle down for him and for his people. This didn’t happen, and the scene opens with the Queen of Israel – Jezebel – swearing that she’s going to see Elijah dead within 24 hours!

You might think that a warrior of Elijah’s status would laugh at a threat like that. He didn’t. He ran. He left his team behind and headed for the wilderness where he didn’t think anybody could find him. When he reached an isolated spot, he sat down under a solitary tree and asked God to take his life.

“It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” (1 Kings 19:5)

It’s hard to know which of Elijah’s failed ancestors he was referring to, but the message is clear enough, and we’ve all been there. Well … I certainly have, and I suspect that many of us have been there. Indeed, it’s hard not to read out own story into this narrative. Things used to be so great! Everybody loved me! God was working through me! What happened? Why am I suddenly alone?

If I’d been scripting this story, the next scene would have had God coming to Elijah, perhaps in the form of a motherly-looking angel, and give him a long, comforting embrace. If I’d scripted my own story, I would have likewise had graceful motherly angels coming and hugging me at various times when I felt I needed it. This isn’t always how it works though, and it didn’t work that way for Elijah. God sent an angel, but rather than embrace him, we’re told that the angel poked him, woke him up, and told him to have something to eat as he had a long walk ahead of him. Elijah was heading to Mount Horeb for an appointment with the Almighty!

Nothing about this story goes as we might have expected, and least of all Elijah’s climactic encounter with God. Elijah stands in the cleft of the mountain to get a good view of God. He then sees a series of astonishing signs and wonders – wind and earthquakes and fire – but he doesn’t’ see God, and then, after all the commotion has died down, God shows up in a very unexpected way – quietly and unobtrusively.

There has been a history of controversy amongst scholars over how we should translate 1 Kings 19:12. Does God show up as “a still small voice” (King James version), “a gentle whisper” (New International version) or, as translated above, in the “sound of sheer silence”? Perhaps it doesn’t matter. The point is that God shows up in a way that no one expected, and isn’t that so often the way?

We find ourselves at an auspicious time in human history. We are doing our best to read the signs of the times and work out exactly what God is up to amidst all the violence and political power-plays going on amongst our world leaders. Personally, I’ve been waiting for God to do something spectacular – something that will bring freedom to Palestine, resurrect Syria, and put all these pompous dictators in their respective places. I’m waiting for the wind, the earthquake and the fire!

So … should I be looking for God in the silence instead? I don’t think that’s necessarily the lesson here. Yes, in this case, God comes to Elijah in the silence, but there are plenty of other times when God does show up in fiery winds and earthquakes.

I’m reminded of a joke I heard when I was in high school:
Q: Where does a ten-tonne gorilla sit when it comes into a room?
A: Anywhere it likes.

That’s the promise. God will show up … in whatever way God chooses to show up.

I wish I could script my own life-story. I have so many great chapters I could add. What I have to come to terms with though is what Elijah had to come to terms with – namely, that it’s not really my story. God is not trying to squeeze into my narrative. It’s us who are being woven into God’s narrative. God’s is the Kingdom, the Power and the Story, for ever and ever. Amen!

As streamed on The Sunday Eucharist – June 22nd, 2025

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Did World War 3 Just Start?

Posted on June 14, 2025 by Father Dave

We may soon look back on the Israeli attack on Iran of June 13th, 2025, as the opening shots of the Third World War. Indeed, at the moment, I can’t see any way this can now be avoided.

Iran didn’t respond to the last Israeli incursion. I don’t think the Iranian people will allow the government not to respond this time. The question is how they respond, and we need to keep in mind that Israel wants Iran to respond. Indeed, while I’m not sure whether the United States were ever negotiating with Iran in good faith, obviously no such negotiations can continue now, and I assume that this was one of Israel’s key aims – that there should be no alternative to escalating war.

How should Iran respond? Ideally, from an Iranian perspective, they could target Israel’s military infrastructure and hit it hard. The problem, of course, is that Israel has multiple nuclear weapons, and they may be happy for an excuse to use them, and I can’t imagine that the Iranians could disable Israel’s nuclear capacity, even with the most sophisticated military strike.

So … how does Iran respond? If Iran responds in a weak and symbolic way, Israel will most likely continue to attack and humiliate Iran, so this is not an option. If Iran can make a major hit on the Israeli military structure, they may be able to limit the ferocity of the Israeli response, though they would still have deal with the Americans. Alternatively, Iran may hit the civilian infrastructure of Israel in an attempt to demoralise the civilian population of Israel and destroy their will to fight.

From a strategic point of view, I hate to say it, but attacking the civilian infrastructure is probably the best option for Iran, and I hate to say it because I don’t think any war against civilians is ever justifiable. Even so, that red line was crossed by the Israelis some time ago.

Israel cannot win this war on their own. They are already fighting on more than one front, with more belligerents ready to enter the fray. Both Napolean and Hitler made the mistake of overextending their lines to the point where they collapsed, and Israel could easily do the same. Of course, they are depending on unwavering support from the US and its allies, but we should not forget that domestic opposition to any such war is huge in the US and in Europe.

Support for Palestine, globally, has never been greater at a grass-roots level, and with the skyrocketing oil prices that will result from Iran closing off the Straits of Hormuz. will the US and NATO be able to properly wage a massive foreign war when they have to deal with chaos at home?

The great weakness of both Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump is that they are both horribly narcissistic and over-confident. The flip side of that is that they have probably both radically underestimated the strength of their opponents. They may still be gloating over recent victories, but Iran is not Lebanon. Iran is not Syria. Iran is the seventh largest country in the world, and despite the significant damage that the Zionist government has been able to do, I suspect that Iran has only just begun to show its strength.

It is possible then that both Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump will be crushed under the weight of their own hubris, after which we may see their respective empires crumble with them.  I hope not. I pray that all this carnage might yet be avoided. Even so, apart from a miraculous intervention from the Almighty, there is not much I can see in the world at the moment that gives me hope.

Rev. David B. Smith14/6/25

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Can You Change Your Beliefs Without Changing Who You Are? (Acts 16:20-22)

Posted on June 4, 2025 by Father Dave

“When they had brought [Paul and Silas] before the magistrates, they said, “These men, these Jews, are disturbing our city and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us, being Romans, to adopt or observe.” The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods.” (Acts 16:20-22)

Paul’s trip to the Roman colony of Philippi began with him having a vision of a man pleading with him to come over there and help them. When he got to Philippi though, the only people Paul could connect with were all women! When he did finally meet the men, things did not go well.

The transition point, bizarrely, was a young slave girl who started following Paul and his friends, crying “These men are slaves of the Most High God who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” (Acts 16:17). We’re told that Paul found this ‘annoying’ (Acts 16:18) which is a poor translation. Paul wasn’t so much pissed off with the girl as disturbed. The young woman was in spiritual distress. We’re told that she (literally) had a ‘Python spirit’ that brought her owners a great deal of money.

In Greek religion, the Python spirit was connected to the oracle at Delphi and to the god, Apollo. The term “Python” comes from the mythological serpent that Apollo supposedly defeated at Delphi. This spirit was associated with fortune-telling and divination and, presumably, it was these special abilities that generated an income for the girl’s owners. When Paul invoked the name of Jesus to liberate the girl, she lost not only the spirit. She lost her income-generating potential. That didn’t go down well with her owners.

When Paul and Silas were dragged before the local authorities they were referred to as ‘these Jews’, and it’s tempting to see this as classic anti-Semitism. The irony though is that the charge against Paul was that he was being anti-Roman by advocating “customs that are not lawful for us” (Acts 16:21). The charge was outrageous, of course. The real issue was money, and they all knew that. Even so, Paul and Silas were beaten up and imprisoned.

This story raises so many questions for me:

  • What was the point of liberating the young girl from her spirit if they couldn’t liberate her from slavery? Weren’t the Apostles making things worse for her?
  • Didn’t the violence Paul encountered suggest to him that his dream about the Philippian man asking for his help might have just been a dream and not a message from God?
  • Did almost being lynched as a foreigner make Paul question his calling as Apostle to the Gentiles (Ephesians 3:8)?

The racial tensions displayed in Philippi highlight what a crazy undertaking it was for Paul, as a Jew, to lob into a Roman colony, and start preaching about a crucified Jewish Messiah. Did he really expect people to respond enthusiastically?

Religion in the first century was entirely tribal. If you were a Roman, your religion was the Roman religion with all its special gods, stories and rituals. If you were Greek, your religion was Greek, and if you were Jewish, your religion was Jewish. People couldn’t change their religion without changing their race. Religion was something you were born into. Did Paul somehow think he could change all that?

We take it as self-evident nowadays that religion is a personal thing – that it’s a matter of belief and, as individuals, we can believe whatever we want. I don’t think this concept of religion even existed prior to the birth of the church. In the first century, your religion was as fixed as your race and your gender. Paul’s belief that Jesus was for everybody was radical. This wasn’t just a new religion. It was a totally new concept of how religion worked!

Paul’s stay in Philippi did end on a positive note. Paul’s jailor ends up taking him and Silas back to his own house where he fed them, washed their wounds, and then asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30)

Paul’s response – “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31) – is as instructive in what it doesn’t say as in what it does. Paul is telling his new Roman brother, ‘You don’t have to stop being Roman. You don’t have to change your culture or racial identity. You just have to embrace the truth. That’s all that is needed!’

Paul’s emphasis on sola fides – by faith alone – was proclaimed as something that could unify all people. Paul’s God wasn’t caught up on race, class, skin colour or gender. All of us who ‘believe in the Lord Jesus’ are one.

It didn’t take long, of course, for the church to codify ‘belief’ into a series of increasingly complex creeds that did just as good a job of excluding people as did the tribal barriers that Paul was familiar with. Even so, even two thousand years of ecclesiastical embellishments can never really dull the Gospel’s clarion call:

“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.” (Acts 16:31)

As broadcast on The Sunday Eucharist – June 1st, 2025

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Does God Really Send Us Messages at Night? (Acts 16:9-10)

Posted on June 4, 2025 by Father Dave

“During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.” (Acts 16:9-10)

Dreams can change your life.

Paul had been in Troas, in modern-day Turkey (about 50 km from Gallipoli) when he had that dream about the Macedonian man, calling for help. No doubt Paul already had plans. He was probably thinking of looping back towards Jerusalem and visiting the churches he’d planted along the way. Even so, he had that dream, and so he told his team to head out and purchase tickets for a voyage to Europe!

My mind goes back to 2012 when I first started hearing news reports about the uprising in Syria. I had no idea where Syria was at that stage, and I didn’t have any Syrian friends but, for some reason, I couldn’t get Syria out of my mind. I’d lie awake at night, thinking about what was going on there, and I remember saying to God, “I’m busy here, Lord”. Even so, six months later I was in Damascus, going to bed each night with the distant glow of mortar fire lighting up the night sky in every direction.

I expect Paul’s stay in Philippi, Macedon’s capital, was at least as risky for him as Syria was for me. Macedon was a Roman city, and it was a town full of vets (and not the kind that look after animals)!

One of the big problems for kings and emperors in those days was what to do with your retired soldiers. This was not a group that the government wanted to get offside, so the Romans pensioned off their veterans very generously. Philippi had been given over entirely to veterans, which meant it was a city full of rough old men with money. Some would have had families. Many would have been single, and I imagine there was a thriving sex industry there and lots of late-night bars. It was an odd place for Paul to launch a Christian mission.

If Paul had been guided by the contemporary wisdom of church-growth strategists, he would have looked for an area with a well-established Jewish community – people who already understood concepts like Messiah and the Kingdom of God. Philippi didn’t have that. Paul couldn’t even find a synagogue there, and while he had dreamt of a local man calling for his help, he didn’t find any men he could connect with once he got there. Instead, he wandered outside the city and found a group of women praying by a river and … the rest is history!

We can’t be sure about much when it comes to the early development of the church in Phillipi though there has been lots of speculation. Was the leader of that prayer group, Lydia, the church’s first pastor? Were Paul and Lydia an item at one point? There is much we can’t be sure about, but one thing does seem clear. Paul looked back at his journey to Macedonia as one of the best things he ever did.

When Paul was in prison some years later, who did he write to? It was his spiritual family in Phillipi. And while so many of Paul’s letters have him exasperated, or frustrated over issues of lust, greed, immorality, and idolatry (e.g. Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians), listen to his words to the community at Phillipi:

“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:3-8)

I love Paul’s frankness about his passion for these people whom he ‘longs for with the affection of Christ Jesus’. I feel the same way about the people of Syria, and it’s breaking my heart to see what is happening to them at the moment.

Dreams can change your life. They can bring you light and love and joy and peace, along with risk, pain, suffering and exhaustion, but … only if you follow them.

As broadcast on The Sunday Eucharist – May 25th, 2025

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Why did the Sea Disappear in the Bible’s Last Chapter? (Revelation 21:1)()

Posted on June 4, 2025 by Father Dave

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” (Revelation 21:1)

This is the beginning of the final bit of the final book in the Bible, and it’s a vision of final things – of the end of world history as we know it and the beginning of a new age. This is the climax of the Biblical narrative!

Of course, the Bible is made up of a lot of books, and each of those has its own narrative. Even so, when read together they can be seen as a single story, and it’s the story of humanity’s journey from the garden to the city, We start in the Garden of Eden and we end up in the New Jerusalem where ‘the sea will be no more’!

Now, forgive me if I focus today on what may seem like an odd line – that ‘the sea will be no more’ – but this is a vision of Heaven, and if you’re like my partner, Joy, you might be asking, ‘How can it be Heaven if there is no ocean?”

Joy loves the ocean and the beach, and swimming in the waves, and I love to watch her enjoying herself there, but from a distance as I’m actually a little scared of water.

I know that doesn’t sound like me. I perform fearlessly in the boxing ring, and I’ve kept my claim in multiple warzones. Even so, I am a little aquaphobic and have been ever since my eldest daughter had a boating accident when she was very little. I managed to get her out from under the sinking ship (thanks be to God) but then almost drowned myself, and it left me with a dread of the sea, and with a deep awareness of how a fun day on the river can suddenly turn toxic.

There are hidden dangers in the sea. Mysterious things lurk under the water. It may look calm on the surface but there’s violence going on under the waves. Scaly and scary creatures are hunting and killing each other down there, and we never know when Leviathan or Behemoth might emerge from the depths!

If you’re not familiar with those two, Leviathan and Behemoth are sea monsters, mentioned in the book of Job (chapter 40 and 41) and in two of the Psalms (74:14 and 104:26), and they symbolise all that is chaotic and opposed to God’s good order.

The ancient Israelites were never a sea people. It was the Philistines and other unfriendly neighbours who lived on the coast. So often when you see Biblical figures get into a boat things don’t go well. Think of Jonah trying to catch a ship to Tarshish (Jonah 1:3) or of the three times Saint Paul was shipwrecked (Corinthians 11:25).

Of course, many of Jesus’ disciples were men of the sea. They caught fish for a living. Even so, in so many of the Gospel stories where we see the disciples in their boats, they’re about to drown (Matthew 8:23-27, Mark 4:35-41, and Luke 8:22-25)! Jesus could calm storms (Matthew 8:23-27) and walk on water (Matthew 14:22-33) but the rest of the crew seemed to be a bit at sea when on the water (pun intended).

Biblically speaking, the sea symbolises all that is chaotic. If we go back to the start of the Biblical narrative, we’re told that in the beginning “The earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Genesis 1:2).

It’s the Hebrew phrase ‘tohu wa-bohu’ that’s translated here as ‘formless and empty’. In other versions of the Bible, it’s rendered as “chaos and desolation”. Either way, it’s all water, and the Spirit of God is hovering over it with a view to pushing the water back to create land and life (Genesis 1:9), after which the waters then stay in their place, at least until the time of Noah when they all come flooding back (Genesis 6-9).

Forgive the rambling, which you may see largely as me trying to justify my water phobia. Even so, what I want to leave you with today is not a fear of water but rather an appreciation the great Biblical vision that one day ‘the sea will be no more’. There will be no more chaos, no more monsters lurking in dark places, no more violent men hiding in the shadows, no more death, no more pain.

My mind goes to a short video I saw this week of a father in Gaza, holding his baby daughter who was sobbing as they listened to the sound of warplanes overhead.

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

Hear the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

As broadcast on The Sunday Eucharist – May 18th, 2025

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What Makes Jesus a Good Shepherd? (Psalm 23)

Posted on June 4, 2025 by Father Dave

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1)

This coming Sunday is ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’. Every year at this time we revisit the 23rd Psalm and read excerpts from the tenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John which talk about Jesus as the ‘Good Shepherd’.

It’s also ‘Mother’s Day’ this Sunday, and that might seem like a happy coincidence, as the roles of mothering and shepherding seem to have considerable overlap. Even so, there is an important point of distinction between the Ancient Near Eastern shepherd and your mum. Shepherds smelt terrible!

Christian iconography tends to depict shepherds as genteel figures, nurturing baby lambs or carrying lost sheep on their shoulders. Shepherding was actually a very rough job in Biblical times. It meant sleeping in the fields or in the entrances of caves where you’d use your body as a barrier (John 10:9), keeping predators from the flock

By definition, these shepherds were pastoral figures (‘pastor’ being the Latin word for shepherd) but we shouldn’t let the modern concept of pastoring disguise the fact that Biblical shepherds were uniformly men of blood.

You may recall the dialogue between King Saul and the young shepherd-boy, David (recorded in the first book of Samuel, chapter 17), where the teenager is volunteering to do battle with Goliath, but the king is expressing doubts about the young man’s standing as a warrior. David’s response is, “Hey! I’m a shepherd. I kill lions and bears for a living”. That’s a paraphrase of 1 Samuel 17:34-37, of course, but I think it’s an accurate one. Shepherds knew how to fight and kill.

Ancienty Near Eastern shepherds were rough, hairy men who lived on the outskirts of society. Predictably, they were not highly esteemed by the social elite, which perhaps makes it surprising that the shepherd became the dominant Biblical metaphor for political leadership.  Yes, a mother or a teacher could be a shepherd, but the metaphor was most commonly applied to the king (eg. Ezekiel 34, Psalm 78).

Biblically speaking, our leaders are our shepherds. Does this mean we should be electing warriors who can withstand the heat of battle?  Perhaps, but our Lord Jesus  distinguished between good and bad shepherds, and “the good shepherd”, He says, is the one who “lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11)

This is the distinguishing mark of the good shepherd. The good shepherd puts their body on the line. The good shepherd has skin in the game. The good shepherd doesn’t have other people do the fighting for them. The good shepherd leads from the front and, if the fight is lost, the good shepherd will be amongst the first to fall!

In Australia, we’ve just re-elected our Prime Minister, and, in Rome, a new Pope has been elected. Will either of these men prove to be good shepherds?

I saw that the Progressive Jewish Council of Australia has called on the Prime Minister to openly condemn the modern state of Israel’s brutality and to cut ties with their genocidal regime! I suspect that would require our shepherd to lay down his life for the sheep!

In truth, I’m not sure how much we can expect from our current crop of shepherds and, indeed, I fear many of them are actually wolves in sheep’s clothing (if you’ll forgive the mixing of metaphors). At any rate, it is Mother’s Day this Sunday, as well as Good Shepherd Sunday, and we may have to be satisfied with seeing in our mums something of the Good Shepherd, while we pray that our shepherds grow to more closely resemble our mothers.

As broadcast on The Sunday Eucharist – May 11th, 2025

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Jesus is not the Only Person to have Died for our Sins! (Revelation 5:11-12)

Posted on June 4, 2025 by Father Dave

“Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:11-12)

Jesus was not the only person to die for our sins (literally speaking)!

That struck home to me for the first time this week. I’d been reading the latest book from Chris Hedges about the war on Gaza, and he made the point that Aaron Bushnell, in a very real sense, also died for our sins. If you don’t recognise the name, Bushnell was the US Airman who set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington. It was an extreme act of protest against the Gaza genocide and, in a real sense, he did suffer and die for our sins!

Of course, the suffering and death of Jesus, the Christ, was unique. I’m not trying to equate the two. Jesus’ suffering and death was exceptional because of who Jesus was, but, understood as a model of self-immolation – of publicly destroying yourself for the sake of others – Jesus’ death has been emulated by a disturbingly large number of people. For example:

  • Thích Quảng Đức was a Vietnamese monk who destroyed himself by fire in 1963, protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government.
  • Jan Palach, a Czech student, similarly set himself on fire in 1969 as a protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
  • Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor whose self-immolation in 2010 is credited with sparking the Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East.
  • Malachi Ritscher, the American musician who, similarly, set himself on fire in 2006 to protest the Iraq War.

I don’t believe that public suicide should ever be considered an acceptable form of protest. Even so, the worthiness of the lamb, which is the focus of our Scripture passage, is indeed tied to Jesus’ perceived act of self-sacrifice.

Revelation, chapter 5, opens with a search going on in the Heavenly throne room, looking for someone who has earned the right to ‘open the scroll’ that unlocks the future. Eventually, we’re told that “the lion if Judah” has triumphed (Revelation 5:5) and will open the scroll, yet the candidate who then appears is not a lion but “a lamb, looking as if it had been slain!” (Revelation 5:6)

So much of the imagery in Revelation is obscure, but this seems particularly bizarre. It’s not clear what makes the lamb look as if it had been slain. Was it bleeding? Was it disfigured in some way? However, the connection between the lambs suffering and the lamb’s worthiness is unambiguous, and is chorused by the Heavenly choir:

“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,” (Revelation 5:9)

Frankly, this all seems very dark to me, and I recoil at the thought that blood and suffering are necessary if we are all to live together in peace. Having said that, I recognise that even Aaron Bushnell’s terrible death did itself achieve something in the way of reconciliation.

From what I have read and heard, Arab and Muslim people around the world see in Bushnell a sobering reminder that it’s not the American people who are their enemies. Indeed, it’s not even the US military that are to blame, as Bushnell himself was a part of that military. Bushnell helped to redirect the focus of those who decry the violence from the American people to specific members of the ruling class.

I’m going to stop here because I find this whole line of thought really disturbing, and yet I think it is something we do need to discuss and think through. The Christian Scriptures themselves repeatedly link suffering and redemption in ways I find very unsettling, and yet there is no denying that, scripturally speaking, the ‘via dolorosa’ (the ‘way of sorrows’) is also the path to abundant life.

There is a mystery in suffering. We have no idea why so much suffering goes on, and we find it very difficult to understand why God allows it all to happen. Even so, today’s Scripture from the book of Revelation is a reminder that God’s response to suffering is not simply to try and stop it, but also to generate life and health and peace through it (Colossians 1:24)! No cry of anguish goes unheard. No tear falls to the ground that cannot ultimately become a part of the river of life.

As broadcast on The Sunday Eucharist – May 4th, 2025

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What is Trump’s Role in World History?

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Father Dave

The following analysis comes from my friend, Dr Chandra Muzaffar – President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST). 

Dr Muzaffar is no fan of Donald Trump. Even so, he believes that the American President will play a pivotal and positive role in global history. Trump has lifted the veil from US foreign policy – revealing his naked ambition. Without the cloak of pretense, Dr Muzaffar believes, the Empire will not last for long. 

Father Dave

Since returning to the White House in 2025, Donald Trump has pursued aggressive policies in three key areas: Tariffs, Territory, and Transfers (of People).

Tariffs: He raised tariffs on multiple countries, triggering retaliatory measures and disrupting global trade.

Territory: He controversially suggested Canada join the U.S., expressed interest in acquiring Greenland, and sought control over the Panama Canal, all met with strong opposition.

Transfers: His most extreme move was proposing a U.S. takeover of Gaza, displacing Palestinians and converting it into a luxury destination—a plan widely condemned.

Dr Chandra argues that while Trump’s actions are reckless and colonial, they ironically fuel global resistance against U.S. and Israeli dominance, potentially leading to a shift in international power dynamics.

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A Tribute to the Syrian Arab Army

Posted on February 5, 2025 by Father Dave

Father Dave here, and I’m still grieving the collapse of Syria, and the ascendency of one-time Al Qaeda leader, Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, to the country’s leadership.

I’ve been fearing for my many Syrian friends. I’ve been praying for their safety – perhaps most of all for my dear brother, Dr Hassoun, formerly the former Grand Mufti of Syria. I’ve also been feeling that someone should be paying tribute to the Syrian Arab Army – to all the young men and women who laid down their lives over a period of about 12 years, trying to prevent what eventually happened.

Yes, I’m talking about the ‘Assad regime forces’, which is how people on the other side of the world tended to talk about them, but through my nine trips to Syria between 2013 and 2019, I met a lot of Syrian soldiers, and I grew to have an enormous respect for the Syrian Arab Army.

I was given a full Syrian Army uniform on my last trip, and I still wear it with pride. It came from Douma, which was where then President Assad allegedly gassed his own people. Of course, if you talk to the people of Douma, they’ll tell you that nothing like that happened there, but that was the story we were sold, and that story became the rationale for a retaliatory strike that killed at least one pour soul. The story I remember best from Douma though was the one that came from the guy who gave me my uniform, and it’s a story I still find it hard to believe.

This guy lived with his family near the centre of Douma and, apparently, he heard noise in the street one morning, peeked out his front window, and saw the black SUV’s of Jabhat Al Nusra. These people drove black SUV’s, wore black hats, and had machine-guns mounted on the back of their vehicles. This guy says that he, like the other men in his street, locked their doors and fetched their guns.

He says that they’re not getting their guns in the hope of fighting these guys off. They know that they are completely outgunned. They will fight nonetheless, he says, and, if need be, they will shoot their own children before they let these people take them!

I still find that hard to believe, but these people had heard what these terrorists had done to children in neighbouring villages – the rape of babies, the sex-slavery of young girls. Maybe the reports were exaggerated, but I can appreciate that you’d rather give your children a quick and dignified exit from this world than allow things like that to happen to them.

Anyway, there’s more noise outside, they peek out and see the colours of the Syrian Arab Army. Everything is going to be OK. The kids will be at school tomorrow. And that’s what the colours of the Syrian Arab Army came to mean to me. They meant life

I remember the first Syrian soldier that I ever had a serious conversation with. That was back in 2013. He was a young man, in his late twenties, and he was bouncing his baby daughter on his knee.  He’d been discharged from the army as he was carrying three bullet wounds.

He said to me, “the first time I killed someone I threw up. I didn’t know how to handle it, but then I realised that the only thing between my daughter and these people was me, and after that I killed hundreds of them.”

He said that foreigners like me were easy targets because we weren’t respected by the commanders. We’d be the first ones chosen to have bombs strapped to us. They’d say, “see you in Heaven” and tell you to go blow a hole through a wall. He said, “these people were easy targets”.

As I say, I did nine tours of Syria during the period of the fighting there. I saw some terrible things, but met a lot of wonderful people, many of whom were soldiers.

Indeed, while, on some of those trips we spent most of our time boxing with the Syrian Olympic Team, even then, after our training sessions finished, the Syrian boys would pick up their guns and go back to work. They were all soldiers, not because any of them had set out to have careers in the military, but because each of them had chosen to put their bodies between the terrorists and their families.

One other memory that sticks with me was when we visited the ancient Christian village of Sednaya in 2015. Sednaya is one of only two villages in the world where Aramaic is still spoken – the original language of Jesus. It’s a Christian village, and when we arrived, they were starting a church service that we attended. At the front of the church, there was a table covered with religious icons that looked like they were to be distributed as gifts. I remember thinking, “I hope these aren’t for us”.

I was part of an internation peace delegation on that trip, led by some well-known activists, and we were getting far too much credit just for showing up. As it turned out, the presents weren’t for us. They were presented by the Bishop and by the local Islamic Sheikh, standing side by side, to the families of those who had lost children in the fighting over the last month. There were around 20 of these gifts handed out!

The Christian villages in Syria were always uniformly committed to supporting the government and preserving their country from the terrorists. The number of young Christians who had laid down their lives for their families was horrifically high.

I have so many more stories I could tell but I’ll stop here for now, except to point out that the terrorists that these people died to protect their families from are the people who are now running the country.

Yes, I know they’ve changed their name twice since they were Al Qaeda, in an attempt to distance themselves from Osama Bin Laden, whom Americans are never going to think of as a friend. They’ve also changed the name of Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa to the far more palatable, Al Jolani (‘Al’ for short). CNN has also published an interview with Al where he’s said that all those atrocities that he committed were when he was a younger man, and that we all do silly things when we are young. Those weren’t his exact words, perhaps, but that was the message.

So, what happens now? I don’t know. As I say, I fear for my many Syrian friends. Reports are filtering through of atrocities being committed against Christians and Alawites and other minority groups, and against former military people, of course. Perhaps those pulling Al Jolani’s strings are going to ensure that some level of human-rights is maintained in the new Syria, but as for Jolani and his team, I don’t think the leopard every really changes his spots.

I pray for the welfare of my many Syrian friends as I do not know what comes next, but regardless of what the future holds, I believe  that it’s only right that we pay tribute to the many, many young men and women of the Syrian Arab Army who, over twelve long years, sacrificed their lives and their livelihoods – not to benefit any political party or to uphold any particular ideology – but to protect their families.

To the Syrian Arab Army, Respect!

Father Dave, January 2025

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