Welcome to the Moore College podcast, a podcast of biblically sound, thought-provoking and
challenging talks from Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia.
In this episode, from a chapel service held on Tuesday the 22nd of October 2024, guest
speaker Tim Bowden, Principal of Trinity Grammar School in Sydney, Australia, shares his journey
into schools ministry and takes a closer look at one of the most difficult passages of the
Bible to apply: Matthew chapter 5 verses 43 to 48, and Jesus' command to love our enemies.
He reminds us that loving others involves doing good to them, and talks about the supreme
example of this, in God's love for His enemies, namely us.
We hope you find the episode helpful.
Thank you.
It is a pleasure and an honour to be invited back here today, although I note the place
we've come back to is not a place I knew at all as a student.
We were in the upstairs lecture theatre for chapel, so I appreciate the invitation from
the principal, the faculty to be here.
But I've got to say, I'm a little bit bemused as to why I'm here.
So God's good hand in the 23, 24 years since I graduated from college, I have done very,
very, very, very little of your classic 20-minute expository sermon, which is the bread and
butter in our theological tradition.
My path has taken me in a different direction, and I can probably count the number of such
sermons I've given on the fingers of two hands.
That's in 20-something years.
So the idea of being here planning to fill 20 minutes is deeply daunting.
Normally, I speak for five, and in terms of total, there are probably five times a year
I would speak for more than 20 minutes.
So I'm really stretching here.
So what I'm going to do is bundle together a number of talks, and I still reckon we're
good for an early mark.
So let me tell you a little bit about my story.
I grew up mostly in Canberra, and I was converted in an Anglican school through the ministry
of my peers, rather than through anything particularly Anglican about the school.
I think I came to faith despite the chaplaincy rather than through it.
And I started university looking towards journalism, but mid-degree I pivoted towards education
and came out with a BA and a DIP-Ed and started teaching English in an Anglican school in
Canberra.
And whilst I loved teaching, with the encouragement of my pastor, David MacDonald, in Canberra,
I began to contemplate training for vocational ministry.
And after two years, I stepped into an MTS experience at Crossroads Christian Church in
Canberra and also the university ministries.
And I note in that context, that's where I met Kelly, who is our missionary in residence
this week.
We were working together at that point in that ministry at that time.
I came to Moore College along with my wife, Nikki, to do this study, and I didn't have
a clear sense as to the channel through which my ministry would play out.
University ministry and school chaplaincy both seemed to be possibilities.
The four years of college went very quickly and went very well.
We loved the college experience.
But the opportunity arose to work with what was then the Department of Evangelism in the
years immediately following college.
Chappo retired around that time and there was an opportunity for an itinerant evangelist.
And so I took on itinerant preaching, itinerant gospel preaching for a couple of years.
It was a very unusual kind of role, but one that I counted as an extraordinary privilege.
Towards the end of that second year in that role, I had the first of what were going to
be two pivotal conversations.
This first conversation was with Michael Jensen, who was the chaplain of St Andrew's Cathedral
School at the time.
He'd recently been appointed to Moore College.
He was going to be leaving the chaplaincy and coming back to teach here.
And he was actively seeking to replace himself.
And his question to me was, how many unbelieving people do you reach in your role?
Not a bad question to ask an evangelist.
And I thought back over what I'd been doing over the last couple of years.
And each week I was being rolled out at churches or at youth groups or at both as the hired
gun come to kind of preach the gospel, pop the question and see if I get people to become
Christian.
And at most of the events I went to, the coordinators were able to identify exactly who the guests
were, exactly who the outsiders were.
There were a handful or a dozen at a time.
I did a handful of university ministries and they were bigger events.
We might get a couple of dozen of outsiders come along to that.
Did a couple of Katoomba events and they're very big events, but you've got no real idea
as to the composition.
And as I reflected, I thought, you know, probably the biggest points of contact that I have
with people who don't yet believe are through things like Crusader study camps or Youth
Work study camps.
Because if I did a few of them a year and I did, I'd be reaching a couple of hundred
young people each year who didn't know Jesus.
Michael's point to me was simple.
He said, in chapel this week, I will preach to 1,000 young people.
Most of them don't know Jesus.
And they will come back next week.
And they'll be there the week after.
And they'll be there the week after that.
Not knowing Jesus, but in these formative years of their lives, we have the opportunity
to present the faith to them.
I found that absolutely compelling.
And I still do.
In our Sydney Anglican schools every day, we gather around about the same number of
people who will gather in Sydney Anglican churches on a weekend.
They come to us.
In fact, their parents pay for them to come to us.
It's a remarkable opportunity of gathering people in a context in which we can bring
the word to them.
And so my conversation with Michael crystallised and refreshed my thinking that schools are
among the most fertile and the most abundant fields for the gospel we have.
So I joined St. Andrew's Cathedral School as the chaplain and the head of Christian
studies and did that for the next five years.
And I found it immensely rewarding and fruitful.
In fact, I'm delighted to note there are some people in the room now who were part of the
ministry that took place at St. Andrew's in those years.
But in talking to my peers from college and hearing them talk about their experience in
these early years post college, I noticed there was a massive difference between a lot
of the stuff they did and what I had to do.
I had a lot less discretionary time than many of them.
The bell kept ringing and we had to keep running.
And there was just activity after activity and chapels and Christian studies lessons
and voluntary groups and prayer meetings layered over with all the stuff that goes with being
in a school.
You're doing playground supervision.
You're coaching sports.
You're assessing and reporting and doing any number of other things which are part of the
cost of the platform.
It was great.
I loved it.
But one of the features about the way that I'm wired for good or for real is that I have
a short attention span.
And after about five years, I started to get itchy.
I was thinking about moving on and I had the second conversation.
This one was with Phillip Heath who at the time was the head at St. Andrew's Cathedral
School, now the head at Barker.
And to be fair, it probably wasn't so much just one conversation as several conversations.
But the challenge he put to me was this.
In God's providential grace, schools like St. Andrew's exist.
You wouldn't design it in terms of the Australian school landscape.
You wouldn't design it from a blank page.
But these schools exist.
And in order for these schools to continue their ministry into the generations to come,
the schools need people who will, faithful and capable Christian people, who will step
into the leadership opportunities and needs there.
Whether middle leadership, senior leadership, executive leadership or headship, there will
be a need for Christians to take this ministry on.
And again, I found that compelling.
And so I started to walk down that road and went from head of middle school at St. Andrew's
through to being principal at Innerborough, which is a Baptist school in the Shire.
Didn't any Shire folk here, congratulations on making it out of the Shire.
And then that subsequently led to headmastership at Trinity.
And so as I've come back here today and kind of looping back to the place and the institution
that was so powerfully formative for me, I have been reflecting on that path.
And with the benefit of hindsight, I can see the ways in which God has woven together the
personal and the professional, the experiences and the education, the ministry and the schools
into something of a coherent whole.
And I think that I can see that now, but when I was sitting in chapel as a theological student,
all that was unknown to me.
I've never had a particularly clear or distinct sense of vocation to a particular path or
a particular context for ministry.
And at the various points of inflection, where big decisions were made, where there were
choices put in front of me, I can't say I ever had any great clarity as to what path
God might want me to take.
I never had a five year or a 10 year plan and if there was a guiding theme, it was probably
the streaker's defence.
I'm not sure if you know the streaker's defence.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Thank you.
Look, it's not a particularly pious phrase, but I actually think it's theologically defensible.
Let me explain.
If we as Christian folk who are being transformed by the renewing of our minds, if we trust
in a God who promises to give wisdom to those who ask, who prepares in advance good works
for us to do and who works in all things for the good of those who love him, then the phrase
it seemed like a good idea at the time reflects a level of trust in the wisdom that God gives
to those who ask, but it also retains the humility to leave open the possibility that
what seemed like a good idea may not have been one.
And whether it is the case that you have a particularly strong sense of vocation to a
particular area or whether like me you operate with a different theme, I think we have confidence
that God will give us work to do as we prepare tools to do it.
As it has transpired, about one in five of my cohort at Moore, and we had about 40 in
the fourth year in 2001, about one in five of us have played out a major part of our
ministry in schools.
Danebank, Redlands, Campbellus, St Luke's, Roseville, Barker, Shaw, King, St Andrews
Cathedral School, Richard Johnson Anglican School, the Illawarra Grammar School, Trinity
and probably more have been served for the gospel by people from the class of 2001.
We didn't see that at the time and in fact I think as we left college only one of us
went straight into a school.
But as life's ebbs and flows played out, as circumstances changed and decisions were
put before people and opportunities were contemplated, maybe from a sense of calling, maybe from
the streaker's defence, we have found ourselves serving our Lord in schools.
And I mention all that because it may be that that's a story that lies in front of you too
and I would be very happy to talk to you about that at some point.
Here ends the first sermon.
What I'd like to talk to you about today is Matthew 5 and looking particularly to verses
43 through to 48.
The passage that I've chosen to preach today is pretty straightforward.
It's not hard to understand the passage but it strikes me it may in fact be the hardest
passage in the scriptures to put into practice.
Matthew 5, 43 to 48 and I note that I'm reading from the Bible which has been my love language
for several decades but I suspect it's probably out of fashion now for the rest of us.
I'm working with the NIV here.
Folks you've heard it was said, love your neighbour and hate your enemy.
But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may
be children of your Father in heaven.
He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and
the unrighteous.
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?
Don't even pagans do that?
Be perfect therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect.
When I was training to be a preacher here some quarter of a century ago, Chapeau used
to drill into us the question, what is the big idea?
I trust that's still happening in some context here.
What is the big idea of this passage?
Chapeau's point was and it continues to be true I think, if we don't know the point
of the passage we have no hope of helping others come to see it either.
Actually as an aside that reminds me of the one story I gave to Chapeau that he used.
He gave me so many stories that I used but I gave him one.
Let me tell you, the story goes a little bit that there was an old Baptist pastor who began
his sermon this way.
He said, my text for today is Adam, wherefore art thou?
And my sermon has three points.
First, where was Adam?
Secondly, how was Adam to be got from where he was?
And thirdly, a few thoughts about baptism.
So following Chapeau rather than the nameless pastor I will avoid the other things and deal
with the big idea only.
That is, we are called to love our enemies.
We know this passage, it's familiar territory to us.
From the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is talking to his people about what it really means to
be the people of God and he calls them to this new standard.
You have heard it was said but I.
You have heard it was said don't murder, I say don't harbour anger.
You've heard don't commit adultery, I say don't lust.
You say don't break, you've heard it said don't break serious promises, I say don't
break any promises.
Not just don't take advantage of others, don't protect your own rights.
And in this passage she says don't just love your neighbour, love your enemy too.
Easy to understand and hard to do.
In the context that Jesus was talking obviously it wasn't hard to know who the enemies were.
The Jewish folk were under the, I would say the Roman jackboot but obviously the Roman
sandal.
They had been conquered in violence.
They lived under the grind.
The Romans had invaded, they had violated the Jewish customs and beliefs and they walked
among them day by day taxing their money and property.
The Jewish folk knew who their enemies were.
It's a little bit different to us.
Who are our enemies?
Maybe our enemies are those who treat us badly.
Now I think particularly the context of a school and how I might think about this with
the boys.
Within a school of 2,000 boys there are going to be some occasions in which some of them
treat the others badly.
Maybe by being inconsiderate, not thinking about the impact that they can have one on
another.
Maybe in rudeness or meanness, maybe in physical violence, maybe the sneaky shove on the basketball
court or maybe the confrontation that might happen over a dispute.
Maybe it's easier to find your enemy in the people who treat you badly at a school.
I don't know if anyone treats you badly here.
I reflect on my years and I cannot remember being treated badly at any point and I dearly
pray that none of my colleagues can remember me treating them badly.
We used to joke sometimes about the foretaste of heaven that comes from being immersed in
God's people.
In theory at least, maybe we don't treat each other badly.
But I actually think that that's a relatively surface level to think about, our enemies.
I wonder also when we think about our enemies, we might also be thinking about those who
are different to us.
I mean we're all unique obviously, God given unique gifts, so we're all different to each
other but sometimes difference is in our human experience, something that opens up a gap,
that creates a distance between people.
That difference can become a basis for caution, for suspicion, perhaps for hostility.
Whether we're talking about an ethnic background indifference or a different skin colour or
a different accent, someone who laughs in an annoying way, someone who doesn't like
the stuff you like, someone who is too bogan, someone who is too woke, someone who believes
different things about politics or about exegesis or about sexuality, all too often those sort
of differences can become a seed of enmity so that we're inclined to think badly of
them, to see their actions through a lens of suspicion and potentially hostility and
assume that goes the other way.
I think in our modern Western context, and whether this continues to be the case in the
decades ahead or not, but I think in our modern Western context, enmity is not just about
personal hostility but about tribal hostility.
The enemies are the others.
They are them.
They're not us.
Maybe they go to another school.
Again in my context, maybe they come from a different country.
Maybe they identify themselves in a different way or on the basis of different things to
the things that you identify on.
The enemies are the others.
And too often throughout the course of human history, our response to those who are of
different tribes is hostility.
We embrace our own and we exclude the others.
I don't know.
I'm well separate from the life of the theological student, but I wonder who are the others in
your world?
Because the message here from Jesus, of course, is that we ought to love our enemies.
You've heard it was said, love your neighbour and hate your enemy, but I tell you, love
your enemies.
Pray for those who persecute you that you may be children of your Father in heaven.
He causes his son to rise on the evil and the good, sends rain on the righteous and
the unrighteous.
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?
Do not even pagans do that?
Be perfect therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Loving others involves doing good to them.
An example of Jesus here, the example that Jesus points to is the example of our heavenly
Father.
He gives good to the evil and to the good, to the righteous and the unrighteous.
He doesn't treat them differently depending on whether they are on his side.
Good weather doesn't mean God loves you more.
Bad weather doesn't mean he loves you less.
The sun has come up today over all of Australia, north of 27 million people, most of whom could
not care less about God.
Yet he has given them breath and life.
He has given them rain to renew the face of the earth.
He gives them warmth on their backs.
He gives them food and drink though they care not.
He has given them these things and they haven't given him five seconds of thought.
His goodness is shown in the way it is extended to those who don't deserve it.
And Jesus' point is that we should not treat others the way they treat us, but the way
that our heavenly Father treats us.
And we pray for them.
We should be their advocates before God.
I was talking to one of the boys about this and he said, what, pray that God would smite
them?
We don't tend to pray that all that often these days.
No, we're not praying that he would destroy them from the face of the earth.
We are advocating for them before God.
We pray for their blessing because that is what Jesus did.
As he was crucified, as his enemies tore his flesh, as they mocked, as they humiliated,
as they enacted injustice to the verge of death, he prayed for them, Father, forgive
them.
They don't know what they're doing.
And the point in this passage is we should be like our heavenly Father, as he is like
his heavenly Father.
We're marked not just by our love for one another, but also for our love for the others,
not just those who are inside the tent, but those who are outside.
It takes effort.
It really does take effort.
I think the defensiveness and the hostility, the concern or the suspicion, it depends where
along the continuum the strength of your own reaction comes, but that lens which sits between
us and the others is a hard thing to push through, but push through it, we need to do.
We do good to all.
And it's interesting in the life of a school, trying to cultivate a culture where that is
the case, where we talk to our boys about respect for others, to do good for others,
to build them up, not to tear them down, to welcome others in, not to shut them out, to
say, you matter, instead of saying, whatever.
And our school's Christian foundation positions this love for others as central to the life
of the community, it is fundamental to how we are trying to live together.
And we take that approach of shaping our culture on the teaching of Jesus because we want to
commend to the boys experientially as well as cognitively the teaching of Jesus.
Our apologetic is both that the Christian faith is true and that it works, and that
if being part of a community where people love one another in the way that Jesus teaches
is actually a path to the good life.
If they build their lives that way, it's like they're building a house on solid ground.
That's our aspiration.
Day by day, I face the reality that our aspirations are not where we are at.
It's not descriptive yet.
But the second thing I want to bring to your attention here is the question for you of
the way that you engage with people who are different.
We live in a world where more and more difference become grounds for intolerance.
We become quick to pile on, and we see that in the world around us and in social media.
Expressions of hatred, disrespect and abuse to others are oh so easy to fall into.
And my expectation is that I'm not talking to any trolls in the room.
I don't think any of you are necessarily, I hope you're not, keyboard warriors taking
opportunities to dump on those with whom you disagree.
And I imagine most of us look at the polarisation that we see in the US and think, what the
heck?
How did it get there?
And we become even more amazed and appalled, I suspect, to see the ways in which the followers
of Jesus throw themselves into the polarisation.
And Jesus had a few things to say though about specks and planks.
And it's easy to look at that and go, gosh, how awful.
And not to consider how are those lenses of othering true in our lives too?
Whether they're people with different views of politics, different views of sexuality,
different views on what makes for the good life, different views as to what's important.
The call to us, brothers and sisters, is to be people who follow the teaching of Jesus.
Despite our differences on the various things that come, we are called to love others, to
do good for others, to bless others, to pray for others, especially the people who might
be considered or even who consider themselves to be our enemies.
An increasingly polarised world, we are called to embrace, not to exclude.
Let's pray.
Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the teaching of our Lord Jesus in this passage.
We thank you for the uncompromising nature of the call and the challenge it puts to us
as we walk day by day.
Help us never to become complacent as we hear his words, but to listen, to reflect, to take
to heart, to act and to pray.
May we be people who love our enemies.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
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