Sunday 28th February 2010
Genesis 15:1-12,17-18
Luke 13:31-35
We stone the messenger!

Last week I eluded to the fact that in our world we are pulled this way and that. We are bombarded with voices from many sources telling us what we should and should not be doing, what we should believe and what we should not. And in our 21st Century, western world, we value the freedom of speech and the freedom to think and believe what we like. Of course that freedom always has boundaries around it, and the debate is always over to how tightly we make such restrictions.
I have to say I was surprised when the Atheist Society of New Zealand was denied the freedom to put a slogan on a bus stating, "There probably is no God." It is hardly an earth shattering statement, and certainly expresses what a large number of people think, judging by the numbers that we see in our pews Sunday by Sunday. And as a Christian community we often like to put thought provoking statements out in there into the world to challenge people to think, and so surely we have to be able accept a variety of ideas. It is almost the modern way of having a public debate in a busy world where people won't go out listen to long lectures or engage in fiery arguments. The quick, eye catching, witty and yet thought provoking statement is what seems to capture the imagination of our world.
Apart from finding the Atheist's comment perplexing in that they were not prepared to be true to their own beliefs, by boldly stating that, "There is no God", and taking the more agnostic approach of uncertainty by saying there probably is no God, I thought some good responses may have been along the following lines,
"Science probably provides answers to all the mysteries of life?"
"Rationalists can probably explain everything that has ever happened to you."
Often it has been people in history who have spoken outside the parameters of commonly held views, that years later have been seen to have held more of the truth in their thoughts than the society of their day would have chosen to believe.
Their daring to believe what the world considered impossible was later seen to be of value.
Abram faced with having no son and heir to carry on his lineage chose to put his trust in God's promise to him that he would have as many descendants as there are stars in the sky.
Such faith in the face of all that stood against that, was not easy.
Jesus, faced with opposition to his message, and a warning to flee from Jerusalem so as to preserve his life, speaks out against his opponents.
This story is unusual for we find some Pharisees warning Jesus against Herod. Although they often opposed what Jesus was say, they may have found themselves closer to Jesus than they were to Herod, or perhaps they were Herod's witting or unwitting agents. He had already overseen the slaying of John the Baptist, which among many was not a popular move, and so he may have want to scare Jesus off, so that he didn't have yet another prophets death on his conscience. The Pharisee's warning may have been an attempt to just to scare him out of the city and let the whole political scene settle.
But Jesus is not going to be fobbed off, and not by Herod. Herod is the only person recorded, whom Jesus treats with such contempt. And of course later as Jesus stood before him hours before his execution, Herod wanted to see a miracle, and Jesus ignored him.
Commentator, Leon Morris, points out that, "When Jesus has nothing to say to a person that one's position is hopeless."
Herod's motives and his spoken and unspoken attitude to Jesus left Jesus with nothing to say. Herod appeared only to be interested in his own political position and in saving his own neck.
Jesus was determined to show that God's way, whether faced with opposition or not, was the way he would follow.
T W Manson suggests that the application of the term fox to Herod, "is as much as to say he is neither a great man nor a straight man; he has neither majesty nor honour."
And again in this passage we see an illusion to Jesus' coming death. Where else but Jerusalem should a prophet be killed. It was in Jerusalem that people were tried before the Sanhedrin and if he were to be judged, it should be there.
This probably explains something of Luke's interest in Jerusalem as he plots his biography of Jesus' life as a journey from Bethlehem, the place of his birth to Jerusalem the place of his death. He also mentions Jerusalem some ninety times in his writings where as the rest of the New Testament has the city named only forty nine times.
Maybe for Luke the heart of God's presence among his people is seen as pulsating from this point, and Jesus embodies this.
Luke then launches into this touching expression of Christ's love for Jerusalem, for the people of God.
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill the prophets, you stone the messengers God has sent you! How many times have I wanted to put my arms around all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me!"
This puts God's love out there, it puts God's love as the over arching message for his people, for the world.
The image of the hen gathering chicks, to protect, to keep warm, to nurture, to love, are all images of God's love for us.
These images stand in such stark contrast to the way the religious institution of the day treated its people. It stands in stark contrast to the way the church has continued to live out its life, and it must surely challenge us all in our attitudes and our actions in the world today.
Do we stand to push people away in condemnation and disregard for their failures to live up to our standards or their unwillingness to see things from our perspective, or do we, like the mother hen, seek to offer God's love to the world by gathering in those who stand on the margins, and those who think differently from us. Do we seek to suppress people who may challenge us in our thinking, or do we welcome them in offering love and a place of security from a hostile world.
If we as a church fail to give expression to God's love in words and in our actions are we not rejecting God, and is our Temple not abandoned? Surely the sign of the true church, is when our cry can be, "God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord."
When we can honour Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, and can live that love out in our daily lives. And when we can mirror the actions and the attitudes of Christ, accepting God's ways, and not being conformed to where the world wants to push us, then surely we can claim that God has not abandoned us.
As part of the Church of Jesus Christ, we must allow ourselves to be transformed and nurtured by the one who gathers us, and as we are gathered, we are also sent out to gather the world around us.
I wonder do we live up to our motto, as a "Sanctuary in the City"? Is this a place where people find the warmth and the comfort and the protection of God's love?
As a community of God's people, surely we are to come together, to stretch out our wings and to gather in as widely as we can, so that we can embrace those who feel lost or without hope, so that we can help to make people feel wanted and loved, accepted and valued, and in all of this to be expressing the love that God has for us. Let that voice of Christ, who stood up against the world of his day, be the voice that leads us in all that we do and say and think today.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Sunday January 31 - Epiphany 4
Jeremiah 1:4-10
1 Corinthians 13:1-13

This is one of the most profound chapters in the scriptures. It is a succinct summing up of the concept of Christian love, and more specifically of God's love for the world, God's love for us!
I am sure that as we read it, every one of us must be left thinking of the gaps in our own lives where we fall short in terms of this description of love.
It is probably the fullest description of the term that was developed in New Testament times to describe this new form of self giving love. Agape, was that Greek word and is given here its most detail definition.
John used this word in his gospel, when he quoted Jesus as saying,
"This is my commandment, love one another and I have loved you, by this will everyone know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
And so although this Chapter in Corinthians in one sense offers to us the description of God's love for us, it is given so that we might model our love for one another and for God on these concepts.
And interestingly, Paul offers this chapter right in the heart of his letter as he speaks to the people about the gifts that the Holy Spirit has given them and the place of these gifts in their lives and in the life of the gather community of God's people, the church.
Having talked to them about the church as the body, and each one having a place and a part to play in that organism, he ends the previous chapter by saying,
"Best of all, however, is the following way," and then launches into this injunction to love.
This is not offered as an optional extra in the life of the church, but rather is essential ingredient by which the church is identified both within and from the outside.
This love is so essential in fact that without it, Paul suggests we are nothing.
Why is that? Because this love is the expression of the presence of God in our midst. This love is God, who transforms our lives, transforms our attitudes. This love is God who recreates us more and more into his likeness. And how is his likeness seen? It is seen surely through the life of the church, and we are the church, the people of God, so God's life is seen in us and through us.
Sometimes, I am left wondering what the world does actually see?
Now Paul begins this letter, stressing the vital importance of this love, and it can be summed up in two simple mathematical equations.
The Gifts minus love equals nothing.
The Gifts plus love equals grace.
Paul having just spoken of gifts of teaching and prophecy and knowledge and speaking in strange tongues, all aspects of the life of that cosmopolitan city and church of the time, stresses now that without love, any of the above were worthless.
Anything that we offer to God through the life of the church is useless if it lacks that essential ingredient of love.
Now that sounds tough, but in reality is really quite logical, for how can we claim that a gift that we have and offer is from God, and then exercise that gift without displaying the very nature of God, which is love.
Paul's poetry is beautiful and expressive. "I may be able to speak the languages of men and even of angels, but if I have not love, my speech is no more that a noisy gong or a clanging bell."
Unless our gifts express the heart of the giver, who is God, then they become merely acts of good works expressing more about us than they do of God.
As a Christian community, it is the love of God that must remain our focus and our motivation. It is this power that drives us and forms the heart of who we are as a people.
Paul in his wisdom understood in penning this letter, that he needed to be more direct, that to speak of the essential nature of love alone, without defining that love in real and concrete terms for the hearers, would leave them with nothing to pitch this against.
So he goes on to describe what love is, and what love is not. No doubt he does this against the backdrop of all the things that were happening in this divided and fractious church.
People were arguing about who was more superior, which gifts were more important, who had the right way. There were arguments about moral issues, arguments about marriage and divorce, arguments about styles of worship and even what people should wear. Doesn't it all sound rather familiar?
He begins with two of the most basic element that are needed for people to work together and says, "love is patient and kind," and then immediately balances that to leave us in no doubt saying that, "love is not jealous or conceited or proud."
These two phrases alone would give most churches, most people plenty to think about and work on for months.
Patience and kindness, are required at any time when working together with others. Paul is not merely saying here however, that we must offer these two qualities out of a sense of duty or pity, or compassion. No! These qualities must lie at the core of who we are and in our recognition that we all stand before God as one people, not because we are good, or righteous, but because God has called us to be his people.
Jeremiah was able to offer all sorts of excuses as to why he couldn't respond to God's call, but God wanted Jeremiah. God offers to us all his love to exercise in our lives and therefore patience and kindness must form part of the core of our being. Therefore we are not patient and kind out of pity for others, but because God is patient, and God is kind, therefore we too must exhibit such qualities. Without them, conceit, jealousy and pride would take over. We would see ourselves as more worthy than those next to us, we would see ourselves as more capable, better people, thus denying that who we are and the love we have to offer is God's gift, just as those who offer similar or different qualities offer what God has given them. Therefore this love calls us to value one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, to value one another for the people God has made us.
It seems easier for Paul to describe what love is not, and probably again against that backdrop of the time and place.
Love is not ill mannered, or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs, love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth.
I don't know about, you, but at this point it is easy to become uncomfortable. But I suppose it helps us to realise that like any other gifts that we have, they require working at and practicing and even then we slip up. So love also requires our conscious effort look always for ways to improve our relationships with one another.
Paul affirms that like God, love is eternal. God will not give up on us, so neither will the love, that is his essence in us, give up, and neither should we in our efforts to live our lives for God, give up in our desire and our efforts to love one another.
As we grow in our faith, as we grow in our walk with our God, Paul draws that analogy of maturing in our physical growth from childhood to adulthood. So too must our love for one another develop, building strong bonds of appreciation and admiration for how God's love transforms not only ourselves but also our brothers and sisters in Christ.
And as we grow in such understanding, we grow in our knowledge and love of God, our faith deepens, our hope strengthens, and our love matures.
May God give us all the desire to work at that love in our community, as we learn to value one another as people loved by God, for without God's love our love and our lives stand empty of meaning, empty of purpose, and our witness of God's love to the world becomes lost.
We do not belong to the church to build our own empires, or to strive for greatness, but rather we belong to the church because we are called and offered God's love, so that we might live our lives to full, in the context of the community of God's people
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

In modern times haven't we come to understand the human body with so much more clarity! What once may have been deemed a mystery now comes to us with a much deeper and more profound clarity. Modern photography and medical instruments allow us to see into the inner workings of the human body in a way that in Paul's day would not have even been thought of.
And yet despite all of this understanding, we know that there is still plenty of mystery, lots that we continue to strive to understand, and plenty that still baffles even the most learned of medics.
And Paul's analogy given to a divided and fractious church, where people's morality even lay under suspicion, offers not only to Corinth some sound advice, but also continues to offer to the church today a wonderful picture of our make up and our very being as an organism of God's making.
Paul begins with unity that lies at the heart of the church. This is a unity that is not up for question but is stated as reality. It is at the core of Paul's understanding of Church. In the Greek, the word ecclesia means the gathered people of God. In the very fact that we are a gathered people, we are gathered together, drawn into that unity, not by our own choice or decision but by the will of God who chooses make his presence known and felt through this mysterious organism.
Now Paul's picture is rightly set, in the context of Christ. Christ is like a single body. Yes there are many parts to his body, eyes, and ears, and arms, hands and feet, not to mention all the internal organs, but he is not defined by those parts, but defined in the drawing together of them all, to make up the person of Jesus Christ.
And so he goes on to define the church in such a way. We come gathered as the people of God, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free. We are not defined by our religion or race or creed, but by Christ, the one in whose name, or under whose authority, we gather.
We have been brought into this union, drawn together by the work of Christ, feeding from His Spirit.
Thus, although we come together from many and varied places, we come together as one.
However, remember while Paul is writing this, he is writing to a divided community, a community with power brokers, a community with factions who thought they were better than others, a cosmopolitan community drawn from all around the known world.
So he goes on to talk of the many parts, and draws out this theme in a little more detail. Unity was not about sameness. Unity was about recognising our oneness in Christ, and the richness and the diversity of the people who come together.
Thus the oneness in Christ, levels out any sense or perceived sense of importance we may feel that we might have within the group.
And his illustration is perfect. Our bodies have many parts. There are feet and hands and heads and eye and livers and hearts and brains. Each part of the body has a specific function. One part will look different from the other. One part will have a different function from the other, and yet all of the parts are necessary to have a fully functioning and complete body. And Paul speaks of the interdependency of one part on another. If one part is missing, the rest will feel it. If one part is suffering, then the rest will suffer with it. And I am sure that we can all relate to that in terms of our bodies, but I am not quite so sure that that always translate this concept into our relationship with one another, and yet this is what lies at the heart of the whole concept of the church.
We are not a group of individuals that come together because we feel like it, with a common interest in spiritual things. We are not a group that if we sign the dotted line and measure up to others expectations we can join in and if we don't we can go away. All of this turns the church into a club. We are vastly different people who recognise God's work in one another, and who value one another as being loved and accepted by God, warts and all, and therefore we have a responsibility to look out for and to look after one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Paul constantly encouraged people to see the strengths of others and to draw on those, and to look over, or assist people in their weaknesses, as we recognise that we all have our strengths and weaknesses.
Just as the people of Israel in Nehimiah's time recognised that the tasks before them were tough, and that they needed encouragement, they called on those set apart to teach, to expound the world of God to them and he encourage all the people to recognise the holiness of God and encouraged them to share what they had together, and to help one another with the gifts that they had from God, so that together as God's people they would find their strength in the Lord.
Paul's concept is the same and this has been the basis of the church from that time on.
Surely if we spend our time trying to encourage people to be the best they can, with the gifts that God has equipped them with, we should then all be working together to build up the kingdom of God.
We need always to be careful not to let our own ego's cloud the glory of God that can be seen in the apparently least important of us all.
It is too easy for us to let our passions get the better of us, and we storm ahead without a thought for the other.
And a lot of this boils down to the vantage point from where we choose to look. If we want to see people's weaknesses and look from that point we will find them. If we want to see only the seemingly important and powerful ones, we will see them, if we want to see the apparent small and insignificant parts of body, then we might learn to encourage, and to serve rather than expect to be served.
Surely the church is about the collective of God's people working together to serve God and the community in which we live, building people up, encouraging, extending and serving one another.
Paul tells us how this mysterious body is God's body, and how in his creation of it, there is no division, there are differences, but we are to have the same concern for one another.
I wonder do we see the church as the presence of God lived out among us. For if we are to see ourselves as God's people, if we are to see our talents and our abilities as God's gift to us for the benefit of all, if we are to see that in God's plan there is a place for all, then surely we must value one another as part of that body.
Each and every one of God's people belong, each and every one stand, not in their own strength, but in the strength given as God's gift to his church.
Paul then lists many of the parts of the church and the places they may hold, apostles, prophets, teachers etc. Now this should not be read as a definitive list, but as always Paul writes out of the context of his day, he writes faced with the issues and the people that were before him and he addresses those concerns.
We need to see those issues and understand them in their context and translate them into our day and age, and the issues that face us as a community.
We should constantly be asking ourselves where our focus lies, is it with Christ, the King and Head of the church, is it promoting His glory with a desire to see people experience his love in the warmth and security of His church. Are we valuing one another to the full? Do we look for ways to encourage, to build up, to support, to heal, or are we too busy trying to create empires of our own?
The recognition of God's gifts in the lives of others should surely be a primary aim in the life of the church so that together we can experience the length and the depth, breath and height of God's love for us all.
May we continue to strive to be encouragers in God's work.
And To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

17 January 2010

Isaiah 62:1-5
John 2:1-11

What is a miracle?
The names of people and places in the Bible are often important. For example, Ezekiel means, "May God make this child strong." In the scriptures some people get their names changed. After Jesus called him to be a disciple, Simon's name was changed to Peter ("the Rock"). When God changes a person's name it usually means they are being given a special mission from God.
Isaiah's message, read today, says that God is about to change the Israelite people's name. They have survived the Babylonian exile, but are in bad shape. They have been called, "Forsaken" and their land "Desolate." In recognition of their changed status God is going to give them a new name; "My Delight," and their land will be called, "Espoused."
The people couldn't help but hear hope and promise for their future in these new names, because when God changes a name God makes possible the new identity that is signified by the new names they are given. God, who goes by the name; "your Builder," is about to do a complete renovation. The people will be united to their God the same as a bridegroom and bride are united. That new union will be the cause for the previously insignificant nation; who were the objects of scorn and reproach, to finally have a reason to rejoice. You can see then why today's Isaiah reading was chosen to complement today's reading from the Gospel according to John? It's about God initiating a new life for a desolate people, forming a permanent and loving relationship with them.
Apart from a sense of surprised delight, what then is our first response to the Cana story of Jesus producing more than enough wine for an embarrassed peasant family at a wedding feast? After the delight, you might wonder what all the fuss is about?
In this event the Isaian promise is fulfilled by Jesus when he attends a village wedding and gives them reason to celebrate with an overflowing of wine. The ones who were called "Forsaken" are now remembered. At Cana, "the Builder" is marrying the people and the ties that bind them and us to God cannot be broken. If any of us have gone off to do "our own thing" and feel it is time to return to God, this event signals that the Welcome Mat is out, the door is wide open and the wine glasses are poured to the brim ready to celebrate.
In John's gospel this is Jesus' first miracle. While it is not exactly a stupendous act on the world stage, hardly deserving a trumpet fanfare, it is worthy of some comment. Jesus changes water to wine at a village wedding when they have run out of this essential element for the celebration. The ceremony may have been one that continued over a few days, as with some weddings in some other cultures, even today. It may be that weddings in those days included giving toasts, as ours do? If so, the toasts may not have been offered already? If not, they would not have been able to raise their drinking vessels if they were filled with water? They couldn't toast the good thing that was happening among them and they couldn't raise a toast to God either. It would certainly lower the tone.
However, you might still be wondering, what was all the fuss about? This wasn't a very significant wedding. We don't even know the names of the couple. Nor are their parents, family members, or friends named. History would not be affected by an anonymous peasant family that ran out of wedding wine. Its much bigger events which make the history books. Unless, of course, something else is happening in the story; unless God were doing something significant among the sort people the world would otherwise consider insignificant.
When friends of ours travel to other countries, some of their first impressions might include comments such as "they drive on the wrong side of the road!" to which we might say, "It might be the wrong side for us, but it's the correct side for them." It can be difficult driving in places like Europe and the USA, especially when encountering signs on the street corners that say 'Look left.' If you are used to our system and instinctively look right, see no cars coming and drive off, you could be killed by a truck coming from your left. You can see how easily tourists in this country get confused and have some very tragic accidents. Signs can mean the difference between living and getting killed. These observations offer us a link back into the Cana story. When we ask, what is a miracle, we can say that they are signs which can be life-giving, life-protecting and life-enhancing.
In some translations of scripture John doesn't call Jesus' changing water into wine a "miracle"? Instead, he labels the act as "the beginning of [Jesus'] signs at Cana in Galilee." This first "sign" is truly revealing. It points us to Jesus and the God who has sent him. Jesus reveals God's mind and heart; God's disposition towards us. What he reveals gives us cause to celebrate. Wine, not water, is provided as a drink of celebration for a community considered insignificant to the world - but precious in the eyes of God. Jesus himself is the miracle, the sign that points to God, and shows us God's love.
We gather here Sunday after Sunday to hear these gospel stories and we slowly learn a basic gospel fact: that the insignificant are seen to be significant in God's eyes. They have reason to celebrate, to raise their Cana-glass of wine and toast their God: the God of those who are considered to be insignificant, overlooked, weighed-down and wearied by their labours.
This miracle took place in Galilee among those people whom the sophisticated religious of Jerusalem considered to be semi-pagans. Galilee was some distance from Jerusalem and many trade routes passed through the region so there was considerable inter-marriage with Gentiles. The religious of the Jerusalem also accused the Galileans of practicing a watered-down kind of Judaism. Nazareth was in Galilee and many people had a prejudice about the Galileans. A few verses before today's reading Philip tells his friend Nathanael about Jesus, saying "We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the Law...." To which Nathanael then asked Philip, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" revealing the commonly held prejudice.
It is also significant in today's gospel story that Mary, the mother of Jesus was present at the wedding; maybe it was a close relative that had been married. Mary is like a commentator at the scene, as she is the one who tells Jesus that they have no wine left. However John's gospel implies here so much more going n here than seems present to the casual reader. Anyone familiar with John's writing sees in Mary's statement about the people's need, not just the family's need for wine, but their need for fulfilment and recognition as well as their need to celebrate.
We might even ask ourselves: is there wine lacking in my life? Is there a lack of purpose or joy, of community or forgiveness and compassion, or something else that is lacking. Prompted by Mary's confidence we can place our need before God, and say "I am lacking, in this way or that..." Identifying where we feel we need to be changed or topped up. Then we can listen prayerfully in our lives for the response. What new opportunities might show themselves? What untapped and unused gifts do we become aware of? What need do weI notice that calls for a response from us? We listen and then follow Mary's directive, "Do whatever he tells you." We are able to respond to what we hear because God has named us "Disciples of Jesus," a community empowered by the Spirit to live our calling as people "wedded" to our God.
The wine was a sign to the long-suffering and waiting people that the new messianic age was beginning. The ritual washing for purification, represented by the water jars, was no longer necessary because Jesus, the new wine and sign of God's mercy, had arrived. Because of him we can be made clean from the inside, our 'Builder' has made us new.
One of the new things made possible for us are the gifts of the Spirit, which are listed in today's reading from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, which you might like to read for yourselves sometime. There certainly are many different kinds of spiritual gifts. Paul writes "To each the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit." Each of us receives gifts, often a particular gift, that "manifests" the Spirit. These gifts come from God, "But one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as [the Spirit] wishes." Some of us can even identify and see the gifts of the Spirit present in people we meet. There are people who: show concern for the sick and elderly who are house-bound; sing in the choir or play the organ to lead us during worship; proclaim the good news in preaching the word; provide food for the food bank; form the many committees of the parish to manage the business of the church; minister to children and youth; greet people at church services or arrange flowers; help with morning tea and other catering duties as well as a multitude of others involved in community service and action.
There are lots more ways to serve, but you get the idea. Call them official or unofficial church ministers. But we all know that they are, just as Paul suggests, manifestations of the working of the Holy Spirit; signs that God lives in our midst and continues to turn water into wine; turning ordinary lives into nourishing drinks full of God's love for all people. Today would be a good day to acknowledge and bless those official and unofficial parish ministers-this congregation-as we encourage each baptised person's priestly and prophetic identity.
We need a variety of gifts in the Church. How boring it would be if we all had the same gift or gifts. And how deprived we would be! Paul's list isn't meant to be exhaustive since he names other gifts elsewhere. He is reminding us of our God who sees our needs and addresses them through the different members of the community.
So, we ask ourselves, "What gift has God given me? How do I use that gift to serve others?" Or, to put it in terms John might use, "How am I a sign of God's active presence in the world? What is there about my words and actions that point people in God's direction?" We might not be able to perform miracles, or magic for that matter, but we can certainly try to honour our commitment to our faith, and share that and God's love with others.

Sunday January 10 - Epiphany 1

Isaiah 43:1-7
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

I daresay that many of you have been away for a short holiday over the Christmas New Year period. Some of you, like me may have been tempted to go for a swim or two. Luckily I was able to swim in nice hot pools in the Bay of Plenty, because even though we were in the hot and sunny North Island the sea was still very cold. It's been said that since our bodies may be up to 75 % water, we are automatically drawn to water. We need water to sustain life and without it we get de-hydrated and can even die. We certainly know that the body cannot exist without water - and we probably find it very difficult to imagine what life is like for those who live in desert lands, or suffer in drought-ridden countries. Conversely we probably complain about the amount of water we have experienced over the past few weeks, of high rainfall, hail storms, flooded rivers and the lack of sunny days. Those who have had to mop up, dry out and clear away water in bucket loads would be glad to not see any more.

But at least the amount of water we have had to deal with lately would pale in comparison to the horrific destruction and the desperation and of those caught in the effects of a tsunami. Instead of being life-giving, water can bring death. The sea, the beautiful blue-green and tranquil sea that painters love to capture on a summer's day, becomes an enormous force, bigger than life; dangerous and frightening. It becomes black with fury, tossing ships like toys, overwhelming miles of landscape and claiming to its black depths, lives, villages, and hope for the future.

Water - is life and death, hope and despair. In a way, we have absolutely no control over water; while some pray for rain, others pray for the rain to stop. Water, like the air we breathe, is completely essential, and yet it brings death as well as life. Perhaps it's those properties of water that make it such a perfect symbol of the grace of baptism.

Water is one of the most evident features in scripture. From the graceful beginning words of Genesis where the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, through the story of Noah and the covenant between God and God's people, to the Red Sea, and then to today's anointing of Jesus' ministry through his own baptism, water has woven the story of God's life and ours together.

It is this baptismal water which flows over us today. In our passage from Isaiah, we're reminded that even though we might pass through raging waters, God is with always us. Overflowing rivers will not drown God's people. Just as the word of the Lord through Isaiah says, "Do not be afraid - I will save you. I have called you by name, and you are mine."

Of course water here is used as an image. Earthly water and fire - another image in today's passage - can do us bodily harm, but when we dig deeper and hear what God is saying, we realize that God is reminding us that no earthly thing can keep us from the love and comfort of God. Even if natural water or fire overwhelms our bodies, God's spirit is with us. God's love is constantly there to comfort and heal.

In the gospel, water is used both figuratively and literally. John the Baptister offers the people of his time a baptism of repentance. The Jews are drawn to the waters of the Jordan to be cleansed of their unfaithfulness to God's law. They are drawn by John's words. Many may be drawn by the simplicity of his message. He teaches how they can live lives faithful to God's law: telling tax collectors not to cheat; soldiers, not to threaten or extort and for everyone to share what they have with the poor. John offered them a chance to be renewed. And this was a very good thing, just like when we make New Year resolutions. Their baptism in the River Jordan's water cleansed both their body and soul.

It seems quite obvious that some would mistake John for the Messiah, but John is quick to point out that 'some-one is coming who is much greater than him'. He introduces Jesus by using the two images we heard in Isaiah: that of water and fire. John says that Jesus "will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." This is a new type of baptism. This new baptism will do more than forgive sins, it will create the community of God. This community would be guided by the Holy Spirit. This baptism announced that the kingdom of God was at hand. As the heavens opened at Jesus' baptism, the voice of God anointed the mission and ministry Jesus would live out among God's people. God has pitched a tent among the people opening the way for them to enter the kingdom in community with each other.

This isn't just an historical telling of the start of Jesus' ministry. This message is for us, too. But you might say, we know this story, we hear it every year, and we know it's important to be baptised. We baptise babies, and sometimes adults as well, as they did in the early church. But do we really know why we get baptised? Do we really take our baptisms seriously today? We still take water seriously, with it's ability to effect both life and death, but if we really took our baptism seriously, wouldn't our world and our church look different than it does now? If we think about those promises we all made at our children's baptism and when we later confirmed our baptism and our faith in God, we promised to keep alive the apostles' teachings and the prayers. We promised, as those people did at the Jordan, to acknowledge our sins, repent, and return to the Lord. We promised to see Christ in each other and to respect the dignity of every human being. We promised to work for justice and peace.

We didn't promise just to think that all these things would be nice, but not what we had to do ourselves, so long as others continued to do it for us. We also promised to DO something about them - to WORK for them. But are we? From the look of the world and the church, it looks like we are not doing it very well. Many who made these promises as they baptised their children, or when they were confirmed seem to have forgotten that commitment and the things they promised to undertake.

One of the ways that the church can help us to honour our baptismal promises is by following the lectionary cycle in our weekly reading of scripture. In this way we are asked throughout the year to consider the story of our salvation, and everything that entails, over the three years' of readings. It helps us to look at all God has done for us. It helps us to remember that no matter what, God cares deeply for us and promises to be our strength. Hearing again and again, year after year the story of John and Jesus at the Jordan River should cement in our minds that we promised to keep the mission and ministry of Jesus alive. We are asked to pray. We are asked to keep Jesus' teaching alive by sharing in the liturgy, preaching God's word, and then taking what we have learned out to others.
Our call to keep alive the good news of the gospel and to spread the love and compassion of God cannot be denied.

The fullness of God Revealed.

John in his master piece of a Gospel, writes not as a mere historical biography of the life of Jesus, but rather presents Jesus to us as the eternal Word of God, who "became a human being and lived among us."
He presents Christ to us in this way so that as readers of his Gospel we might believe in Jesus as the promised Saviour, the Son of God, and that through him, we might have life, life in all its fullness.
In presenting Jesus in such a way, we see our own humanity with all its flaws, and yet we see God, whose love is so great that he comes to us, as one of us, to redeem us in a process that begins here and now. Eternal life does not lie only in some distant hope of the future, but begins with life today, in a view of the world that sees God active in our midst transforming us in our thoughts and actions through a life long process of change and development.
John begins his gospel by setting out some themes in what is known as the Prologue. Here he sets Christ as the Word who has come among us as the foundation of the story that is to come throughout the Gospel.
Today I want to explore three aspects of the Word: the Eternal Word, the word in History, and the Transforming Word.
John does not see Christ's coming among us as something out of the blue, nor as a person in history who had some role laid on him as he grew in body and wisdom, but rather sees Christ's coming as part and parcel of God's eternal nature and plan.
God had spoken to his people in the past and now in a defined act of history, God has come to speak out of his own being.
Clearly John identifies Christ right at the beginning of his gospel with the very nature of God's being.
This Word was not a new creation, but had existed from the very beginning. Thus as the Creeds of the church have put it, he was "eternally begotten of the Father."
For John, this word who was in the beginning, was the very source of life, the one who when commanded, let there be light, light appeared. You see, he draws on the stories of the very beginning, the Genesis of our being, and uses language that ties into those stories. Life and light are two of the great themes of creation and John thrust them into the introduction of this gospel as themes that he will later develop.
His later claims to be the light of the world, and the one who came to bring life in all its fullness, offer this Word as the source of our human existence.
Paul in his letter to the Colossians offers a similar perspective on Christ when he states, "Christ is the visible likeness of the invisible God. He is the first-born Son, superior to all created things. For through him God created everything in heaven and on earth, the seen and the unseen things…."
Thus we see in this picture of the Eternal Word, God coming among us, God coming in a way that we could recognise and comprehend. God empties himself into humanity so that we can grasp something of the extent of God's love for the world, and God's desire that we should not only recognise, but also acknowledge his presence with us.
Thus his eternal nature is not only about his coming but also about his rising. Christmas and Easter inextricably linked in the eternal Word, for the darkness will never extinguish this light, this Word will not be silenced by the hand of humanity.
John then goes on to set this Word in History, in the history of humanity.
John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus (as distinct from the writer of this gospel), comes to point us to this Word, he is not the Word, but comes to announce the coming of this Word among us.
This sets the scene in our world, whether we recognise it or not. It sets it within family and within the structure of the religious world of its day, for Jesus came as one of God's people, as one of us. And his purpose was to offer that invitation for the world to accept God's great offer of life, and to become children of God.
There is almost a sense of where we are being invited to refocus our lives, not on the natural order of birth, of life and of death, but to look outside of this through the eyes of the pre existent Word, so as to view life as part and parcel of God's eternal nature of life.
If we are to recognise the Word in history, we will see beyond mere history to experience the eternal.
This is not to be some far off distant hope, that will come one day, but for John begins with our recognition of the Word who has come among us.
And those who come to proclaim this Word among us, in the context of our day, are never to be seen as usurping the place of that Word, but like John are always to remain as pointers to the one who is greater than we are.
The Word in History, is a living Word that speaks into our day.
The Word in History becomes for us the Transforming Word.
He is the one, who according to John, has brought one blessing after another. Christ's coming was not just another prophet bringing a message of gloom and doom, but Christ's coming was to bring Grace and truth. These two qualities of Divine presence are qualities that transform our attitudes to people and to the world, and should transform our approach to living.
Grace and truth form part of the essential being of God and are qualities offered for us to exercise in the world as shown to us by Jesus who lived among us.
Why are they such transforming qualities? Because they fly in the face of the way the world operates. Grace is a self giving attitude that does not count the cost. It offers a sacrifice of self, as seen in the life of Jesus, as we empty ourselves into the world in which we live so as to give rather than expect to receive. Truth is a quality that does not lurk in the shadows but offers to the world an open honesty so that what the world sees, the world gets. Truth does not deceive.
But how often the world misreads such grace and truth. This was certainly the case in Christ's life. His actions and his motives were so often misunderstood. People set out to trap him as he challenged them in their attitudes and actions.
And how often we do react against having the mirror of truth and grace held up to us. Christ's standards evoke challenge and change in the life of those who choose to follow his ways, and this is a process of change. It is a life time process that should see us transforming more and more into his likeness. We need to fight against the tendency to become more and more entrenched in our ways allowing God to continue in that process of transforming us. And it is God who transforms us, with the same transforming power that brought creation into being, the Word which spoke bringing light out of darkness brings change to our hearts and minds as we engage with the Word that became flesh.
May the eternal Word, the Word of History, that transforming Word, bring to us all a sense of God's living presence as we live out our faith today.
Let us be open to God's ways with us, and to God's power to work with us and to continue his creative work in the world today.
And To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Little is known of the boyhood of Jesus apart from this snippet of his trip to Jerusalem for the annual Passover Festival. It would appear that every year Jesus' Parents embarked on this journey with their family and with crowds of other pilgrims to celebrate this religious festival.
As we see from our two readings, it was not uncommon for young boys to be perfectly at home in the temple. It is the place from which they would have received their formal education as well as their place of regular worship.
So for a twelve year old boy to be engaging with the religious leaders, the teachers of the law and the priest, was probably not that unusual, and I dare say he was not necessarily alone as he was deep in conversation.
Anyone who has taught, knows that the inquisitive mind of a twelve year old can be very engaging if they are interested in the topic being discussed.
And the other thing we find quite hard to take in this story is the laid back attitude of the parents who did not notice until the third day that their precious son was missing.
However, they were most likely part of a much larger group that had embarked on this pilgrimage and no doubt the large number of children were used to being together as they made their way back home. They would be playing and doing all those things that twelve year olds do. Possibly they even tented down together at night enjoying the company of one another as their parents probably did they same with the others on the journey. So perhaps by the third day they were realising that they hadn't actually seen the young Jesus, and began to search for him, asking friends and others had they seen their lad.
Imagine the panic as it slowly dawned on them that none of his friends or theirs, had seen him, nor had anyone else. There would have been frantic questioning as to where he could be, and probably many suggestions as to where they might find him.
Then began a process of retracing their steps all the way back to Jerusalem. We are not told how long this took. Was it perhaps another three days back, or did they make that journey with a little more haste and purpose?
The story, cut down in detail, takes us back to the heart of where they had been, straight to the temple.
And here was the young Jesus sitting, debating, engaging with these religious leaders and amazing those who were listening on with his intelligence.
Like Samuel in the OT, who was brought up in the confines of the temple, he too learnt to engage and we are told that he grew in favour with both God and people.
It is interesting that our faith has always encouraged learning as an important aspect of faith. Knowledge of God, and an understanding of his ways with us and the world lead to wisdom. Wisdom is an applied knowledge, a putting of that learning into life, the way we live it, and the way we engage with others.
In this gospel story we see the foundation of Jesus' later ministry as he goes on to challenge these same leaders over the application of their teaching to life.
How they applied their understanding of God to the ways they engaged with everyday people, Jesus often challenged, and we can see the formation of this understanding way back in this twelve year old. And how often we can look back in our own lives and in the lives of others and see such attitudes and personalities forming at a very young age, that later on become ingredients in the make up of the adult.
The young Jesus was surprised that his parents would wonder where he would be. There seemed to be an expectation that is was only natural that he would be at the temple, "in my father's house."
And even in this response we see the emerging of that style that later on Jesus perfects. Almost a double meaning, yes I am at the temple, in the house of God, but also perhaps, that this is where he was grounded. This is where he found his primary relationship, with my Father.
You see, these are the first words that are recorded of Jesus actually speaking. And they are words that suggest even then Jesus understood the unique relationship that he had with his God. Interestingly, there is a Jewish Midrash, which is a commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures that speaks of the Messiah as knowing God directly, without human assistance, and Luke is inferring this same concept of Jesus having a relationship with God that no other did.
Luke who proclaims the divine nature of Christ at his birth, affirms it in his childhood and goes on to confirm it throughout his ministry.
So while there is this seemingly clear understanding in Jesus mind of his unique relationship with his Father in Heaven, he also honours his humanity, in that this is part and parcel of his growing years as he grows both in body and in wisdom. It is not seen as a trait already there in full measure, but like any of us there is a growing understanding and learning process happening.
Also interesting at this point is to continue our look at Mary, for here we are told that she, "treasured all these things in her heart."
She may not have understood fully what was going on, but she certainly was building a picture over the years. And as the years progressed, that store of experience and learning would have been pieced together in a growing understanding of the role Jesus was playing.
The application of knowledge does not always meet its full potential at the moment of learning. Often our knowledge learnt from years earlier finds a growing application as the years go on and as that learning is added to new and more recent learning.
It was only as the Gospel writers looked back on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that they saw the completed picture of his life.
And with Christ, such is the nature of his presence with us, that our learning and applying of that learning to our character is a life long experience. If we look back, maybe we can see its beginnings way back in our childhood as far as we can remember, and over the years that has been built on and expanded, so that we too might grow in body and in wisdom, gaining favour with God and with others.
Jesus' question to his parents comes across almost as arrogant,
"Why did you have to look for me?" But like that knowledge that we build on, and as we look back, is Jesus not asking here a very pertinent question?
There is a sense in which Joseph and Mary see Jesus as being lost. And to them he was, but Jesus does not see himself as being lost, he is in his rightful place. The question is one of perspective.
Jesus is not lost, but maybe they have lost him.
And is this not the case in our relationship with God. To suggest that we need to find God in our lives sometimes has that connotation that God is lost, but it is we who are lost. God is where God has always been. In Christ, God's presence is with us. As Matthew put it, "his name will be Immanuel, God is with us."
God's presence is a given, but our willingness to see God and to acknowledge God is what so often lacks. Thus we are the ones lost, lost in our own world, lost in the busyness of life, just as Mary and Joseph were as they travelled with their friends and fellow pilgrims.
It is so easy for us to be lost as our lives spin around us and we fail to recognise how far we have moved from God's presence. And like Mary and Joseph, once we recognise that absence, we too need to reconnect with Christ, who is in His Father's house about his Father's business," as some versions have translated it. Thus the question, Why do you have to look for me? Christ is here, for where two or three gather in his name, the promise is that he is in the midst of them.
Let us continue as a community of faith, as the church, to gather around the presence of Christ who invites us, who draws us in, who welcomes us into his presence.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Mary: bearer of Promise!

In our Gospel readings today we get a glimpse at not one, but two of the central figures in the Christmas Story. One, Mary, is well recognised for her part, and the second, Elizabeth not quite so exalted.
But both of these women should be held up as examples of incredibly faithful servants of God.
Both in a sense bore promise to the world. In Elizabeth we see the woman who brought into the world the one who would prepare the way, for Jesus, child of Mary.
I wonder how often we contemplate what these women endured to carry out the work of their God.
Elizabeth was much older than Mary, and as it appears, was thought to be unable to have children. Thus when she did conceive she was of a greater age than was normal for childbearing. The gospel tells us that Zechariah, Elizabeth's husband's response was not wonderful, and records that his scoffing at the angel resulted in him loosing his speech. Such a reaction may well have indicated a stroke or something similar. But with the loss of the power of speech, I wonder how they survived during this period of pregnancy. Elizabeth, not only had her pregnancy to deal with but also a husband who was not well.
One can only imagine the reaction of their friends and neighbours and other members of the community who no doubt had an opinion on her state.
But nevertheless, here was a faithful servant of God willing to bear one who was to be part of a much bigger picture.
For Elizabeth, the bearing of a child was seen as the lifting of a public disgrace, according to Luke.
Contrast that with Mary, whose pregnancy occurred while promised in marriage to Joseph, and her astonished questioning of the angel as to how this could be, as she was a virgin. And yet in this interaction with the angel she too comes to that point of humble acceptance of her role in this story. And we really have no idea what she had to endure as one promised in marriage and pregnant. Over the years we have overlaid our sense of morality on the story and imagined what it would have been like for them. We understand that Joseph would probably have thought twice about his marriage to Mary, as it may have had implications for him.
But we really don't know what the response was, except that Mary, in great faith, accepted this role as the one we was to bear the Son of the most High.
Elizabeth confirmed this in the visit Mary pays her, when she declares, "Why should this great thing happen to me, that my Lord's mother come to visit me?"
Now there are a few points of this story that we have seen raised in the media this week in response to a certain billboard in Auckland. The aim of raising some debate was certainly achieved, whether this was well done or not is certainly a contentious matter and will probably remain so for some time. However it does raise some of the issues around Mary that we don't often stop to consider, some of which Christendom has continued to debate.
I understand the poster was an attempt to raise doubts on the Virgin Birth itself. On this point mainline orthodox Christianity has been agreed, that Mary was a Virgin when she conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Yes, there are people within the church who want to disagree with this point, but the church throughout the ages has held this view and for very good reason.
If we are to see Christ ultimately as the one who came to repair that relationship with God, if we are to see him as God incarnate, which the Scriptures and the Creeds of the church have acknowledged, then the concept of the Virgin Birth becomes important, for the Holy Spirit becomes the creative power in this process.
This is the same Spirit who was in the beginning at Creation bringing all things into being.
There is a wonderful picture here of the supremacy of God over creation, like some of the later Gospel stories where we see Christ exercising such power.
Now of course much of the argument against the Virgin Birth centres on our ability to believe something that we can't comprehend, something that flies in the face of normal rational and scientific process. I am not sure that on the whole that is a good reason to throw away a belief on its own. I think we need to think more deeply and consider the implications of such a move and we need to consider the history and the wide spread acceptance of such a belief.
I have always understood part of the idea around this particular teaching is that of the sacrifice offered by God for humanity in the sending of His Son into the world to be its Saviour. In the context of the Agnus Die, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, like the lamb of the Old Testament that was pure and without fault, so the Christ Child was to represent humanity in such perfection. Thus as God's gift to the world, God was the direct source of that gift of life. To take that away is to pull at the some of the core threads of the Christian faith, all in an attempt to demystify the story, and to make it, what, more believable.
The very notion of God must evoke mystery, as God is always beyond our ability to ever fully understand.
God can never be 'proved'. But is that not what faith is in fact about.
Now, I certainly don't want to suggest a blind faith that never questions, not at all, but in our answering of such questions of faith we must be careful to allow God to be God, and not to assume the position of adamant superior knowledge, "We know this couldn't possibly have happened like this, therefore it must be wrong."
Faith, must surely always allow for possibility.
Now while the virgin birth is one of the points that Christendom in its many branches has remained united on, the question of the perpetual virginity of Mary is one where we have differed. The Protestants could find no theological, historical nor biblical evidence to support this concept. And this is one of the points that our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters found most offensive about the Billboard in Auckland.
They have maintained that Mary was not only a virgin at the birth of Christ, but that she remained so through out her life.
The scriptures clearly talk of the brothers and sisters of Christ. It is evident that Mary and Joseph continued with the betrothal period and marriage happened. There is no reason to suggest that their marriage did not continue along the normal path, and there was not reason for them to not have subsequent children.
Protestants have tended to down play Mary in our theology, probably as a reaction to some perceived excess that we saw Catholicism offering. While we have acknowledged her as the mother of Christ, we have not extended that to exalting her as the Mother of God. I certainly don't want to heighten any differences we have, but merely to acknowledge the variety of thought that has existed within the Christian tradition and to show the path that our tradition has followed.
However, Mary does need to be acknowledged, I believe for the special place she played in bearing Jesus, the Saviour of the World. Her recognition must surely be, like that of Elizabeth's, in the faithful carrying out of the task that God set for her. A true servant of God. And is that not the challenge for us all in our Christian walk, that we follow the path that God calls us on, for we are all servants of the Most High. We all have a part to play as followers of Jesus Christ.
We are all called to proclaim Jesus as Lord, and to offer the hope that he holds out, showing that God loves us and that God is there for us as we live out our lives.
Even in the those times of mystery, when we cannot see the full picture and do not understand where we are at, or where our lives may be leading us, those are the times, that like Mary, we must hold on in faith and trust to God, whose love will not abandon us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Listen to this!

The time of Advent is one of preparation for the coming. In the Christian calendar it is that period that begins the year and leads up to the celebration of Christ's coming.
Advent is therefore full of anticipation and that opportunity to focus on the lead up to Christ coming among us. And of course we commonly focus on his coming as that Baby born in the stable in Bethlehem, but also there is the affirmation of the belief that Christ will come again, "in glory to judge the living and the dead, as the Nicene Creed puts it.
Our looking forward to that is as much the anticipation of Advent as the looking back to the event of history and its on going effects in our lives today.
As we see from our readings this morning, both in the Old Testament and the New there was that sense of preparation as the people looked forward to the messianic age, when ever that might be.
And in that looking forward it was certainly not a clear vision agreed to by everyone, but the prophetic voices of the day would point back to the prophets of the past and forward to the hope of the future.
And in true prophetic style John the Baptist points people away form himself to the message of the one who is to come. This itinerant teacher was not there to promote himself, but always pointed to the one whom he understood to be the focal point of his message, namely Jesus Christ.
This has and must remain the focus of the church. It should never be about the great evangelists, or preachers, not about the powerful or even the meek, the churches focus must always remain Christ, who continues to be the host of our worship and no better place is this shown than at the table of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ invites us to join him at the table, as he offers himself to us as our strength and as our encourager. He is the one who said, "I am the bread, I am the vine.
The preparation for both Malachi and John, drew on the Isaiah's imagery of the road way. They spoke of making a path or roadway that levelled off the ground, fill in the holes and prepared the way for the king to travel on.
And so for John this image was one of the community making preparation and look forward in anticipation for his coming.
But as well as that, he also emphasised the need for personal preparation. This came in that form of the concept of repentance, calling people to turn from their sins, to turn from those things in their lives that drove them away from God, rather than drawing them nearer. This was also in the prophetic tradition that we saw in Malachi. Life lived, was to reflect the faith professed. And it is almost a question of which voice were you going to listen too, which path were you going to follow.
Just as in our day and age, people had tired of listening and not seeing, they had become cynical and unbelieving, and they were giving up all intention of taking right and wrong seriously. There was a crisis of faith among the people and their religion had become sidelined by popular beliefs or no beliefs at all. Such seems to be the nature of society. And in response we seem to almost enjoy beating ourselves up over the fact that such disinterest in issues of faith occur, as we strive to find programmes and people who will revive the interest in the church once again.
But the true prophet has never been really popular, and it is not our task to make the message of God's coming to us palatable, but our task is to face society and individuals with the call of faith, to follow, and to recognise and acknowledge God's coming to us in Jesus Christ.
As John the Baptist call individuals to this, he called on them to show this in a cleansing ritual. Baptism was not an uncommon rite of cleansing in a number of religious circles of John's time. Among the Jews it usually was reserved for the gentile converts who of course were considered unclean for the very fact of them being gentiles.
However, part of what made John unpopular even among his own, was that he broadened this out to his own people suggesting the need for all to repent.
There is in nothing that will raise the ire more than suggesting to those who already consider themselves worthy, that they need to be cleansed.
And yet at the heart of the gospel is surely the acknowledgement that none of us are worthy, and that we all have that need of Christ and his saving grace: thus our gathering at the table; thus our offering of ourselves or our children for baptism. Our worthiness is found only in Christ and what he has done for us. This was why John and all the prophets pointed to the one who would come as King, for the King of kings alone is the one who can declare us worthy.
The promise of forgiveness is one that has come with Christ, and is there for those who follow him.
Part of the difficulty we have with forgiveness is accepting that we are forgiven. We always feel the need to do something, to do more, and even then we struggle with forgiving ourselves.
And yet that is what the message of the coming of Christ was. The path was made smooth for the coming of the King, the road was made straight.
Why?
So that we all might see God's salvation! It is there for us to see, it is there for us to take hold of so that we might live at peace.
But in that process we must learn to accept that we are forgiven, and learn to offer that same forgiveness to others.
This really involves listening, but to whom?
If we listen to the gospel, we hear and receive the assurance of that forgiveness, but if we listen to ourselves for the world around us, we tend to hear a message of condemnation, and one of retribution. The world demands the eye for an eye, the tooth for a tooth, while Christ declares, you are forgiven.
And so as we gather at the table, we are reminded of the sacrifice made, of the price paid, of the fact that our sins are forgiven, once and for all. Then and only then can we offer the worship that is due to our God, for it focuses not on ourselves, not on our strengths or weaknesses, but on Christ and all that he has achieved for us.
How does this help the world in which we live? Well surely it gives us confidence to go into the world with a message of hope and love, and one of peace with God, for God has expressed his love for the world in and through Jesus Christ and his coming among us.
If we listen to him, we hear God's view of the world.
We hear and see a hope beyond what we can begin to see, or even imagine and we need to see humanity with God's eyes of love and compassion as God continues to come to us today.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Pentecost 24 15th November 2009

1 Samuel 1:4-20
Mark 13:1-13

Jesus speaking of the destruction of the Temple needs perhaps to be set in context. Jesus is employing shock tactics, a little like certain politicians that we have heard this week.
You can imagine the reaction of the people when Jesus talks of this massive structure being destroyed. It was a beloved building that lay at the heart of Jewish worship. It was an architectural wonder of its day and had taken 10,000 of Herod's men eight years on end to build.
The building we sit in today, took five or so years and had no where near 10,000 people working continuously on it, and people of course marvel at the beauty of this building.
The temple was solid and well built and no one could even begin to imagine a day when it would not be there.
Jesus is attempting here in this story, sometimes known as the 'little apocalypse', to warn the disciples of four great spiritual dangers that face them, and in fact face every generation.
The first warning is against putting our reliance on outward adjuncts of Religion.
Jesus' challenge of the religious establishment of the day was illustrated in the seeming futility of thinking that the temple could be destroyed, and yet it was not many years later that it was.
Jesus uses stones and rocks, as foundational images of spiritual life. Rocks are steadfast and sure, solid and secure, and yet he is here saying that even what is seemingly immovable and non destructible, is perhaps only an elusion in this world.
The temple was a symbol of the Religious institution, and Jesus was challenging the very core of that.
But how often we hinge our faith and our belief structures on the outward vestitures of our religious life; whether it be in the buildings that we erect as monuments to our faith, or the structures that we build up around the way we organise ourselves so as to protect that which is dear to us.
We have certainly been thinking on the structures of this building in recent times, and the costs of protecting what we have. None of us would want to see the demise of this beautiful building, but is our faith so intertwined into the fabric of the bricks and mortar, that should they be destroyed, our faith would crumble. I sincerely hope not. But faith communities do become so attached to their places of worship that they often become the central focus for people.
Christ warns against this, for the foundation of our faith must lie in the one who was the cornerstone, Jesus Christ our Lord.
The demise of the temple did not see the end of religious life. A faith that puts its trust in the physical confines of space and history is a faith that is destined to fall. Jesus spoke in other places of the temple being destroyed and being rebuilt in three days. In the context of the size and structure of the building Jesus was speaking of here, you can imagine the dismay and disbelief, but in the context of Jesus as the temple, of God's presence in our midst, the kingdom not of this world, Jesus was clearly speaking of the his own body, his death and resurrection. Constantly he pushes us to look to him as the source of strength and security for our lives. This is where our reliance should lie.
Jesus' second warning is one against the deception of false Messiahs.
There had been many, and there would continue to be plenty who would come claiming such status in the religious world. There would always be those who believed they had the answers to the woes of the world, and the shortcomings of the church.
The Messiah, in Jewish terms for their time, was one who would come to over throw the earthly regime and would set up the heavenly kingdom on earth. Many have continued throughout history with these sorts of claims, whether in a religious context or political context.
But for us surely, any who either draw attention to their own power, or point to solutions other than Christ, present a false hope, for as the hymn writer put it, "Christ is made the sure foundation, Christ the head and corner-stone, chosen of the Lord and precious, binding all the Church in one, holy Zion's help forever, and her confidence alone."
It is also a danger that we can easily fall into by imposing such responsibility on others that the community then comes to see a person or a group as having more power than they do. Even Jesus, in his life, deflected responsibility that did not lie with him, pushing such imposed power to its rightful place.
The Third danger that we need to watch for is that of being distracted by world Turmoil.
In v7 Jesus says, "don't be troubled when you hear the noise of battles close by and news of battles far away.'
How easy it is to be embroiled in the troubles of the world. Today more than when Jesus was around, we hear about all sorts of events as they unfold, disasters and wars, and troubles of all sorts, and it would be so easy to be despondent and distracted, seeing nothing but the doom and gloom that is presented to us.
I think Jesus was trying to put things into perspective for his disciples suggesting that events such as these have always been part of the world, part of humanity, part of life. Sometimes the more that we hear of such events, the more easy it is to see them as the only focus.
How often we have heard the cry for more positive news, are there not good things happening out there that we just don't get to hear about? And if this is what Jesus was getting at, was he prompting his disciples to keep their eyes fixed beyond the horizon, rather than being swamped by what is immediately before us. God's plan for the world is larger than we can see, greater than we can begin imagine, more expansive that we can ever predict.
There will still be times of persecution and troubles, while the world as we know it continues. This does not mean that God has abandoned the world. The image of the birth pangs is used. This is part of the unfolding of God's work. God's presence continues in the midst of a world even if it fails to recognise that on-going presence.
Finally, Jesus warns us not to be tripped up by unexpected bitterness and persecution.
The values of our faith, and the practical putting of these into effect, may often stand in contrast to the world in which we live. Such opposing values may set us on edge with the world. Throughout history there have been times when society has reeled against the church and what it stands for.
Jesus says this is not to be unexpected. One might ask why this should be so, when the values of our faith surely should promote positive values in society. But values such as loving our enemies, standing up for justice and truth, looking after the underprivileged in society, operating from a basis of service rather than expecting to be served, are not always ideas that win favour with the populace. We see that much of what Jesus did and said, and how he treated people did not always win favour for him. So is it surprising that if we follow his ways, it does not necessarily win general favour for us?
Faith sometimes calls us to stand against the tide of public opinion.
Thus throughout history, the church has been persecuted at times for its stance.
Jesus in offering these cautions, is saying that nothing that happens to arise for us, should really surprise us, nor throw us, for our response to the world is to keep our eyes fixed on the one whose world we live in, God's!
Faith and loyalty are what he calls for, and although we may encounter all sorts of trials and tribulations, whether through natural disasters, through reaction to our faith, through those trying to lead us astray, we are called back to the focus of God as shown to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
And what is his promise.
"Everyone will hate you because of me. But whoever holds out to the end will be saved."
Like the story of Job that we spent some time looking at a few weeks back, that concept of faithfulness shines through. It is a faithfulness in being; in being God's people in this world, focused and faithful. Let the issues and events of the world not draw us from our focus, but rather provide opportunity for us to serve. Let us not be divorced from the world in which we live, but like Christ engage in it so as to help others to see it is God's world.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Pentecost 23 8th November 2009

Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17
Mark 12:38-44

How much to get in?

Much of today's life is about wanting everything now. Instant gratification seems to be the motivation for so many peoples lives, wanting what others have got, wanting what our parents had when we first set out into our adult lives, forgetting that they worked for what they achieved, and often from a starting point of very little.
In the church we want to see God today, we want evidence of God's power, of God's majesty, and we want the signs of the kingdom to be visible for all to see. We want to be able to call on God and have our prayers answer without delay.
Although the story of Ruth is condensed into a few small chapters, it is a snippet of the lives of these two women, Naomi and Ruth, of a mother in law and a daughter in law, and it bridges into the next generation today. Time condensed into a few hundred words can often cause us to forget the monotony of everyday life, the struggle to find food for the day, the months or years of worry over the long term future that faced these women who were bereft, left without any secure means of support or survival.
Both of these woman's actions were selfless acts, not primarily for their own benefit, but in support of the other, both looked beyond the immediate with hope, planning but trusting God in all they did.
Jesus criticised the religious leaders of his day for their insistence in making a show of everything they did. They paraded themselves in public as if to convince the people that they were certain of who they were, and they had no worries for tomorrow. They were men of God therefore they were just fine. They were people of great means and resources therefore they need not worry themselves about the future.
Jesus illustrates the fallacy of this notion in a little snippet of social life.
The widow coming to make her offering had to push her way through all these wealthy folk who dropped large amounts of cash into the coffers of the temple. How could she ever compete, and why would God ever notice someone like her?
If that were her attitude she would have turned and left.
But no, she held her head up and deposited her little copper coins into the collection box.
She was not giving merely what she had left, but was offering the substance of her wealth. She did not hold back in her giving to God, for she knew and understood the great gift of love that God offers to us.
Such is the nature of giving. It is not about purchasing power, what I can get for my buck. One does not buy ones way into the kingdom of God, for that entry is there for any one at any time, but the giving here, like the giving that Ruth and Naomi offered, was a giving of oneself in total submission to the master. Our response to understanding God's love is governed by our heart and is the invitation that God offers to us all.
So judgement on others should not be made by what one wears, or how much wealth one may display, or whether one is seen to be supporting the church with vast amounts of money, ones worth in terms of the kingdom is that willingness to empty ourselves, putting all our trust in God, realising that all we have is a gift from him.
It is a case of actions speak louder than words, and actions do not need to be loud and demonstrative, but like the widow, that quiet getting on with life in an unassuming way, demonstrates more sincerely ones faith and trust in God than parading about making sure that everyone can see how good, how generous, how serious we are in our intent.
Entry into the Kingdom of God, which has been the theme of our gospel readings over the last few weeks, is not about how much it costs or what we do, but about the attitude that lies behind what we do. It is about who we are as people, it is about where we put our faith and trust for our lives, and above all it is about God and God's love for us.
Now, I say above all about God, for our relationship with God, always emanates from this point. Right from the beginning of time, God has offered his love to the world. What we, as humanity, have decided to do with that love offered, has formed the story of our history. It has however, not altered God's love for the world.
In the Old Testaments times God offered the covenant, declaring, I will be your God and you will be my people." That was God's stance which has not changed. Later on in history, he reiterated that love in a very practical way by coming among us as Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ, Jesus the anointed one. In him we were told to see the love of God. "God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that all who believe in him, or trust in him, may not perish but have everlasting life." This was the ultimate demonstration of God's love, for God emptied himself into our form to show us his love, and to show us the way to God.
Such love, is that self giving love that we have seen in small glimpses in peoples lives in the stories we have read.
God touches people's lives in many and varied ways, and the model given was that of Jesus so that we could see in real terms how that love is lived out.
Thus we strive to model our lives on Jesus, not to earn favour, not to achieve recognition and acceptance, but to respond to the love God continues to offer to us in every generation.
And in every generation we must find ways to express our love, in ways that are appropriate and relevant in our day and age.
This does not mean lowering ourselves to the standards of the world in which we live, for the gospel has often stood in contrast to the values and ways of the world. It does not mean that we must stay in a time warp, never changing, never adapting to the society in which we live. Some have tried this, and find themselves in glorious isolation to the world in which they live as a freak show for people to stand back and look in on. No we must engage in our world, engage with the God's people of every generation encouraging people to give of themselves, to respond to God's love for them, so that we all continue to learn the art of living by faith, living trusting, not the things of this world, but trusting the one whose love has been declared for humanity since the beginning of time.
The Americans have it on their coins as a slogan, don't they, "In God we trust." But for us all we must have it engraved on our hearts, and lived out in our lives.
That is the key to the Kingdom of God, not the flashy, glitzy, demonstratively wearing of our heart on our sleeve, but the quiet day by day realisation that all we have, all we own, all we know, is a gift from God. In this realisation surely all we would want, then, is to learn more and more to live trusting in that love, seeing our lives reflected through that love, and thus encouraging others to see that this is where the true value in life lies, relieving people from the stresses and strains that we so often get embroiled in worrying about what might be, what might happen.
God's love is beyond measure, it is like the priceless pearl, it is like the single coin of the poor widow, it is all we have in the end that is of any true and lasting value.
Just as God gave of all he had, offering to us Jesus Christ our Lord, what then do we offer in response, what is left over? Or do we offer all that we have, our whole being, holding nothing back, so that our dependence is on God, and not on any attempts we may try to make to get favour from God.
Gifts cannot be bought, Gifts are given or offered from the giver. We have the choice to accept, and respond in kind.
The widows offering is an illustration of ones response to an overwhelming sense of God's gracious love, and stands in contrast to the religious leaders sense of their own importance and demanding expectation that other's recognise that perceived importance in God's eyes.
Let that call to humble faith and trust in God touch our lives as we live for him and with him.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Pentecost 22 1st November 2009

Where exactly is that Kingdom? And how do I get there?
Ruth 1:1-18
Mark 12:28-34

"You are not far from the Kingdom of God", Jesus told the Teacher of the Law, the Religious leader of his day.
What did he mean by this, and where is this kingdom?
Jesus had been talking to a group of Sadducees about such issues, and Sadducees did not believe in a rising from the dead, and so were pushing an argument to great extremes about marriage and succession in the coming kingdom. This one Religious Leader then continues the discussion as he was impressed with the answers Jesus had given so far.
Pushing Jesus further, he asks, "What is the most important commandment?" It is almost like an examination. And Jesus according to this teacher passes with flying colours. You can hear the legal mind of the questioner as he processes these answers word by word, measuring them against the scriptures. Jesus in his response has drawn together two aspects of the Law, the Creedal statement of Israel, "The Lord our God is the only Lord," and put that with the human response, to love the Lord your God with all your heart.."
Jesus in this dialogue could see this man was close to understanding the heart of the matter. Then reiterating what Jesus has said, and adding to this, the questioner says that, "it is more important to obey these two commandments than to offer animals and other sacrifices to God." This is also picking up themes from the scriptures where he quotes 1 Samuel 15:22. So to love God and to love one another is more important than strict adherence to legal and religious practices.
Religious faith is not about the rules and regulations, but in essence is about God's love for us, and our recognition of that and expression of it in our attitudes and our actions.
This surely was, and remains the challenge for the people of God, for the church.
The Gospels are one story after another, of the response of God's people to a growing awareness of God's presence with them, and the influence that faith has on living.
The Kingdom is a complex concept. It is both here and now and something that we look forward too in anticipation.
The Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection after death, so for them the concept of the Kingdom was about here and now alone, whereas the Pharisee did believe in a resurrection and life after death.
With this in mind we can see the cleverness of Jesus' answer and how he draws these two concepts together.
A concept of no resurrection at all, makes the importance of life only about what we do here and now. We need give no thought of any later accountability, or any life beyond what we can see and touch.
This emphasis, certainly heightens our focus on the world today, and does not allow one to off load the responsibility of our thoughts and actions with the excuse that we will worry about that in the life to come.
On the other hand, the concept of Resurrection lifts our concept of God to that which is beyond us. For the Pharisees this gave them an overemphasis on the importance of their actions in terms of their ability to please God and to live to his rules. Thus life became trapped in an ever increasing circle of legalism and issues of compliance and non compliance living in fear that they would be punished in the world to come or not be acceptable for what ever reason.
Jesus' answer wanted to draw both of these strands together in balance.
Yes the Kingdom of God is about where we are today.
Our lives in this world are important for it is God's world. God is interested and involved in the world in which we live. He has not merely created it and abandoned it totally to the laws of nature. No! Jesus spoke of the Kingdom that was here and the Kingdom that was to come.
And he saw himself, as did the disciples and the early church, as the one who intersected these two Kingdoms.
Thus his two part answer; love God and love your neighbour.
Acknowledge God's place in the world and beyond, and live your lives as agents of God in this world in preparation for the next.
And living in this world, as observed by this teacher of the law, was not merely about doing what was right, but by living in relationship with God, and expressing that in the way we treat one another.
Our actions toward other express far more of our faith in God than any religious ritual that we might see as necessary to perform.
You see, in the person of Jesus, the Kingdom of God came among us. Here was God's presence with us. Remember the name given to him, Emmanuel, which means God is with us.
And of course the whole concept of Resurrection is seen in Jesus himself, who declares in the Gospel, "I am the resurrection and the life."
This in itself was the answer to the Sadducees. Yes the Kingdom is here and in Jesus Christ, God is with us, but equally the Kingdom is to come, as we too rise with Christ in the Resurrection, foreshadowed in his rising from the tomb.
And our response to this is summed up in these two great commandments, love God and love our neighbour; have your eyes both here and there.
Why was the Sadducee so close to the Kingdom of God? Because he was beginning to understand the importance of both aspects of the Kingdom, of here and there, of the relationship with God and with one another.
How can we love God and not love one another? Can we be devoted to God and treat our brother or sister with contempt?
This also comes out in that the Sadducee was appraising Jesus carefully, testing him in the answers he gave, but it is Jesus who offers the final critique.
"You are not far from the Kingdom"; almost there but not quite.
Mark tells us that after this, no one dared to ask Jesus any more question.
There was a recognition that in asking such things of Jesus they were really saying more about themselves than they were of Jesus.
Alan Cole in his commentary on this passage says,
"When mortal man sits in judgment on the claims of Christ, he little knows that the Christ (or the word of revelation which He brought,) is sitting in judgment on him. Man thus stands self-condemned or justified by his attitude to the Word of God and the Person of Christ."
Like Jesus asked of people, "Who do you say that I am? This is really what was left for the Sadducee in this conversation, and it is the question left for us.
Christ is the one who brings the Kingdom into our midst and the one who has opened the Kingdom that we might rise with him.
How do I get there? Christ has opened the Kingdom of God to us. Christ is the key, Christ is the way, the truth and the life.
His coming to us, as one of us, has opened access to the Kingdom, both here and now and gives us that future hope that we may share in the glory that is his.
There were many who struggled with this concept in Jesus' day, and there are many who struggle with it today.
It is the concept that we vocalise each week as together we pray the prayer that Jesus taught us, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. That ability to participate in the Kingdom of God today as we look forward in hope to the future has long been the understanding of Christian church, for this is what Christ brought to us as he came among us as that child in the manger, as the man of Galilee, as the on crucified and risen.
Our responsibility remains to live as citizens of that Kingdom in our world today, offering the values that Christ brought to the world of today, offering the message of hope and the love and compassion of Christ to those around us.
May God give us grace and strength to be his disciples in the world today.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Pentecost 21 25th October 2009
Job 42:1-17
Mark 10:46-52

Honesty, the best policy!

What a fascinating reading as we conclude this story of Job. I have, for a long time been intrigued by this whole story, for it expresses on all sides so much of where people come from today, and yet in its conclusion it stands apart from so much popular belief that is prevalent today.
We need constantly to remember the beginning of this story where God declares that there is no one as faithful and as righteous as Job, and the utter confidence that God has in Job.
And as we come to the end of this wonderful book, Job is still honoured by God. Having been through the wringer, as it were, Job continues to grow in his faith and in his total dependence on God. You get a sense of a deepened and strengthened relationship between Job and God.
The first thing we notice is Job's open honesty before God.
There is recognition of the nature of God in Job's eyes. God, the All powerful, the one who is able to do, in this world and in lives of his people, whatever God so desires. And although Job knew this from the beginning, he has seen and recognised it in his own life.
He says, "I talked about things I did not understand, about marvels too great for me to know."
Our human nature seems to lead us to want to give that impression that we are in control, that we have knowledge and understanding, that nothing is beyond us, and yet in all honesty, we like Job, need to recognise anything that we know is limited. We are limited by the knowledge of our day, we are limited so often by what we can see and comprehend, and yet if God is to be God, we must acknowledge that God will not have such limits but is free to know and to think and to act beyond anything that we can begin to imaging.
The language of Job is so expressive. In his total honesty he says, "Then I knew only what others had told me, but now I have seen you with my own eyes."
And here we see a parallel in the Gospel story of Bartimaeus. He too had heard about Jesus of Nazareth, and called out to him, and his eyes were opened. He was able to behold Jesus face to face.
And there is a sense in which this is a picture of the God of all Grace, who in coming to us, responds to our cries, and opens our eyes that we can see him in his glory. We can recognise God for who he is. And although we read such stories as a sudden and miraculous event in history, there is also a sense in which we can relate to this as a dawning of recognition of the God who comes to us as we are, and who opens our eyes to God's wonder and glory.
This engagement between God who loves and accepts us, and we who call out, and God who responds, is that picture of relationship that is so vital in the Christian faith. God does not merely manipulate us, as Job's friends encouraged him to think, nor does he stand off afar, uninterested, nor unwilling to engage, but rather God enters into dialogue with us.
Such is the nature of God and the nature of the relationship that we are invited to engage in.
Bartimaeus was clear in his intent and understanding. He wanted to see, and he knew that Jesus, the Christ, was able and willing.
Job in his honesty was willing to stand before God and front up to where he had gone wrong. He did not do this in fear and trembling, but out of respect for God and in acknowledgement of God's supremacy.
Job seemed to have and wonderful understanding, not only of the need for honesty and the recognition of God's power, but also he had an understanding of God's Grace.
The invitation of God, that we read last week, for Job to stand up like a man, shows Job's willingness to stand before God recognising that God was not going smash him down, or wipe him out, but that God would listen to him, for God is a God of grace. And today we see this grace coming out in God's approach to Job's friends. Although they had got wrong end of the stick, God was not going to be harsh with them either, but he issued an invitation for them to respond and told them that Job would pray for them.
In this way again, we see the graciousness of God as he invites response in us in many and varied ways. The friends were to make and offering, and Job was to pray.
Prayer is so important in, not only our relationship with God but also in our relationship with our friends. God, here is seen to honour the prayers of his people and their requests, not only for themselves but also for others.
Such prayer is offered in recognition of God's greatness and his ability to grant all things, but also comes from the leading of God and leaves the answers in God's hands.
Here is a picture of the true community of faith: God at the head, and others at varying points along that pathway of faith.
God is the one who initiates but each responds according to where they are at in their walk with God.
And in their own place in that continuum of life, they see God as they grow and develop in their relationship with God.
God in his grace holds out his hand of mercy even for those with whom he was angry. God's anger is a controlled anger and is not destructive but draws us into his grace to love, to hold, to heal and to restore. Such is the nature of God.
And for Job, that restoration was accompanied by blessing.
And we see Job go on in his own life to offer that same love and grace to his family. God's character grew in Job and was expressed in his life.
There are some interesting little snippets in these concluding verses.
Job's grace was seen in abundance and exceeded what might have been consider normal for his day in the social context.
V 15 tells us that "There were no other women in the whole world as beautiful as Job's daughters. There father gave them a share of the inheritance along with their brothers."
Job looked beyond the normal expectations of his day and offered abundantly more than was expected. His grace exceeded societies expectations and he treated all as important in his sight. Number chapter 27 tells us that the Law only required daughters to inherit wealth when there were no sons to receive it. Clearly here Job saw that God had provided abundantly so that all could receive equally,
just as in the New Testament, Paul saw the grace of God, in Jesus Christ as giving equal status to all, whether male or female, free or slave.
God's grace is available for all, and God looks beyond any human difference we may try to impose, for God sees the hearts of his people, those willing to engage with him in life acknowledging his reign as King of kings and Lord of lords.
It is not a relationship that should leave us feeling guilty for our doubts and our fear, it should not leave us wallowing in self pity or condemned by our failures, but it is a relationship that encourages us to stand up and be honest, able to face ourselves and our fears in open, honest dialogue with the God who loves us beyond measure and who will never leave us nor forsake us.
Our God does not abandon us in the depths of despair, but carries us and encourages us, and engages with us in all of life.
Thus Paul was able to write,
"There is no condemnation for those who live in union with Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit, which bring us life in union with Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death."
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

18th October 2009
20th Sunday Pentecost
Job 38:1-7,34-41
Mark 10:35-45

Where is justice?

Like justice, God and God's relationship with us is complex, well at least from our perspective anyway.
Job is the story of one man's prolonged suffering and his engaging with God in this suffering, as well as his listening to his well meaning friends and their spin on his life.
In the passage read today, God responds to Job and his friends following a long dialogue from Elihu, one of Job's friends.
This friend has reiterated his former argument that basically what Job is suffering now, he has come to deserve, and that Job need just recognise it, acknowledge it, and all will be well -God will no longer punish Job.
In this latest argument Elihu softens his approach acknowledging that God's dealings with us are seen not simply in terms of rewards and punishments; they are also remedial, or at least intended to be so, if used rightly.
Is this not a point at which we would see justice; the punishment must fit the crime. We have wronged God, therefore God will harm, or allow harm to afflict us.
Such justice is so much part of our human psyche. We feel we must make the balance between wrong and restitution. And in such attitudes we can feel as certain self righteousness, as we have paid the price to those we have wronged or to our community, so therefore have put ourselves right.
Job, of course refuses to accept this line of argument, and maintains his innocence, for in God's eyes at the beginning of this story, there was no one as good and as righteous as Job in all the earth. Job knew himself, he knew who he was and knew that he had done nothing that could incur such wrath and punishment in his life that he was suffering.
Job's honest and open approach to God allows him to stand firm in this as he struggles to reconcile his suffering with God's abundant love for him.
While he does not have the answers he does not give up.
So in the passage read today, God responds in a series of rhetorical questions placing before Job a picture that displays God's supremacy in the world. To suggest that God is not visible to the world, that God has hidden himself from us, is to speak in ignorance.
The picture here is of Job in the courtroom, being cross examined.
"Who are you to question my wisdom with your ignorant, empty words."
One only needs to look around, and the glory of God is evident. One only needs to scratch the surface of nature and the mysteries of the universe to discover how little we know, and yet we dare to question God's wisdom. Even today, with all the science and knowledge that thousands of years of human endeavour has brought us, and still there is so much more to know. The more we know, the more we discover there is yet to know.
The questions are endless: Who decided how large the earth would be? Who stretched the measuring-line over it?
What holds up the pillars that support the earth? Who closed the gates to hold back the sea when it burst from the womb of the earth? Picturesque language that paints and understanding of how the people of Job's day would have viewed what they saw, and yet how little they knew, and if we are honest how little we know today, and yet like Job in all that life brings to us, we too are called to stand firm, called to steady faith in the one who made all that we see.
God is not hidden the but glory of God is seen in all the world.
This is the constant cry of the Psalmist,
Praise the Lord, my Soul! O Lord, my God, how great you are!
You are clothed with majesty and glory; you cover yourself with light. You spread out the heavens like a tent and built your home on the waters above."
Such descriptions acknowledge the grandeur of God, and in acknowledging that, we also acknowledge that our concepts of justice and might, are but a dim replica of the true justice that God holds out.
One commentator says of this passage, "The descriptions are remarkably objective as if Creation should be enjoyed for its own sake or rather as God's artistry, and not for the lessons it can teach us about ourselves."
The only lesson we can really learn about ourselves is our finiteness, in relation to God's grandeur.
And yet through out this story, God continues to engage with Job. There is never a time when God washes his hands and tells Job where he might hop off.
Job challenges God in a sense, and God honours his honesty and his faithfulness in engaging with him.
This is enough for Job, for here is God, who even in his great suffering has not abandoned him, but is there with him, engaging with him, standing by him.
Knowing this, almost gives Job that sense that he does not care what happens to him.
And God certainly does not condemn Job, but treats him almost like an equal. He invites him to stand up like a man and consider the lilies of the field, so the Lord invites him to join Him in a walk around his Garden.
Such is God's admiration for Job as it has continued from the beginning of this story.
So where is justice in this story?
It is not in the retribution his friends saw God dishing out in their concept of his wrath.
Justice is seen in God's taking us as we are as part of His creation and valuing us, and loving us, and walking with us in all that life brings to us.
God's justice is not in retribution, but in his willingness to value us along with the rest of creation, to willingly engage with us, seeing beyond any shortcomings we might have that we might walk through life honouring God in all that we do.
Job's example was his faithfulness to humbly serve God and to walk with him, all the days of his life.
James and John, were the two disciples who in a display of their humanity, argued who would sit on the left and the right of Christ in his coming Kingdom. They wanted the place of honour, they wanted to earn the right to be good enough, to impress Jesus enough that he might afford them such an honour.
Jesus points out that if we want true greatness in this life, we must recognise our own shortcomings, we must recognise our need of God, and in so doing be willing to engage with God and be the servant of all.
No matter what place we hold in this world, in our society, in our community, we too should seek to walk humbly with God, acknowledging his supremacy, seeking his ways, and above all remaining faithful to him in all that we do.
God's justice does not demand our righteousness, but places his righteousness on us. Any such demands would incur the wrath of God as seen by Job's friends, but God invites us to walk with him through the journey of life, and in so doing to draw strength from his presence in the rough times, and to enjoy with hi the glory of his presence in every moment of life, so like the psalmist we can offer all praise and glory and honour that is due to him.
Too often today we want to look for blame, we want to see that our sense of justice is seen to be dished out, rather than enduring with God's strength life as it comes, faithfully honouring God in all that we experience, the good with the bad, the rough with the smooth, the just with the seemingly unjust.
May God presence and company give us strength to endure and hearts to praise.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Sunday, 11th October 2009-10-13

Mark 10:17-31

What can I do?

I would suppose, that like me, most of you cringe whenever you hear the passage that was read from Mark’s gospel. When we hear the rich man ask Jesus what he needs to do to receive eternal life, Jesus replies, that he must first of all keep the commandments, and then adds that he must sell all he has and give the money to the poor. We probably all shudder of the thought of having to do that ourselves. I suppose we can rationalise the instruction from Jesus to the rich man, by saying we are not that rich. We can also say that the instruction was for that particular person and not for all of us. We could also note that if it were a requirement for all of us to sell up, give the money to the poor, and follow Christ, there would actually be no-one here in church and Christianity would have died a natural death a long time ago.

Jesus, of course goes on to say that it is impossible for people to enter the Kingdom through their own will, but it is possible for God to make this happen for us. So, we do not have to sell all we have in order to do so, though some of us probably remember a time, a few decades ago when that was a popular thing to do, and some of our friends may have done that.

Of course, the main point of the story of the rich man, was that he was not able to do as Jesus asked, and some of us are probably just as trapped in our lifestyle as the rich man was. He went away sad because he was unable to part with his comfortable life, his riches and pleasures. Many of us would also be reluctant to leave their home comforts, our familiar routines and our enjoyable past-times, not to mention indulgences, especially as we have worked so hard to get them.

Indeed, most of you would have mentally crossed off as impossible the suggestion I made earlier, for some of you to become Bible in Schools teachers. The mere thought of stepping outside your comfort zone is so frightening, it’s impossible and this is probably why so many of us do not respond to the many other opportunities to become involved in church activities, as it takes us too far out of our comfort zone.

Indeed, the thought of having to stand in front of a class of young children, of having to maintain classroom discipline, of having to prepare an interesting lesson, or even having to re-arrange your weekly commitments slightly in order to commit to doing this, is an entirely daunting task. And yet, some people do, even some who are not comfortable in the classroom, who have taken on this commitment and do it well, even doing it for quite a number of years.

They are the ones who see that this is an opportunity to share God’s love with children who would otherwise never get the chance to learn about God and Jesus; about what we believe and have faith in and why. Because if children under the age of 10 years, never get to hear about Jesus, or to hear the stories from the Bible, or get to understand some of the moral, ethical and loving teaching in the scriptures, there is every chance they will never hear about any of that good news in their whole lives.

Quite few of you have said at some time or other, ‘why don’t we see children in church or Sunday School any more?’ To which I would like to say, the main reason is because no-one brings them, but also because most of their parents do not even know that is possible. There is already a lost generation of parents who have never been to church or Sunday School and they would never even think of bringing their children along. Even if children hear about God or Jesus in a Bible in Schools lesson at school there is no perceived connection with that information and the attending or joining a church community. Even children who have been baptised are not being brought by their parents or grandparents to honour the commitment they have made to provide them with Christian teaching.

Times have certainly changed, especially since we were at school, and we would struggle to relate it to the school experience we had. Even though there is an over-arching Values programme in schools, much more emphasis is placed now on achievement levels in certain subjects, such as Maths and Literacy, as well as a heavy emphasis on Sport. Some of the Year Six pupils I teach for Bible in Schools are not only attending school, but also learn a musical instrument, play one or two sports in school teams and attend some other regular out-of-school activity, such as Art Classes. These kids have really busy lives.

That is possibly why some of them are missing out on the things we took for granted; regular meals sitting with the rest of the family at a table, nutritional lunches, breakfast before school; parents that sit down at night and read them stories or help them to read themselves and help with their homework. Some of them do not even have parents that tell them when it is time to go to bed. These are some the basics that schools are trying to provide for and accommodate as well, to fill in these gaps. So, what can we do? What can you and I do? Are you prepared for the answer that Jesus might give you when you ask that question?

It may be that God is not asking you to sell all you own and give the money to the poor, but maybe there are some ways you could help these children, to show them God’s love. Maybe that would be one way of helping God to include us in the Kingdom. Maybe if children could get to know us and something of the church to which we belong, then they feel that there is a place for them among us as well.

A new initiative from CEC, the Churches Education Commission, which provides Bible in Schools and School Chaplains, is to foster closer relationships between schools and churches. The programme ‘Adopt a School’ is one way you might be able to help. There are no lessons to prepare, no classroom lessons to present and discipline to be involved in, like in a Bible in Schools lesson, but there are other ways of being intentionally ‘the feet and hands of Christ’ in a local school.

As I am already the School Chaplain at Invercargill Middle School, and two of us from First Church are providing Bible in Schools lessons there, it would be beneficial to the school to be ‘adopted’ by First Church. The school is keen for this to happen and we are hoping to have a meeting with school staff and the Board in the near future to find out the ways in which we can be of help, to be friends of the school. You may have already heard of some of the things that are happening at New River Primary School, made possible by members of St. Andrew’s Church. They have made and planted vegetable gardens, older folk are going into the school and reading stories and helping children to read, they are involved in providing Bible in Schools and Teina Marie, the Community Worker for the church is now the School Chaplain there.

These activities are tailored for the school and it may be that Middle School has similar needs. When we know how we can be involved in the school we will be looking for some of you to commit to this undertaking. We may not be able to get children to come to church, but there is nothing stopping us from meeting them where they are and showing them that through us, God cares for them, loves them and wants them to grow into the best people they can be. Then we will see God’s Kingdom here and now, active in our community, and it certainly won’t cost us an arm and a leg to do so.

27th September 2009
17th Sunday Pentecost
Esther 7:1-10, 9:20-22
James 5:13-20

We conclude our look at the letter of James today as he sums up and encourages the people to remain focused and to exercise patience.
There is encouragement to remain patient in terms of time and the political scene; to endure even under suffering if necessary, but also to remain patient with one another. For if we cannot display patients with one another, how can we ever hope to live out the Gospel in a meaningful way in our society. There is a real call to tolerance and understanding, which has to remain a timeless call in the life of the church.
We know this is not always an easy assignment either, for it requires effort on our part as individuals, and it requires the wisdom to think carefully about our actions and our attitudes.
This is perhaps where James is so practical in his approach and where this letter is so much about the day to day aspects of a life of faith in the context of time and space.
James concludes with a heavy emphasis on the practicalities of our relationships with one another with the hope that this community of believers would learn to stick together through thick and thin, supporting one another and encouraging one another in an atmosphere of love, so that the gospel would be seen and demonstrated in people's lives.
Pivotal to the life of faith, is a life of prayer. Pray and worship seem to underpin all that should happen in the life of such a community.
Clearly James sees prayer as having application to every area of life and he wants to commend it as a great source of strength for the affliction that the readers are experiencing. It is a tool in the armoury of every believer, available to all, it requires no formal training. One could probably say it improves with practice, but that is much more about the discipline of it. Prayer does not need the background of education nor the eloquence of the articulate. The prayer that James speaks of here is the simple cry of the human heart. It is the engaging with God at the most basic of levels as we express our fundamental emotions, desires and needs to God as we see and feel them.
"Is anyone among you in trouble? He should pray.
Is anyone happy? He should sing praise. Is anyone ill? Get the elders of the church."
One could ask, is there any occasion where prayer is not appropriate, and the answer would have to be no!
It was Paul who exhorted his readers to Pray at all times. Whatever situation we find ourselves in, prayer is always appropriate. There is never a time when that resource should be beyond us, and even when we feel it is, we are told that God understands the cries of our hearts even before we utter them.
That of course does not negate the need for us to pray, but rather offers the comfort that in those times when we find ourselves beyond the ability to pray, God hears us and when we find ourselves lost for words to express ourselves, God hears.
Prayer is a privilege that we too often can take for granted.
Joseph Scriven in his great hymn, What a friend we have in Jesus, expresses this when he writes,
"What a privilege to carry, everything to God in Prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
oh, what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer."
How true those words are, as we lie in bed at night, worried, upset, unable to settle. Prayer is a great tool, underestimated and underutilised.
But as we contemplate this we may well ask what is prayer, and who benefits from it and how?
I always view prayer as a conversation with God, and as such it does not need, of course to be a formalised ritual, nor a carefully composed piece of literature. But like any conversation it is dependant on the setting. Our prayers in formal worship do tend to be put together with careful consideration, following themes and perhaps the seasons of the church year. But they are also designed to lead people in worship, so they are not that personal conversation, but rather a suggestive lead for the congregation to engage together in prayer.
There may be the times of regular prayer set aside to commune with God, almost like making an appointment to meet. There may be individual purpose and needs expressed in such an encounter. It should also contain time for reflection and some self analysis. In this regard we must see prayer as two way communication. We should make time to listen in our reflection so that through our thoughts and contemplation God may speak to us. This is important, for if we are not careful out prayer life degenerates into a phone or shopping list, bombarding God with all our wants and desires, with very little consideration of what might be best for us, let alone how the community or the church might benefit from our prayers. There is always mystery in prayer for we do not know how our prayers will be answered, and as James points out, they must be made in faith, leaving the answers to God and his discretion and sovereign will.
Then in prayer there may well be those times that we gather for specific purposes. James talks about prayer for healing.
Calling together the elders of the church to pray and to anoint with oil. Now, it is not entirely clear what is meant here. One line of thought has differentiated the spectacular and specific New Testament gifts as being for that Apostolic era only, and that at the end of that period those gifts ceased to be part of the everyday life of the church. This is a particularly narrow point of view, and does not allow for the continued work of God in ways beyond our human reasoning and explanation.
Others have perhaps over emphasised such gifts and particularly when it comes to healing, have maintained that God will heal every one, and only if we have enough faith. Those who lack faith are in some way looked over by God.
Such a line of thought is open for abuse and ridicule, and lays great guilt on people who do not appear to receive such healing. It also only really offers a narrow concept of healing and instils in us almost a fear of death, rather than seeing death as part and parcel of our human existence and something that we all face.
Somewhere in between these two poles lies an open approach to God, that allows for God to work in our lives according to his sovereign will, but also offering us the hope and the motivation for our continued petitioning of God in every aspect of our daily lives, knowing that he hears, and expecting that God will answer, in God's own way and time.
In this way we must ultimately leave our lives in his hands.
The use of oil in this passage is also uncertain. It was used in medicinal ways for rubbing and massaging as part of the healing process, and the church came to use it more in a sacramental way, as a symbol of God's power to heal.
Whether either of these uses were being indicated by James one can never be sure.
But the emphasis remains that prayer should continue to be part of our individual and cooperate lives as we honour God in our living and as we seek God's ways with us.
No need is too trivial for God, and in our prayer it often lessens the burdens that we feel.
May we continue to be a people of prayer, praying for ourselves, for others, for our church and community, for the world and all that is happening in that. In this way we do continue in our encounter with the living God who engages with us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Buds of faith and blooms of love

As we come to worship today, we are coming to celebrate the beauty of spring, and we see this before us. This is the result primarily of the wonder and mystery of nature that sees the plain and rather dull looking seed or bulb transform into the radiant beauty of the colourful flower. That beauty is contained within the genetic make up of the bulb, but it takes time and the right conditions for the true beauty to be revealed. Time sees the development, the growth, and the ripening conditions that bring about that change that announces to the world that spring is here.
And while some of the beauty we see before us has its moment of glory in the spring, some will go on to bring about its full potential in a later season as it bears fruit.
All along the way we know there are things that may affect the potential beauty or fruitfulness. There are the bugs and the diseases that can attack at any time, and the careful horticulturalist will take time to work toward preventing such problems.
And this is where James is coming from this week as he looks at humanity and our relationship with God and with one another.
He sees wisdom as an attribute of beauty; an attribute that is developed within us as a gift from God to enhance our human character.
Like James, the writer of the wisdom literature in the Old Testament tells us when describing the capable wife, "She speaks with a gentle wisdom."
There is something about that gentle applied knowledge of life that radiates God's love and there for all to see without even a word necessarily for it becomes so much part of the character of the person.
His closing words of this book sum it up don't they,
"Charm is deceptive and beauty disappears, but the woman who honours the Lord should be praised."
Honouring the Lord is the key to great wisdom, for in it is an acknowledgement of our human weakness and the need to shape our lives on the One who beyond us in every way.
And this is the launching pad of James argument.
"Is there anyone among you who is wise and understanding?"
If there is it must be visible in your living.
It is a positive beginning to his argument, but one with a twist. There must have been some bitter divisions within the Christian community at the time. Possibly to do with this relatively new immerging group still operating largely under the umbrella of the established religious frame work of the day having not yet fully broken away from its Jewish roots.
So inherent in this would have been those who were so sure of themselves that they probably argued with arrogance demanding their way as right, and in the process putting others down.
James uses words such as bitterness, jealously, selfishness and describes them, as not coming from heaven, the source of true wisdom.
Calvin considers, "The only ones who have wisdom in God's sight are such as bring to this gentleness an honest manner of life."…"Wisdom," he says, "requires a well balanced composure, while jealousy starts disturbance in the mind, makes it uneasy in itself, and has a disordered temper towards others."
Our lives as Christian people are not predetermined in the way that we just sit back at let happen what will happen. Our lives are shaped. They are shaped by our upbringing, shaped by our attitudes, shaped by the choices that we make, shaped by all those influences that bombard us in every way depending on how we deal with such things and people.
Proverb's capable wife gives us a picture of many of the things that might have occupied a woman of that day, and how the choices that she might make could determine so much about her character and how she might be viewed.
Thus I think we need to read this in a much broader sense that just the capable wife. It is a lesson in how to full our lives with positive, productive, and profitable experiences that benefit not merely ourselves but the family and community around us.
We are not isolated individuals who stand on our own righteousness demanding all that we want to benefit ourselves, but we are the people of God, drawn together by God's love for the world, focused on God as the giver of all that is good and positive, working for the extension and honour of God and his reign on earth and in heaven.
Thus true wisdom recognises its source, it acknowledges its true source and it continues to focus on that source allowing God to shape and mould us more and more into the image of Christ, in whom we see such wisdom lived out.
So when James sees in the emerging church people ready to kill, strong desires being pushed to for individual's personal gain, when he sees people's faithfulness to God waning, all attitudes rife within the world, but foreign to the Gospel message, he wants to challenge them and to point out that none of this behaviour is worthy of those who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ.
Just as we had in our own hands encouragement to train the tongue, so here he offers the challenge to train our thoughts and our actions, our motives and our reactions to the world and all that is around us. For the Gospel offers the buds of faith and the blooms of love, and we must apply ourselves in our living to fend off the predators and the diseases that would inhibit the beauty of God's wisdom bursting forth in our lives and in the life of the church.
Thus James, with great passion, urges us to submit to God. Resist the Devil, and he will run away from you."
Push away that which you know to be wrong and focus on God and God's goodness. This remains our responsibility, our calling, our choice to follow Christ, or to turn away.
No one else can make such a choice for us. We are not pre programmed in how we respond to God's constant and every present love for us, but we should consciously live life considering our lives before God.
James continues, "Submit to God…come near to God, and he will come near to you. …. Humble yourselves and he will lift you up."
James is full of hope, full of confidence, assured that God will honour his love for us, but he urges his listeners to honour God.
We constantly need such a challenge in our own lives as a community of God's people for the world out there is quick enough to throw stone at the church or our actions, our attitudes, our beliefs, and so on, but we are sometimes equally quick to do it ourselves to one another.
Such behaviour displays anything but the wisdom that God speaks of, and shows anything but the beauty of God's love in our lives and in the life of his church.
We are often the only way that other people get to see and experience God's love. I wonder what picture they see?
And like the capable wife, we all feel we fall short, we all know that in and of ourselves we do not measure up, but our God is gracious and honours the responses we make to his love for us. His love does not condemn our faithfulness, and our efforts. Calvin points out, "With God upholding our cause, there is no reason for us to be afraid that we may succumb." God's grace holds us secure, God's grace encourages us, as we strive to live lives expressing our faith and honouring our God, so that the buds of faith and blooms of love may indeed come to fruition in our lives.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

13th September 2009
15th Sunday Pentecost

Proverbs 1:20-33
James 3:1-12

The rudder that steers us.

This week James hits hard at an aspect of our humanity that affects us all. He looks at how people express themselves in words and the effect that that has on others in the community.
Last week I spoke with the children of Proverbs, and we talked briefly about the one that says, "Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you."
Now while there is some truth in this if we take hurt to be merely physical, we equally know that if we take a much broader approach to the word hurt, there is fallacy in this saying. Words can hurt, they can hurt deeply and they can be lasting in their effects.
We can probably all think of examples where we have been hurt by words, or words that we have used knowing that they will hurt.
It is interesting that James address this section to those who perhaps aspire to be teachers. I wonder who he means?
Some would suggest perhaps those who want roles of leadership within the emerging church, but Calvin thinks it is addressed to those who, "usurp to themselves the right to pass censure on others."
As soon as we take the moral high ground criticising other people in their actions or their thoughts, we assume ourselves to be better than those being criticised and so we feel able to take on the role of teacher. To quote Calvin again, "These are the critics, who like to be regarded as teachers of morality."
So in our criticism of others, we must surely be prepared to be judged by those same standards, and possibly even greater standards.
Thus only those who can truly live fully righteous lives are able to make such judgements for they will be able to be judged by the law with a clear conscience. But James in his pragmatic approach knows full well that this is impossible for anyone. Thus surely he affirms here, the doctrine of salvation by Grace alone. Our efforts will never achieve full perfection in God's eyes, for in our humanity such perfection is impossible. Nevertheless there are some choices that we make that demonstrate our willingness to submit to God's ways with us, and one of the most notable is the use of our tongue. Such a small and yet vital organ in the body, for it is by the tongue that our main means of communication happens. The tongue produces the sounds and the words that enable us to understand one another, and we have choice over the words that we use.
James draws two images of the tongue for us.
Firstly, the bit in the horses mouth. If we can control a horse by a bit, surely we can control our own selves by the use of the tongue. Think before you speak is probably a good line of thought in this regard.
The bit for the horse directs it, depending on which way you pull the reigns. The tongue, also in the mouth, controls the thoughts of the mind that are allowed to be heard, depending on what is let out.
And when you read this passage it certainly makes you think of the power that there is in this very small part of the body. Thus James also draws that picture of the rudder of the ship. It too is a very small piece of equipment that directs an enormous bulk in the form of the ship.
The slightest movement in the rudder can change the direction of that great vessel.
Thus the wise use of the tongue, may guide us in our living, and guide others in their response to life.
The writer of Proverbs puts a slightly different twist on this when he emphasises the art of listening. Listen to God, listen for wisdom. Perhaps the ears have the key to wisdom and to the taming of the tongue.
Some one has said that we have been given two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak.
That's not bad advice is it. For maybe if we were to listen more, when we came to speak there would be something worth saying.
And perhaps as we make worship a priority in our lives we a least set aside time to listen to God, to engage with God in the context of our daily lives.
As we gather at the table in the silence of that event and contemplate God's great love for us, I wonder does it set our own lives in context and evoke in us that sense of gratefulness for all that God has done and is doing for us.
It is that time to listen and reflect, that time to engage with God as we feed on his goodness for us.
Proverbs tells us, God has been giving us good advice and sharing his knowledge with us. He has been calling but we have not been listening. Sobering words aren't they!!
We have that choice to use our tongues to both offer thanks to our Lord, says, James, or to curse. He draws some interesting dichotomies here contrasting ways in which we may use this one part of our body to offer two opposing notions. And where does the control lie. James lays that fairly and squarely with us as individuals. We, in the end are responsible for our own use of the tongue. We cannot blame others for what we say, we cannot deflect the cause elsewhere but must accept responsibility for our own speech.
Thus there is the need to tame the tongue, to think before we speak, to choose our words with care and attention to where they will fall, and to take account for how they might be received.
It is from our use of the tongue that the fruit of our life will be seen. People will judge us by what we say, as much as by what we do. And when our actions do not match our words or our words deny our actions, then people will jump to condemn us.
Just as a spring does not produce both bitter water and sweet water, or a fig tree does not bear olives, so the consistency of word and action in the life of Christian is something to be work at and watched.
As we declare our faith in God, as we open our lives to those around us, I wonder do people see that consistency in us.
Jesus invited response from people throughout his ministry. He asked Peter the question, Who do people say that I am, and then turned to him personally as asked, "Who do you say that I am?"
That is the same question that we all need to think carefully about as we come to the table, for in our response comes our declaration of faith. In our words should flow the response of our hearts.
You are the Christ! you are the Son of the Living God!
As individuals, as a church, as the people of God may our faith continue to grow consistently with our lives so that God is honoured through us, and our lives are directed by him.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

6th September 2009
14th Sunday Pentecost

Proverbs 22:1-2,8-9,22-23
James 2:1-17

What do we see in others?

Over the next few weeks we will look at the readings from James. James has sometimes been a somewhat controversial book, as some have considered it a book that seen ti contradicts the teaching of Justification by faith alone.
Luther described James as an epistle of straw saying that it mangled the scriptures and opposes Paul and all scripture.
Calvin took a more balanced approach when he says,
"The apparent distortion of the dotrine of free justification is a matter we may readily clear up when we come to it. If James seems rather more reluctant to preach the grace of Christ than an apostle should be, we must remember not to expect everyone to go over the same ground. See how the writings of Solomon differ widely from the style of David. Calvin see scripture as offering something in its entirety as well as recognising the specific situation into which the letter was written.
There were a number of James' in the early church who could have been the author of this letter, but the most widely accepted and likely one is James the brother of Jesus. He is said to not have believed in Jesus until after the resurrection when Jesus appeared to him. And after this he quickly became one of the prominent leaders in the Jerusalem church. Paul is said to have met with James and Peter on his first trip to Jerusalem after his conversion, and at other times.
James is believed to have been stoned to death in Jerusalem by opponents of the church around AD63.
The dating of this letter is most usually attributed to around AD45-50 and some date it as late as AD60.
This letter is one that is packed with practical wisdom for a scattered congregation of God's people throughout the known world, so has a very general application. It offers advice and deals with a variety of topics such as riches and poverty, temptation, good conduct, prejudice, faith and actions, the use of the tongue, wisdom, quarrelling, pride and humility, judging others, boasting, patience, and prayer. In all of these topics James asserts that faith and actions go hand in hand. How can we say one thing and do another, or even how can we say one thing and act in a manner contrary to what we preach.
If faith is to be a life changing experience, this must be seen in the simple nuts and bolts aspects of our daily living and our daily interaction with one another and with the world around us.
And one can sense that this mindset is reiterating the life of Jesus as he lived it. He challenged people on both their attitudes and their actions, and this would easily have been at the heart of the memories of a younger brother looking back on his life and the impressions that he left.
In Chapter One, James has hit on the concept of hearing and doing. "Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to his word; instead, put it into practice."
And now in Chapter two, he continues to tell us how we might go about that.
He begins with our attitudes to other people. The Christian community should be a welcoming community that draws together the vast array of society and accepts them as people loved by God. We are not loved because we have been successful, or because we are wealthy, God loves us. Full stop, and that love must lie at the heart of who we are and how we interact with one another and with the world around us.
Special priority should not be afforded to people because of who they are, where they were born, how wealthy they may be.
James suggests that such distinctions will be based on the wrong motives. Who are we trying to impress? What do we want by treating people with such honour? Jesus talked about the least among us being important in God's eyes, and this should be our attitude.
Poverty and riches bears no witness to the quality of the person, in attitude, or spirit, in grace, or ability, and certainly not in terms of value to God.
The poor of this world have often been the most generous in spirit, and have given of themselves far more than those who have been blessed with plenty.
I wonder does the parable of the Widow's mite come to mind?
She gave all she had, emptied herself in honour of God. Jesus emptied himself of all that was powerful, for the benefit of the whole world including the meek and lowly.
And how often it is the rich who oppress the poor, and yet we are quick to honour them, merely because of their status.
It is the heart of people, surely that is more important that how much they have or who they are, and how often it is those who are well off who see themselves as self sufficient in their needs, for they have made their way in the world, they then see no need for God and the grace and mercy that he has offered to the whole world.
James draw's on Jesus' teaching of love your neighbour as you love yourself suggesting that if we love anyone less than that we are indeed breaking the commandments of God, as reinforced in word and action in the life of Jesus Christ.
He then draws our attention to the ten commandments; that we need to live taking note of them, as if we are to be judged by them, for they give the practical out working of faith in peoples lives and they also show us how dependant we are on God and God's grace to us, for none of us can ever live to such standards of perfection, even though we may strive to.
And this is of course where the grace of God comes in, who meets the requirements of the Law, in God's eyes, and so we rejoice in God's actions for us and adjust our life styles in response to this act of God's mercy.
Thus the call is to then see the world and people and our own lives from a completely different perspective. For what good is it to say we believe, to claim to have faith, if in some way that is not reflected in way we live out our lives.
As James puts it so bluntly, "What good is it for someone to say that he has faith if his actions do not prove it? Can that faith save him?
And here James is getting at those who might be described as hypocrites, those who make empty boasts of faith, for he does not say, "if a man has faith," but rather, "if a man says he has faith…."
To quote Calvin again, he says of this, "Our salvation comes from faith, which ties us to God, and the only pathway is our insertion into the Body of Christ, to live by His Spirit, and also to be ruled by Him." This is a faith that is life changing and effective in the way it is seen in people's lives.
It is a faith that is grounded in the life and worship of the church and lived out in the communities where we dwell.
Our faith is to be lived in our day to day activities, not hidden under some case in the corner or pushed into the inner recesses of our lives, only dusted off for special occasions for particular people to see. Our faith surely becomes part and parcel of who we are and our lives an expression of that.
It is in Galatians that we are told, "It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
A life of faith, is a life of response, it is a life of worship and a life of works hand in hand, one emanating as a response to the other.
Our faith helps us to see all people as those, loved and valued by God. Humanity is part of God's expression of love for the world, and it is a love that calls us to respond. That becomes our responsibility both as individuals and as a collective together as the Body of Christ.
Let us continue to work together to give expression to our love for God, and as part and parcel of that to reflect on our attitudes and actions in the world around us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14
Ephesians 5:15-20

What do others see in us?

I wonder if we were given the opportunity to have anything we wanted, what would we choose? Great wealth may be, so that we did not ever have any more financial worries? A flash car, the latest computer, a happy family? I am sure we could probably come up with as many answers as there are people here today.
But wasn't Solomon's request of God and interesting one, he wanted wisdom, and later became know as one of the wisest man to live.
But why wisdom and what is wisdom and what good is wisdom for us or anyone?
Solomon saw that he was young and inexperienced as a ruler. God had been faithful to his father David, and he was keen to carry on the dynasty that had begun there, and so he asked God for wisdom.
The Oxford dictionary describes wisdom as,
"the of possession experience and knowledge together with the power of applying them critically or practically."
This was the precise area lacking in Solomon's life as he saw it, and for him his relationship with his people was important if the kingdom was to last, and his relationship with God was to be the basis of this.
And so to be able to apply in practice the knowledge and the experience together, would build for a stronger kingdom. Thus Solomon asked for wisdom.
Solomon was not in life, primarily for what he could get out of it. He saw life as deeper than that. He took seriously his anointing as King, and saw the responsibility that he held for his people, as their leader. Life was about the community and their ability and indeed, their need to be able to get along together if they were going to move from strength to strength.
And is this not the basis of Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus. He was desiring to see the people of God live together in harmony. This after all is God's ultimate plan for humanity.
And Paul gets to the point in his letter where he get quite specific in addressing the ways in which people should live. Even here, he moves from the more general to the more specific, giving the overview as he moves into the more descriptive assessment of the situation.
He begins with the general instruction, "to be careful how you live." Be considered or measured in what you do. Community does not exist with freelancers off doing precisely what they want to, for in doing that one seldom offers though for anyone else. The feelings of others are not noted, nor the effects of ones own actions on others considered. So the injunction to be careful in what we do, is a call to think widely about our actions. What will they achieve, what effect will they have on others, how will they impinge on the community and society as a whole.
You see for Solomon, as for Paul, the individual was subservient to the community, and the community was subservient to God.
Such concepts of subservience are not entirely PC today; perhaps that is why the passage on relationship that follows this segment of Ephesians is conveniently left out of the Sunday readings, even though it gives the general principal of submission to one another, which is surely the foundation for any lasting relationship.
But with out that willingness to stand back and see things from another's perspective, society becomes full of self seeking individuals on which no lasting society can ever be built. Thus Solomon's request for wisdom above anything else was so wise in itself, for he put others before himself. He was the ruler who was willing to see things from his subjects perspectives.
In his call to wise living Paul also sees life as an opportunity to be the best that we can. Life is to be lived to the full as he calls us to, "make good use of every opportunity we have."
Wisdom is a call to be considered in life, so that life is not just frittered away, but is used for the good of all, not least ourselves. Now I don't want this to be seen as contradictory to what I have just said, but quite the opposite. As we live wisely thinking of our place in the world in relation to others and to God, fulfilment can be found, and so the more we live, making use of opportunities for the good of society, we will surely find fulfilment within our selves.
Such a considered and planned approach to life demonstrates the sort wisdom, or practically applied knowledge to living that Paul is suggesting befits people whose claim is to follow Jesus Christ.
Such wisdom is ultimately seen in the life of Jesus, where judgement was not made on the basis of merely rules and regulations, but rather made as applied to peoples lives in the situation of the day, considering not only individuals, but the good of the whole community.
Paul goes on to give some specific examples talking of drunkenness, which perhaps was a problem of his day. Here is a state that people get themselves into where their ability to think carefully and with clarity is somewhat clouded. Therefore the chances of acting wisely are compromised if one gets into such a state. The chance of offering offence or doing something out of character, or acting in a detrimental way for society is enhanced, so Paul suggests this is not the wisest of choices. He is certainly not passing any judgment on any inherent dangers there may be in alcohol, per sae.
Wisdoms lacks in the use of such things, for Paul, that allows our thoughts and actions to be compromised.
So rather than doing this he suggests that our lives be built and focused around our relationship with God and with one another as we centre our lives on the worship of God and let that activity shape us and our being in this world.
Thankfulness becomes the key to such living, for if we live with attitudes of thankfulness and gratitude for all that God has given, is giving and will continue to give, then we are taken beyond ourselves to the community in which we live, and therefore see ourselves in that context and merely not an individual fighting for survival in a hostile world.
Our attitude of thankfulness, our prayers of thanks, keep us looking to the world in which we live and all the blessings that are there, that so often we take for granted.
It is too easy to turn in on ourselves and to concentrate on the things that we perceive we don't have, rather than acknowledging from the most basic of human necessity to the all the other blessings that we have received.
Jesus spoke of himself as the bread of life, the most basic food item in our diet, and pushed our understanding of what we really need for survival, from merely the physical necessities, to the most basic of relational necessities, that relationship with Christ. From this comes all the blessings in life that we could want and an from this should come that spirit of thankfulness. In the light of all that God has done for us in Jesus Christ, his life, death and resurrection, should flow the thankfulness from us, that God has equipped us with all we need. Therefore as part of our thankful response to that, we live seeking to follow his ways for us.
May God give us grace as we live our lives together as a community of faith, and as we seek to live as part of the wider community bearing witness to his love and grace for us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

9th August 2009
10th Sunday Pentecost

2 Samuel 18:5-9,15,31-33
Ephesians 4:25-5:2

What control's you?

What controls us, what drives us, what motivates us to be the people we are, can be a challenging question at the best of time's. And Paul continues in his letter the Ephesians to challenge the people about their behaviour in the light of their faith in God. If you profess faith in God, the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ, then his life become the measure by which we live our lives. His actions motivate us in our living, would be Paul's argument.
We know only too well the answer Jesus gave when challenged on, 'which was the most important commandment that we should obey', and he boiled it down too, "Love the Lord you God with all you heart, and love neighbour as you love yourself."
In a sense Paul is spelling this out to the people of Ephesus and to us in subsequent generations. He is, no doubt, not just offering general guidelines that popped into his head, but more than likely responding to the specific situation of the time challenging these people on their behaviour which was not reflective of the faith that they wished to profess.
Lying, deceit and anger are not attributes that bring glory and honour to God nor his people. Rather they are attributes, that if allowed to fester would lead people away from God.
Paul pleads that such behaviour be stopped before this happens.
He then goes on to explain that faith in God, brings a radical change in people's live, for it shift the point of control, from self to God. "The man who used to rob must stop robbing and start working…." An extreme example but one that offers clarity to the nature of the radical change that occurs. In religious language the term repentance is often used. This word comes from the Greek, metamorphes, a process that brings about a total change from one form to another. In rock we see it in the process that transforms sedimentary rock through heat and pressure to produce marble. The change is from a soft, rough, limestone to a hard smooth marble, from a plain common looking rock to a stone of beauty and durability.
This is the change, over time and through the experience of life, that God looks for in his people.
And Paul expects to see this change reflected in people attitudes and actions. Not in any superficial way, but resulting from a deep and inner surrender to the Holy Spirit who is at work in us bringing about this change.
Bitterness, anger, hateful feeling, insults, are all things that bring about disharmony and cause us to become bitter and twisted within ourselves, and in this Paul urges us to leave these attitudes and feeling behind, and to take on board the concepts of loving God, and loving our neighbours as we love ourselves, and indeed as God has and does love us.
This is to show itself in concrete and real ways, by tender heartedness and our willingness to forgive one another. It is only in approaching life and people from this Christ centred focus that we will know the freedom there is in loving and the freedom there is in forgiving. And that is not a freedom primarily for the people loved and forgiven, but a freedom for us who offer it.
How quick society is to condemn people, to find faults and to broadcast those to the world, and how much pleasure seems to be derived from people who seemingly fall from grace. The higher they are perceived, the greater the fall and in worldly terms, almost the greater the rejoicing, and if we can help nudge them from their perch more pleasure seems to be derived.
And yet Christ's attitude of forgiveness and grace, brought about a change in people's lives that left condemnation behind and opened up an acceptance of one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Such attitudes make us vulnerable to those who cannot understand God's grace and lack that willingness to stand where Jesus did. His ultimate stand was on the cross.
And was this not the picture given in the Old Testament reading where David cried out for his son, Absalom, who was killed in a battle. Absalom and men were fighting against David and his. The relationship had been strained for years. And yet David's plea was to spare Absalom. He did not want his son killed, he wanted to forgive him. Perhaps he was sick of the hatred and the anger and the bitterness that had gone on for years.
We are told, "The king was overcome with grief. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he cried, 'O my son! My son Absalom! Absalom, my son! If only I had died in your place, my son!"
And while David's men tried to console him and reason with David, he knew in his heart that forgiveness had to start with him.
And this is a wonderful picture of how forgiveness must start with us. If we stand on the moral high ground and maintain our own righteousness, we fail to see the true essence and the power of forgiveness.
And is this not exactly what Paul is telling us about God and his come among us as Jesus Christ, offering himself for us, 'the sweet smelling offering and sacrifice that pleases God. Here is God's forgiveness, not demanded from us, but offered through Christ. His gift to us.
In this gift we are made his dear Children and Paul tells us to be like him. Just as we watch in our own children those characteristics that grow and develop in them where we can see ourselves, our attitudes, our mannerisms, so in our relationship with Christ we must see those aspects of God's nature come to the fore in us.
In such a way we allow the Spirit of God to work in us, to control us, to develop in us that likeness to God whose love for us is so great and never ends.
We must allow that love of God to control us in all that we do and say. And although in reality, we all slip up from time to time, the nature of God is not to hold that against us, but rather to forgive us, and to work with us so that the fruit of His Spirit might continue to grow and develop within us.
These are challenging thoughts in a world so focused on seeing the demise of people around us, of knocking down the tall poppies, and of offering so openly condemnation of those who fall.
What do we do to help pick people up and get them back on their feet? What do we do to help people who have fallen, to become restored to a full and active life within society, or do we just join in with the crowds shouting of crucify them, lock them up, throw away the keys?
As a church, as the people God, we must continue to look for ways to help one another, to love one another, to be Christ's hands and voice and feet in the world today, offering that same love that he gave so freely to us.
When we stop doing this, we cease to be the church, for we cease to be the Body of Christ.
We are not merely a club that meets on Sunday's because we share a common interest, we are ambassadors of Christ in the world bringing his risen presence into the midst of a troubled world, and so our values and our ideas will often stand in contrast to the thinking of the world in which we live.
Our ideas of love and forgiveness may well meet opposition with our friends and neighbours, for we are to be motivated by our knowledge and experience of God's love for us, and how we think are driven by the Spirit of God as we submit to his love and grace in our lives.
May God give us courage and strength as we live out our faith in the world today.
And to God be the glory, now and forever more. AMEN.

2nd August 2009
9th Sunday Pentecost

2 Samuel 11:1-15
Ephesians 3:14-21

God's dwelling Place

Love is one of those human traits that is beyond measure. It is difficult to quantify but in some senses can be evaluated, as we know when it is not present or not being expressed. We see enough anti violence ads of TV that portray moments in life when love is not being expressed, or we see the news items of all sorts of events in our communities that express hatred and anger rather than love and compassion.
The story of David that we read is a good example of what I am trying to say, for we know that he lusted after Bersheeba, but he did not express love for her. The loving act would have been to have controlled his emotions and left her alone. It certainly would not have been to pursue her and then try and manipulate her husband so as to cover his tracks.
Such use and abuse of people expresses no love at all.
And yet here we have a story in the life of one of the most heroic Old Testament Characters which displays anything but Godly or loving behaviour.
It certainly gives us the human picture of such characters and portrays them in the world of their day grounding this story in reality. And it reminds us that human love is never perfect and so often falls short of our expectations, and certainly God's.
In contrast however, we have Paul expressing to us the love of Christ, and the response that true love brings.
As Paul points the church in Ephesus to seeing true love in the actions of God for the world, in coming among us as Jesus the Christ, he see no alternative but to evoke a sense of praise and worship in the individual and in the community together..
This is the only rightful response of the people as they come to understand the extent of God's love for them and for the world.
Paul's plea is that these people would draw their strength from the fact that the Holy Spirit is God's gift to them and to us, and therefore it is only proper that as the Spirit dwells in us, that our lives exhibit something of God's love toward the world and those with whom we come in contact.
If God's love is given to us, then surely we should express something of that love in our lives as we struggle to live lives that honour him.
So Paul pours his heart out, as he tells the people in this place what his prayers for them are. In the light of all that God has done for him and for them, he expresses his hopes for them in prayer.
He wants strength for them; strength through power of the Spirit of God to be a courageous people. He wants them to be able to face the world with courage and confidence assured of God's love for them. They need to be aware that the God of all creation loves them and cares for them.
His prayer goes on to assure them that God will make his home in their hearts; that as followers of Christ, they are part of the family of God's people and that God's power and love are there for them. They do not need to become Jews to receive this privilege, but they too are God's chosen people, loved and accepted by him.
God's love is not a narrow, and exclusive love, but is broad and long, high and deep. It is an immense love that is there for the whole world, if the world would but recognise it.
The invitation is there to know that love that is so freely offered. And Paul adds that bit, "although it can never be fully known. There is always more to know of God's love, for it can never be fully known, it can never be exhausted, for love that is conditional, that has limits is not divine love.
And that concept alone, pushes us beyond our experience of love, and invites us to take on the nature of God in our own lives, by expressing this very characteristic as we live within our world.
And yet I suspect this would be the very point that we might all struggle with.
Unconditional love, is something that we constantly need to work at, and yet in some mysterious way, it is as we struggle with this that we allow the Spirit of God to work through us. God's dwelling place becomes our hearts, and his love is lived out through us, his people, frail and weak as we are. Even in our weakness God's glory and strength can be seen. Think of David, even he was not beyond God's redeeming love.
In one way Paul's prayer for us is a big ask, and yet in another way it places God at the centre of who we are, and his saving grace as the power which draw us to his love, and draws his love out in us.
And in contrast to our power to love and our ability to make a difference in this world, Paul reminds us that God is able to so much more than we can ever ask for, or even think of. Despite us, God continues to work in the world. Beyond our wildest dreams God is able to achieve the things that we struggle with and for.
You see even David in all his human frailty, through his God was able to achieve great things.
And is that not the secret of the Gospel, that even through us, with all that we feel we cannot do, with any sense of helplessness that we may feel, God is still able to use us. He doesn't demand great efforts and abilities before accepting us as his own, but simply invites us to follow him in trust and obedience, offering, merely who we are, and inviting us to accept that we are loved and valued by God, allowing God then to do his work in us.
For Paul the primary focus is God's power that is at work in us and in the world. This is, and must remain the starting point, for if that point were anywhere else, it would not be God's work of grace, it would not be God's act of salvation. Therefore any seeking of God that we might attempt would not guarantee that we would find God, for we might seek in the wrong place, or God might be somewhere else. But because the beginning point is with God and his grace and love offered to the world, then we can be confident that when we seek, he will be found. We can be confident that when we call to him, he will be near.
Because of Jesus Christ we can know that if we falter in our walk, as indeed David did, that we can return and he will have mercy and he will abundantly pardon us.
This is the crux of the Gospel, God's initiative calling for our response, and our only response can be one of grateful worship and praise, to offer God all the honour and the power and the glory for his act of saving us.
Worship must therefore not merely be something that we fit in around our busy schedule, but becomes the heart of who we are as a people, both collectively and individually. Worship becomes the offering that we make at the beginning of new week, and at other times as we are able, for our worship express the faith that we hold dear and offers something of ourselves in sacrifice to God, who gave up everything for us.
May God give us such a vision of his glory, that we too will respond, calling upon his name, offering ourselves in service and worship, today and everyday in our work and in our leisure, in our youth and throughout our years.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

19th July 2009
7th Sunday Pentecost

2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Ephesians 2:11-22

The Importance of Belonging

Paul at the beginning of this letter is setting the scene and telling the story. He is setting the context into which this letter is being sent to the church of Ephesus.
It is largely a gentile congregation, a new phenomenon in this emerging movement. Until this point the developing movement of the followers of Christ has largely been a group from within Judaism, and they have come to see Christ with the richness of their past, the great Creator, the God who travels with them in their daily lives, not confined by time and space, but also clouded sometimes by the very things that Jesus had tried to free them from: works verses grace, rules and regulations verses the freedom to worship God directly without the need of any other mediator other than Christ, and without the requirements of certain rites and sacrifices.
Paul is trying to set this gentile congregation at ease against the backdrop of pressure to conform to certain practices to prove their identity as followers of Jesus Christ. There were those who were saying, "we have always done it this way, and so we must continue to do it. God will only listen and take note if the right form of religion is followed." The implication being that Gentiles had to become Jews to gain God's favour.
And the argument was probably revolving around the need for Gentiles to be circumcised to fulfil to the requirements of the law. Circumcision was sign of God's covenant with his people, that he was their God and the God of their children and their children's children. It was administered usually in the days following the birth of their sons, or for men who became Jews in adult life, they too would receive the sign of the covenant.
In this way justification was made real for the child or the convert. The sign of God's people was applied and the symbol of sin being taken away was enacted.
And to be fair, this was central to Jewish ritual and understanding of their union with God.
But Paul assures the emerging gentile church that the one act of justification, the one act of being put right with God, was seen the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This like the sign of the old covenant, was done and achieve at God's behest. God's initiative brought reconciliation between God and humanity, and the sign now was to look to his life, his death and his resurrection for us.
So any outward symbol of this other than Christ, had to point to him and his work for this is where the power of our salvation lies.
The implications were huge, and I think sometimes we struggle to see such ramifications, and yet if we don't, we easily miss the power of the gospel.
The Jewish community were being asked to give up their notions of pleasing God, by doing and performing the things that would put them right with God. They had that notion that they were God's people, and so part of this was their separation from the Gentile world. There were the Jews and then all the rest, God's people and the others.
And yet here Paul is pointing to the Gentiles as having been welcomed into God's covenanted people.
Whether Jew or Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, the presence of God is discovered in Jesus Christ. Here is the common focus for all people, welcomed as children of God. And the old principles of scripture are picked up and refashioned in the light of God's coming as Jesus Christ.
Mendelsonn picks up on this in his Cantata when he reminds us of that principle from way back in the book of Deuteronomy where the writer is warning the people against the idea of idolatory, of worshipping the creation or anything other than Yahweh saying, "There you will look for the lord your God, and if you search for him with all your heart, you will find him."
It was not a matter of doing, of performing, of enacting the right rituals, it was a seeking of the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.
Paul continued to remind the people, it wasn't whether you were born a Jew, or chose to become a Jew that was important, it was in your seeking with all your being and accepting the grace of God given in Jesus Christ.
Here was God made know, here was God revealed in a way that we could relate too, here was God as one of us, to bridge the gap between humanity and God.
And so our identity as a community, as the people of God is formed around the one who came as God among us.
His life given that we might live. His life offered so that in his strength we can witness God's love to world.
Our identity was no longer by our birth into this world, but rather our adoption into Christ. You were foreigners and did not belong to God's chosen People. You had no part in the covenants which were based on God's promises to his people…. But now, in union with Christ Jesus, you who used to be far away have been brought near by the death of Christ."
Together, whether Jew or gentile, male or female, maori or pakeha, kiwi or other, Presbyterian or Methodist, First Church or St Andrew's or wherever, we have been given this gift that draws us into the one community of Christ, and there we find our identity. So our differences do not define us, but rathter our unity in Christ becomes the primary focus of our identity.
Our differences, where ever they lie, bring the colour and beauty to the one picture which is framed in Christ.
And this concept was radical, it was a fundamental shift in the understanding of the people of Paul's day, and I think it is an understanding that, if we are honest, we struggle with all the time. We so like to define ourselves, by our style of worship, by our forms of governance, by our race or our heritage, by our occupations or what ever, and our standing in Christ gets pushed to one side, if it features at all.
Paul, however tells us this is the very thing that identifies us and all our gifts and abilities, all our quirks as human beings, all our sufferings even, and everything that makes us who we are should find its true identity in Jesus Christ.
For through him God has achieved his eternal purposes and through us as his servants Christ is made known to the world.
Thus we find strength and boldness to live for God in our world. We find strength to see the bigger picture of God's world as we live for him and through him, not in our own strength, but in the strength of Christ who lived and died for us, and rose again to offer victory to the world.
All of this is God's gift to us and our lives become our response to our understanding of God's love and grace given so freely.
Every aspect of our being becomes part and parcel of that response, our working, our giving, our recreation, our service, all of who we are is offered as our gift to God as we recognise ourselves as being made 'servants of the gospel', as Paul puts it.
Because of his past and what he had done, Paul saw himself as the least of all God's people, but what he had, he offered and used to God's glory for his identity was now defined by Christ and nothing else.
We too need to see our identity in Christ so that our vision and purpose is sharp and focused as we encompass one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, for we all belong to the Body of Christ. We are his people, that is his gift to us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

12th July 2009
6th Sunday Pentecost

2 Samuel 6:1-5,12b-19
Ephesians 1:3-14

Worship is an activity that has been central to the life of the people of God from the very beginning of time. Worship offers worth to that which we acknowledge as being worthy, and it comes as an expression of the heart of the people involved. Over time and in the context of the day in which it is expressed, that worship has often become formalised and structured. And although this happens it does not necessarily lessen the heart felt response that is drawn from the worshipping community.
In our Old Testament Reading we see where the city of David, Jerusalem has been conquered, and the Covenant box, symbolising God's presence with his people is brought in and placed at the heart of the city.
And the activity that surrounds this is music and dance, words of blessing and feasting.
Worship encompasses all of what it is to be human, giving expressing through, body, mind and spirit.
Today we are celebrating the life of one of the sons of our city, Alex Lithgow, who gave his life to music as an expression of himself and his being in the world. His music became recognised around the world, and took the name of this city to the farthest parts of the globe.
Perhaps he was primarily known by the one piece of music, the Invercargill March, this was by no means the full expression of the man and yet it is largely what he is remembered by.
Today, we remember him, and we give thanks to God for his contribution to the world of music.
In a broader sense we should also in remembering him, give thanks to God for the many and varied gifts that we all have to offer to our communities, for God has made us all as rich and diverse individuals with gifts and abilities to compliment one another for the benefit of all.
And it is too often a sad reality in life, that we only recognise such gifts in others when it is too late. Often it is only when lives are taken from us, that we begin to value the people we miss, rather than valuing our humanity for the richness that we all have to offer today.
Paul worked hard at encouraging people in the early church to value those things that were central and important in life; things that added value, and gave a richness to our humanity, and to the communities in which we lived.
And he did this for the people in Ephesus by focusing them on the big picture, before drawing them into the specifics of their life with one another.
And so in the early stages of this letter he centres them on God, as he encourages them to be a worshipping community.
"Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."
And he speaks of all the blessing that we as human beings have received from God. What a positive beginning. What a way to begin to look at life. Too often we only see the negatives, we want to begin by attributing blame, by looking for faults, by seeing the negatives and we believe from there we can begin to build society. But Paul says look at the positives. Look at God, who loves us and has offered that love to us in Jesus Christ. Let's offer thanks and out of that thankfulness, let us build our lives together as community.
And he takes us right back to the beginnings to build the picture. How often when we look back do we see the good that is there? Isn't that what we are here today to do. We are looking back at the life of one of our sons, and saying, let's give thanks. Let us thank God for Alex's life and the contribution he was able to make.
Paul goes on, "Let us praise God for his glorious grace, for the free gift he gave us in his dear son."
We are drawn into the story of God's dealings with humanity through the coming of Jesus Christ. We are reminded of the past and how that has built the present for us. It is for us the very foundation. We have the riches of today, because of where we have come from and we should not forget that. We do not define ourselves alone in our world from today, but we are defined by our past as well. And in our worship we should remember that. As a Christian community we are always drawn back to Jesus Christ, the defining moment in our history where we can see God's tangible love for the world. Our worship and our life is focused on his life given for us and from there we can move forward.
And finally Paul set us up for the present and future by encouraging us, "Let us, then who are the first to hope in Christ, praise God's glory." There is that call to continue on this path of offering God glory in our present and future lives together. We do want to forget the heritage that has been given, but in not forgetting we use that to build our future. There is an invitation to weave our lives together around this central thread, a thread that draws us together in unity, a thread the binds us to a common path, a thread that gives us strength in our daily lives both as individuals and as community together.
Over the years of the church, music has often been a visible sign of this in our worship as we have used music to give expression to our unity and our common life together. It has always been a vital part of worship that has helped focus us in a unified way. And it is right that we should continue to give thanks to God for the gift of music and those who offer it to us.
So let us continue in our lives to offer thanks and praise to God for all that he has given to each and every one of us, that we may value our lives and all that we can offer to bring worth to others as we live together as a community loved, cherished and valued by God.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

5th July 2009
5th Sunday Pentecost

2 Samuel 5:1-10
Mark 6:1-13

Who will listen?

What is it that confines us or limits our powers to think and imagine possibilities in life? Are we able to think outside the square, away from the way we have always done things, or are we limited by what we know, how comfortable we feel, and what we want to do as opposed to what the community around us may wish for, let alone the possibilities of what God may wish for us?
The Biblical record would lead us to believe that God has often pushed people well beyond the limits of where they have felt comfortable, often for the good of the whole community, and inevitably in ways that when the whole picture is seen, God's purposes are achieved despite the odds..
Themes of the triumph of good over evil are seen in many of the story's and that of King David is no exception. His rise to being king was a story that pushed the limits of societies acceptance, and then many of his exploits pushed the limits even further.
Today we struggle with much of the detail, for the stories do not fit well into our settings, and there is great difficulty with exactly what the texts meant. But the over all theme is that of the triumph of good over evil.
As David set out take to Jerusalem from the Jebusites, no one believed that he could achieve it, for the setting lent favour to the sitting inhabitants, and it would appear that David and his party were not well equipped, and neither were they a big army.
I think the main message here that links in with the Gospel reading, is that might is not always right, power and strength does not always prevail, but more often than not, good does triumph over evil, especially when God is at the heart of what is happening.
And that raises the very vexed question as to how do we know when God is speaking and what God might be saying?
People were not listening to Christ, who in hind sight, mainly, we have recognised and acknowledged as God with us, the one who revealed God's ways to us. He was treated by many in his own day, religious leaders, community leaders, and many ordinary people with total disdain.
"A prophet," we are told is respected everywhere except in his own town, and by his relatives and his family."
How true that often is!
Perhaps hand in hand with that well known quote should go the one, "Familiarity breeds contempt."
When one is well known, one has spent years in the one place, people are comfortable with words and the voice of the person, it is easy to listen but not to hear. It is too easy to switch off to what is really being said and to miss the voice of God who may be speaking to us.
We live in a day and age where one has to be so careful with this whole concept, for one could sight case after case of people doing all sorts of things with the reasoning that, "God had told them too," and yet on its own that can never really be taken at face value alone.
We must ask ourselves what it is that indicates the voice of God speaking.
First and foremost, surely it is that what is being said is in line with the scriptures and does not stand contrary too them.
The Christian Church has always seen the scriptures as the Word of God. Here is the voice of God, the primary source of our encounter with God. And so anything proclaimed and promoted that stands in contrast to the scriptures is surely not the voice of God.
Anything that is promoted as being from God, must stand against the rigor and scrutiny of the scriptures. And that is not always a black and white solution as we well know.
Part of the wisdom of the church is that it has often agonised over issues for years to discern God's will. And we certainly believe that the church itself is not infallible, and therefore does not always get it right, however the process of debate and discerning can always go on.
The Westminster of Confession, our Church's subordinate standard affirms this when it says,
"The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures."
You see if the Holy Spirit is telling someone to do something, it will be supported by the Scriptures for we believe that God would not contradict God's self. The Spirit would not speak against the Word, and the Word would not speak against the Spirit.
Secondly, we can see that collectively the church has recognised in certain people gifts and abilities that they have had. And in this, the church has called and appointed people to bring to them God's word.
In our Gospel reading we see this pattern being set as Jesus calls his disciples together and send them out two by two. To do his work. Now it would appear that even early on in this gospel, Mark is talking of the twelve which later on grows to be a much bigger group. But through this variety of people, with no doubt a variety of skills they are sent into the community to do God's work. For God's word does not come just in speech but in action as well. And there is the recognition of the wider church community that this is the task of these particular people.
So there is this specific nature to a calling from God, that is more than just a person feeling that this is what God wants them to do, and involves the recognition of the whole community of God's people.
Interestingly this sending out of these people is put almost in response to Jesus' acknowledgement that people would not listen to a prophet in his own town, so together as a team, the message of God's love for the world is taken into the community, so that people can hear and see the work of God among them.
None of us are isolated individuals working for God alone, but together we work as the body of Christ and we recognise and acknowledge that calling in each other.
Finally the word that we have to proclaim centres on one truth, and that is that as humanity we need to turn from our sin to God. That is our primary message. The task of the church is always to turn people away from an inward and self-focused life, to a life centred on God and his love for us.
In this way we help to direct people to a wholeness in life that is meaningful and fulfilling. It is a life that does not stand in isolation, but in the community of all God's people yesterday, today and forever.
And so as the people of God, as the church we stand together and in relationship with God through Jesus Christ. That is where we find our identity as people and as the individuals that we are, loved and accepted by God.
May we therefore continue to listen to one another and ultimately to listen to God who continues to speak to us even in our day, expressing his love for all. And just maybe we need to be prepared to listen and look in those places where we least expect to hear and see God at work, for it is not always in the most obvious places or from the most obvious people. But God can and does work through us all in many and varied ways.
And To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

28th June 2009
4th Sunday Pentecost

2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 2:1-12

Transported to Jesus

Transporting the sick is a concept that has been around for along time, and even longer, probably, that more general idea of helping those in need.
Our gospel reading tells the story of a sick man whose friends put him on a stretcher and took him to see Jesus. They had heard that this Jesus was in town and rumours must have been rife that healing of the sick was taking place.
So keen were these friends to get their mate to Jesus that despite the crowd they pushed their way onto the flat roof of the house and made a hole big enough to lower him through so that he landed at the feet of Jesus.
This was a pretty radical way of gaining the attention of this itinerant preacher whose presence seemed always to attract the attention of the crowds. Today we might just listen for the sirens or see the flashing lights with the hope that the crowd would pass to let the sick through.
No doubt the crowd that gathered came for many and varied reasons, some to just listen, some to merely look, some because they were dragged along by others. What ever the reason something about Jesus seemed to draw people, and in this particular story, we see these friends bring this sick man, determined to get him to Jesus with the belief that he could do something for them.
They had faith that their actions would be honoured as they set about helping this friend.
And interestingly, as Jesus acknowledges the needs of this man, he honours the faith of those who brought him.
The gospel writer tells us, "Seeing how much faith they had, Jesus said to the paralysed man, "My son, your sins are forgiven."
What an interesting response.
There was firstly the honouring of those who brought him.
Those who took time to bring this paralysed man to Jesus had their actions honoured. Our service in the community and in the church is an expression of our humanity, and an expression of our response to God's love for us. As we come to understand that God loves us, we in turn learn to express that understanding of love in our service for one another.
John expresses this when quoting Jesus in his gospel, "Love one another as I have love you, by this will all people know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another."
Our actions and reactions in the world emanate from or rather become our response to God and his love for us. And this story indicates that God honours that loving service. It is as we look to one who is greater than ourselves that we can respond in gratitude and strive to offer something better, better for the other person or people, and better perhaps than we can offer merely from our own experience.
Faith in God helps us to look even beyond ourselves to the one who is greater than we are. In this way we do not limit our actions merely to what we think we can do, but can look to a much bigger picture, and look for the power and strength of the one who is greater than us.
"Seeing how much faith they had, Jesus said to the man, 'your sins are forgiven.'
I wonder how often we limit ourselves by what we think we can do, rather than allowing God to work through our actions however small and insignificant we may consider them to be.
The other intriguing aspect to this story, is that Jesus then offers the forgiveness of this paralysed mans sins.
His friends brought him to be made well, and Jesus forgives his sins.
I think it is a mistake to align his sickness in any way with sin, but rather we need to take this in the context of the crowd that Jesus was speaking too. Included in the crowd were religious men, teachers of the law, and Pharisees. Jesus was being particularly provocative here. Only God can forgive sins as we are told later in this passage, and so there is a claim early on in the gospel to the divine nature of Christ. But also we can say that Jesus was not just interested in this mans physical well being, Jesus was interested in the whole person. What good would there be in merely healing his physical ailments if he were not set right in his life with God as well.
Jesus is demonstrating that for God, he is interested in our whole being and restoring us not only to health and to the community, but also restoring us into that relationship with himself by declaring that our sins are forgiven.
This claim by Jesus did upset the religious men of his day, because they saw this as blasphemous. If only God could forgive sins, then this man was claiming the power of God or indeed claiming that divine status for himself. This was a crime punishable by death within their law.
But the dilemma for them was that this man then got up and walked. They would struggle to deny God's power at work, it was seen and it was real.
God is always interested in the whole person, and setting us right with God and with one another.
It is interesting that over the centuries the Order of St John has continued to maintain its Christian heritage. As we assist the sick and the injured we do so under the banner of the Cross of Christ saying our concern is for the whole person in making the person whole.
And in an increasingly secular world this is a wonderful testimony to the work of Christ and his people who take seriously the command to love one another as Christ has loved us. There is no discrimination or prejudice in the help offered, there is no bar to who can serve, but there is this aim of bring health and wellbeing to the people of our communities, as we transport the sick and injured, and attend to their needs.
Like the men in the gospel story, may our faith be honoured in the work we do, so that those who need help may be made well. May we as an Order, may we as a church, may we as individuals within our communities continue to come in faith understanding that God loves us and wants to make us whole. May we act in faith, trusting God for his presence and power to be with us in all that we do to promote the well being of our community.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

21st June 2009
3rd Sunday Pentecost

1 Samuel 17:1a, 32-4
Mark 4:35-41

We have in today's readings two of the great stories of our faith. David and Goliath, which I am sure most of us remember from our early years at Sunday school, and this is coupled with the story of Jesus seeking some solace from the crowds out on the lake with his disciples when a sudden storm whips up.
In these stories we see David heading into battle, into the storm, and Jesus' disciples seeking peace, but finding himself in the midst of a storm.
I don't know about you, but I certainly relate to the disciples in the story of storm on the lake. I am not a good sailor and while I would be feeling ill, I think the fear factor would be there as well.
It is the unpredictable nature of the storm and the fact that as a non swimmer I would be ill equipped to cope in such a situation that would heighten my fear.
Fear is something that grips many people for those reasons of our own inadequacies whether perceived or actual.
When fear takes hold it often leads to irrational thinking and it is easy to lose the plot. The immediate looms large and any sense of forward planning or long term goals get lost in the ensuing panic.
And more often than not when the panic is over we look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.
Mark tells the story of Jesus out on the lake, following a section where Jesus has already healed several people and engaged crowds in some great teaching on God's power in the world. So we have seen demonstrated in these stories God's power over the physical world and the natural world, and now this is illustrated again as the disciples in their fear have no one to turn to except Jesus, and having woken him from his deep sleep in the midst of the storm, he speaks to the waves and the lake becomes calm.
Mark shows Jesus to be a man of action and authority with power that calls people to change, that heals the physically and emotionally ill, and that can even command the winds and the waves to calm.
Clearly, such power can only come from the Divine, and Mark, like the other gospel writers, seeks to show this aspect of Christ's authority, and yet he grounds it in his human compassion for others and life in this world as one of us.
If we compare and contrast this story and that of David and Goliath we see some interesting comparisons.
We can see that on the one hand fear freezes our responses and our clear thinking, where as faith frees us to see the bigger picture and to look beyond the present to the eternal.
In the midst of the storm, the disciples were feeling sick and watching the boat fill with water. The wind swirling around them left them no other choice than to wake Jesus we see what he might do. We are not quite sure what exactly they expected him to do, but clearly they had no expectation that he would merely speak to the wind and calm the storm.
Fear drove them to a state of panic. The same in the story of David, where Saul and his men were frightened by the Philistine people and faced defeat as the challenge was laid down for someone to come and fight Goliath. In blind panic they were talking themselves into sure and certain defeat.
In both cases the people could not see their way beyond the present predicament. Their thinking was muddled and their judgement clouded.
The disciples run to Jesus. They have seen him heal the sick and drive out demons, they have listened to him talk about the power of God, now they are desperate to experience this first hand in their own lives and he is all they have left.
They feel there is absolutely nothing they can add to the situation themselves.
They are frozen in their own inadequacy as their fear grips them.
The people of Israel have talked and talked and got themselves into a frenzy over what they might do to get out of this unfair challenge that has been laid at their feet by the Philistines. But the more they talk the deeper the hole seems to be that they find themselves in. When David appears on the scene with a very simple solution all they can do is laugh it off and tell him to go back to his sheep.
You see in both cases the fear facing these people freezes their judgement and prevents them from thinking straight.
Is that not the same for any of us when we find ourselves out of control and faced with hurdles that seem impossible to jump.
And unless we take control of that fear surely it will continue to control us. Our lives become dominated and controlled by our surroundings, by those things that are external to us.
Jesus stood up and took control. David faced the fears of his people head on. Both Jesus and David pushed the fear factor aside and thought clearly and acted decisively.
They did not allow fear to freeze them in their present circumstances but pushed beyond for the bigger picture.
They looked beyond the present for the hope that lay ahead.
Having calmed the storm, Jesus then turns the challenge on his disciples, which perhaps moved the power of the storm from the water and the boat to the disciples and their own lives, when he asks that rhetorical question, Why are you frightened, have you no faith?
You see it was the faith of David that freed him for action. He thought, when lions come and attack his sheep, he does not turn and run in fear. To do that would be to abandon his role as shepherd. No! he faces the lion, and kills it. He puts the cause of his fear to rest so that all in his charge can move on in peace.
Jesus put that which frightened his disciples, to rest, and then challenged them to look beyond their fears and to have faith, that even in the midst of the storm they need not really have fear.
Fear is a normal human emotion that can grip us at any time and we can let it consume us, and control us. We can cower in the corners of our lives attempting to hide from our fears, or we can stand up and face them as David did, knowing that God is with us to strengthen and encourage us. We can allow fear to freeze us, or we can let our faith and trust in God to free us to be stronger people in the face of fear, strengthened and equipped by God: God who controls the storms, God who knows why the seeds grow, God who heals the wounded and binds the broken hearted.
You see faith gives us strength. Faith focuses our thoughts even in the midst of fear.
Faith builds us up to be God's people in God's world.
Faith and trust come from the one root, and we need to see that our faith fills us with an active trust that looks beyond the immediate to see our lives in the full picture of human life, to see our lives in the context of God's world, as it was, as it is and as it is to come.
Certainly we will all face fear throughout our lives, but it is what we do with that fear that is all important. Do we let it control us, or do we let God deal with it and get on with life, trusting God in all that we do.
Do we see the world as the storm that swirls around us, or do we learn to look beyond the storm of the moment to the peace and tranquillity of God's world that is much bigger and more beautiful than we can even begin to think of or imagine.
As the hymn writer puts it so clearly,
"Will you anchor hold in the storms of life?"
What a challenge as we ask ourselves that question, as we honestly assess our own fears in the light of our faith.
Do we let fear freeze us, or allow our faith to free us into the presence of God who loves us and equips us.
Paul in the second letter to Timothy says,
"For the Spirit that God has given us does not make us timid; instead, his Spirit fills us with power, love, and self control."
May we know this inner strength in our lives as we live out our faith.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

14th June 2009
2nd Sunday Pentecost

Ripe for the Picking:

So much of human life is unfathomable! We see things happen and we struggle to understand why. Sometimes we even know what will happen, because it always does, and we struggle to know why. This view of our world and our humanity has kept both science and religion alive in searching for reasons and answers to the questions of life, often only to discover, deeper and more profound mystery behind what we have seen and known until now.
In Jesus' day, the growing of the humble seed was a great mystery. You planted the seed and went to sleep, and while you slept the seed germinated and began its process of growth. There was no understanding of why or how this might happen. Today we understand the process of germination much more fully, but to most of us there is still mystery and wonder in the process, for we marvel at how such a small and unassuming object can become so often a thing of great beauty as the plant develops and grows, buds and then flowers.
All of that genetic make up is contained in that tiny, dried up seed. Despite our scientific knowledge, despite our skills of being able to predict what will come from such a seemingly nondescript object, even though the packet that contains the seed shows us a picture of the potential plant, I am sure we are still amazed at the result of the successful raising of that plant.
And it is the surprise aspect of life that Jesus is getting at here in this parable. To understand this parable more clearly we need to look back to the question that was being addressed when this gospel writer began to tell this section of stories.
Jesus is raising questions about our relationship to one another. His mother and brothers had appeared and people were pointing their presence out to him with the expectation that he might change the focus of his attention from what he was doing to them. Instead he raises the question as to who his mother and brothers and sisters were.
It is not always as simple as it may seem to try put an answer to such a question. For Jesus the concept of family was to be extended beyond merely those who bore the same lineage, to those whose focus in life was the same. All who do what God wants, whose obedience lie with God, these are to be considered as brothers and sisters.
Mystery always forms part of God's character as we open our lives to God's working with us.
And no greater story perhaps do we see this illustrated in than our reading from the anointing of David to be Saul's successor as King of Israel.
Samuel is sent in fear and trepidation to attend to this task, and is led to the house of Jesse. He automatically is presented with the eldest son, for this would be expected. One by the one the sons of Jesse are brought before Samuel to be told, no this is not the right one.
Finally he has to ask Jesse if there are any more sons, and David is brought to him, leaving his lowly task of shepherd boy out in the fields. The youngest, the smallest, the least likely one to be King is presented to Samuel, and he is accepted and anointed as the future King of Israel.
The unexpected, the mysterious workings of God are revealed from left field. The least likely in human terms and the most unexpected is equipped and anointed for the work that God has in mind.
How often we look for the obvious solution, for the most likely people, for the seemingly logical outcome in the church and in society, and yet how often do we find that we are faced with the unexpected and surprised at what God can do.
We look at the dried up, withered seed and fail to see the potential beauty that God can bring forth.
God is so much bigger than we can ever think or imagine, and God's love encompasses us in our humanity in ways that we cannot even begin to conceive.
This is part and parcel of the mystery of God being in our midst.
And don't we see this in the celebration of the Eucharist. The simple bread and wine, that become for us the body and blood of Christ. Out of the ordinary Elements of life, God's presence is brought to us and a real and meaningful way.
It was the unexpected nature of God's presence in the world as revealed in Jesus Christ that we find the true beauty of our humanity, that we find the real presence of the risen Christ to nourish and to equip us in our weak and human frailty.
The call of Gospel is to look beyond the obvious, beyond the tangible and to see the potential that God offers to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Our mothers and our brothers and sisters lie beyond the nuclear family to all who love and serve the Lord. The gifts and talents of God's people so often lie beyond that which we perceive as being possible, for God can bring in all of us the unexpected power and beauty that he alone as Creator can offer. From seed will come the beauty of the full grown plant, ripe for the picking.
It is this potential, this hope that God creates in us, that we struggle with in our rational and so often scientific world, for we like to think that we can see and order things in our own minds. We like the predictability that says that when we plant a seed from this packet, a particular plant will grow, whereas the seed in any one of us, will produce the plant that only God knows.
As the young David, full of unexpected potential was anointed King, he did not know what lay ahead, but he remained open to God's leading and guiding.
As we live our lives, none of us know what lies ahead, none of us know in what way God may use us. None of us know with any certainty how God's glory may be shown through us. However we are called to trust, to offer God's love in our world, and to remain focused and faithful to him.
In the uncertainly that life brings, for as ordered as we may think it is, we can only trust God to use us and others as he sees fit.
We should expect that the unexpected may well happen, for there is part of God's nature that opens such mystery to us.
And surely this is what it is to be human, that God's creativity may be lived out in us as we offer ourselves as his servants.
Whether it be in the bread and the wine that we share, whether it be in the people that you and I are, as children of God, we can be certain of God's loving presence with us as we live out our lives.
In our struggles and in our joys, in our frustrations and in our triumphs God's hand is on us to anoint us as his Children.
In our youth and in mature years, God's presence can create in us the unexpected beauty of human life which transcends anything that the world can offer.
What we must reflect on is whether we are open to seeing such potential that God does, or do we fix our sights on the predictable, the known, the seed rather than the beauty of the flower.
May God's presence enrich our living day be day, moment by moments as we live trusting him in all that we do.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

7th July 2009
Trinity Sunday

O Saviour of the World

Isaiah's picture of God contrasts God's greatness and power and majesty with Isaiah's sense of his own human frailty. He sees himself condemned even before he begins. So great and majestic is God that those creatures close to God cannot bear even to look at him. The contrast is really between that which is perfect and all powerful, and everything else. So it is not so much a sense of Isaiah's own personal short comings, but rather the contrast between the created and the Creator.
Everything that stands before God, in Isaiah's view, falls short of that perfection and so is not worthy to even come close.
Isaiah's total otherness to God leaves him feeling inadequate and powerless.
He paints in our minds a picture of royal splendour, the throne, high and exalted, beyond us in every way and set in the temple as the focal point of all that would happen there, namely worship. In that royal presence, were creatures, whose function seemed solely to worship, and yet even then they covered themselves in the presence of the Almighty.
So blinding was the light of the purity of the Divine that it exposed the impurity of the created order.
All of this is the backdrop to Isaiah's feeling of inadequacy as God calls him to be a prophet. He has seen something of the splendour of his God. The mystery has been opened up before him in this vision, and yet he is acutely aware of the nature of the world in which he lives, and he fails to see how he could ever communicate anything of this majestic beauty to his friends and neighbours.
Such inadequacy lies at the heart of us all, I am sure. We all struggle with this same problem as we have a message to share. It is a message that the world around us does not want to hear; it is a message that many feel they have no need to hear, and yet it is a message that the people of God have felt compelled to continue to proclaim from generation to generation.
This struggle, in a sense, lies at the heart of our worship, like that of Isaiah, for we come with that awareness of our human frailty to meet in the presence of the God, who is totally other than us. We come to meet with God whose power and majesty leaves us gasping for any sense of worthiness, thus we form our worship to give expression to that sense of inadequacy as we offer prayers of Adoration, contrasted with our need of confession. It, however, is not left there, for we seal it with the assurance of God's forgiving love that enables us to go on and engage with God and the world in which we live.
But on this Trinity Sunday as we see the human struggle to connect with the Divine, we also need to see the Divine struggle to connect with humanity. For this lies at the heart of the Christian understand of God. For God in Gods self has struggled to communicate with the world. This inner struggle of God's being, who through the prophets of old spoke to the people, always saw that as an inadequate way of communicating from one who was so totally other than us.
Here was God whose presence among us was like the wind, as John put it. The wind blew where ever it would, we would not know where it came from, or where it would go. It was impossible to grasp, let alone see, and yet we could feel its presence.
Humanity has always grasped for some tangible way of knowing God's presence, and John points to Moses who lifted up the bronze snake on a pole as a symbol of God's healing presence. All who gazed upon this pole were spared.
Jesus points here to his own presence among us as God Son who came into the world to express God's love for the world so that the world might be saved.
Far from wanting to condemn the world in judgement, Christ came that the world might be saved.
God's struggle to communicate with the world was solved by his coming as Christ, as the Saviour of the world, as one of us.
No longer was humanity a mystery to the Divine in our estrangement from God, but rather God had come among us and now understood humanity in all aspects of our being.
Those who once looked to the bronze serpent could follow the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth, who dwelt among us.
God has communicated with us in a way that will not fade, that will not pass away, but once and for all came among us as Saviour of the world.
For all who believe in him, may not perish but have everlasting life. In Christ, God holds out his hand to us, not in condemnation, but in love and mercy.
This Trinitarian concept of God, helps us to see God in God's many facets, not as a being so totally other than us that we should cower in fearful submission, feeling so totally inadequate and unable to contribute in any way to the mission of God. We can certainly see this aspect of God's holiness, and rightfully we should acknowledge it. On the other hand, we can also see the God who came among us, whose presence brought light and life to humanity offering loving acceptance and forgiveness for all that might stand in our way between us and God
So we celebrate Jesus, the Christ, the anointed one, the one who himself was lifted up that we might look to him as Saviour of the World.
But of course God has not left it there in God's struggle to communicate, for like the wind that blows among us, so too the Spirit of God continues to move among us. This creative, Life-Giving Spirit, dwells with us and in us. God continues to breathe his presence into us empowering us all to offer who we are for his service in the world today. Yes, like Isaiah, we feel that acute sense of inadequacy, but we know that the power of God is present with us to equip us and enable us to bear witness to God's love in the world today. The burning coals of God's mighty presence touch our lips, our guilt is gone, we have the assurance of God's forgiving love sealed in the cross of Christ and so with confidence we can go into the world to speak of God's love for all people.
But it is not only in the speaking of our words, but in the living of our lives.
For with such understanding of God's presence with us, our view of the world, and our view of God is transformed by his living presence in us.
Again to go back to Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus, he speaks of us being born of water and the Spirit, of having and acknowledging that understanding that in our humanity we don't stand alone, but that God's living presence is with us and in us. In this way we understand our humanity in relationship with God who dwells with us. We can see the whole world in a different light, for no longer do we take the burden of the world on our shoulders, but we see ourselves as servants of the Creator, who shares with us the wonder of His Creation.
The glory and the majesty of God, has come to us and dwells with us, and we bear that presence to the world around us, not in any arrogance, but in witness to God's eternal love for the whole world.
May we all be strengthened and equipped as Isaiah was, to take this message to the world in which we live, in what ever way we can.
May our lives bear witness to God's presence in a way that others might see and acknowledge, the greatness and the glory and majesty of our God
May any sense of inadequacy that we feel be tempered by the knowledge that God is with us, that God empowers and strengthen us to be his people in the world today.
And To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Easter 2009

Christ's Prayer for Us.

Again this week that theme of joy comes up as Jesus prays passionately for his Disciples. Joy, being a deep inner contentment, as we live our lives in union with God, knowing that in all things, God is with us. This prayer is known as the great high priestly prayer, Jesus standing as mediator between his people and God, offering to God his prayers for his disciples.
It illustrates the role that Christ holds as King and Head of the church, as the writer of 1 Timothy explains, "For there is one God, and there is one who brings God and mankind together, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself to redeem all mankind."
As redeemer of the World, the one who drew God and humanity together, Christ fulfils this role.
No longer do we need to feel separated or estranged from God, but quite the opposite, for God in his mercy and grace, came to us in Jesus Christ, and now through him draws us into that relationship with God that is open and freely available to all.
This is the priestly relationship that Christ provides, and the only priestly relationship that we need, for no other can take that place. Christ's coming among us offers us that free and equal accessibility to God as we pray.
So prayer becomes for us a means of communication, a means of relating to God.
As God has been made know to us through Christ's coming, so are we made known to God through Christ and his mediating role.
In this high priestly prayer there is a sense that this is not just a general state of our being, but that Christ's interest is in us is as individuals. He prays, not for the whole world, in this case, but for those given to him, for it is the disciples on whom he is focusing.
His prayer is focused and personalised and he prays that they may be kept safe. Having lived in the world, God in Christ knows the dangers and the temptations; he knows the pitfalls of human life, for he has experienced this, and so his prayer is for their safety. In the face of danger and persecution, in the face of temptations, Christ prayers that he will remain steadfast to his disciples, just as he remained steadfast to his Father in heaven.
This is such a beautiful picture of the mediating role of Christ, who has been where we are, and who understands from the depths of his heart what it is to be in the world.
But like Christ, there is a sense in which we are in the world, but that our heart lies beyond this world. That phrase, in the world but not of the world expresses this sentiment. Our focus, our heart, our desire lies with God, to see that God is made known, that 'God's will' will be done, as the prayer puts it, on earth as it is in heaven.
Thus as Christians, surely we see a bigger picture than merely what we can see and touch and feel. Our picture of life and the world takes us beyond the bounds of the physical and tangible, beyond the years that lie between the cradle and the grave, to that which is eternal. And while we can never fully comprehend the all that this involves or means, faith and trust in God, through Jesus Christ gives us glimpses into this concept of eternal life.
But in having that extended vision of life in its totality, we need to be grounded in the world in which we find ourselves.
And it is because of this extended vision, that we see purpose and meaning in our being here. Our lives on earth should never be seen as merely a necessary transition from one state of being to the ultimate. Jesus gave his disciples of sense of being, as he called them to follow him, as he called them to be fishers of men.
You see we are each called to be followers of Christ and to bear witness to God's love in Jesus Christ. This is part and parcel of our reason for being. And we are to do this in the context of where we are, for we can all view our lives and the contribution we can make, as God's calling to be his disciples. He said, in v14, "I gave them your message, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world."
Sometimes we as the church need to stand in contrast to the world around us; we need to stand counter to the culture of our day.
For when we see injustice, starvation, inhumanity, the world acting against God's principles of accepting love for all people, we need to be prepared to voice our opinions, and to proclaim God's mercy and grace. And history has taught us that the church may not always be popular in doing this.
It may set us against the prevailing thoughts of our communities, or nations, but is this not the example Christ taught us as he went to the cross.
And of course it is never quite as simple as it sounds, for often the church struggles to agree on issues as to which is God's way and which is not. But nevertheless, there is nothing that suggests that because such things are difficult that we should merely give up on them.
Christ struggled and looked for other options, but was always willing to ultimately submit to God's ways.
This, maybe, illustrates the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness can be a momentary emotion emanating from any given event in our lives, where as joy is that contentment of knowing that even in our struggling we seek to follow God's ways, and that we do that with the assurance of his constant presence and power to assist us and to keep us safe in our relationship with God.
And I suppose it is prayer that cements this relationship. Just as Christ prayed to the Father, so we pray to God through Christ. In our prayer we maintain and grow that relational aspect of our faith with God. And as he has come to us in Christ and continues to come to us in and through the power of the Holy Spirit, so we play our part in prayer as our response to the gracious movement of God to us, with our pleas, and thanksgiving and praise that we offer to God.
Prayer has many facets, just as communication within any relationship does. It is not just the shopping list of all our wants and desires. Prayer can have that focus of praise where we contemplate and acknowledge aspects of God's greatness and power, it can be those moments of struggling as we endeavour to understand how God could possible be in circumstance that we cannot fathom. We can express our sense of God forsakenness, we give thanks as we open up to God with gratitude the great things that we have received or achieved. We can come to God with not only our own needs but also the needs of those around us and dear to us.
Prayer literally becomes, as we have seen in this great high priestly prayer, a conversation between two friends.
It is both speaking and listening, the later of which most of us are probably not the best at when it comes to prayer.
But should we not in our praying allow for response from God; the God who is all knowing and ever present. So God's response is probably most often seen in the circumstances that arise and we need to look to see where God is in all of that.
And so in that searching we are also listening, in that looking we are finding and hearing the voice of God in our midst.
We see this process perhaps best of all in the choosing of the successor to Judas. The group of disciples gathered often for prayer and then drew lots to determine God's will in this instance.
God can work even in such a simple way as this, if we see God's presence with us in all that we do. Prayer does not stand apart from our actions but is woven in to the very fabric of our being. Prayer does not need to be isolated to those formal times of worship or devotion, but can be a moment by moment spontaneous reaction to the ebbs and flows of life.
But we should develop that consciousness that recognises the growing and developing nature of our relationship with God.
Let us strive to do that in our daily life so that together we grow in the grace that is offer to us freely, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
And To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.