Hope is something that has been a mark of the Christian Church from its very inception, and was in fact part of the foundation built on from the beginning of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is, I believe, a characteristic that is essential in our faith, for it forms the basis of vision, of forward looking momentum that brings expectation and reason to our lives as individuals and as a collective.
It is said in the scriptures that without vision we perish. In other words, without hope there is that sense of drifting aimlessly and being lost.
But to merely speak of hope, without any context in which that hope is placed, is nothing more than wishful thinking, and so the context in which we bring our hope is grounded in the Advent Season as we focus our hope on God's coming among us.
This hope is born in the context of God who has come among his people throughout the ages. In theophonies, or appearances like the burning bush, God came to people. The prophet Isaiah had a picture of God who would come down from the sky. This was a God who did not remain remote from his people, but in fact came and dwelt with us.
There is almost a challenge here, "Why don't you tear the sky apart and come down? Show yourself to the world as you have done in the past. In the events of nature, in the activities of people around, all that we are involved in, this prophet suggests that we can experience God at work and we can hope to see God on into the future.
Such is his hope. Such is the intense nature of his desire to experience God. And yet contrasting this intense desire is the reality of the human nature that so often betrays that desire. That contrast between wanting to experience God and the reality that our actions are too often self absorbing and
Self gratifying, drawing us away from God and into our own world of corruption and greed.
This takes us away from that forward movement of hope into a circle of stagnation grasping for anything that will bring instant satisfaction.
So Isaiah sees that contrast of looking in hope to God who is like the potter, that master craftsman, that creator who shapes and gives beauty to the lump of lifeless clay.
The call is for God to come among us and breathe into us that life giving Spirit that will excite us and draw us on in hope, looking for those moments when God's presence can be seen and felt.
This really does sum up for us the whole picture of Advent, those moments of coming.
And of course it is that moment of coming that we remember particularly in the birth of Christ. Here is seen the ultimate moment of God's coming among us.
Emmanuel, God is with us. In the simplicity of that of birth, in the stable, devoid of any of the trappings of human luxury or comfort, God came among us in this moment of history.
Isaiah's picture of God tearing the sky apart has found its place in time and space.
God's remoteness comes to us in this simple scene and begins to unfold in ways that we can relate to in our own world.
And like always, people wanted to cling to that moment, cling to this one hoping that this experience would stay forever. But hope that remains as a fix point, as a concrete and tangible part of our lives would soon become an object of our control which as human beings we would massage and manipulate for our own comfort and benefit.
Jesus in his teaching didn't just give a picture of a positive future, of a hope devoid of trials and tribulations, but rather chose to face the world with the realities of human life.
Having just spoken of those who would come seeking to deceive; of those who would come as false Messiahs and prophets, he spoke of the dark times of human history and how we would read such events and even natural occurrences as signs of despair, in those moments we should expect God's coming.
So like Isaiah who contrasted God's majestic coming with the short comings of humanity, so Jesus here in this Gospel reading encourages us to look for God's coming even when it would appear that the world around us is falling apart. We are not to be put off even if sun grows dark and the moon no longer shines. Such times should not be seen nor lived without hope, for it is as the world panics in despair that we should look for the hope of the coming of the Son of Man.
God's presence, God's coming will be there in those times to lead us on, for he will not abandon the world.
Jesus paints that picture of the four angels travelling to the four corners of the earth. There is nowhere that we can escape from his presence for he will continue to gather his people together.
Thus rather than despair his message is one of being open and prepared to see God's coming among us. He gives that very short and simple lesson using the fig tree as the example.
As winter ends, we look for those signs of warming. We don't only feel those signs in the tangible warming of the air, but we probably begin to see the coming of spring more visibly if we look to the trees around us. The seemingly dead branches begin to bulge as the buds thicken and the brown outer covering breaks away revealing the bright green of the bud below. We can't necessarily race this process but we look eagerly for those signs.
So Jesus suggests that we do the same for his coming among us. One commentator says, "every generation should be eagerly looking for and expecting the Lord's coming."
But are we so focused on expecting to see his coming in a particular way or fashion that we fail to see his coming in those everyday moments, in those times when we are looking too far into the future that the present does not register in our minds.
Hope therefore should not be a pipe dream of future romantic euphoria, but rather an expectation of living with our eyes open to the reality of our present day moving us on in simple trust of God's presence to guide and to guard.
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away," says Jesus. The world can so easily pass us bye and we fail to open our eyes to God's presence in our midst.
That presence that was made real in Jesus the Christ who came among us as a baby and whose risen presence continues to fill our lives.
Jesus of course was being even more provocative in this short extract from the Gospels, as his claims that the coming of the Son of Man should be sought, was a clear reference to himself. This piecing together of Old Testament apocalyptic material building on the hope that these people had been brought up with and lived for, would have left them in no doubt that Jesus was speaking of himself in this role. His disciples cannot have failed to see the reference to himself in this teaching. Jesus was the hope for them, and remains the hope for us as we can see in him the presence of God in our midst.
His constant call to follow; his constant challenge to believe; his constant assurances that trust in him would give hope and fulfilment in life, remain for us our hope. The message of Advent remains one of hope as we continue to look for signs of God's coming among us, as we live in hope that he will come again into our midst especially as we seem constantly to be facing a world that appears to be in a mode of self destruction. We can choose to see the despair and to be weighed down by the problems, or we can choose to follow Christ brings God's presence to us. We can live in hope as we address the issues the world faces with the resources that we have. It is too easy to live in despair as we become overwhelmed by the enormity of the world's issues and then we fail to address the issues on our door step. Jesus chose to deal with what lay before him, he chose to bring God's presence into the midst of his world where he was, and still people looked beyond for supposedly bigger and more convincing evidence. May be the message of hope is to live in the present, to deal with the world as we experience it and to bring God's love and peace to that place rather than trying to save the world.
God's presence can be seen in our response to the world where we are.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

6th November 2011 Pentecost 20

Joshua 24:1-3a,14-25 Matthew 25:1-13

Jesus is Coming!

Paul's encouragement to the church in Thessalonica has been well ground to this point in his praise for them and the things he is hearing as news continues to reach him.
He now turns to one of the recurring themes of Christianity which was particularly poignant in this early stage of the Christian church where it was expected that Christ would return, and it would be soon.
This is a theme that has continued down the ages. It was written into the creeds of the church, if you think of the Apostles Creed where it says, "he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead." And the Nicene creed, "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end." Both of these early church documents dated in the 300's reflect this belief that was expressed early in the life Christian believers. Skip 1300 years to the beginnings of our own tradition and the Westminster Confession of Faith's closing words speak of our need of watchfulness, "because they know not at what hour the Lord will come; and may be ever prepared to say, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. AMEN.
This belief in Christ's second coming has formed part of the mystery of faith from the beginning and is based on Jesus' own teaching as recorded in the Gospel's.
After telling the Parable of the five wise virgin's and the five foolish ones waiting for the customary arrival of the bridegroom and the need for them to be prepared, Jesus concludes, "Be on your guard, then, because you do not know the day or the hour."
The Thessalonians firmly believed as, did many others at that time, I suspect, that this return would be in their life time.
They eagerly awaited the return of Christ, expecting that they would see this event and share in the excitement of it. But as time went on, as people of their generation no doubt aged and died, the question arose of what would happen to these people at that time when Christ returned.
How indeed would they take part if they had already departed from this world?
These questions interestingly enough, show that this was indeed part of the earliest writings of the New Testament. Many of these people may have know someone, or would have heard second hand, or maybe had been part of the Pentecost gathering from around the known world in Jerusalem recorded at the beginning of Acts, and their expectation was that Christ's return would occur sooner rather than later.
This whole focus on life as a journey that is not disrupted, even by death, is something that gives cause for hope and a positive attitude.
Paul challenges these people, that this gives those with faith a whole different outlook on life and as such it can be a distinguishing feature of such people.
This is a challenge that faces every generation for death faces us all, it is something that we cannot avoid, and yet often the question becomes how do we face it, and how do we handle it? Whether this be our own, a loved one a friend or even a stranger? Do we see it as the end, or do we see it as part of that journey with something more glorious to hope for.
Sentiments from this passage form the basis of any Christian funeral service, and they offer the hope, that as I have said, has formed part of the creeds of our Church that have been recited from very early times.
And yet grief and death is something that we all need to face at sometime in our lives, and it is interesting seeing how society handles it even when there is no faith present.
Today society uses language that often suggest a view of life that would go beyond the grave.
Euphemisms of 'passing on,' passed away to express death give the impression that it is not final. And these more often than not come from people who give no expression to faith in their own lives, but often don't want to face the reality of what has occurred. Even with this language though, the reaction to death is one that sees it as final, where as surely what Paul is saying to the Christians here is, yes grieve, there will be that time of sadness, but don't let that sadness overwhelm you to the extent that you forget the hope that we profess in our faith.
Jesus' coming is not interrupted by anything, not even death. His presence will be there to sustain and comfort, to strengthen and to help in times of distress and trouble.
And for those who expect Christ's return in their life time, death is no barrier to ones participation in this parousia, this coming again of Christ.
Many in our own day have seen this coming as being imminent and have placed great focus on it in their faith journey. While this can be of benefit it can also have some drawbacks. What ever our view, the one thing both Jesus and Paul were clear on when it comes to this coming that is spoken of, is that it is in God's time and that no one knows the day nor the hour.
So what are the benefits that I referred too? I will probably cover this in a little more detail next week, but the biggest benefit is that if we live with that expectation of Christ's imminent coming, it helps to keep us sharp in our response to God's activity in our lives and in the world in which we live.
That sharpness means that we do not want to be caught unawares of God's presence. But I think that should be viewed on much broader basis than merely looking for some future one off event known as the parousia, no we should always be aware of God's activity in our midst on a daily basis. We speak of God presence with us and in our midst. The whole coming Advent season reminds us of both God's coming in Jesus Christ and his coming again, but what about God's daily activity in our world and our lives and in the lives of those around us. Maybe we need to be more aware of that coming so that we recognise God in our midst in all that we are engaged in. It is so easy to only remember God in the big things and more often than not in the 'Acts of God' that bring adversity to us and our world. God's presence brings us joy in the every day activities and relationship in life if only we would recognise it.
I have already spoken of the effect such a vision can also have on our attitude to death, which offers hope and certainty when for others there is nothing but despair.
But the one warning I would want to leave you with is one that probably every generation experiences and that is an obsession with the teaching around Jesus coming again. Why? Firstly because as I have already pointed out, no one knows the day nor the hour, but secondly, if we are focused so far into the future we forget about the present, we not only fail to see God's activity at work, but we don't even look for it because we are so focused on the concept of the end of the world. Our present world looses any sense of importance and the injustices and the problems of this world fail to touch us because they matter no longer. With this approach we fail to look for Christ's presence today or to be his presence as his disciples because we are too concerned with what is going to happen some time off.
We must be grounded in the world of our day, to be part of the presence of Christ in the world today, to do as Christ did in feeding the poor, of fighting injustice, of tending to the sick. Without this activity of God's people God's coming into our world in Jesus Christ was wasted, and his suffering for us meaningless. God's compassion and grace must be lived out in his people and in his church.
This is brought out in the story of Joshua and his plea for the people to continue to "honour the Lord and serve him sincerely and faithfully." This has been God's call to his people of every generation. Not to naval gaze into the future, but to serve God in daily life, in the real world, in the places were we live and work and sleep.
It is a call to remain focused on our God and the God of our forebears and not to let the many things that would draw us from such a focus, take our attention away.
Remember those familiar words that should constantly challenge us, "Choose you this day, whom you will serve, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Having spent the last few weeks looking at the Exodus story as Moses led the people out of Egypt and away from the tyranny that they suffered at the hands of the Egyptian people, we now end that story with Moses death and skip to the time of Paul and expansion of the early Christian Church.
Moses journey ends with the people in sight of the Promised Land and his death in the land of Moab meant that he himself never experienced the fulfilment of Yahweh's promise. Nevertheless Moses died a faithful man, knowing in his heart that God had remained faithful to his promise.
We then turn to Paul's life which involves journeys, it involves people, it involves dissatisfaction and disruption; all the things that seem to be trademarks of humanity as we strive for justice, truth and peace. One only needs to think of the people of Libya at the moment and the struggles for freedom and justice that they have encountered over the last months and years. We do have to wonder what that freedom will involve for them, will it be all that they hoped for and expected.
Like the Moses, Paul travelled. He took with him the message of God's love and freedom as seen and experienced in the person of Jesus Christ.
And in this time Paul's mode of operation seemed to be to visit particular cities and spend time at the synagogues and among the people sharing the story of Christ's death and resurrection and the implications of this for daily living. He shared his own experience and the transformation that his encounter with the risen Christ brought in his life.
His message did not always fall on sympathetic ears. In fact it would seem that there may have been a group of Jewish fanatics that followed him around stirring up trouble where ever he went. And yet it also appears that Paul's preaching was having great results and people were warming very quickly to his message.
At this stage the Christian Church did not have its own identity apart from Judaism, but was still a group within which was at this point tolerated even if it wasn't embraced by the mainline leaders.
Thus Paul still had access to the Synagogues to teach.
Of course part of the irony in the treatment that Paul was receiving from his detractors, was the fact that he himself, prior to his Damascus Road experience had been part of this group that would persecute the followers of the Christ.
So some might say he was reaping that which he had once sown.
But as he moved about sowing the seed of the Gospel, he developed relationships with these people. These were relationships based on his knowledge of God's love for God's people, based on his experience of the change that God could bring in the lives of people who were open to that love making a difference for them.
It would appear therefore that Paul's visit to Thessalonica and many other places on this missionary journey were fairly short as they were followed about by a group wanting to cause trouble. This group would wind up the locals inciting them against what Paul was preaching. And yet under this persecution, there were many quite influential people who took on board what Paul was saying and moved their allegiance to follow his teaching.
Thus Paul, as he moved on, under pressure, felt for these people.
So when news arrived in Corinth where Paul had met up with Timothy, and they heard that the Christians in Thessalonica had remained faithful and were continuing steadfastly on their journey of faith, Paul wrote to offer them some encouragement.
There were some questions that had arisen in this community around Christ's return and the timing of that which he addresses as he encourages them to work quietly for the cause of the Gospel while waiting in hope for Christ's return.
Someone has described this passage we read today as, "one of the richest descriptions of the work of a Christian minister to be found in the New Testament."
In this short passage we see something of Paul's experience in ministry, of his motives, the mode and the message that focus his work.
As we have discussed Paul's experience of ministry, not unlike Moses' was not an easy one. Paul, being hounded by his antagonists from outside, was a constant strain, never allowing him to settle and form long and personal pastoral ties. He says, "You know how we had already been ill-treated and insulted in Philippi before we came to you in Thessalonica." This seemed to be an on going problem where ever he went. Opposition to the Gospel is nothing new. We think we have it bad as we have come to live in an increasingly secular society. Where once the church had standing and a voice which was treated with respect, now we are lucky to be invited to offer an opinion on anything. We are viewed as a minority voice within our society.
Our experience of presenting the gospel in our society is that we are largely ignored.
The question is, should we be surprised by this or is this part of human nature? The other experience where I think we differ today from Paul's time, which is probably the difference between and emerging movement and that of an established movement, is that while Paul suffered attacks from within, the church often finds its biggest detractors outside. And this pattern did develop reasonably quickly within in the emerging church and has been a constant problem down the ages.
Perhaps it develops from the second view we get of ministry here, and that is the view of motive.
Paul says, "Our appeal to you is not based on error or impure motives, nor do we try to trick anyone. Instead, we always speak as God wants us to, because he has judged us worthy to be entrusted with the Good News."
What motivates us is crucial in our approach to our faith. If our motives are for self gain, or for scoring cheap points, or for what ever, they detract from the message of the truth of the Gospel which is to point people to God's love for God's people as shown to us in Jesus Christ.
It is a message of hope that affirms people and encourages people, drawing people together in harmony.
If our motives however bring discord and disharmony to the body we need to look very carefully at the message that is being proclaimed.
However, for Paul this did not mean that his mode was just to set out to please everybody with kind words. His mode was to speak the truth in kindness, but not merely to say what people were wanting to hear. He didn't just go about scratching where people were itching, offering words that would please people because that is what they wanted to hear.
Paul seemed to be incisive in what he had to say touching the raw spots and encouraging those who were heading down the right track with words of hope.
He reminded them that the path was straight but not necessarily an easy one.
His message was one grounded in the reality of the world in which he lived. It was not just about Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, but it was about the Jesus who suffered, who died, who rose again, and the Jesus who continues to come to us challenging us in our daily living. It was about working and toiling to ensure that this Jesus was made knowing to the world around them. It was not just about assuming that people would come to a knowledge of Jesus by osmosis, but the fact that we have to go out into our communities and tell people, encourage people, exhort people to consider these matters of God's love for the world.
We today, assume that people have a basic knowledge of the Christian faith in our communities. They do not!
We live in a secular society, probably even more secular than Paul's time, and yet there is that yearning out there for something spiritual, but people need the opportunity to hear the most basic tenants of our faith, and we can no longer assume that in wanting to hear that, that they will just walk through our doors and join us.
While we view the church as open and accepting, I suspect the world out there see us as a group that meets behind closed doors, where one needs an invitation to come.
We need to work at recapturing the church as an open place where the wider community can gather.
So as we look at this letter of Paul's to the church in Thessalonica, we need to look again at our own life both within our community of faith and within the wider community of this city and let ourselves be challenged as we seek to be faithful. We must not let our faithfulness turn into complacency, by only listening to what we want to hear, or doing only that which makes us feel comfortable and good. We must allow the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ to continue to challenge us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

25th September 2011
Pentecost 15
Exodus 17:1-7 Matthew 21:23-32

The journey continues for the people of Israel wandering, it seems to them anyway, aimlessly through the Sinai Desert.
Last week we read of the hunger that faced them and God's ability to provide. One would think that that would settle the moaning and groaning, and yet here again this week we see a similar theme, except now it is deprivation of water.
This is hardly surprising in the setting of a desert, although there would have been the odd oasis around, but obviously not close at hand at this stage of the journey.
And while being understandable, the incessant moaning and groaning of these people must have worn the nerves of the most patient of saints.
Moses was called by God, and this call was confirmed by the people as they listened and then followed him out of the land of Egypt. But as the difficulties of daily life consumed their energies and occupied their minds remembering the land of the plenty that they had left, the vision that was before them waxed and waned.
It would seem that unless God's provision was there for them to see and experience on a constant basis then their interest would falter in those times of spiritual quietness.
There are some interesting but hardly surprising parallels here for every generation, as faith in God is never something that is provable beyond doubt, nor is it so blindingly obvious that one can't help but take up a life of faith, otherwise, where would the faith itself be. Faith would become an acceptance of what was obvious.
And yet here it seems even the moments of surprise when God did supply and meet their needs, it didn't take long for that assurance of God's presence and power to be knocked back and doubt and mistrust to creep back in.
This is surely part of our fickle human nature that constantly see us falling into doubt, changing our minds, forgetting what has gone before us, or just that desire to go off on our own direction in paths that suit us most of all.
While the people of Israel were in somewhat of a bind, as to go off in their direction would almost certainly lead to them perishing in the extremes of the desert climate, continuing on without a vision of what lay ahead would leave them feeling as if they were no better off.
Life in many respects is like this. We find ourselves knowing where we have come from, remembering what life was like before, or imagining what it had been like for others as we build mental pictures based on the stories we have heard or been told.
Often what is in the past seems so much better than what we are facing at the present, or where we imagine life might lead us in the future.
And yet, is this not what lies at the heart of faith, for faith is about the stories of the past and the hopes of the future.
As the writer to the Hebrew's so aptly reminds us,
"To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see." And he goes on to remind us, "It was by their faith that the people of ancient times won God's approval…..It was faith that made Moses leave Egypt without being afraid of the king's anger. As though he saw the invisible God, he refused to turn back."
It is about sometimes walking with uncertainty in the present and in reality not knowing what the future holds. But we do this confident that God walks with us and that God will provide. We do it steadfastly holding on to God's love, even when we feel it is not there or if we feel God may have abandoned us.
Why? Because from experience we know that that sense of God abandonment is about us, and not about God moving away from us.
Moses picks up on this in a recurring thought that he keeps putting out there when he answers them with the question, "Why are you complaining? Why are you putting the Lord to the test?"
This ties in with last weeks episode of the hunger of the people and the falling of the manna from heaven, when Moses said to them, "He has heard your complaints against him - yes, against him, because we are only carrying out his instructions."
Although the people moaned to Moses and against Moses this was taken as a complaint against God. That for a start in interest, for I am sure that we all fall into that trap from time to time, but I do not believe that this calls for blind obedience to anyone who sees that they are working for God. History is littered with examples of tragedies where people have done this sort of thing. Discernment and accountability are always necessary, and the church over time has worked on these concepts so that people are not led off down blind alleys.
And also that concept of complaining to God is not necessarily a negative thing either, as that is part and parcel of relationship. It is part of our engagement. However in this story, there is one episode after another where the complaints are the same, and it doesn't seem to matter what God provides in answer to their complaints, there is always something else the matter. I think we always need to be careful that we don't get into that mindset of perpetual complaining, but rather look for ways to engage to bring about change within the structures and groups
Ones relationship with God is always about engaging, of sharing the highs and the lows, of expressing doubts, fears and disappointments, of giving thanks for the times of triumph and elation.
Such is the nature of relationship, and this is what the story of the Exodus is from beginning to end. It is God's engaging with his people, and their engaging with him.
The word engage has some interesting meanings, to bind by contract, to hire, to fasten or interlock, to hold fast, to bring into conflict, take part.
All of these meanings have that sense of being active together with someone or something. Our engagement with God does open up the full spectrum of human emotion and invites that opportunity to share this with God in our daily lives. The Psalms are full of such expression.
But as we have seen in this story there are some emotions that are negative when it comes to relationship building. Here in this story it was blame, blaming Moses was in effect blaming God. Blame lumps guilt onto others when that in fact may not be justified. Sometimes it is even transferring our own guilt onto others to deflect if from ourselves.
Blame was rife within the group wandering the Sinai Desert.
But all the time God was present with them. And just as God had an answer for their hunger, so to he had one for their thirst.
Moses was to tap on a rock and from it would flow fresh water. Again, enough to satisfy the needs of these people.
Images of God supplying springs of life giving water are not unusual. The Psalmist talks of, "leading to pools of fresh water." Jesus engaged in the conversation with the woman at the well and tells her, "Whoever drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring which will provide him with life-giving water and give him eternal life."
It is God who offers to us satisfaction and meaning in life that helps us to keep things in perspective, to keep a balance between our own self interests and the interests of others, that helps us to see our place in God's world rather than setting our selves in the centre of a world trying to make it fit into the mould we create.
God is the one who gives us to us all that sense of life giving refreshment that will last forever, helping us to see life in a much bigger picture than just our own world around us. At times it may seem to us that this journey is aimless, or that we are lost, or we may feel we are in the wilderness, but in reality, God is with us. It is this exciting and dynamic life that God walks with us never leaving nor forsaking us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

31 August 2011 Pentecost 11

Exodus 3:1-15 Matthew 16:21-28

God calls the most unlikely.

In this wonderful story of the call of Moses, we see some interesting parallels to many other examples of God's interaction in the world and in the lives of his people throughout history.
Moses' life from the beginning seems to be one of upheaval and turmoil, and yet it is one where God's engagement is unrelenting.
As we read this encounter, I think we can see a pattern to God's activity, we can see something of the power that God can exercise, and we can see the persistence with which God pursues his purposes. All of this, as so often is the case, contrasts with where Moses sees his life heading and the final response he makes to God's call on his life.
Contrast this with Christ, who although at times he struggled with what lay before him, he pursued with determination the tasks set.
"From that time on Jesus began to say plainly to his disciples, 'I must go to Jerusalem and suffer much from the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law. I will be put to death, but three days later I will be raised to life.'"
Clearly this clarity comes towards the end of his ministry, and perhaps he sees what lies ahead with better vision than earlier in his life, nevertheless he continues on steadfastly toward the cross.
The pattern that can be discerned in this call of God begins with the fact that Moses was not expecting this encounter with God. He was out in the fields tending to his father-in-laws sheep. Furthest from his mind is an encounter with Yahweh. And yet in that moment of surprise, God comes.
The writer of Exodus tells us, "There the angel of the Lord appeared to him as a flame coming from the middle of the bush."
This is not an angel in the sense that later came to be understood as a separate heavenly being, but rather there is always, as one commentator puts it, "a fluid interchange between symbol, representative, and God himself."
Moses soon comes to acknowledge that it is indeed God in this encounter. Such encounters are known as Theophanies and these encounters occur on odd occasions throughout the scriptures.
Thus in this story, God comes to Moses, not in some prearranged meeting, and certainly not at a time when Moses was out seeking some religious experience or on a pilgrimage to some holy site, but possibly when God was furthest from his mind, and in some remote part of the countryside.
Ultimately God came to us in Jesus Christ, that baby born in a manger, that man from Galilee.
God comes to us in many ways and at those times when we may least be expecting it, and yet he comes. The initiative lies with God, and awaits our response. It is interesting that it took some time for Moses to recognise and acknowledge what was going on here. He had come to this place Sinai, which is described by the writer as a holy place, but it is not holy for any other reason than this is where God came to Moses. Moses comes only with the intention of feeding his flock, and yet it is here that he saw the bush burning and noticed it was not being consumed by the fire, and as he was examining it, again God took the initiative and spoke to him.
Fire and light are common themes when it comes to stories of God's interaction with us. They can speak of illumination, of consuming, of warming, of purifying of bringing one out of darkness. All these images open up for us something of the character of God who engages with us in ways that we cannot sometimes imagine.
This pattern of God taking the initiative is what we term as grace. God comes to us and it is only as God comes to us that we are able to make any response, and like Moses sometimes it takes a while for the penny to drop.
So the pattern is God's move toward us, and we see this ultimately in Jesus who came into the world, not estranged from it, but as one of us to be with us, so as to understand our humanity.
Secondly we see the power of this encounter in that it arrests Moses and grabs his attention. He cannot ignore what he is seeing or put it to one side, but he is drawn into this experience and begins to engage with God.
In his engaging he is respectful of the relationship as God sets the parameters that indicate something of the nature of this holy encounter. He answers the questions put to him and he follows the instructions of taking his sandals off as a mark of respect.
God's holiness is not a barrier of exclusion, but is mark of difference acknowledging the limits of humanity and the infinite nature of God and only seen as God reveals himself to us.
And in that revelation comes both the recognition of God's understanding of who we are and his invitation for us to join with him in transforming the world.
Here Yahweh acknowledges the plight of the Hebrew people captured in Egypt and he recognises their pain and suffering.
And in doing this God invites Moses to join him in the task of freeing these people from their oppression.
Here Moses clearly must make a choice. This choice comes with the assurance of God's continued presence.
This is the same invitation or challenge that Jesus put to his disciples when Peter tried to push aside Jesus' talk of what lay ahead in his mission to free God's people for all time.
His challenge was no less demanding and it came with the same assurance when Jesus said,
"If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget self, carry his cross, and follow me."
Thus this call of Moses becomes a call to us all, to take up the challenge to follow Christ, to live in his ways and to express the freedom he offered the world to live at peace with God and one another.
And like Moses, I dare say most of us prefer to resist this call for many and varied reasons. We use all sorts of excuses as to why our lives are just OK as they are, and yet God persisted with Moses. He listened to Moses' reasoning and then assured him that he was just fine as he was. He answer his doubt and countered his excuses.
God's persistence is one that will not let us go. As the hymn writer put it, "O love that wilt not let me go."
God's grace is gripping and draws us with assurance. For Moses it was God's declaration that "I am who I am."
This clearly refers to the name of God, Yahweh. It is thought to be a shortening of that phrase and a running together of the clause into one word.
There is debate as to exactly what Yahweh was meaning here, but there is that sense of self-sufficiency, that God exists without need or support from anywhere else, I am who I am. But in this statement there is also a call to faith. Yahweh is looking for the response of Moses and Israel to this statement. Will they accept Yahweh for who he is.
This is a theme again picked up by Christ in the many times he referred to himself often with the word, I am. I am the light of the world, I am the good shepherd, and of course in that great call to faith, I am the way the truth and the life, no one goes to the Father except by me. This is where Jesus laid his cards on the table, and those listening would have understood the implications of his statements as they knew the story of Moses and God's coming to him in the burning bush. Was this God, come in Jesus of Nazareth? It was after all such claims that led to the cross, and so the invitation for us all to follow Christ, is not an invitation to an easy life, but to a life that seeks justice and truth, a life that focuses on God even when the world around has its own opinions on that.
I wonder do we like Moses and many others follow that same invitation that God offers to a life of faith? Do we allow ourselves to let God speak to us, even in the most unexpected times and in ways that we have not imagined?
May we walk through life with the same commitment, determination and focus that Christ did, even when treading that path to the cross.
May God's grace be with us all through our journey of life.
AMEN.

24 August 2011 Pentecost 10

Exodus 1:8-2:10
Matthew 16:13-20

The bible from beginning to end is a testament to God's working in His world. And as we leave the stories of the beginning of our faith with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who ended up moving from the land of Canaan to settle in the land of Egypt we see that period of their history begin to come to an end.
The book of Exodus explores the departure of this people out of Egypt back into the land of Israel. It is a story that takes them from slavery to freedom. Within this freedom the covenant relationship is enhanced as they settle bringing down the law of the covenant to give moral, civil and religious guidelines by which to live. And finally they establish a place of worship for their people along with the institution to oversee the governance of God's people.
Many of the stories in Exodus as well know and memorable, not least today's where we are told of the birth of Moses in the most trying of circumstances.
And of course there is the stories surrounding the giving of the ten commandments of Mount Sinai.
Exodus is the second book in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, sometimes know as the books of Moses as they were once attributed to his authorship.
Later scholarship has disputed this, but nevertheless these books form the foundation of the Judeo-Christian faith as they track the history and tell the stories of the early people of Israel.
This morning's reading sets the context of this period of history by informing us that Egypt had come under a new King who did not know the history of Joseph and his family. We are not sure of the time lapse here, but obviously some considerable period of time had passed since the days of Joseph, as the number of Israelite people had so expanded and this history had faded into the recesses of their collective memory.
Out of this memory failing and a lack of any sense of history, Egypt did what so many societies do when no cognisance is taken of where we have come from, they began to pick on the differences of others to bring dominance and power over minorities.
I have commented often in recent years over the thin vale of civilization that exists in any society. How time and time again we see developing and developed countries slip into civil unrest and even war destroying years of social unity. It begins by picking on the differences in others and highlighting those as the sources of all social problems.
Such behaviour is almost universal, and we have even seen it in recent days in the likes of the United Kingdom with their riots. It only takes one or two people and the crowd follows.
In Moses time, it was the Pharaoh, wishing to make his mark on his newly acquired kingdom, bringing with him a tradition of proud nationalism that made the Hebrew people an easy target.
His first plan was to force them to leave by driving them into slavery. He forced them to work, perhaps in areas that they had not been accustomed too.
That failing, he then tries genocide. There is nothing new under the sun is there! We have seen the cruelty dished out upon generation after generation as one after another is threatened and craves power over others.
But part of the lesson here is that failure to recognise what has gone before. There is a failure to connect to the stories of the past and thus not to fall into the traps of the past.
And the secret lies in two places at the beginning of this story of the Exodus.
Firstly in the Midwives. These woman had nurtured generation after generation and remembered and told the stories of their past. They knew their roots and valued their past. They were engaged in lives of service to their community, not caring for their own lives but honouring the lives of the women in the community and the children who were being born. They could not bring themselves to acquiesce to the demands of this new Pharaoh who seemed to have no value for life, especially for the down trodden in their society. So these midwives quietly got on doing their job and sticking to their standards maintaining the value that they placed on life and above all maintaining the faith that drove them.
Why, because they also feared God. That term is not fear in the sense of being scared of God, but rather that they honoured God and that their faith was what motivated them in their actions.
One commentator says on this aspect of these women's life,
"Just as Abraham's faith was reckoned to him as righteousness, so the midwives reverence for God, insuring the protection of his purpose in Israel, became the means of blessing for them."
These women were the one preserving the faith of the people of Israel at this point, and they were not about to give that away.
God honoured their faithfulness as they were only too willing to answer the question that Jesus hundreds of years later asks his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?"
This is a question that we must allow ourselves to be asked and must surely be prepared to have some answer too.
It also illustrates for us the importance and responsibility that we have to hand our faith stories on from one generation to the next so that they too can answer that question for themselves as they grow and develop.
For it is in the stories of our faith that we can find both peace with God, and then peace with one another.
One of the main questions that is addressed in all of these stories is about God's presence among his people. And it is not a question of "if" God is present, but rather "how" God is present and how that presence might be seen. It is often in the least expected places among the least expected people. For in this story of Moses birth we see God's presence in the lives of those Midwives, and we see the emerging presence of God in His servant Moses.
The image of God's presence coming in that helpless babe set in the small boat made of reeds and tar, is somewhat similar to the theme of that babe born in Bethlehem. God's presences comes when we least expect it and in the most unassuming ways. It is interesting that the word used for the reed boat is the same as that used in Genesis in reference to Noah's Ark. God salvation coming when all around seems to be drowning in despair.
And like in the time of Noah, did the general populace recognise God at work.
"Who do the people say that I am?" was the first question addressed to the disciples, before he asked who they thought he was.
The crowd does not always have the right answer, the majority is not always right. God's people have not always been large in number and influential in society, but it is the faithfulness of the few, of the midwives in this story, of the twelve in Jesus' day, who are willing to say,
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
God's faithfulness is there for all, but not all recognise or acknowledge it.
God's call is always one of acknowledgement, one which invites us to express our faith and trust in Him who is able to keep us safe, even through those times when the world appears to be against us. Against the odds, God's presence is with us to guide and to guard.
May we grow in appreciation of God's abiding presence and grace which is there to sustain us throughout our lives and in the face of every situation the confronts us.
God did not abandon his people under the rule of the new Pharaoh but continued to bring his message of his saving love through many and varied people, through old and young alike.
We all have that part to play expressing the faithfulness of God in our lives, so that we do not forget or put aside the message of God's saving love for all.
In Moses' life we see that move from danger to privilege, from bondage to freedom. We see this same movement fulfilled in Jesus Christ and it is that same movement that is there for us all, for God wants us to be free, not to be in bondage to the world and all that it demands.
Jesus said, "I have come that you might have life, life in all it's freedom." And it was Paul who reminds us that there is no condemnation (bondage) for those who are in Christ Jesus. May we find that freedom in the faith we profess as we put our trust in Jesus Christ as Lord of all.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 Matthew 14:22-33

Getting in and out of Trouble

This week's passage from the book of Genesis, is quite a challenge if we like a happy ending (and who doesn't?). We're drawn into the story of the charismatic and cocky Joseph, the "golden boy" of his father Jacob's twelve sons. Handsome and undoubtedly precocious, Joseph stirs up feelings of envy in his brothers so deep that they spill over into the ugliness of fraternal violence, brother against brother, even to the point of murder. Of course, Joseph's brothers had a history of striking out when they were angry or wronged: just three chapters back, they executed a murderous rampage against the town of Shechem to avenge the perceived rape of their only sister, Dinah.

Understandably, Jacob may be nervous about his sons as they are tending their father's flocks near Shechem; it may have weighed on Jacob's mind that they could get into some more trouble while they're in that neighbourhood. So he sends his beloved son, born to his favourite wife Rachael; Joseph, who is just seventeen years old, goes to check up on his older brothers. For all of his self-confidence born of his dreams of a future of lording it over his family, the boy Joseph wanders, lost, until a stranger helps him find his way. But that's the last good thing that happens to Joseph for quite a while.

Today's episode ends badly; and it's understandable that we may finish reading this text by asking, "Where's the good news in that?" However, we shouldn’t skip too easily over the suffering displayed in this story, or the questions it provokes, even if we do have a sense of where the story is going, and who is the unseen presence is, at work the whole time in the background.

That's why it's important to stay with the story, all the way to the end. Next week's passage will help us to do just that. In fact, next week's text brings this all together and, in a sense, brings the book of Genesis together, to a satisfying close and then sets the scene for the grand narrative of the Exodus from Egypt by the Hebrew people. So, Joseph brings the book of Genesis to a happy end. The saga that began with banishment from the garden of Eden and violence between earth's first two brothers ends with a family reunion in a land of plenty. Earlier in the book of Genesis, God was never hard to find, but now, in Joseph's time, God has become silent. There are no more direct addresses from God, even in response to fraternal violence. So, when Joseph wanted to hear the voice of God, he listened to his dreams, to the people he met along the way and to the things that happened to him each day.

Unfortunately, its his dreams that have helped to get him into trouble and ultimately into the pit and then on his way to slavery in Egypt. It shouldn't be his fault that he dreamed of his family bowing down before him, as dreams in that world were usually understood to be externally and divinely generated, that is, not a product of Joseph's ambition. Yet his brothers interpret Joseph's dreams as if they are the product of Joseph's own arrogance rather than a divine word about destiny, which is why Joseph finds himself in a strange land, having to get out of the trouble his brothers have gotten him into.

In our gospel reading today we also find the disciples in a spot of trouble. What sort of advice would you have given the disciples caught in the storm Matthew tells us about? He paints a very bleak and desperate picture of their situation: the waves and the strong head winds are ripping at the boat and it is the darkest part of the night, the usual time for many to worry about any troubles and concerns they may have on their minds. The disciples are not going anywhere against those winds and waves. You could have given them some encouraging words like "It’s always darkest before the dawn", "You can do it – don’t give up!" or "Row harder!" But, these were seasoned fisherman. Who knows what those frightened and pre-occupied men would have shouted back in response to our "good advice?" Probably words that wouldn’t be fit for polite company. Maybe, if we were there with them, they would have thrown us overboard, shouting after us, "So much for your advice!" Good advice might help people who can do something for themselves.

But this is a storm at sea! While we all appreciate encouraging words and some wise advice from concerned people, if the storms we face or the trouble we get ourselves into are really bad, their well-intentioned words are just not enough, platitudes can seem insincere when we can’t see a way ahead. We might give an appreciative, "Thank you," and then turn and face the "strong head winds," – on our own. Just as Joseph had to cope with his situation on his own.

We all face storms in life, our own or those of people we love: a friend with a tumor now undergoing chemo; a son or daughter who makes a foolish mistake and their having to pay the consequences; a marriage disintegrating after many years, affecting children, family and friends.

Noticing the storms of others, we might ask ourselves, "What if that happens to me…?" There are storms in life we fear, thinking we may have to face because we’ve witnessed others, whose strength we have always admired, get tossed around by them. What is there to protect us from the same kind of struggle? How would we handle those same kind of catastrophes? These fears surface, for example, when we hear that a friend our age has had a crippling stroke; or, we read of people our age who have died, "after a long illness."

What advice should we give a person going through a dark storm, or stuck in deep trouble? Have you ever tried and found yourself tongue tied? Or, just felt that you have no words at all to say in such a situation? Some might say "Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus" or “rest in God’s comforting arms” which can sound like a platitude, except when we know that they have also had to get out of similar trouble and weather the storms of life, and then we can know that what is said is genuine and valuable advice.

What others advise out of their own stormy experiences, is that we’re not alone in the boat; on the stormy seas, here in church or around the dinner table. For when we gather here, or in with friends over a meal that is when we share our troubles and know that those are the ones who support us, and if they have been sustained by their faith in God, then we can be assured that we will be too. Praying together can also help us to know that there are others in the boat with us in stormy seas, keeping "our eyes fixed on Jesus." We are not alone, for in prayer we are reminded that Jesus was there too, not watching us from some distant shoreline, but right there in the boat on the stormy seas with us. As we pray we can feel a kind of calm come for which we can give thanks.

Praying is what we can do for one another. By our presence with someone in crisis we remind them that they are not alone in the boat, we are with them. Our presence, we hope, is also a reminder that Jesus is there too. If we want to take a chance, as Peter did when he left the boat to step out onto risky waters, we might that we can do what others do, in saying a prayer with the one who is struggling. Doing that is a reminder that someone else is in the boat with us, the one whose voice and silent presence can bring calm and give us courage as we try to walk through the tumultuous crisis raging against us and threatening our faith.

It’s not just about illness or crisis. In many ways being a Christian is a very risky business. Doing what Christians are supposed to do might mean facing various kinds of upsetting situations – like stormy seas. For example: calling someone we’ve been alienated from; standing up for someone suffering ridicule or prejudice; being honest in a job where other workers take shortcuts; not following the pack at school when we know their actions or attitudes are wrong; or, just saying a gracious word to a cranky person. Storms can be stirred up by our living the way we should, as disciples of Christ.

Being a Christian isn’t a warm fuzzy, it means taking a chance with Jesus. When Peter put himself in a vulnerable position he learned again about his own weakness, but he also experienced the power of the Almighty. If he hadn’t taken the risk, he wouldn’t have known the power of God and experienced Jesus’ presence with him in the midst of the storm.

Wrestling with God

In both the Old Testament and New Testament stories today we see people wrestling with God. Neither in the sense that they have gone out to have an argument with the Divine, but rather that God has faced them in the everyday setting where they have found themselves.
God has come to them, not only in times of need, where we most often picture God coming, but at times perhaps when we least expect to have such an encounter.
The disciples were about to go off to the local supermarket to find some food, but Jesus encouraged them to use what they had and we are told that God supplied all they needed plus more. Where as Jacob was on the final stage of his journey, having sent his wives and concubines and children across the River, he stayed one more night before re-entering the land of promise. Was he afraid of meeting his older brother Esau, whom he had done out of his birthright? Maybe it was a time for personal reflection and a chance to give thanks to God for all that had gone on before. We don't really know. But the land of promise lay before him and all he needed to do was to cross the river.
There are certainly indications that Jacob's life had been a series of struggles, and this was yet another; his struggle with his brother, which I have eluded too, his struggle with Laban, his father in-law to get the wife of his choice; and now this struggle with God.
And one can ask, "Does such a struggle set Jacob against an enemy, or does it bring Jacob into intimate contact with a friend?"
We often see such struggles in a negative light. At the time there is pain and anxiety, uncertainty of how people will react, and the emotional hurt that can accompany such interaction. But if we look back and even if we observe many relationships from the outside, more often than not the tempestuous nature of the relationship is balanced by an ever deepening and often intriguing affection.
The latest royal couple, Zara Philips and Mike Tindall's relationship is described as Ice and fire, but goes on to say how they adore one another.
I have observed many such relationships where on the surface they seem tempestuous but underneath there is a huge affection and underlying respect for each other.
I think this story of Jacob wrestling with God shows us that we are free to express in many and varied ways our relationship with God. God is not a static, unresponsive being who is uninterested in us as individuals, but rather like our friends, God engages with us in ways appropriate to who we are.
There are many interesting aspects of this story.
Firstly, this is one encounter of many that Jacob has with God. His experience of God is not a once only point in history, but is an on going day to day relationship that has memorable moments, and I dare say times when things coasted along. This encounter at Jabbok was notable and a point of growth in Jacob's life. This is further reinforced with the name change, where the man said to Jacob, "You struggled with God and with men, and you have won; so your name will be Israel."
Reno tells us, "Name changes signal new identities. The blessing that accompanies the new name adds to the atmosphere of benediction. That the new name denotes the nation that will claim Abraham's inheritance - and will have a history marked by many occasions of conflict with God - only reinforces this interpretation."
This occasion is the fulfilment of the promise made all those years before to Abram that he would be the ancestor of many nations. This promise was also noted with the change of name from Abram to Abraham. We see this tradition carry on in Jesus' time when calling Cephas to be his disciple, that Jesus declares you will be called Peter, meaning rock, because upon this rock will I build my church.
When we enter that relationship with Christ, Paul tells us that we are new creations, the old has gone behold the new has come.
All of this comes as we see the world from that whole new perspective. No longer do we see it as our world, but God's world, no longer do we see ourselves at the centre of the world with it revolving around us, but we see God as the ultimate authority to whom we give our allegiance and pay our homage.
The Westminster shorter Catechism reminds us at the very beginning, when asking the question, What is the chief end of man? It is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever. This is so contrary to the world's way of thinking, it is so contrary to our natural inclinations as human beings, and yet this is what a call to faith is all about, and sometimes we need to wrestle with it.
It is also interesting in this story that as the wrestling continues, the man, who is later acknowledged as God is not seen as having the upper hand. Verse 25 tells us, "When the man saw that he was not winning the struggle, he struck Jacob on the hip, and it was thrown out of joint."
There was no overpowering imposition of Divine wrath, but rather an engaging struggle that became more intense as time was running out. And to balance this, there was that final awaking and recognition of Jacob that his opponent was in fact God. So often we want to blame God for the bad things that happen to us, particularly as we imagine God standing at some distance observing from afar. We see this as being the easy and most convenient way to rationalise our own difficulties, but here we see the struggle that God had with Jacob, and out of it comes a respectful acknowledgement that God is God, the supreme Lord and giver of life. Jacob declared, "I have seen God face to face, and I am still alive."
He recognised not only the power and supremacy of God, but also God's incredible mercy and grace.
Many today deny God's existence, or feel that they have not seen God, or that God has abandoned us, but maybe we do not look in the right places to see God at work.
Philip Yancey in his book, The Jesus I never Knew, speaks of our concept of God as seeming absent, and says, "God has not absconded at all. Rather, he has taken on a disguise, a most unlikely disguise of the stranger, the poor, the hungry, the prisoner, the sick, the ragged ones of earth: 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' If we cannot detect God's presence in the world, it may be that we have been looking in the wrong places."
Too often we look to see what we have achieve for God, or where the miracles might happen, when we fail to notice the miracle in our presence through the least expected moment or person or happening. The disciples desire to be hospitable to the crowd had them wanting to race off to buy great quantities of food, but God supplied from what they had. The miracle isn't so much in the event, as it is in us recognising and acknowledging God's presence in whatever form that may take. It is where we look and where we are willing to recognised God, that we will find his hand at work.
And the final interesting aspect of this story I want to touch on is something of the personal interaction that God engages in, and that is seen in his asking Jacob his name, and that whole conversation.
God was not just interested in any passer by, he was interested in Jacob and as I have said, this relates to the covenant promise handed down from Abram. But in asking the name he was personalising and localising his activity in human history and in the context of time and space. Jacob at Jabbok. For the hearers of this story, there is no doubting who it is that was being spoken of. It formed part of their history, and they could place it in the context of their world.
However when Jacob asks the man his name, why is it that he is not so forthcoming? "Why do you want to know my name? Then he blessed Jacob."
God cannot be localised and confined by name, and time and space for all of these concepts lie beyond the Divine, and go no way to enlightening us in anyway. It is very like the idea that we make no graven image of God, for exactly the same reason. It is too easy to confine God, and hold God in the limits of our understanding of what is possible and impossible. And every time we do this we narrow the power and the majesty of God. Jacob was happy to recognise and acknowledge he had met God. This experience and the blessings that he then recognised in his life was enough for him to see and to know God and to then declare his continued faith in God who had lead him thus far, and who would continue to lead him into the future.
I wonder do we see God as the God of possibilities, or do we limit God to what we can perceive as possible. Do we want to label God and name God to satisfy our own images that we hold? Do we hold these images so tight and paint such a defined picture of God that we are never able to see beyond that which we can imagine.
God is God and we are unable to contain him.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Genesis 29:15-28, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

‘What do you value the most?’

The story of Jacob continues, as does our journey through Genesis, and the saga of the development of the lineage of Abraham. Today’s reading is at the centre of the promise for Abraham to be a nation, and it’s difficult to discuss in isolation from the past to which it is connected and the future it represents. These verses are the key elements to the weaving of the future for the nation that is to come from Abraham. The weaving of this story comes in two ways. We begin to see the connection of the stories with elements of the past as we read the text for this week. There is also the weaving, or zigzag course, revealed throughout as obstacles are encountered and surmounted.

We have learned that Jacob is not the most upstanding citizen. His story to date has been steeped in greed, self-interest, scheming and cheating. Now, Jacob is on the run after cheating his brother out of his birthright and the blessing of their father Isaac. Jacob's scheming ways could be headed up as "The trickster gets tricked! “ Though there is more to this story than revelling in Jacob receiving "pay back" for what he has done to his brother and his father, with the help of his mother. For the manner in which Jacob took advantage of Esau's vulnerability to coax from him his birthright and then took advantage of their father's infirmity to steal the blessing that rightfully belonged to Esau, resulted in a deep rupture between the brothers. Then, because his life is in danger, Jacob flees from Esau and heads for the homeland of their Uncle Laban and their mothers relatives.

Jacob's arrival in Haran is no coincidence. In a previous reading from Genesis where he stole the blessing of his father from his brother Esau, he is told not to marry one of the Canaanite women but to go "to the house of Bethuel, your mother's father; and take as wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother" So, in running from Esau, Jacob enters the land of Haran for the express purpose of finding a wife.

Missing from the lectionary reading is Jacob's initial encounter with Rachel, the younger daughter, at the well where she arrives to water her father's flock. Jacob knows who she is and is then taken to the home of his uncle Laban, where he strikes a deal to work seven years for Laban to get Rachel's hand in marriage. To fulfil the promise given to Abraham of a great nation, that will be of a large number, there have to be babies and babies require women so finding a wife is always important to the narrative.

Our reading today focuses our attention on Jacob finding a wife. There is concern here as elsewhere with having children and fulfilling the promise made to Abraham in Genesis 12. The men in the story are the fathers of the children – the women seem secondary – necessary only for bearing children, and they prove problematic as barrenness continues to be a theme, a barrier to the fulfilment of God's promise. Somewhere in the midst, we encounter God's grace, mercy and forgiveness that continues to be present even with Jacob who repeatedly lies and cheats his way through life.

The story is similar to when Isaac's servant meets Rebekah at the well. Jacob asks for Rachel, but he gets Leah. Leah is almost a non-entity, introduced as having "lovely eyes" in contrast to her sister Rachel who is "graceful and beautiful" and is loved by Jacob. When Laban fails to meet his end of the bargain with Jacob at the end of seven years, Laban's response is that the firstborn daughter has to be married before the younger. One has to wonder if Jacob is once again trying to cheat the system by marrying the younger instead of the older as was the custom. Is he really tricked? Or was Laban just a little wiser in not breaking with tradition to give Rachel in marriage before offering Leah?

After promising to work for Laban for another seven years, Jacob is given Rachel as his wife. Each of the sisters is given a maid by their father. Laban gives Leah his maid Zilpah and gives to Rachel his maid Bilhah. Jacob's story is woven with the two women he marries as well as the two maids they bring with them as gifts from Laban. These four women become the mothers to the twelve sons and one daughter named as his children. You may still have the bulletin of a few weeks ago that outlined these details in a diagram of the descendents of Abraham.

We might well ask if God is present in the midst of all this trickery and bending of the rules? Can the presence of God be sensed in the company of these women who have no voice in the matter of their lives, and find themselves pawns in the deception and manipulation? What happens to Leah who is given although she is not wanted and Rachel who is loved by her husband from the beginning and "bought" with twice the time he gives for her sister? What of the lives of the servants who are mere appendages to these wives and yet serve a purpose in producing the offspring required for the great nation that eventuates?

There are always challenges in finding God's presence and God's grace in the midst of a text where God is not explicitly named. But, God can bring good even out of betrayal, as God will do with Joseph and his brothers. From the unhappy but prolific union of Leah and Jacob, will come six of the twelve tribes of Israel, including Judah, the father of the royal line and Levi, the father of the priestly line. The other six tribes come from Rachael, Zilpah and Bilhah. The progeny of these unions was the most valued object of this episode in this family story. The deceitful and devious dealings of the key members were all deemed necessary in order for the promises of God to be fulfilled, the risk of their machinations back-firing was minimised by their faith in God, and their belief that God was on their side.

All that risk seems to put a lot at stake just to ensure a positive outcome. But then many still undertake many risky undertakings for the things they value. I wonder if any of you have ever seen the movie called, "Everest", it’s based on a true story about a mountain climbing expedition that went bad when an unexpected storm came up. The climbers got stranded, some died and one man, whom they thought was dead, survived, but he had his toes and fingers amputated because of frostbite.

To us this seems like a risky and crazy thing to do. The survivor was asked, "Will you ever climb again?" His response, without a pause, was "Absolutely!" The person interviewing him asked, "But why? You almost died on that mountain!" The climber’s response, "You just have to be there. It makes each minute of life so alive, so precious. Your whole life is affected by your experience on that mountain. You see everyday things, including your family, job and life choices, in a different light. You become more aware, once you’ve climbed, and nothing is ever the same in your life." I suppose he was able to see more clearly what he valued in life.

The climber has another perspective on life that is probably different from ours. Though other climbers would probably be in agreement with him. They seem to live with a completely different worldview than we do. They are the insiders and we look into their world from the outside. This is similar to the way we look at the story of Jacob, Leah and Rachael. We see their story as from the outside while they were the ones inside the story at the time.

Something like that insider/outsider worldview was also working when Jesus told parables to his disciples. He has an experience of God and life that he is sharing with those "insiders" who are beginning to understand his view of life and God. When he lays out these stories to people who are looking from the outside, they don’t seem to understand. To them the parables don’t make sense and even sound crazy. But for disciples like us, we may not be biblical scholars and we are far from complete and perfect followers, but we have come inside to this place of worship where we hear with ears of faith and know a little of what Jesus is describing. It is about a way of believing and living which, though risky, we have accepted, for we have come to know these stories as truth. These parables have a wisdom we wouldn’t get on our own.

So we hear again the stories Jesus tells us today in our reading from the Gospel according to Matthew; parables that illustrate the kingdom of God. A man stumbles on a treasure hidden in a field. When he found the treasure it changed his life and held out great promise, for he sells all that he has and buys the field to possess the treasure hidden there. Also, when the merchant finds a pearl of great price, he too goes and sells all that he has and buys it. His life has been changed by the treasure he has found and no sacrifice is too great to possess it.

We are like the people in these parables who have made personal sacrifices, for what we have found is truly the most valuable possession we could ever have. We hold a treasure and are willing to make sacrifices to hold on to that treasure, so we also "buy the whole field."

In order to honour that belief which we value the most we do not live according to the prevalent standards around us: instead, we choose honesty, even when it means not making extra profits on the job; we treat all people, not just family, in a loving way, even if others don’t think these people are worth it; we are faithful in marriage and friendships, even though the world treats promises, spoken and unspoken, casually; we help people who need us, even if we don’t owe them anything; we have hope as we look into the future, even though there is a lot that could make us despair; we forgive those offend us, even though our world keeps a long memory of wrongs.

But none of this makes sense to outsiders, they don’t get it; the way climbing Everest doesn’t make any sense to most of us, especially since some die there! The risk just isn’t worth it. But when Jesus tells stories about finding treasures and a pearl of great price, we take the risk and make the sacrifices necessary to receive and hold on to the treasure. We sense that we have stumbled onto something very valuable, that which we have searched for all our lives, even though we hadn’t realised it. We have stumbled onto a treasure and we will try to let go of whatever holds us back from embracing it – like the two men in the parables who sell all they have for their new-found treasures.

It’s a risky undertaking, maybe even more risky than mountain climbing, because we have to risk and take a chance on Christ and what he is offering us each and every day of our lives; sometimes in large ways requiring big sacrifices, but mostly, the daily risks are little, but constant. It’s all for the sake of the treasure, life in God’s kingdom. In fact, while there are other things that the world considers valuable, like personal gain, possessions at any cost, time and certain pleasures, we are willing to let all those "pearls" go whenever we sense they keep us from having the pearl more valuable than all the rest.

Jacob was in a similar situation, he saw Rachael as his pearl of great price and was willing to pay a great deal to have her as his wife, little knowing that even more would be asked of him, after he was married to Leah. But for him he saw that the pearl was worth it.

So, like Jacob we need to identify what we value the most, what we think of as the pearl of great price and be prepared to pay the price in order to achieve it.

A couple of weeks back we had Abraham sending his slave back to his homeland to find a wife for Isaac, now we see Isaac sending his son Jacob back to that same place to find a wife for himself.
It is interesting that while Isaac was not allowed to go himself, Jacob is. Some have suggested that Abraham did not sense that same commitment to the Godly vision in Isaac that was recognised in Jacob. Reno says of Jacob, "he has Abraham's personality to match Abraham's vocation."
As Jacob travels to the homeland of his father to find himself a wife, he stops to rest as the sun goes down and spends the night at what is described as a holy place. Whether this place is a holy place in retrospect as the story is told, or whether it was a recognised holy place which Jacob chose to stop at, thus perhaps reinforcing Jacob's own personal piety, we are not told. But certainly it is a place where God's presence is felt as Jacob sleeps the night away.
And again we see God coming in grace. He is not on a pilgrimage, he is not seek a particular religious experience, but rather God comes to him as he sleep.
Derek Kinder describes this as "a display of divine grace, unsought and unstinted:
Unsought in that Jacob is no pilgrim or prodigal - yet God came to meet him, and unstinted, for there was no word of reproach or demand, only a stream of assurances".
Such is the nature of grace and the nature of God's working with humanity down the ages.
So what was it about this encounter, as God comes to Jacob in his sleep. This of course is another picture of the Grace of God here. Jacob passive in his sleep, and yet God is able to engage with him.
Reno describes two movements here, the forward movement of Jacob toward a wife and the upward movement toward God who transcends space and time. These two movements operate together in the life of Jacob. Jacob is not called up and out of his earthly life to encounter God, destroying and interrupting nature, no God comes to him where he is in the midst of his life, in the day to day journey and movement of life encountering him where he is.
While we are fixed with our feet firmly on the ground, God is free to move backward and forward between the Kingdom of this world and the Kingdom that is to come. Thus grace must always be the starting point of our relationship with God, for he comes to us enabling us to respond to that approach. He comes to us in the place where we are at, in the world which has many different foci pulling us in many and varied directions. There are those who follow God and those who choose to take different paths, those who are absorbed by the world in which they live and those who are willing and able to look to a much bigger picture.
This theme is very like that parable that Jesus told about the weeds. The field that was sown with good seed that someone came alone and scattered the seed of weed among it.
It is thought the weed was probably darnel, a poisonous plant related to wheat and virtually indistinguishable from it until the ears form. Thus is cannot be separated out until the harvest, otherwise the interwoven roots would destroy the good wheat and the chances of pulling out wheat instead of the darnel would be a danger also.
To sow wheat as an act of revenge was punishable in Roman law, which would suggest that this was sometimes done, and also reinforces the idea that Jesus took real life examples when he told these parables.
Jesus was suggesting what Jacob had discovered, God is in our midst meeting us in the midst of life and engaging with us. In this life there are those who will believe in God and those who will not, and we are not to make judgement for that is over to God. The uncertainty of whether one is a believer or not, or saved or not according to the parable is by no means clear cut. The plant and the weed can be quite indistinguishable until late in the growth process, and is done quite close to the harvest and the only way to tell is by the ear that is formed, the fruit of the plant, if you like.
And so in life we are to live with our feet grounded in this world but with our focus on God.
Like Jacob we are to look forward on the journey, engaging in the world in which we live, but also to look upward to the God who transcends time and space.
Reno says, "The central saving mystery of the Christian faith does not rise up and out of space and time, but rather both ascends and descends upon the crucified body of Christ."
In the cross of Christ, we can see the ascending and descending movement of God who came to us in Jesus Christ, and we can recognise his outstretch hands that are open to embrace us as he engages with us.
Thus both Jacob's ladder and the cross of Christ are pictures of God's grace in coming to us. They speak of God's loving embrace of his world and all who dwell here.
They both speak of the invitation offered to follow and to respond to that love given so freely.
Jacob woke up and built a cairn as a memorial to that moment. He then offered himself in service to God and named the place Bethel, meaning house of God. It was not in any way to confine God to that place, but to acknowledge that that is where he met with God.
Many see that what comes next is Jacob bargaining with God, but it is much more an affirmation and acknowledgement of all that has gone on in this story. It is an affirmation and acknowledgement of what God has already promised, His presence and blessing. In many ways it is Jacob, saying, 'God, I have heard you and I will do my best. This is surely the essence of worship. As we come together each week we come to acknowledge that we have heard God and are open to hearing God. We are expectant in our coming that he is in our midst. Jesus after all said, "Where two or three gather in my name, there am I in the midst of them." That is God's promise, and like Jacob we respond, not in a bargaining mode, but in a spirit of affirmation that if this is what God has promised then we will take up the invitation and join with him.
Jacob also responded with a promise to tithe everything that God gave him. This was not prescribed nor demanded, but was something that Jacob saw he could do that was tangible and appropriate to express his gratitude to God for the grace so freely given.
Thus in the church throughout the ages, the offering of God's people has been an important element in our worship. It is part of the response we make along with the prayers offered, and the hymns sung, we offer a portion of our income in gratitude to God.
The concept of proportionate given has been a long establish practice. Derek Kinder described the prescription of a tenth of ones income as becoming a fetish among the Pharisees, and I fear it has among many Christians when such demands are placed on people, often those who can least afford it. But the opportunity to give freely and proportionately as one is able remains a central part of our worship, for this is always a tangible contribution to God's work in the world of our day as it is for every generation. It is our own personal way of offering what we are able, with no pressure of how much that should or must be, but rather it is the response of our heart.
God has been gracious to us as individuals, and to us as a church and to the church throughout the world, and as such we are given the opportunity to express as part of our response, our giving, our song, our prayer, in fact our whole being. It is interesting that just as God gives freely, so Jacob affirmed the promises God had made as part of his response in promising to follow God's ways. Although he phrases it as, "if you will be with me and protect me," this is merely repeating what God had said to him, but Jacob does not insist on the success of his mission as being a condition of his to follow God. No, he merely affirms the promises made by God and leaves the rest to God, accepting that whatever happens along the way will be in God's hands. He was not going to be swayed in his commitment according to the day to day encounters in the world, as he is in the world, but declaring that he is not of the world.
His focus, while embracing the world in which he lived, was directed to God, who came and continued to come to him as there was that descending and ascending motion.
We must ask ourselves how much our commitment is swayed by the world in which we live or do we have that same covenant love that God has for us that is immovable and always abounding in its focus on God through the Cross of Christ. God's promises remain for us as they did for Jacob and as they were given and demonstrated in Jesus Christ, based on the premise that God is with us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

In today's reading from Genesis we begin to see the fruit of the promise of God to Abraham as it unfolds into the next generation as the story continues on this journey of God's love down this particular family line.
Parallel this with the story of the sower that Jesus told and we begin to see the theme that questions why some people follow God and others reject him.
This has been the prerogative of humanity from the beginning, in that we are not programmed in one sense to make that choice leaving us powerless to make real decisions for ourselves, and yet on the other hand it would seem from the story that right from the beginning in this account that one brother would follow God and the other would not.
Jacob the younger of the two would in the end have power over the older, Esau.
As with so many biblical stories they contradict the commonly held points of view or expectations of the hearers. It would have been far more normal for the elder brother to have held sway over the younger.
And there are many other puzzling aspects to this story, which is not uncommon in the Biblical literature.
Why are the manipulating and deceptive actions of Jacob seemingly rewarded by God's acceptance of him as the righteous one?
Such questions have occupied the minds of plenty down the centuries as we try to rationalise and in a sense humanise the choices and decisions of the Divine, fitting God's thought patterns and concepts of justice and righteousness into our own minds so that we can feel comfortable with the outcomes.
It would seem the more we try to do this the greater confusion we can find ourselves in.
The parable of the sower goes some way to answering these questions, in the sense that it gives an illustration that points to many influences that affect ones effective participation in the kingdom of God.
Where the seed falls, the nature of the ground on which it falls, the competition of other growth, the sun and so on. All external influences beyond the control of the seed affect its chances of survival to be useful and productive in the way in which it was intended.
Humanity in creation was meant to bring honour and glory to God and because of the very nature of humanity this is not necessarily the case.
But God in his love comes to us.
And so we pick up the story of Jacob and Esau. These two lads, were the result of the earnest prayers of their parents, Isaac and Rebecca. And right from the very early stages, Rebecca was aware of the antagonism between them as we are told, "She was going to have twins, and before they were born, they struggled against each other in her womb."
They were told that this would be pattern of their lives, one of struggling against the other, and that the older would serve the younger. Little could they know as to how this would pan out in the years to come and what the longer effects would be.
So the questions left in our minds relate to the concept of particularity. Why Jacob and not Esau? Why is the divine blessing to run through the family of Abraham and not someone else? Why Isaac and not Ishmael?
We can rationalise the latter question as Isaac was the child of the marriage and not the child of a slave, but that in itself is fitting the reason into our human logic rather than exploring apparent arbitrary nature of God's election.
If we try to weigh up the positive characteristics verses the negative ones in these two people to try and justify the reasoning behind the choice of Jacob over Esau, we come up with a very mixed picture. Both have their faults and quite serious ones, and both have their strengths. This does not help us forward.
Reno says, "Both brothers seem less-than-ideal children of the promise."
Thus this idea of election can never be boiled down to, or solved by recourse to personal merit.
In fact the Apostle Paul interprets this in Romans 9:11 by saying, "But in order that the choice of one son might be completely the result of God's own purpose, God said to her, "The elder will serve the younger." He said this before they were born, before they had done anything either good or bad; so God's choice was based on his call, and not on anything they had done."
It is by grace alone, by God's unmerited, unearned, undeserved love that any of us can stand before Him. It is in all of this that we see some fundamental differences between God and humanity. We puzzle over this issues of choice for we base our assumptions on our human experience of choice where merit becomes so important. Ones deservedness is crucial when making choices for reward, and thus we become very careful in the choices we make.
So often in our relationships with others, we make choices based on all sorts of things, common interests and values, appearance, attitudes, other acceptable social networks. But in no way can we boil God's choice to love, down to any such human way of thinking, for immediately we are then pushed back into that corner of merit becoming the basis. We almost automatically look for reasons to love or be loved or not to love.
Reno says on this, "The fierce purity in God's love eclipses reasons, motives, and judgements we can share. We partake in God's nature only insofar as we know that God reaches out to grab us - Christ crucified and risen - and not because we know why?"
The true nature of pure love moves beyond reason and stands alone unable to be justified.
The cross if reasoned becomes meaningless and yet it stands as an expression of love. Or as Paul puts it, it is foolishness to the wise and wisdom to the foolish.
In the parable of the sower, there is no reason in that picture where the seed falls, unlike today's methods of planting where we place seed in well prepared ground, although in the parable we can explain to some degree or other why there is a better chance that some seed will survive over the other.
Unmerited love is given, and is there for us.
To quote Reno again, "The sheer fact of love sways the heart. Love's reasonless abandonment to another is what gives love its burning necessity. This is why God's name is good news."
In this family line that we have been looking at we see that commitment to the love offered by God, and a willingness to trust the promise made by God of that unconditional love. Isaac's prayer, that Rebecca have children is answered. In faith they trusted God, not limiting God to the conventions that were considered normal. They were perhaps getting on years beyond those where children were normally born, and then the older would serve the younger. Restriction and conventions that govern our humanity are never limiting to God in the offering of his love and fulfilment of his promises. For such love is beyond reason.
So where does this leave us. It can only leave us with the question of our own response to such love as we can only ask ourselves what we desire most in life as we seek to respond to that great love offered. Our response is purely that, response. It is never a means of justifying the love given, or earning or making us deserving of such love. That is out of the question.
For us, it is what does that love evoke in us that will change our lives and the way we view the world and others.
If God's love can be offered without reason or justification, are we able to offer that same love to those around us. Can we look beyond reason, beyond motive, beyond personality?
We may struggle with such concepts and yet is our desire to allow God to be seen through us and in us as we live as his children in this world.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Last weeks readings drew us into the story of Creation and I suggested that those stories are not written as scientific treatise explaining the beginnings of the world as we know it, but are far more about the relationship between God and humanity from the beginning of time.
Like the world, that relationship has been on an ever evolving and changing path from those beginnings until today, and the scriptures bear witness to varying stages in the relationship over time and throughout history.
And as we look at some of the more unusual stories that we have been given, we need to look at them as much as possible through the cultural eyes of those who were involved, or for whom these stories were primarily told.
The story of Abraham does not fit well with us if we merely try to overlay it on our social, moral and cultural values that are expressed in our society today. Blood offerings as recompense for our wrong doings is not seen as being particularly relevant or appropriate in our society today, but for these people this was becoming the way in which they gave expression to their human frailty and at the same time offered something back to their Holy and awe inspiring God. For them, this was offering something of great personal value in thanksgiving to God, recognising that only God was worthy of such praise.
Obviously in this story of Abraham such an offering was also extraordinary and came as a bolt out of the blue. Even for Abraham, a Godly man, he struggled with this, although the call to obedience was strong.
He had always honoured God and he wished to continue to do that, even in the face of such a demanding and strange request. One commentator says,
"From Abraham the harrowing demand evokes only love and faith, certain as he is that the 'foolishness of God' is unexplored wisdom."
For Abraham there was trust in the good times and in the uncertainties of life, during the times of blessing as well as in those times when he was unsure of what the future held.
Abraham had been promised that he would be the father of many nations, and here in his son was this promise borne out, so Abraham trusted God not to go back on his word. As he went off preparing the sacrifice as instructed he told those with him, that he and his son would return. Thus in the face of what seemed foolish, Abraham continued to exercise trust.
He exercised this trust believing that just as God had provided a son for him in fulfilment of his promise, so he would provide that which was necessary for him to please God in his sacrifice as he continued to worship God.
Thus, this story speaks of God's abundant provision for the needs of his people not only here in this story but throughout history.
This story is a foreshadow to the greatest story of all time, the one whose life and teaching we base our faith around today. The one who came as Son into our world to be the sacrifice for all humanity. The one who came to take away the sin of the world.
And the parallels are interesting. God's son came and dwelt among us as one of us. He understood what it was to be human, he lived with joy and sorrow, with both acceptance and rejection. And like Issac, with his father leading the way he walked the path to that point of sacrifice.
And just as Isaac did he carried the wood with him that aided in that sacrifice.
The horror of both stories can leave us with a certain unease.
And yet in both stories there is hope, hope of resurrection. For Isaac it was prior to his death, and the hope that Abraham had as he parted from the group with Isaac, "The boy and I will go over there and worship, and then we will come back." Such was Abraham's faith.
Then with Jesus, he spoke often enough in the lead up to the cross, that he would rise again. And of course this has formed the basis of the Christian faith, that without such hope our message would be meaningless.
And it is in this great act of God's love for all humanity that has down the centuries evoked response in people from generation to generation to offer their own selves in the service of mankind. It was indeed the basis of the movement that led to the formation of the Order of St John, those who gave their own lives in the service of others, tending to the needs of the pilgrims and crusaders all in the name of Christ.
In Jewish thought a man's agent is like himself, so he does the things that the master would have done. And this is what Christian discipleship is all about, is it not?
We follow the teaching and the example of Jesus, just as he followed the example and love of God and lived that out in the world of his day.
And so if we are to be followers of Jesus we are all called to offer ourselves for the service of those around us.
The little snippet of the Matthew's gospel that we read today picks up this theme encouraging us to consider our treatment and service of others.
If we welcome on of God's children, we are indeed welcoming God himself, for God's children are agents of their master.
Even a drink to the least of his followers is offering service to God.
This is basis from which the church and organisations like St John with its Christian roots work from. Whether it be picking up the elderly or sick from their homes and getting them to where help can be provided, or whether it be helping the person who has collapsed on the side of the road, or been injured in a car accident, or whether it is service cups of tea to those in the emergency department of our hospital as they anxiously wait for treatment for a friend or relative to be seen too, it is all about the offering of ourselves for the service of others.
Like Abraham, we all have to weigh up the cost that is being asked of us as we consider the service we might be called to. But like Abraham we too can believe that God will provide as we step out in faith, often with feelings of personal inadequacy, of time pressure of, fear, of all sorts of things that could prevent us from moving forward.
Reno in commenting on this passage reminds us,
"What seemed an unbearable loss to Abraham, becomes, through an enduring faith, an unaccountable gain."
And isn't that so often the case in the sacrifices we make in life, that we initially think of the unbearable cost, the time, the commitment, the cost to personal life, and then as we engage in service, we gain so much more from it.
Abraham saw God and named, as Jehoval Jira, which meant, my provider. He saw God as the one who even in the face of huge personal cost and possible tragedy, God was the one who would provide, and he did.
Just as he did in the sending of his Son into the world to be our Saviour.
May God be with us all in our service to Him and to those around us as we each consider our commitment to Christ and what that means in terms of our commitment to one another and our community.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

The Life God calls us to

It is easy when talking about faith and religion to become lofty in our thoughts and pie in the sky in our attitudes, when in fact the Christian faith has always been grounded in the reality of the world in which we live.
No where is this seen more clearly than in the Gospel's and in the accounts of the early church as it became established around the know world, firstly within Judaism, and then gradually as it moved out of that to become an independent movement in its own right.
The life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth grounded the Christian faith very much in the reality of our world as we come to understand that God, in Jesus Christ came and dwelt with us as one of us, experiencing life as we experience it, facing joys and sorrows, trials and tribulations, just as we face them. He too came face to face with those who opposed or despised him. Such was the experience of his life, as all he tried to do was to give expression to God's love for the world.
We see this in John's Gospel in that great high Priestly prayer which comes at a turning point in Jesus life as he shifts his focus from his earthly ministry on to his coming Priestly role as he will take upon himself the sins of the world. But in that shift he does not abandon his connection with the world, but rather grounds his shift in that very point as he prays earnestly for his disciples. His prayer is that in what he must go through, that God would receive glory, that his disciples would be kept safe and that they may know through him the oneness with God that has strengthened him in his earthly life. He goes on to pray for all those who will respond to the ongoing ministry in which his disciples and subsequent generations will be involved.
Such was his understanding of the world in which he lived and the needs that flow from our human existence.
Peter writing to the churches in Asia Minor in the second half of the first century AD, to a scattered congregation who were beginning to suffer more and more persecution did not promise that pie in the sky religious well being. There was no idea that, positive thinking will make your life go well, or the power of self to be able to improve ones lot, but rather his advice was based on the reality of what was happening in the world of their day.
And what was happening? Increasingly the growing Christian community were becoming isolated from the Jewish community and there was a growing persecution of people who claimed to follow Jesus, probably from both the religious community and the general populace.
So again and again Peter addresses this issue of how as Christians we can find strength to face such suffering and trials when persecution for our faith confronts us.
In the closing section of this letter Peter reminds us that we should not be surprised in the fact that we might suffer for our faith. People will always look for a point of difference to isolate and confront others so that power or position might be obtained. Faith becomes an easy target for this.
In summing up this first letter, Peter suggest that suffering for faith is not to be seen in a negative light. If we suffer for our faith it allows us to remember all that Christ went through for us. Now he is not saying here, to go out and look for ways to suffer, there is no sense of creating a situation so that we might suffer. No, this is purely a coping mechanism if for reasons out of our control suffering for our faith should come our way.
If Christ was prepared to suffer to the extent that he did for us, should we not find strength from that if we are asked to suffer for him? And it is made clear that this is only in the context of suffering for our faith.
Peter says, "If any of you suffers, it must not be because he is a murderer or a thief or a criminal or meddles in other peoples affairs. However, if you suffer because you are a Christian, don't be ashamed of it, but thank God that you bear Christ's name."
I suppose to look at this from another angle would be to say, don't hide your faith under a bowl, but always let the light of Christ shine through you. If others have trouble with that, that is in fact their problem.
It is not that we have to be in people's faces with our faith, always pushing our ideas onto them, but rather the idea that our faith is so much part of our make up that one cannot separate out that aspect of our faith from the rest of our being.
We certainly don't live in a day and age where there is open antagonism on any mass scale against religious belief in our country, but perhaps the greatest threat for us against faith, is that of apathy. No one cares that much at all; therefore faith becomes almost irrelevant to the world. In a sense that may be harder to cope with.
Peter's call is to put all such worries with God and to humbly walk with God in our own lives. As a community of faith, as individuals, we are to concentrate on our own relationship with God and with one another, and to leave all such external threats and persecutions with God, for it is in his strength that we can live with confidence, even in the face of suffering.
How many people do we hear, who face all sorts of trials, who testify to have found strength for what they face through their relationship with God.
"Leave all our worries with him, because he cares for you."
It is easy to say and sometimes hard to live out, but the reality is that worrying merely eats away at us, and usually achieves nothing constructive.
Worrying can destroy ones confidence and even erode relationships with others, and Peter sees such destructive forces as not being of God, but rather from the Devil. So he urges his hearers to keep a watch out for such behaviour so that we might concentrate on more positive attitudes in life.
We are to concentrate on building up ones own faith, as well as encouraging others in theirs, we are to work toward those things that are good and pleasing to God, and leave the rest with God. Suffering in a world that is resistant to God is to be expected and is not out of the ordinary, but get on with life, is Peter advice in such times and he suggests we be firm in our faith. Trust God, for our lives are in his hands and he will bring all things to perfect completion in the end.
It is too easy in our modern world to be consumed with worry by the things that surround us and entrap us our modern lifestyle as we seek to be in control when in fact we never have ultimate control. That is, and always will be the domain of God. And constantly we are reminded of this, whether it be through climatic events, natural disasters, health issues, we seem to be in a constant struggle, almost, to contain and control our world, rather than acknowledging it as God's world in our pursuit to understand that more fully.
Peter finishes that main body of his letter with some wonderfully assuring words.
"But the God of all grace, who calls you to share his eternal glory in union with Christ, will himself perfect you and give you firmness, strength, and a sure foundation."
This is about our God, who never abandons us, who walks our lives with us, understanding us and encouraging us to keep our eyes fixed on him.
Such trust enables us to leave the worries that so often bind us, with him, so that we can live with confidence, faith and joy, even in the face of hardship and suffering.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

In our reading today form the Gospel according to John, Jesus continues his farewell speech to the disciples, in which he says, "God will give you another helper, who will stay with you forever; the Spirit who reveals the truth about God. The world cannot receive it, because it cannot see it nor know it. You know the Spirit because it lives with you and will be in you."

Have you met the Truth lately? In the New Testament, truth is personal. Not some thing, but someone. Through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, truth becomes a personal experience.
In the upper room, on the night of his betrayal, Jesus assured his bewildered disciples that they would not be left without divine assistance. There would be another helper, the Counsellor, the Spirit of truth. Here truth is not some abstract quality but a personal relationship. In our world where deceit and lies are practised as a major profession, via political "spin doctors" and advertising specialists, it comes as a relief to know that there is someone Jesus calls "The Spirit of truth."

In the Ten Commandments the most important command after the first two concerning worshipping God alone, is the ninth commandment: you shall not bear false witness. It seems that as long as truth is respected, a community can deal with wrongdoing. But when deceit rules, then everything becomes chaotic. Society can deal with theft as long there is integrity in the Police and witnesses. Society can cope with the breakdown of marriages as long as the participants are honest with each other. Society can even come to terms with murder, providing witnesses, police, jurors and judges retain their commitment to the truth.

However, when the essence of the ninth commandment breaks down, when truth ceases to be the common bond in community interaction, then all hell breaks loose. We are very much in that situation in today's times, where using other people like furniture for one's comfort or profit, is widespread, and this is graphically displayed in most of the programmes we watch on TV.
This media that lives in our homes, brings us into a new world, not so much of immoral people but of amoral people. Honesty no longer has status, people are to be exploited, even one's best friends can be laughed about behind their backs but praised in their presence. Parents are portrayed as a burden. Commitments are avoided. Marriage is a trap and sex is a bargaining chip. These programmes portray a society of mostly non-violent sociopaths.

We can all appreciate the humour of some shows; seeing comedy in trivial situations, comments and attitudes. We probably watch it more for its humour rather than pondering its social comment. But mostly it is a superficial existence that most situation comedies portray, and if they reflect in some degree our contemporary Western way of life, then we are in deep trouble.
We could well ask 'To what degree are we being seduced by this deceitful portrayal?' Thank goodness we can rely on the knowledge that there is a Spirit of truth, for there is little else in this world that we can depend on.

The truth of God in Christ Jesus, made known through the Holy Spirit is what we can depend on. This is one reality which is not relative, one on which we can completely rely, one voice that never fools us, one great love which will never cheat on us. Because this truth is personal. It is our personal relationship with God; as the Spirit of truth is, that God with us. As Jesus said: You know it because it lives with you and will be in you." (John 14: 16-17)
This truth is not information we learn about physics, or astronomy, or psychology, or theology. It is God's relationship with humanity. A relationship which God initiates and to which we can respond with an emphatic "no," or with a joyful "yes" each and every day. It is the sheer strength of God's love leading us towards the fulfilment of ourselves and our community.

The Spirit of truth sees us as we really are, yet accepts and treasures us. Nothing can be hidden from this truth. Nor is there any need to hide anything from this truth. For the love of God can face our simple humanity without disgust or despair. This is one of the wonderful things about the Spirit of truth. We do not have to pretend, or makes excuses, or try to hide any ugliness. Just as men and women found themselves at peace in the presence of Jesus of Nazareth, so we too find ourselves at peace in the Presence of the Spirit of truth.
The Spirit also sharpens our perceptions of life, and at times alerts us to dangers or opens our eyes to new opportunities for serving Christ. Traditionally the church used the word "conviction" to describe this ministry of the Spirit of truth. The Spirit convicts us of sin, or convinces us of wrongs to be righted, neighbours to be helped, enemies to be forgiven, apologies to be made, achievements in others to be applauded.

To trust the Spirit of truth may mean we need to be reshaped, which may be a painful experience. We generally don't like to make changes; especially not changes deep down in our being which might make us feel uncomfortable and challenged. The Spirit of truth is also called the Counsellor, (who like a barrister conducting a cross examination in court) can make us face things that we thought were good but we now begin to see, fall short of the best that God wishes for us.
It is implied that Jesus himself has been God's helper up to this point, as he says, "God will give you another helper." The Spirit of truth is not different from Jesus, but gives the same hard challenges and the same warm comfort and healing that Jesus gave to those around him. It is no wonder that in the New Testament the words--the "Spirit of God" the "Spirit of Christ" and the "Holy Spirit" are used interchangeably. God's truth therefore, is no kinder and no tougher than Jesus, whose life we admire, praise and love. There is laughter in God's truth. There is compassion in God's truth. There is judgement in God's truth. There is grace in God's truth. There is the cross in God's truth. There are wounds in God's truth. There is the joy of the resurrection in God's truth.

Around us in this twenty-first century, there are masses of lies and deceits; like smog over a large city on a still autumn day, infiltrating our offices, our homes and our lungs. There are a few, maybe more than a few, deceits within us. Some of them are the same lies and deceits that lead to Jesus being hounded, abused and slaughtered. But in the midst of all this the Helper, the Spirit of truth, will be personally with and within the friends of Jesus, determined to set us free from all falsehood.

In two weeks time we will celebrate Pentecost, that great explosion of the Spirit of truth in the early church. Through the days of these two weeks, consider making it your prayer and discipline to empty out some of the junk in your life and make more room; more room for more of what you already have but can also have in abundance. For when you have an abundance of God's love it will show itself in more love for others, for love is the sure sign of the Presence of the Spirit of truth.

15th May 2011
Acts 2:42-47
1 Peter 2:18-25

Today our readings focus our thoughts on us as member of the Christian community. What does it mean to be part of the church? The church as the people of God, the gather people, the people called by God. Often the church is criticised by some as being a clique. And it is a criticism that we need to be mindful of, for I am sure that in no way are we to be a closed group of people. It is not a club, with a set of rules for membership that we are tested against and held to account for. The church is a unique organism if you like. It is a gathering of a wide cross section of the community, from all walks of life and from a wide variety of backgrounds. There was obviously from its very earliest inception a gathering together to meet the spiritual, social, economic, and emotional needs of those who held a common belief in Christ as Risen Lord and Messiah.
In Acts we read how they shared possessions, gathered for prayer and worship, and shared meals together.
The common bond of belief had a profound affect on the way these people lived their lives. That sense of being a community, of being responsible for and accountable to each other seemed by all accounts to be much more heightened. They were obviously under enormous strain both from within the established religious community of that day and from the wider political community and their sense of community gave them both comfort and strength to face the difficulties which lay before them.
The cooperate nature of the church is something that was fostered right from our very beginnings. And in talking of the church here, I mean God's people from the beginning of time. We see in Psalm 23 that we know so well, a theme Jesus also picks up in a Parable he tells in John's Gospel using the whole imagery is of the shepherd and the sheep. Clearly the community of God's people is seen as being like that flock of sheep, a collective that is gathered together and cared for by a superior or Supreme Being.
In Psalm 23 the people Israel had no difficulty there with the concept of God as their shepherd. It was an image that came from their day and drawn out of their setting. They could visualise the scene that was painted for them in the words of this Psalm.
Today we might prefer to talk of God as our Chairman of Directors, the one who lays out our policies and gives us our daily directions:
The one who fills our pay packets and gives us power to go and spend: The one who leads us to the supermarkets where we can fill our pantries with those goodies that will supply our needs.
Imagery like this might certainly be more applicable to today's world and give us more of a sense of the power that the Psalmist was writing of.
But when Jesus drew on the imagery from this Psalm to paint a picture of himself, it left his hearers in no doubt as to the parallels that he was drawing. The murmurs of disquiet began to ripple around the community. Here was Jesus claiming to be the shepherd. Here he was taking that Psalm of old that they loved so much and claiming that status for himself.
But for the emerging Christian community this imagery began to draw parallels and began to confirm for them, Christ as Messiah. As the early church developed, these stories of Jesus became more and more important. They became the foundation for the beliefs surrounding the risen Christ.
From these stories they could draw strength for the growing persecutions that were facing them.
As people were faced with difficulties and situations that caused discomfort and unease, many were dropping away. So people like Peter would write and offer advice and encouragement and such advice and encouragement would be enhanced by remembering the stories of old.
Peter urged, "For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly."
Suffering and endurance is part of human life, and for some they suffer more than others. As a community of faith we are there to support people in their suffering, we are there to fight injustice, but above all we are there to tell the stories of the one who suffered with us and for us. No suffering that we encounter is outside of God's experience and God is with us in such suffering. In fact as the shepherd guides his sheep, so God guides us. And in another parable where Jesus speaks of himself as the shepherd, he speaks of going out and seeking out the sheep that are suffering , the sheep that are lost. In John's Gospel it is about God who protects us and keeps us from ultimate harm, for there is nothing in the end that can separate us from the loving concern of our Shepherd, not even death itself.
These stories offer us that sense of comfort and in all the paths of life that we walk, the presence of God is with us. God is enduring in his love for us, and calls us to endure in our faith with him. In all the struggles that we face, we are not alone, for Christ who walked and talked with his disciples, who suffered with his people, is the same risen Christ who walks with us and who strengthens and encourages us in our journey of life enabling us to endure in the faith that we profess.
We as a community of God's people are the body of Christ, and so there is a sense in which we have the responsibility to live out the presence of Christ in the world today.
Each of us have a part to play in bringing Christ's values and Christ's teaching into the world. We are here to encourage one another and support one another in the struggles that face us. We are here to tell and retell the stories of our faith, that we too may draw strength from Christ, crucified and risen; The living Christ who is in our midst.
That's what it means to be God's people, to live in union with God and to live as the church today.
May we continue to seek ways in which we can be effective in not only living our lives and expressing the enduring faith that we hold dear, but also in helping others to live theirs knowing and experiencing the enduring love that God has for us and the world.
May we learn to stand with others in the joys and the sorrows of life, in the successes and the struggles, pointing others always to God, whose love is there and never lets us go.
As one song writer puts it,
To be God's people - in this place,
Live his goodness share his grace,
Proclaim God's mercy through his Son
Be his love to every one.
Almighty Father, give us a vision
Of a dying world that needs your love and care.
We see the need, the searching for a Saviour
In Jesus' name, grant this our prayer.
In our searching for such enduring faith, we can surely only find that in Christ, Crucified and Risen. He suffered and died for us, but rose victorious, and that is where our hope must lie, for in him we too can be guided and led through this life, with the Lord as our shepherd.

To God be the glory, now and forever more. AMEN

8th May 2011
Acts 2:14a,36-41
1 Peter 1:13-25

Personal Faith

Having outlined Christ's work of salvation through his life, death and resurrection, Peter goes on to encourage his scattered congregation throughout Asia Minor in the response that they should make.
Salvation has been achieved. God has reconciled humanity to himself through Christ and this aspect of our salvation must always be attributed to God. There is nothing that we can or could do to affect this work in our own lives.
He reiterates this in today's reading as he alludes to Christ as the Lamb without defect or flaw, drawing his hearers back to the Passover and the whole Old Testament ideas of sacrificial rites where the spilt blood paid the price. In Christ, that work was complete, the price was paid, and this was the once and for all sacrifice God required, God initiated and achieved in Jesus of Nazareth.
But here Peter says, although that is the case, and that is the vital part achieved, we as people, as individuals, as communities of God's people, we as the church, are called to respond in the way we live.
Peter offers some sound practical advice laced with good theological reasoning. That reasoning being grounded in what God, through Jesus Christ has already achieved. That is the given, the rest is our response, as faltering and as fickle as that may be.
He begins by appealing to the mind.
"Have your minds ready for action. Keep alert and set your hope completely on the blessing which will be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed."
Have your minds ready. This is an appeal to reason, to think carefully about your faith in relation to the rest of your living. I am sure that although this sounds simple it is easier to talk about than most of us find to put into practice.
But it is the human mind that drives the actions of most people. And it is the mind which we need to constantly work at training, so that our actions more and more conform to the faith that we profess.
I suspect that this is the area that at various times and in various ways lets us all down, as it is our minds that that define us as uniquely human. It is our capacity to think and to allow our thoughts to be reflected in our actions, and our ability to have some control over that capacity that lies at the heart of being human.
There is the choice of right and wrong, there is the decision to believe or not believe, to accept or to reject.
And so Peter reminds us of the need to have our minds ready, to be alert.
This is a call to actively shape our lives into the image that God calls us too.
Now that sounds easy, but it is not for a number of reasons.
We all know of the conflicting pressures and messages that we face in life, areas where decisions have to be made that are not necessarily clear cut. We need to remember that Jesus' own teaching came out of a tradition where rules and regulations were made to help people confirm to what others thought was appropriate behaviour and actions. But legalism is not the answer. The Gospel calls us to a change of heart, to pursue a way that encourages the individual to see life as a response to God's love for us.
This does not fit with a regimented set of rules that determine for us a clear cut notion of right and wrong but encourages us to use the freedom we have to equip ourselves for honouring God in our living.
Peter draws this picture of humanity with that nature that offers choice and invites us to build on the choices we make to give substance to the faith that we profess.
This is never a single choice offering a once and for all solution, but is a journey that we travel, sometimes seeing smooth paths ahead and at other times having to deal with the turbulence that life can throw at us.
The one constant and enduring aspect of this relationship is God and what he has done, and Peter reiterates this time and again.
That becomes the given factor. God loves us, God has achieved his purpose in offering salvation for all humanity.
And even the seemingly enduring things like gold and silver, Peter suggests, can in fact be worn away, where as God's love in Jesus Christ stands and endures.
That relationship was in the beginning, and will be for ever more.
And it is here, in this relationship that God offers that Peter says were are to fix our eyes.
It is out of this relationship that we are invited to shape and form our lives around, relying on God, but also responding to him in ways that demonstrate that life in our world today.
How does this show? In our love for God and our love for one another!
Love can never be regulated, and must always be the response of the heart and mind, and act of the will that responds with grace.
Peter calls for this earnest love even in the face of trouble and persecution, and again grounds this love in our understanding of God's love for humanity.
So dramatic is the difference between our human nature and the nature that God calls us to put on, that like John, Peter calls for that total transformation and aligns it with the idea of a complete rebirth. It is like coming to the world in which we live with totally new and fresh eyes, seeing our lives and our community from a different perspective.
Unfortunately that rather worn and tired clique of being born again, has had laid on it today, many connotations and nuisances that were not intended, and it certainly wasn't meant to be a particular brand of believer, for none of us can be Christian unless we have that new view of the world, no matter how small our glimpse is of it, for we are born in this way not through our own efforts or actions but by the Spirit of God at work in us transforming us into the people he wants us to be.
Our acceptance of our place in God's world with God at the centre stands in stark contrast to those who see humanity at the centre of the world with us having ultimate dominion over it.
Peter reminds us that we really are just like the grass and the wild flowers that wither and fade, where as God remains from generation to generation, from everlasting to everlasting.
His word who came among us in Jesus the Christ, his living risen presence stands as the everlasting reminder that this is indeed God's world and this is the message we have to continue to proclaim as his church in our day as in every day. Our choice is always to follow him or not to follow him, and no one apart from we ourselves can make that choice.
May God give us the grace and continue to open our eyes to the wonder of his love that surrounds us on every side.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

1st May 2011
Acts 2:14a, 22-32 1 Peter 1:3-9

Doubts disperse:
While we have just celebrated the Easter event with the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ at the heart of that celebration, it struck me as I read this passage from 1 Peter, as to the passion with which he was penning this letter.
This letter was written nearly 30 years after the events of that first Easter around AD 62 and yet here Peter writes as if it were yesterday.
The impact of that first Easter on those who witnessed it was so powerful and lasting in its effects that nearly three decades later Peter was encouraging the church scattered through northern Asia Minor to continue in their walk with God despite any persecution and suffering they might encounter.
If doubts were to loom in their minds because of what they had or might suffer they were to put those behind them because they had so much to be thankful for. Rather than gloom and doom they were to see joy because of what Christ had done for them, and Peter grounds this in the historic events of that first Easter that he and his fellow apostles had been so intimately part of.
So as the doubts were dispersed their hearts were filled with joy; joy in the future heavenly blessings that awaited them,
joy in spite of the suffering that faced them and the inexpressible joy in knowing Christ.
So this joy is grounded in our response to God. Peter's understanding of God at this point has overtones of Trinitarian language as expressed in, "God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!"
God as the Father is not in any way to be conceived as having created the Son or caused him to exist, for the Son has always existed in the fullness of the Godhead. This relationship is much more in terms of the Father who directs and the son who responds and obeys, the Father sends, the son goes.
Peter's encouragement is a helpful remedy for people weighed down by the worries of the world and reminds us that the joy of looking beyond the immediate can sometimes help us to live through the present. It is too easy to become weighed down by what is happening now and to wallow in the burdens of the moment, where as to focus on something greater which lies beyond the present, especially where we can see and know something more certain can give strength for the here and now. Peter puts this in the context of his faith, and probably still relives the horror days leading up to the crucifixion. And as he reflects in hindsight on those days, he can also relive the glorious moment of encountering the risen Christ as it dawned that he is risen.
No doubt the implications of that took sometime to sink in.
Now his theology is grounded in that event.
New life, a new way of living, and new way of viewing life, a new and certain hope is held out for all who are prepared to trust in him, This new hope offers both a remedy for the present and a certain hope for the future where the fullness of God's love will be experienced. And for Peter this holds both certainty and mystery together in tension. This tension is ultimately held secure by God and therefore our joy is found in God alone; it is found in his actions for us and his promises offered to us. Peter will also look back to the promises that Christ offered in the months and days leading up to that first Easter and realise that they did not really understand that mystery, but in the full light of the resurrection these mysteries were opened up for them. So too, for us when it comes to the mystery of God and life with its trials and triumphs, they too will only be fully understood in the context of that Divine love.
Peter offers that confident expectation quelling our doubts and our fears, for this is something that God has kept and continues to keep for us.

Peter suggests that this forms the basis of a Joy that endures even in the face of suffering. Joy is not to be understood as a frothy happiness, put on to merely counter the bad things that are happening. It is not a put on expression to cover up the present misery. No! Joy is to be understood as a deep spiritual joy, emanating from that understanding of what God has done and is doing and will do in our lives.
This overlays the sufferings and trials of life as experienced in so many and varied ways and continually points us to that hope that we have talked of.
He draws that analogy of the precious metal, gold. It is refined and made pure and more beautiful through a process of heating and cooling to remove all the impurities. So too our lives with all the pressures and trials must be seen in this light.
The question has to be about how we want to view life. Do we see the glass half empty or half full?
How do we view aging? How do we view illness, how do we view children and grandchildren? How do we view work? How do we view church, marriage, neighbours, friends, government, anything for that matter? All the issues we can think of in life that influence us and our attitude to such issues determine how we live and what we get out of life.
And I am not saying it is all about the power of positive thinking, and I certainly don't think this is what Peter is getting at. No, just as Peter says, the trials and tribulations of life will be there, but it is out attitude to facing them and particularly in the light of God's abiding and eternal love for us as demonstrated in the life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in the knowledge and belief that life is longer than our years lived on this earth.
This is where our faith, based on the person of Jesus Christ can surely give us such confidence and allow our hearts to be filled with joy even in the face of adversity.
Finally, Peter suggests that such joy in and of itself is inexpressible.
In v8 he says, So you rejoice with a great and glorious joy which words cannot express, because you are receiving the salvation of your souls, which is the purpose of your faith in him."
Mystery can never be fully expressed, otherwise it ceases to be mystery. The certainty we can have is that God loves us, the mystery is why and how, and often this comes in times when we feel God is so far away. And yet those are the times when we need to remind ourselves and be reminded of the Easter encounter the disciples had with the risen Christ and that that same risen Christ is with us where ever we stand in life.
Such is the promise of our faith, and such is God's working out of his salvation in our lives.
It is not worked out in a cocooned environment isolated from the realities of the world, but is worked out in context of life with it joys and with its trials, with its times of celebration and with those unpleasant moments that leave us gasping for breath.
Faith must be grounded in reality otherwise it would loose all integrity.
Peter says, "You love him although you have not seen him, and you believe in him, although you do not now see him."
He is writing to a generation after that first Easter, but encourages them in that same response as those first disciples made, to offer love and belief. This belief has that meaning of an active trust, to rest one's confidence in or to depend upon. That is the crux of faith, it is not an intellectual assent to an idea, but an active trust in Christ's power to love us and to reconcile us to God. It is this active trust that continues to bring us that joy, that deep seated contentment, in knowing God through every moment in life, through the up's and down's, through the trials and triumphs.
May God continue to give us grace and the courage to share our joy and our faith with those around us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Over the weeks leading up to Easter we have looked at some of the conversations that have been held with Jesus and some of his followers. The conversations with Jesus, certainly at this point, for the disciples was apparently over. Death brings that finality to the conversation but on this first Easter Morning something different had happened, and the conversations between his followers must have been intriguing. Looking at those conversations through the eyes of artists in history give us glimpses both into their own times and thoughts and also into our own as we interpret such works in our day. The actual conversation in the Gospel is patchy to say the least.
Eugene Burnand's work of Peter and one whom we assume is John , running to the tomb portray the urgency along with the hope and determination to check out the story that woman had told them. The Gospel tell us that Peter and the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, were told by the women of the disappearance of Jesus' body.
In their eyes there is that sense of disbelief that this could not possibly be true, and yet hope that maybe, just maybe all is not lost. The trauma and confusion of the last few days has left them alone and scared, and yet this news that they have just received offers them hope beyond belief.
The eyes in this painting convey both hope and fear in a complex mix of emotions. There is wonder about what indeed they might find. The forward leaning posture shows the speed and determination with which they are pursuing this news. There is not creeping around with hesitation but that determined forward motion that suggests nothing would hold them back in their pursuit of the truth. The beloved disciple is forward of Peter as the gospel writer tells us, 'The two of them were running, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and reached the tomb first. This order is backed up by the painter in the build of the characters. John is portrayed as finer and slighter build, with Peter being older, bulkier and therefore slightly slower as he strains to keep up.
I wonder does the Easter message evoke such determination in us even though we are never sure what that journey will turn up for us.
The hand of John, the beloved disciple gives further expression to that hope and prayer that what they have been told is indeed the truth and that Jesus is alive.
And Peter's hand on his heart, perhaps he is thinking back to his denial and the many times he blustered in thinking he was helping out. Maybe he is hoping that this one time his enthusiasm will lead him directly to the truth.
You see the contrast of these two very different figures the fine features of the well dressed John with his smooth textured skin, contrasting with Peter's rugged and wild look in more common clothing and his gnarled hands from a life time of hard work on the fishing boats. This covers the spectrum of those for whom the Gospel message is given. God loves the whole world, from where ever we come, if we are but eager to follow the truth.
And like these two character portrayed by Burnand, we are on a journey of discovery, never sure of what God has for us, never certain of the how the truth of God's love for us will pan out, and yet the question remains, how focused are we on discovering the truth of God's love for us.

The second picture is quite different: Tanner, and African American, paints the "Two disciples at the Tomb.
There is much more about thoughtful contemplation. The artist has also set the scene much more in his own day judging by the dress and the stance of these figures. So he is looking at the disciples response through his own eyes rather than directly through the eyes of those first disciples.
Again one can only guess at the conversation going on here, but there is no doubting that what they have discovered is momentous and brings about a new era in the world.
The masterful use of light captures this with the early dim light of dawn appearing over the trees in the top right hand corner of the painting, playing this off with the bright light of recognition emanating from tomb and lighting their faces.
John's open radiant face reflects the luminous emptiness of the arched sepulchre, while next to him Peter's head is bowed in awe. Is Peter wondering what this will mean for him as the leading disciple? What weight will this place upon his shoulders as he goes out to tell the world that Jesus' Body is gone? There is much more of the sense in this painting of a realisation that Jesus is risen, although the complete dawning of that realisation is yet to come, so the light, although bright on them, is not the light of the full day sun.
They are still processing the scene that lies before them from two completely different angles, giving cover to the fact that across the board of humanity, we process faith in a wide a varied way when faced with the truth of what lies before us.
The gospel writer tells us "Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first also went in; he saw and believed. (They still did not understand the scripture which said that he must rise from death.)
And as I have said, the conversation is patchy, but these artists fill in some of the thoughts that must have been going through their minds.
For us we too, must process what the resurrection means for us today. It is easy for us to proclaim the story as we have always heard it, to tell it as it was, but what does that mean for each of us? How has the dawning of that truth impacted on our lives as individuals and as a church together? Jesus is risen! His presence is with us! It is the risen Christ who welcomes us into his presence at the table today, and welcomes us to walk through life knowing and experiencing that risen presence. "Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Easter - Good Friday 2011
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 John 18:1-11, 19:38-42

The irony of the Easter Story lies in the fact that in the face of the agony and suffering that Christ had to endure comes the message of salvation for the world.
In a perverse and cruel act of humanity God is able to offer hope and courage to the world.
Such is the nature of the gospel message. Paul writing to the Corinthians captures this as he talks of that which is foolish to the world is wisdom to God and that which is folly to God can appear as wisdom to the world.
This to me sums up the Easter celebrations.
And as we remember today the extreme cruelty and suffering that Christ endured, let us not skip past this as we are prone to do, to get the bit that in hindsight we know happens, namely the glorious resurrection.
No! we need to take time to reflect on the cost to God that he put in to the world, the world which he want to pour out his love upon.
The imagery of Isaiah, that looked forward to a time when this suffering servant would come to us, can leave us gasping.
Words and phrases like disfigured, he hardly looked human, he had no dignity or beauty to make us notice him, remind us that what he had to go through would be no party.
It was human wisdom that judged him guilty, human wisdom that condemned Christ, why? Because human wisdom struggled to see beyond a self centred and self serving world that wanted to protect the political fragility keeping peace at any price. And others did not want to upset the religious piety that kept people controlled and consumed by a sense of guilt. Jesus had spent his life challenging the norms of the times, challenging the assumptions that people had built their whole lives around, and pushing the boundaries of acceptability, choosing to consort with the marginalised, the sick, the ones who were different, and through his time with them restored many to a way of life where they had to be accepted back into the community. He restored people to health and strength and acceptability, and ultimately his mission was to restore the world to that oneness with God where we felt acceptance rather than rejection and wholeness rather than condemnation.
Isaiah says, "Because of our sins he was wounded, beaten because of the evil we did. We are healed by the punishment he suffered, made whole by the blows he received." Just as in his living he turned our concepts of justice and acceptability on their heads, so too in his death, he made the curse of dying on a tree, into an act of redeeming love.
But in doing that he took the pain and humiliation of the world upon his shoulders and bore that for us all.
Jesus died, there is no doubting that. His death was cruel, his death could not be justified, and yet he did not fight back.
Not because he did not value life, but quite the opposite, he valued life for all humanity, for then and for all generations to come.
He valued life so much that he willingly gave his own.
That was the cost of his love, the cost of obedience to God's will.
This is the cost that we are not called to bear for it has be borne for us all.
Let us remember again the sacrifice made, not so that we might be consumed by guilt, but rather so that we might be freed to live full and meaningful lives in the context of our understanding of God's love for us.
To God be the glory, now and forever more. AMEN.

3rd April 2011 - Lent 4
1 Samuel 16:1-13 John 9:1-12,35-41

Over the period of Lent we are exploring conversations that Jesus engaged in with a variety of people. We have seen Jesus and the Devil in a battle of wills, Nicodemus being reminded of God's love for the whole world, and the Samaritan woman at the well challenged as to what was really important for her in life.
The conversations this week are a bit more involved as Jesus engages both with his disciples, and the man born blind, and then there are other conversations with the blind man and the wider community and the religious leaders.
The whole passage revolves around the question asked of this man born blind, "whose sin caused him to be born blind? Was it his own or his parents'?"
This is an age old argument and we see it resurfacing all the time. People struggle with blaming someone for suffering that is experienced as we live in a world where people are exposed to such challenges in many and varied ways.
And although we see the question around suffering asked after big events such as Japan and Christchurch or the West Coast, it is not uncommon for issues to be raised in the case of individuals like the man born blind that we have read of today. We see it particularly where children or famous people are involved. We seem to want know why. Why if there is a loving God do such things happen? Surely God, in God's power is able, and therefore by inference should intervene in some dramatic way to solve all the problems that face us individually and collectively. It all sounds so easy and straight forward. If this were to happen all would be well? Do we really believe this would be the case? And if it doesn't happen, does it mean I have done something wrong to limit God's ability to act?
It seems to me, that this line of thought forgets to look at the whole purpose and function of creation. The world in which we live is a dynamic and unfolding story of God's ever active and creative presence. But this active and creative presence includes in our human activity and the activity of the whole of creation as part of that which reflects in some limited way that same Divine image. Part of the nature of creation was that continued unfolding of Divine activity in many and varied ways within the created natural order within which we live.
So surely for God to constantly step in to those natural processes and to contradict the choices we make or the activity of nature would be to contradict his own creative purpose and power. Now, I don't want to deny the possibility or even reality of miracles, far from it. But if God were to act in such a way as part of everyday life, then miracles would cease to be miracles. By definition a miracle is an event that appears to be contrary to the laws of nature and is regarded as an act of God, or it is an event or action that is amazing, extraordinary or unexpected.
Thus Jesus' miracles that were recorded in the Gospels, were not part and parcel of every day life, but more often than not were stories of wonder and amazement that Jesus used to illustrate theological points he was trying to make.
Today's story of the healing of the man born blind comes at a time when Jesus was struggling to get the Pharisee and religious leaders of his day to comprehend his message of God's love coming among them through him.
He had declared to them, which had not gone down well, that he was the light of the world. And after much discussion and rising antagonism, ending with the Pharisees almost stoning Jesus and driving him from the temple, Jesus comes across this blind man and heals him. The disciples ask the question about blindness and sin, but Jesus sees the opportunity to show that God is able to open our eyes to see the light.
As Jesus picks up the mud, and rubs it on the eyes of the blind man, he is instructed to go and wash the mud from his face in the Pool of Siloam. Interestingly, the Gospel Writer tells us this name Siloam means sent. If one is sent one can act in two ways: in obedience or disobedience.
This blind man chose the path of obedience and went, doing as he was instructed. Faith is about trust, and a willingness to obey. Jesus' call on our lives is always a call to follow in obedience, not to the things that make us feel good, or that we want to do, but to follow, sometimes with nervous uncertainty trusting God in what we are doing.
There must have been something compelling about the conversation Jesus had with this blind man that gave him the confidence to follow the instructions. And having carried out the instructions given and receiving his sight, he of course had no idea who it was he had spoken with except that his name was Jesus.
Thus this man was taken to the Pharisees by people around for them to investigate. Only the Pharisees would be able to declare this man well, and of course they wanted to know all about it, for it would appear this was carried out on the Sabbath and that they considered the act of making the mud as being work, and thus breaking the Sabbath rules about work.
In reality this was just another way of trapping Jesus, and yet another example of their own blindness to the real work of God in their midst.
We all need to be careful of our own refusal to see the work of God in our midst as it is so easy to be blinded by our own prejudices, or preconceived notions of how or why or what God will or will not do.
It is interesting that Jesus once again engages in conversation with this blind man after the healing had taken place and after the man had been interrogated by the Pharisees, and only at that point does Jesus question the man about his belief. Jesus' act of Grace in healing the man was not dependant upon that man's belief. Having dismissed the notion that this mans blindness was a result of his, or his families sin, Jesus now debunks another myth about God's activity that we often hear today. You sometimes hear it said that a healing hasn't happened because the person did not have enough faith or did not believe. In this case Jesus did not check out the level of faith or the man's beliefs before he healed him, but rather he healed him and then challenged him about his faith.
Grace is always the precursor to belief. Grace is God's coming to us in unmerited or undeserved ways. Grace is about God's initiative which prompts in us our belief. Christ's coming among us to walk that path to the cross, was God's ultimate act of grace, and the religious leaders of the day refused to recognise him, and yet this man whom they considered sinful because of his blindness was able to see Jesus for who he really was.
When asked, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" after some discussion he replied, "I believe!:"
That is surely the question that faces us all and lies at the heart of this whole conversation.
"Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
That is why the Christian church down the ages has been a confessing church, a church willing to confess its faith in Jesus Christ. Our great creeds all begin with "I Believe."
Together and as individuals we have been called to affirm our faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
That is the heart of our faith that this man discovered as he washed that mud from his eyes. The Pharisees refused to wash the mud from their eyes and remained in darkness.
One commentator says on this,
"Hence the indignant and touchy question of the Pharisees in verse 40, Are we blind also? But as Jesus proceeded to point out to them, it is precisely when people say that they see, and because they say that they see, that their sin remains They continue to be guilty, however unconscious of their guilt.
We can so easily be blinded by our own sense of self-righteousness and thus we do not see the need of a Saviour.
Thus there are two responses in the closing part of this dialogue.
"I believe, Lord!" or that of the Pharisees "Surely you don't mean that we are blind, too?" We each must choose which response best fits our own, as Jesus asks us, Do you believe in the Son of Man?
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN

27th March 2011 - Lent 3
Exodus 17:1-7 John 4:5-42

Last week we looked at a conversation that Jesus held with Nicodemus, a member of the group of Pharisees, the religious leaders of Jesus' time. This weeks conversation is with a woman Jesus encounters at a well, as he and his disciples are travelling through Samaria.
Jesus had heard of the growing tension that was developing as a result of the Pharisee's becoming aware of the increased interest that was being generated around Jesus' teaching. Such an increase in public interest concerned them as any uprising among the people of that time, might jeopardise the delicate balance that existed with the occupying Roman forces. While John the Baptiset tended to work alone, and was probably seen as a lone voice in the wilderness, the pattern developing with Jesus was showing distinct signs of spreading among the general populace. The Gospel writer notes that the observation was, that more people were being won over to Jesus' teaching than had been observed with John the Baptist. These followers were even going through this initiation ritual of baptism indicating a certain commitment to the teaching of Jesus. And the little aside that is inserted here perhaps indicates the realisation that this movement had far more potential to out-grow what had been observed with John the Baptist. Here Jesus' followers were doing the baptising, thus this movement although centred around Christ, was beginning to be transmitted by those who were willing to follow this new leader.
Thus we can see the concern being expressed, but also we can see the setting to this story where Jesus was beginning to feel the heat and thus the need to retreat from the region of Judea. The quickest and most direct way for this to happen was to cut through Samaria which lay between the provinces of Judea and Galilee. The interesting thing here is that good Jews would not lower themselves to taking such a route, as this took them through countryside of a people whom they considered to be outside the covenant people of God.
Politics in this part of the world has long history of such antagonism. Is it any different today with the Palestinian people?
And from the conversation we see with the woman at the well, we could not be sure that this attitude was all one sided.
Jesus initially requested a drink of water from the Samaritan woman as she is drawing water from the well. One could think nothing of such an innocent request from some wary travellers. She, however, seemed to recognise Jesus as being a Jew, and so raises the issue commenting, "you are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan - so how can you ask me for a drink?"
Was there a note of sarcasms, or surprise? Why raise the issue if it wasn't an obvious issue to the person making the request. Too often as human beings we want to keep age old arguments alive and take every opportunity to make a point that merely adds fuel to the fires that have raged for years.
We see this time and time again on the international scene, but also in the lives of individuals. Life is not about putting up barriers, but rather of opening possibilities.
Jesus by his journey through Samaria and engaging in conversation with this woman opened up possibilities.
Rather than barriers being maintained the conversation has given opportunity for preconceived prejudices to be explored and new pathways to be developed.
This makes plain the concept that Jesus' ministry was not just confined to the people of Israel, but was in fact much wider.
His mission was to all. Last week it was with the Pharisees, this week the Samaritans, and we will see some with the gentiles.
Jesus came as Saviour, not of Israel, but Saviour of the World.
Jesus again, as always, is willing to meet people where they are at in life, and here it is at the well, with a woman, and not only a woman, but one whose history is a little questionable.
The Gospel writers are constant in their insistence on telling the stories of Jesus meeting such people, for it reiterates the fact that God's love is for the whole world and not just the ones that the world considers as worthy. In fact it is quite the opposite. Those who consider themselves as worthy, as good enough, as better than average, see no personal need for any help, thus there is no place for God.
If people are not thirsty, they will not seek out a supply of water.
In recent weeks we have had it driven home to us just how important water is in our lives. In Christchurch it became an issue very quickly. Not just water itself, but good clean drinking water. Such water when not available leads to all sorts of disease and sickness. Japan has of course suffered the same. The irony often is in such disasters, that there is water around, it is just not clean water. It is water that would bring death rather than health.
Thus Jesus here speaks of water that brings life.
Not literally water, but that which is necessary to bring sustained life even in the face of death. Despite all the things that might condemn one in the eyes of others or even the community, what is on offer here is acceptance from the Divine, and not just acceptance but that embrace that is everlasting.
The conversation that Jesus has with this woman reveals all those things for which many would want to condemn her, race, life style, gender, you name it, one can always find fault.
Jesus looks at her and sees the sincerity which underlies the external bravado.
Her plea of acceptance as Jesus offers the water of life has touched a raw nerve and she engages more deeply with him, saying, "give me that water! Then I will never be thirsty again, nor will I have to come here to draw water."
Her honesty with Christ is met with equal honesty as Jesus acknowledges that God's love is not confined to time, or place or race or creed. God's love is to be expressed for the whole world through him. Jew or Gentile, free or slave, God's love will be demonstrated in the life of Jesus, the Messiah.
In this story we see the plain and explicit claim to this role as Jesus states, "I am he, I who am talking with you."
So in this story, again we see this invitation to engage with God. There is an invitation to a conversation of brutal honesty expressing who we are and allowing God in that process to challenge us. In such a way true relationship is built. Remember, this story is set in the shadow of last weeks chat with Nicodemus, where we are assured that Christ's coming is not about condemnation and judgement, but about love and acceptance for the whole world, for the Jews, Gentiles and Samaritans.
God's love is for those who see their need of such grace, and who are blinded only by ones own sense of self righteousness.
This woman was clearly able to be honest, first and foremost with herself, and then when challenged by Christ, was open to that gentle prompting that enabled her to see with clarity her own life before God.
From this point her life's direction had changed and now her desire was to engage others in that same relationship that she had experienced.
She went back to her people and invited them to come and meet the one who was able to tell her everything she had done."
She asked that piercing question that we must each answer for ourselves, "Could he be the Messiah?" In the face of all that she experienced, in the face of the challenge he offered her, this question stands for us all. Is Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one? We must all ask ourselves, "who is Jesus?" Clearly he claimed this role, and his life death and resurrection stand as testament to it, but are we willing ourselves to afford him that place in our lives?
Clearly he does not force that on us, but God's love is shown through him and is there for us to claim and accept, just as it was for this despised Samaritan woman at the well. It doesn't matter what the world thinks of us, for God's love is there.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

20th March 2011 - Lent 2
Genesis 12:1-4a John 3:1-17

God loved the World

The recorded conversations Jesus held with a variety of people always provide us with an interesting insight into people thoughts and how the Gospel message challenges individuals as they encounter Christ. Over the Sunday's of Lent it seems that we have a whole series of such conversation that Jesus has with different people about faith. His encounters meet people at their points of need and always direct them to what faith means for them, and where that faith should be focused.
So at the beginning of these conversations we see Jesus' meeting with Nicodemus. He is described to us as a Jewish Leader, one who belongs to the Pharisees. This is one of the groups of people who throughout Jesus' public ministry seemed to spend their time trying to trap Jesus through their insistence of tying people up in knots, and of making faith into a religious ritual of does and don'ts.
So, rather than an emphasis on the externals of faith, Jesus looks to the motives that drive peoples actions to express faith from within. These underlying motives really touch at the nerve base of who we are, at what drives us to do the things we do.
Thus Jesus' suggestion to Nicodemus that we must be born again, is a suggestion that we need to see life in a completely different way, through a different mindset. I suspect the analogy he might draw on today might be that we need to be reprogrammed.
The eyes through which we see the world, or in this case the Kingdom of God, must be completely different. Here I think John is seeing the Kingdom of God as the whole of the created order, the seen and the unseen, that which is confined by time and space that which is eternal.
If we are to view the Kingdom of God from the normal human perspective, we would be seeing, what I want to call, a crime and punishment model. For a certain action, there would be suitable reaction. For the wrongs I commit there would be an appropriate punishment. For the good I do there would equally be a matching reward. And if we are honest this is probably the mindset through which we all view the world to some degree or other. But it is not the mindset that Christ was promoting through which we can view the Kingdom of God. This model just did not fit.
Why?
Because on this model, despite all our best efforts and all our strivings, none of us would ever measure up to the necessary level to reach the fullness of the Kingdom of God. And yet this is the model through which Nicodemus and the religious leaders of Jesus time were viewing the world.
This is seen in the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus.
Nicodemus, in addressing Jesus, comments on all his good deeds. He pays him the complement of calling teacher, or Rabbi, acknowledging a role he must have been playing within that community. He identifies the miracles that were being performed as evidence that he must truly be sent by God.
But all of this was building up a case on the view that here was a good man; a good man in the eyes of the community, a good man even within the religious community, his goodness is seen in his actions. And this frames the normal human mindset that I have been speaking off. The evidence is seen that here is a good man.
It would seem that Jesus can see the angle which Nicodemus is taking, and cuts him off at the knees suggesting that this line of thought is not the way things are. Good deeds do not determine ones standing before God.
He points this out in verse 3 with the words, "I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again.
No one can see the Kingdom of God unless one views the world through the eyes of faith.
Nicodemus struggles with this taking the literal angle and protests that of course one cannot re-enter the mothers womb and be born a second time. Of course not!!
But one can learn to view the world through different eyes by having a total transformation of ones way of thinking if the Spirit of God so moves. God, being God, is able to move and do what God desires to, and so this process of seeing through the eyes of faith, is dependant on God. It is God initiated, and we are reliant on his power. Thus our goodness is not at issue here, but God's will. Our power to do what is right is not at issue, but God's willingness to look beyond our shortcoming and his willingness to love us in spite of our human nature that tends toward sin, rather than righteousness.
Nicodemus like many of us, struggle to reconcile what we see and know, with what we believe, and yet Jesus put that aspect of faith as the prime focus, and points to past events in the life of the people of Israel to say that in such events, although unexplainable, God was still at work, and that this will be the case on into the future.
He looks to the story when Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the desert, pointing out that the people bitten by snakes who looked to this pole would be saved. This at the time was a mystery to them, but just as that happen so too people would look to the point where he would be lifted on up pole in order to save his people.
Of course the context of this conversation would only be recognised following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But John inserts this conversation at the beginning of his Gospel to give the theological context and framework for expressing Christ's purpose and mission.
Why must he be lifted up? So that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. This mysterious action of God, is what brings salvation, not any ones ability to live good and upright lives, or perform great deeds. Our calling that God offers to all, is a calling to live that life of faith. It is a calling to acknowledge God supremacy and his great love for the world demonstrated in Jesus, made plain in his death and resurrection for us all.
God's primary focus is that of love. His primary action is always to love, and therefore John rightly points out that God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its Saviour.
God's actions are not to promote destruction, but rather to promote his love for the world.
People often ask in the face of disaster, where is God in all of this? And in all the mystery of such events in life, we can only say that God is in the midst with us, even in the face of disaster. Even in Christ's own experience of that God forsakenness, the reality was that God remained steadfast and sure.
Such is God's nature, such is God's love for the world that he comes into the midst of our lives even in our suffering, to be with us.
Just as Abram was called to step out in faith, to leave the comfort of what he knew, and the security of his home land, to go to an unknown place, so too, faith calls us to step out and take the hand of the one who has walked our path, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Faith enables us to trust, and not just to trust in some unknown quantity or empty space, but to trust God, the one who came among us as one of us. He came in time and space, he came as part of our history, and he continues to come to us in the through the power of the Spirit, and John reminds, moving where ever he will. Just as the wind blows and we see the effects of its passing, so too do we see the effects of God moving through us and in us. Our view of the world is transformed, as we walk in faith trusting God
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

13th March 2011 - Lent 1
Genesis 2:15-17;3:1-7 Matthew 4:1-11

Where are you Lord?

This intriguing story of Jesus' preparation for public ministry gives us a wonderful insight into the character and nature of Jesus. We see here a very human side to his character and yet cloaked in that heavenly nature that has him engaging in this direct conversation with Satan. This reads as a beautiful parallel to Genesis story of Adam and Eve's encounter with the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
Both show humanity in its most basic context revealing the struggles that we have in that on going tension between good and evil.
In the case of Adam and Eve they struggle to the point of failure, and in the case of Jesus, equally he struggles, but to the point of overcoming that moment of testing.
It is at this point that we find the most basic understanding of Jesus' role that later on the Apostle Paul draws out when he speaks of sin and humanity in relation to the first Adam and the Second Adam, as he refers to Christ.
As sin came into the world through the first Adam at the fall, as it is known, Paul points out that sin is then dealt with by Christ at the point of the crucifixion and resurrection.
So it is appropriate that at the beginning of this Lenten season, as we spend the next forty or so days reflecting on Christ's role in dealing with the problem of human sin, that we start with this moment that defined him in that role as he encounters Satan in the wilderness.
It is worth noting, that in both of these stories there is that sense of being isolated and alone. Although God created the companion for Adam, and together they were in the garden, they were there in isolation, just as Christ was in the wilderness. It is in those moments of being alone where perhaps we are most vulnerable to the testing of our humanity. We are in reality social beings that have that innate need for companionship, even though many are comfortable with the quiet contemplative or solitary life. Nevertheless we are perhaps more vulnerable in those alone moments for there is no one else to bounce ideas off, no one else to correct us, no one else to share the burdens of life with.
Jesus' period of self imposed isolation was no doubt intended to prepare him for his forthcoming ministry. It was that opportunity to focus his attention on the relationship he had with God as he was about to embark on his period of public ministry among the people of that part of the world.
While this time in the desert may have separated him from other people, it did not separate him from his humanity. We see clearly that he was tested in all those areas of life that are so common to us all.
Firstly there was hunger. This is probably the most vulnerable part of our humanity, for if we are not satisfied in terms of our hunger it can distort many other areas of our human existence. He had gone without food, this passage suggests, for forty days and nights.
I suspect hunger was the polite way of expressing this. One could imagine that one would be visualising every shimmering movement of light crossing over those hot desert sands as being a banquet table laid with the most exotic and mouth-watering food.
And yet Matthew says, "Jesus was hungry."
Is it any wonder that he could picture the Devil coming to him and suggesting he order to stones to become bread.
And yet Jesus was so focused in his mind on what he was doing and what lay ahead of him, that he was able to deflect this test right back to the place where it belonged; with God's will and purpose.
'Man cannot live on bread alone.' Bread, food, the things that sustain the physical constitution of the human body, are rightfully placed second to the will and purpose of God.
Humankind apart from God is not complete, and from the time of Adam and Eve until the point of Christ's coming among us that gap seemed impassable. Christ's work in his life, death and resurrection that we celebrate today around his table, reminds us so clearly of our need of his saving grace to bridge that gap. As Paul put it so clearly in his letter to the Romans 5:19 when he said, "And just as all people were made sinners as the result of the disobedience of one man, in the same way they will all be put right with God as the result of the obedience of the one man."
As we need food for the body, we also need Christ and his grace for our eternal sustenance. Thus as we eat the bread and drink the wine, we feed on him with our souls. We draw from the rich blessings of his risen presence among us.
Secondly, the devil tempted Jesus with that very human desire for power and control. We like the think that everything that happens to us can be determined and controlled by our own human ability and initiative. And yet over the last months have we not seen how little power we have as humankind. Earthquake, wind, fire, floods, Tsunamis, nature constantly demonstrates to us the total powerlessness that we can so often face.
The Devil was probably right in this testing, that God was able to alleviate the suffering Christ would face if he were to leap from this highest point in the temple. But why would God choose to override the foolish actions of an individual. Should we presume on God to jump to our commands by putting God to the test? Do we test authority by pushing the boundaries? In reality that is a very human emotion, whether in our childhood, teenage years, with our employer or employee, people push boundaries all the time to see what they can get away with.
Finally we see Jesus tested in terms of his desire to have dominion over all that he could see, and beyond.
Here was the temptation to desire power over all the world; World domination. This is probably an extreme and yet we have seen it in history, and Jesus was living in one of those moments with the vast expansion of the Roman Empire. We have seen it with others and we continue to see it in individuals: people who assume that right to control the lives of others exercising power and control in ways that oppress people beyond belief.
It is not always on such a large and international scale that such human behaviour is exhibited, but it boils down to that self absorption that sees us putting our own needs and desires at the centre of our own world, rather than looking beyond ourselves and working together for the good of God's world and the communities in which we live or participate.
Christ's experience of his own humanity was real and grounded in those things that we all face.
He was tested with the greed and desire to feed his own needs, he had the desire to grasp for power and control focused on his own wants placed before him, and the temptation to dominate others for his own self gratification.
And yet as we gather today around his table, we see so clearly the path he chose, the path of obedience to the one who was greater and to whose authority he always bowed.
His cry was, "not my will but yours be done." In the story of his testing he always referred the Devil back to the Word of God, "But it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone," "Do not put the Lord your God to the test," "Worship the Lord your God and serve only him." The clarity of his response is demonstrated at the table today, where he came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Such was the clarity of Christ vision and purpose for his ministry among us. And that ministry continues today as we feed on him in our hearts with thanksgiving, as we partake in his risen life among us with the bread and the wine, not in isolation, but as the gather community of God's people. We gather, not because we are good or deserving, but because we recognise our need of his saving Grace.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

27th Feb 2011 - Epiphany 8
Isaiah 49:8-16a Matthew 6:24-34

And what about tomorrow?
The texts today are part of the three yearly cycle of the lectionary we follow along with the a large segment of the church worldwide, and the title I chose for the sermon was chosen some weeks ago, but how both tie in to the week that we as a nation have experienced. They stand as timely reminders of our place in the world where we are not the dominant controller of all that happens. Although we like to think of ourselves as in control of at least our own destiny, events like Tuesday's earthquake remind us of the very fragile nature of our existence in this world.
All sorts of emotions will have been experienced this week by each and every one of us. It is unlikely that any of us will not have known someone in Christchurch, someone affected directly by this tragic event.
So our emotions are likely in overdrive.
And in a way this illustrates for us part of the problem of the Sermon on the Mount, or maybe not so much the problem as the dilemma that is faced by the reader. The high ideals expressed through this sermon, do not always match the reality of life. Or maybe they offer to us some piercing insights into our human nature and challenge us about our actions and reactions. Last week it was about loving our enemies, this week it is about attitudes to our possessions and the stress that we put ourselves under, in other words it challenges us to what is really important in life.
Nothing brings into focus such things as our priorities and what we value, more that an event like we have seen Christchurch experience this week.
How quickly the possessions that we value most can be stripped away from us in a moment. And when we line our possessions up against the people that we value, what becomes more important? The people of course!
Then in reflecting we can look back and wonder at how much time and energy we have put in to building up those things that we value so highly and wonder in the end, when push comes to shove, how important they really are.
I think it was this sort of engagement that Jesus was trying to get with his audience, challenging them and us to the core of our being.
His light hearted look at nature provided an illustration with the birds that surely don't worry about what they will wear, and even what they will eat, that in fact God will take care of them through the provisions of nature. Stripped back to the raw realities of life, we will in some way survive. In fact being stripped back to the raw realities in life leads us to a greater dependence on the one who is the Lord and Giver of life.
This becomes the key to this whole passage, and I think the key to life itself.
An acknowledgement that this is God's world in which we live and that our lives are in his hands, should help us to lead a life that is not consumed by a sense of overwhelming anxiety, because our trust is in one who is greater than we are and in the one who knows the beginning from the end.
Such an understanding of life provides an, "ultimate antidote to anxiety", says French in his commentary on this passage.
Anxiety is one of the modern day killers in our society, as I suspect is was in Jesus' day. I think it is probably a natural part of our human make up that throws lives out of perspective on a regular basis; none more so than when faced with enormous tragedy. It is interesting that reporters have been commenting on the superb job that the Mayor of Christchurch and others are doing in facing people with the reality of what is unfolding in Christchurch but liberally laced with words and sentiments of hope. If we have no hope then there is no future. This is a message that remains central to our faith, for our ultimate hope, we continue to maintain, is in the one who is Lord of heaven and earth and who was made know to us through Jesus the Christ.
When we approach life with such hope, we can then with confidence hold on to the sentiments expressed by the Psalmist, "I am not concerned with great matters or with subjects too difficult for me. Instead, I am content and at peace. As a child lies quietly in its mother's arms, so my heart is quiet within me."
Isn't that lovely imagery? That picture of the mother nursing her child, giving that child all that is necessary for life, while the child snuggles up warm in mother's arms in simple and yet profound trust.
Such is the trust that we are called to have in God, even when all around seems hopeless. Nothing suggests that such faith and trust will not be sorely tested at times as is being experienced in our own land at this time. But often it is during such times that again we come to the realization that all those things that we build up around ourselves to gain security and strength for the future, can so easily be whipped from under us in just a fleeting moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
Our prayers and thoughts, and whatever help we are able to offer goes out to those who face this desperate situation in Christchurch, and at the same time we surely re-evaluate our own lives and what is really important to us.
So Matthew suggests that worry over the food and clothes and drink fade into insignificance as we contemplate the greater things of life; the relationship we have with God, first and foremost.
Those well known words that we have sung this morning ring out don't they,
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you."
This points us to where our only hope can lie in the end.
For when all else is stripped away, there is still hope. God who was, and who is, and who is to come, remains the sure hope of our salvation.
Let tomorrows worries take care of themselves as we live each day to the full. This message from the Sermon on the Mount is not one of callas disregard for tomorrow, nor one of living without thinking of tomorrow, but one that warns us that in the end, it is the present moment that is important in life, and what we do now, matters.
Our relationship with God, as we seek out his everlasting love that calls us to honour him first and foremost, remains our priority. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and love your neighbour as you love yourself" gives us the picture. For as we seek God, and discover his love and his ways for our lives, then our response becomes to not only honour God, but to offer that same love to the world around us. In offering that love, we also offer that hope that sustains us even in the face of tragedy and despair.
I am sure that as we move through the next days and weeks that our prayers and thoughts will be with the people of Christchurch. Although we seem helpless being so far away, there are ways that help can be offered, not least through prayer. At times that can seem a trite or passive response, and yet how often we hear people express that they have been buoyed by the knowledge of those praying for them. Prayer can help in ways that we will never know, and ways that perhaps we cannot even express. It is an acknowledgement of God's connection to us and to those we love in other parts of the country or world.
Worry achieves nothing and throws people into unnecessary confusion and chaos, prayer on the other hand can bring that sense of calm and perspective as we focus our thoughts in the direction of the One who is all powerful, and gracious, slow to anger and quick to offer mercy.
Let us all take some time to reflect on the question of what is most important to us in life. Let us reassess where meaning and purpose is found, and consider again those words,
"Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things."
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

13th Feb 2011 - Epiphany 6

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Matthew 5:21-37

A couple of weeks ago, when we began to look at the Sermon on the Mount, I put out there the question as to what this Sermon is all about. The easiest thing to read it as, is an ethical code for us all to strive for. But most commentators would suggest that this interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount misses the whole point, for here Jesus would be offering a code that no one would be able to live up too. We would all strive, but be crushed by the constant guilt of defeat as time and time again we failed to live up to the demands issued.
Philip Yancey, in his book, 'The Jesus I never knew,' tells of the struggle that the Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy went through as he tried to come to grips with this teaching. He says, "Tolstoy got it halfway right: anything that makes me feel comfort with God's moral standard, anything that makes me feel, 'At last I have arrived,' is a cruel deception. He goes on to point out that another Russian novelist, Dostoevsky got the other half right: "anything that makes me feel discomfort with God's forgiving love is also a cruel deception."
Yancey sees the Sermon on the Mount as giving expression to that old tension between works and grace. If we strive to always achieve the perfection that we can never meet, we will never make it, but God's ideal is laid out before us, so that we can recognise our shortcomings and accept that God has done it for us in Christ Jesus.
Thus Paul was able to proclaim with confidence,
"There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."
Our relationship of trust and acceptance of God's love for us, is the choice we are called to make. It is the choice between life and death, between good and evil that the writer of the Law in Deuteronomy lays before us.
If we fail to see the balance in the Sermon on the Mount between the ideal of God and our response to that, along with the grace that is given we will be consumed by the guilt of our shortcomings, rather than overwhelmed by the love offered.
Jesus begins each of these issues with the phrase, "you have heard it said, …..but now I tell you.
Here he is putting what he has just said about the importance of the Law in the context of our need and dependence on Christ so that the fulfilment of that law may be seen as Christ's work in us. Then the words of 5:48 are at the conclusion of this lengthy section are made possible,
"You must be perfect - just as your Father in heaven is perfect."
Each statement that Jesus makes is more demanding than the law has allowed for in the past as it examines not only our actions but also our motives and our underlying thoughts.
He speaks of murder to begin with. In the Old Testament times, as in places still today, the punishment for murder was the death penalty. Thus being brought to trial in this context infers that death will result, but it distinguishes the killing through judicial punishment, from the actual crime that is being punished.
Jesus goes behind the murder itself to the motive and talks about the anger and hatred that lies at the heart of such a crime that drives people to this action. It suggests an attitude of angry contempt. It is an attitude like this that opens us up to judgement, and the threat is not of human judgement through the courts, but rather the divine judgement of God.
What is being called for here is an attitude of forgiveness. There needs to always be that willingness to forgive as we have been forgiven. Ultimately forgiveness comes from God through Jesus Christ. What does the Lord's Prayer remind us of, that prayer that comes later in this sermon? "Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us."
It is all about relationships and a willingness to keep building on those. Just as God in his covenant of Grace has declared his love for his people, so too our response to that must be the willingness to hold out that hand of mercy to others that they too may take up that offer of mercy and respond in love.
Anger only ever harbour resentment and retrenchment forcing people into corners of self-righteousness and self protection rather than offering reconciliation and redemption.
Christ's offering of himself was to bring about that salvation, not by doing away with the law, but by fulfilling the requirements of it.
He goes on to the question of adultery. We know what the law says, but he pushes that out to our hearts desires that lead to that action. The very eye that we should be using to keep us from stumbling is the eye that trips us up as we desire those things that are not right and that do not belong to us.
And in the usual over exaggeration, Jesus suggests we would be better off without the eye itself. Self control, and responsibility for our own actions lie at the heart of the disciplined life. And if one is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, then one is to be disciplined in ones life style.
It's an old fashioned concept in our world today, I know, but how often the Christian faith stands in contrast to the prevailing culture of the day, whenever that may be. This whole Sermon on the Mount attacks the prevailing religious and cultural thought of its day as it pushes the letter of the law to the motives underlying it.
Divorce was easy, a husband, (and notice the emphasis here), only needed to write a notice of declaration. The grounds became wide and varied. Some suggest even for burning the dinner a divorce could be issued. Jesus again links it back to motive and intent. Relationship is what is important in the interaction of one with another.
Words and thoughts underlie the actions that gives the picture to who we are. And Jesus goes to great length to show that God sees and acknowledges those underlying motives and thoughts. Such is the nature of our humanity, and such is the need that lies there for us all. The need is our inability to function to the level of perfection that the religious leaders were demanding of others in Jesus' day. It is this same level of perfection that so often we place on one another in our society today, when we cannot meet those same standards ourselves. Thus our need is in Christ who came to fulfil for us the demands of the law.
He came as the Reconciler, bring God and us together. He came as the Redeemer, saving us from perils of our own human nature that in and of ourselves we are unable to escape from.
So while we may never be able to fulfil the full requirement of the law, we are called as disciples of Jesus Christ to engage with the law as part and parcel of our response to God's grace given so freely. We are called to dig deeper than the mere outward workings of law. Our challenge is to dig down to the motives and to examine who we are so that we might see our need of Christ's transforming love at the very roots of our being. In this way we can engage with God to allow him to transform us in that process of making us more and more like Christ in our being. We can do this with the assurance of God's abiding presence to pick us up when we fail, to walk with us in our weakness, and temper us when our self reliance begins to take over.
In understanding our humanity, which Jesus demonstrates in this sermon, he is able to walk with us and work with us. But this demands our willingness to respond, not only to God, but to respond in our actions and our attitudes to on another, for it is by our love that the world will know that we are disciples of Jesus Christ.
It is by our choices that we make between good and evil, between life and death, as we respond to God's love in our lives and seek to bring that love out in the lives of others.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

6th February 2011 - Epiphany 5

Isaiah 58:1-9a Matthew 5:13-20

The Sermon on the Mount represents some of Jesus' very early teaching and perhaps some of his most direct and focused teaching as well.
Having begun with the Beatitudes, he now launches into a whole series of examples of how, as followers or disciples of Jesus Christ, we might be different from the world.
His rationale for this is that if we are to be his followers and if we are to be true to that calling, then our lives should make a difference so that the world will become a more palatable place.
That certainly offers a challenge to any generation reading this material, and reflecting on its impact in ones own life.
So what of salt and light in this couple of illustrations?
Firstly, Jesus announces to the crowd that, "You are salt for all mankind."
There is no distinction made here between any particular group of people, Jews or gentile, Religious leaders or peasants. No! Jesus throws this statement out to the crowd placing that responsibility upon them all.
You might well wonder what the initial thoughts of those first people hearing this might have been. But I suggest they would at least have been wondering, what's coming next?
What does he mean by salt? In those day's salt was an incredibly important ingredient. Its two major uses are still around today, one of preservation of food, and the other of enhancing the flavour of food.
Both of these function fit beautifully with the picture that Jesus is painting here in proclaiming the people as the salt of the world. It is the task of those who are disciples of Jesus to both enhance life in this world and to preserve the very fibre of what it is to be human.
By our presence as disciples of Jesus Christ we are to seek the truth and proclaim it to see that justice for all people is observed.
What does Isaiah say God requires of us, "to remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed go free. Share your food with the hungry and open your homes to the homeless poor", and so on.
This is the flavour enhancing and preservative qualities that the world needs so that everyone is treated with fairness and respect. When these qualities are lacking the world is in strife. We see it time and time again in places like Egypt at the moment. What ever the rights and wrongs, which is very easy for us to offer an opinion on, at the heart of it lies that basic problem of people demanding their rights at someone else's expense.
Where are the flavour enhancing and preservative qualities in such a situation as this?
But Jesus puts little twist in with the knife here, I suspect. For he asks that question, "But if salt loses its saltiness, there is no way to make it salty again."
In reality pure salt cannot loose its salinity. Salt is a chemical compound, sodium chloride. But the impure salt taken from the Dead Sea could gradually become unsalty as the actual sodium chloride dissolved and I suppose, leeched away.
My thought here is that Jesus was narrowing his focus in his second statement, from having addressed the whole crowd to getting the religious leaders to look at themselves more closely.
You see, as Religious Leaders they should have been at the fore front of this preserving and taste enhancing aspect of life as they encouraged people in their religious life. But in reality they had become the ones who put up the barriers, who made it impossible for people to reach the targets set by these leaders, and they kept the common crowd at bay through their rules and regulations.
The flavour of life was not enhanced, but was overlaid with a heavy burden of legalism.
Had those leader's lives had the saltiness leeched out them? Were they no longer pointing people to God, but rather tying them up in knots of legalism?
Was Jesus pointing to the demise of the religious/political institution of the day as he brought in a new order that would give all people that direct access to God and to God's ways?
Jesus may well have raised the ire of some of the hearers while exciting others who were open to hearing what God was saying to his people.
That is of course the same tension that always exists, the comfort of what we know and have always done, verses hearing what God is saying today, and seeing new ways ahead.
It is interesting that in Rabbinic teaching salt is used as an image for wisdom, thus the hearers were probably not entirely unfamiliar with this analogy, but maybe just with the application Jesus was forging with it.
And the Greek word for lost its taste, interestingly enough, means to become foolish. So have those who have lost the saltiness that Jesus spoke of, become the foolish ones, even though they imagined themselves to be wise.
Such, may well be the case.
The second analogy is that of light, and like salt, this also affect the environment by being distinctive.
Again Jesus points this concept to the crowd, by saying "You are the light for the world."
I am always amazed at the power of light. The smallest amount of light destroys darkness. I remember well, converting a garden shed into a darkroom at home, for photographic purposes. Having blocked all the cracks and covered the windows, it was amazing how much light could be seen after a few minutes in what you imagined to be total darkness.
It seemed that light crept surreptitiously around every bend, or through the tiniest of cracks, allowing all sorts of shapes and objects to be seen. Such is the power of the smallest amount of light, that it in effect obliterates darkness.
Think of when one gets away from the city lights and at night can peer up into the night sky. How those stars can stand out so clearly and seem so close.
Jesus tells us that our lives should stand out in such a manner, not so that people might think that we are wonderful, but so that God's presence and love might be made known.
Our actions in the world should not make people stand back in awe of us, but should be such that they envelope even the weakest members of society and enfold them in the company of God's people. Such should be the nature of the church.
And we should not be slow in emitting this light, for Jesus suggest one does not light a lamp and then stick it under a bowl. How crazy would that be, for it would not only hide the light, but of course the lamp would eventually fade out as it became starved of oxygen.
How often do we prefer not to talk about our faith? How often is it easier just not to mention that God is important to us?
Church gets pushed aside for all the other important things that are happening in life, and our priorities are muddled in the process.
Jesus commands us to let that light shine, to let our faith radiate through every area of our being. Faith is not just about church on Sunday, but faith is about allowing God's love and God's presence to filter through every part of our being.
Faith is about letting God's presence and love change who we are so that the fullness of our humanity is developed and used for the good of the whole community. Our service, our love, our commitment to God and to one another, are all part and parcel of the witness that we can give to our recognition of God's love for us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

30th January 2011
Epiphany 4

Micah 6:1-8 & Matthew 5:1-12

True Happiness

Having learned of the call that Jesus made on the lives of Simon and Andrew, James and John, Matthew goes on to look at what impact this radical change in direction might look like for those who take up the challenge to follow Jesus.
Many see the Christian life as the soft option, the easy way out of the reality of life, a life for nice people, to make them even nicer.
The Sermon on the Mount, as we know it, is often seen as a moral code, that when followed will give people a fulfilled or happy life. To read it as such is to miss the point. One commentator says, "To interpret it (the sermon) legalistically as a set of rules is to miss the point; it represents a demand more radical than any legislator could conceive, going far beyond what human nature can meet, a demand for perfection."
In 5:48, Jesus said, "You must be perfect - just as your Father in heaven is perfect."
This of course creates a dilemma, for we know how impossible it is for any of us to be perfect. It just is not part of our human nature. So then in this portrayal of life, what is Jesus doing? Is he placing impossible demands on his hearers, or is he laying out God's redemptive plan that will allow that perfection to be achieved through him. Hand in hand with Christ we walk through life clinging to the one who makes the seemingly impossible possible. The repentance that John called for, is both about that metamorphic change in our being achieved by God, through Jesus Christ, and about the change in direction as seen in the lives of Jesus' disciples as they left their fishing nets to follow Christ.
The latter is in response to the former. The disciples change of direction in life is in direct response to their change that God has brought about in them.
So perhaps we can begin to see the Sermon on the Mount as the eyes through which we, as followers of Jesus might begin to view life, the world, and those around us. The fundamental shift in our understanding of who we are in the world and in relation to God must surely be expressed in some way.
The Sermon on the Mount helps us to see things from a completely different perspective, and I think can act as general principles from which we can begin to apply faith to our daily living.
Nothing in this says it will be easy. In fact quite the contrary, for much of what is expressed here is so contrary to the way the rest of the world chooses to view life.
And I say chooses, as we all make choices in life. We can make the choice to follow Christ, or in not making that choice, we make the alternative choice, not too.
Thus the Beatitudes give us this visual concept of what it might be like to be a follower of Jesus Christ. It is not a matter of pass or fail, but here are the challenges for us of putting our faith into action, or here is the recipe for making life that much better as our faith becomes entwined as part of the fabric of our being.
Part of the genius of Jesus' sermon is the poetic form in which he frames it. It is design with elements of Hebraic scriptural language and set in a poetic form that enables the hearer to remember this teaching with more ease. Jesus wants his hearers to go away and contemplate these concepts in more depth so that they might become life changing in their effect.
In his first statement he engages his audience making it clear to whom he is speaking. He is not speaking to those who consider that they are righteous in their own right. He is not addressing the religious leaders who stand aloof and think that they are more holy than the rest. No, he is speaking to those who see themselves as less than adequate. He is speaking to the ones the religious leaders look down on. Happy are the spiritually poor. They are the ones whom God cares for, they are the ones whom God loves and for whom Jesus has come. They are also, of course, the one who see in themselves a need. They don't come puffed up with pride, but rather, they come, repentant and responsive to the love that God offers. So right at the start Jesus is pointing to our need to be dependant on God and God's grace in our lives.
There is a challenge for us all to look at ourselves and our own attitudes to life and to God. This is not an invitation to make judgements on others, but to reflect on ourselves.
Jesus presents a whole of life picture here. Happiness, or blessedness, is not just a whipped up frenzy floating on a constant high. No, even in times of mourning, one can experience that sense of God's abiding presence to bring serenity and a peace that can only be explained in the context of faith. As people of faith we see our lives as part of a much bigger picture and held in the hands of the One who is greater than we are. It is in those periods of mourning when our reliance rests on God, when we can sense God's closeness and know that there is no other way.
This can bring out a great humility as we realise our utter dependence on God. There is no place for that haughty pride that promotes ones self above others when we realise that our lives are in God's hands, that the gifts and abilities that we have are gifts from God to be used for God's glory, not for our own self glory.
God's promises are not made to those who feel that they can achieve in their own strength, but it is when we see our need of God's help, as we acknowledge our own human frailty, that God's strength and power is seen.
It is then that our focus is turned to God's will. Not my will, but God's be done, as Jesus prays later.
Is our greatest desire to fulfil God's purposes or are we hell bent on doing our own thing with no regard for God at all?
"Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires." It is too easy in life to become self absorbed with our own wants and desires, but do we really find fulfilment in life or just temporary pleasure. We are told often enough to be focused in what we want out of life. Once again the beatitudes challenge the prevailing thinking of the world giving the hearers another way of viewing life from almost a diametrically opposed perspective.
How often is showing mercy seen as a weakness. And yet how hard it is to stand in another's shoes and see the world from their perspective. It is much easier just to walk on in life and not even recognise the needs of those around us, let alone offer any sense of mercy. Yet the promise here is that in showing mercy to others, God will be merciful to us. We see the greatest gift of mercy in the coming of Jesus Christ, where God confines himself to our world to live as we live, to suffer as we suffer and eventually to die as we die. He did this to be able to offer that hope of resurrection to eternal life; for just as he suffered for us, so too we will share in his resurrection as he has overcome death and sin.
As we come to this realisation should it not evoke in us a deep and lasting love of God? The purity in heart, is not about living a moral life style, but is about our love and devotion to God. This points to our heart's desire, and asks, "is it with God or for ourselves and our own pleasures?"
God's desire for the world is that we live at peace with him and with one another, and so as followers of Christ we should seek peace. Just as Christ came to reconcile the world to himself, so too our life's work should be one of seeking to bring people to that place of peace and reconciliation. Or as Micah puts it, "No, the Lord has told us what is good, What he requires of us is this: to do what is just, to show constant love, and to live in humble fellowship with our God."
Other's will not see the value in this, or may be threatened by it, and thus persecution or challenge to such lines of thinking may well be laid against us. But according to Jesus, this is to be expected.
As we can see, the beatitudes form a line of thought that so often challenge the prevailing thought of the rest of the world. They should cause us all to look again at life and what we see as our hopes and aspirations. They challenge us to stand against the common flow of life and to look at things from a different perspective, from a different starting point.
To the original hearers of this teaching, they would have been deeply moved. Here was a challenge as to how they should live life, a challenge to see themselves as loved by God, but with that comes the responsibility to live that love out in the world in their day to day relationships with one another.
May God continue to challenge us in our thinking and in our acting, that our lives may reflect God's will, God's ways, God's purposes for us, as we seek to be his disciples. Matthew recorded the call of that first group of four disciples and then places this challenge to the great crowd calling us all to follow him. That call remains today as we are all challenged to be Disciples of Christ in the world in which we live, expressing that call in the values we hold and way we view the world in which we live.
We are not to live in fear, worrying about what people might think of us, but rather we are to live with confidence, confidence in God's love for us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Sunday 23rd Jan. 2011 Epiphany 3

Isaiah 9:1-4 Matthew 4:12-23
"Come follow Me"

Today's reading from the Gospel, sounds a little like a job advertisement in any Saturday paper, where a company is seeking to fill a position left vacant.
The reason for the vacancy is offered; the vision of the company is laid out; and the task at hand outlined.
Then in an interesting twist, the process of calling for applicants is told.
This concept has become the churches understanding of call over the centuries, as it describes people's willingness, in response to an invitation, to pursue a life of discipleship within the church. Unfortunately our understanding of this sense of call has been too often narrowed down to those who take up some form of formal ministry. In terms of this story, this is a far too narrow interpretation of what is going on here.
If nothing else, the story of Christ's drawing together of his band of followers, is inspirational. How did he achieve anything with such a rag-tag bunch of rugged men, most of whom probably had very little formal standing in their local communities.
Of course, this is part of the story of the church down the centuries isn't it, and it is part of the beauty of the Gospel illustrating for us the real grace of God that is at work in us all.
Let's have a look at the job ad.
The vacancy comes about as a result of news come to hand that John the Baptist had been put in prison. The one who had spent his time challenging people about their life styles and calling people to repentance and faith in God, had been silenced by the governing authorities.
This wandering preacher must have annoyed the officials enough that they sought to silence him for good.
We are not furnished with much detail as to the reasons why, but maybe his message was a little too close to the bone for many. It is amazing how when a raw nerve is touched, we react in a defensive way to protect our own position. When God challenges us in our attitudes or our actions its is too easy to try to defend our position rather than taking heed and learning from our mistakes.
Maybe the numbers coming to listen to him were getting to a worrying level for the governing authorities, in that his influence might have been whipping up the crowds. There could have been concerns of insurrection in the delicate political climate of the day, and so they would not want to boat rocked.
Jesus seemed to understand the link between John, and the one whom the prophet Isaiah spoke of. This one was to lead the people out of darkness, out of the oppressiveness of exile, even if that exile were in their own land.
This was to come through the one born as a child, the son given, the wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, eternal father.
Thus Matthew fills this gap in with John leaving the story and Jesus of Nazareth stepping in to lead the way. Here was gift from God, the one who would come after John, John having prepared the way.
The vacancy was to be filled by this one.
Then of course the vision is laid out of what this task is. And in essence it hasn't changed with the departure of John. Sure the focus shifts in terms of personalities, except of course that John always did point beyond himself to the one who would follow. However the vision remained, that light was to be brought to the darkness, and that people would continue to be called to turn from their sins as the Kingdom of God was at hand.
In fact the kingdom of God was present in the person of Jesus Christ. God had come among the people.
So they continued to look back to the prophets but also to look to the one who was in their midst. There is always that tension of looking back to what we have known and looking forward to what is to come. Often the beauty of the past becomes enhanced with time and memories.
However surely the churches role is to bring the stories of the past and to present them as the reality of today, in the context of our day, and to always look forward with hope of what is to come.
In this way we are not merely making up the story ourselves, but we continue to follow Christ who came to lead the way.
This was the task that Christ was called to, and that was to call others to follow him. He was to draw to himself others who would continue that work of pointing people to God.
And thus we have the great story of Jesus walking along the shores of lake Galilee coming across these brothers Simon and Andrew, engaging them in conversation, and inviting them to follow him.
He spoke to them in language that they would understand. "Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men."
This is not just a call to engage in full time ministry for Jesus. This was the same call that John would issue when he said,
"Turn away from your sins, because the Kingdom of God is near."
Jesus' challenge to Andrew and Simon was to engage in a radical change of direction; put down one life style, and take on a more fulfilling one, focused on God and the purposes he had for them.
Today you seek for fish to full your stomachs, come, follow me now and you will seek for others and you will find fulfilment as people, as children of God.
And of course we know, he then found James and John the sons of Zebedee.
The story of Jesus calling people to follow him is a continuing story through out the ages. We know that he did not call any one particular group of people, but in fact he called people from all walks of life. He did not focus on the wealthy or the educated or even people from a particular race or class. Jesus' challenge to follow comes to any who are receptive to hearing it.
We know there were those whom he challenged and they were not receptive to that call, people like Nicodemus, that John tells us of. There was a certain level of engagement, but an unwillingness to fully take up the challenge to follow Jesus.
It is this same call that comes to us all as we hear the gospel message. As we reflect on that call in our own lives we must ask ourselves what our response will be. Is it that surrender of all that we are and all that we have to follow Christ?
Not all who followed Jesus gave up there day jobs to engage in full time work, we are only told of twelve who may have done that, but many more in the Gospels heard the message preached and their lives were transformed as they went back to their daily tasks. What is transformed is the way in which we view God and the way we view the world.
We are called to acknowledge God as God. It is his Kingdom that we live in, his reign under which we live our lives. That Kingdom is here on earth, as it is in heaven. Thus our focus moves beyond ourselves, to God and the needs of those around us.
And the challenge for us all remains to engage others in this view of the world, to invite others to share in the fulfilment we find as our lives are focused on God and his kingdom.
Each of us, from where ever we come from can engage in this task of bring people to understand the love that God has for them as expressed in Jesus' coming among us. In Christ we find both the expression of God's love for us and the example of how we can live out that love in our own lives.
May God full us all with his grace as we continue to engage with him.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

‘Called to serve’ Isaiah 49:1-11, John 1:29-42

In both our readings for this second Sunday in Epiphany we can sense a connection between them, like a light being turned on as we also come to the realisation that God calls us. We come into the light that is Epiphany and pray that this light will assist us in understanding the meaning of our call.

Last week we looked at the First Servant Song from Isaiah, and in today’s reading from Hebrew Scripture, we find ourselves delving into the poetry and metaphors of Second Isaiah and the Second Servant Song. This part of Isaiah belongs to that critical time when the exile of Jerusalems Jews in Babylon was coming to an end. The prophet is filled with hope for the redemption of Israel, the servant of God. He compares the nation that was unfaithful before the exile to the new nation that has learned its lesson and is redeemed by the grace and faithfulness of God.

What is clearly obvious to us and to those who first heard these words, is the conviction of the prophet that the ones who are called by God are known by him from the beginning of time. Isaiah says, ‘Before I was born, the Lord chose me and appointed me to be his servant’. God, who knows no past or future, who lives in the eternal present, knows us before we are even formed and calls us to be God’s people. But even that is not enough, as God reveals to the prophet, God calls his people to be more than servants – we are called to be a light to the nations.

So, as we revel in the wonder of being chosen, of being called, we are confronted with the enormous responsibility that comes with the call: to be a light to the nations, so that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. For the people of Israel, who thought that they were the only chosen nation, through the Covenant, God makes it clear that salvation is not something to be hoarded selfishly, but it is given so that it may be shared with everyone. It does not mean that we all have to venture off to distant lands, but what it does mean that we have to share the light with whomever and wherever we can.

Paul is more aware than anyone else of the glory and responsibility of being called by God. We don’t often preach on the Epistle reading from the lectionary, but today’s reading from 1st Corinthians also connects with our other two readings, which is why we print the references for all four readings in the bulletin each week so you can read them for yourselves at home.

At the beginning of his first letter to the Corinthians Paul uses various forms of the verb “to call” in its many different versions in the Greek language. Paul is convinced beyond any doubt that he is called to be an apostle – to bring the good news of God – to the Gentiles, that is to everyone, not just a chosen people. He tells the Corinthian children-in-the-Spirit, his brothers and sisters in Christ, that they are “called to be saints”; saying this to a troublesome, divisive congregation, to whom he writing to in order to put them straight over some of the difficulties he has heard they were having.

He begins his letter to them with loving greetings because he knows that despite all their faults they are “sanctified” and joined with others as they call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here the use of the word sanctified is given a double meaning: whereby once we are called by God, we not only receive grace and forgiveness from God, but we are also given the right to call on God through the name of Jesus Christ. Paul writes that, those who are called by God receive from God whatever they need to be light in the world, through the Holy Spirit; that of speech, knowledge, and spiritual gifts. God provides all that we need in order to fulfil our calling. We are not expected to be light to the world without have the ability to do so.

You might be wondering though, how this calling from God comes to us? The reading from the Gospel according to John gives us some graphic images of the call as it came to the first followers of Jesus.

We look at John the Baptiser from various viewpoints in this church calendar year, starting with Advent and continuing through to this season of Epiphany. John was known to be of a fiery temperament, but was also observed to be humble. It took a lot of humility for John – who was sure of his own calling from God – to recognise that he was not the one who would save the people of God. John’s call was to point to another whom he knew would come. He says “a man is coming after me,” and to his disciples he says “he is greater than I am, because he existed before I was born.”

This is a consistent theme in the Gospel according to John: that Jesus has existed with God from the beginning. The Baptiser tells his disciples that this truth was revealed to him at the baptism of Jesus by the Holy Spirit; that the testimony about the role of Jesus came to him from God through the Spirit of God.

Then we have a lovely image in this reading of John standing on a hill near the banks of the Jordan, along with some of his disciples and saying to them, when he saw Jesus walking by, “there is the Lamb of God.” It was as if he was saying to them, ‘he is the one you should be following, not me’ and two of John’s disciples don’t hesitate. They leave John and run after Jesus.

Jesus hears them coming to join him and he turns to ask them what they were looking for. A very interesting question, because he already knows they are following him. But what are they looking for from him? They don’t know yet. They are attracted by what John has told them, by that phrase so loaded with implications; the Lamb of God, which reminds them not only of the Exodus story but also Isaiah’s words of personal sacrifice. They show a strong desire to learn more. So they ask Jesus, “Where do you live, Rabbi?” And Jesus offers them the concise call, that he offers to all those who seek: “Come and see.” To which they responded by going with him, to learn more from this teacher. They must have spent hours asking questions, listening and spending the rest of the day with him.

For one of them at least, Andrew the fisherman, the day resulted in a passion for sharing the good news. There was no question left in Andrew’s mind that “this is the Messiah, the Anointed One of God.” He runs to tell his beloved brother Simon and also brings him to Jesus. The one who was called now becomes the caller. He becomes the light leading his brother to the Light of the World. And Jesus immediately calls Simon by his new name, ‘Peter’. This is the meaning of being called: we are changed and afterward we cannot, we must not, keep the knowledge to ourselves. We must share it with others for the salvation of the world. By whatever means we have we will be equipped and enabled to respond to God’s call to be light to the nations.

The nations these days are not so far away, they are right here in our streets, our city and our country. We can be light to the nations, by sharing with our family, our neighbours, our workmates, the people we associate with, people from all corners of the Earth, the Good News that Jesus is the Lamb of God, the one that we follow, the one who sets us free.

We pray that the light of Epiphany will lead us to respond to the glorious invitation and the responsibility of being called by God. To respond as Andrew did and immediately seek out someone so that we can also invite them learn more of Jesus Christ.

Prayer:

Lamb of God, you are forever taking away the sin of the world, please be with this congregation as they share their light in the world. Come with your almighty gentleness and lift us from the burden of everything that discourages, bewilders, or makes us anxious. Come with your beauty and embrace us with your peace, strength and happiness. Lamb of God, stir within us the desire and will to be the people you wish us to be. In praise of the Creator, the Redeemer and the Inspirer! Amen!

28th November 2010
Advent 1
St Andrew's Day Service

Isaiah 2:1-5
Matthew 24:36-44

The hopes and aspirations of the people of Israel, as expressed by Isaiah, are really the hopes and aspirations of us all. Isaiah expresses these hopes well as he paints a picture looking forward to that time of everlasting Peace.
He looks forward to that time when all people would gather together in the house of the Lord, upon that holy hill. He looks forward to that time when instead of looking for difference, for blame, for retribution, people will put their energies into hammering their swords into ploughs and their spears into pruning knives. Such will be the focus of all people.
We have seen some of this raw human emotion this week as we have remembered the West Coasters in our prayers. As they hung on with hope, and as that hope was shattered, all sorts of human emotions surface.
But one of the things with hope that we must remember is that it is never completely shattered, for the vision of hope that Isaiah speaks of is a long term vision that grows through all the trials and turbulence of life. It is hope that is expressed in an everlasting peace that transcends even time and space.
As our forebears left the other side of the world in search of a better life, they no doubt brought some of their comforts with them, but in reality they had to mostly start from scratch to build their new life. Had they left that sense of hope behind, what possibly could have driven them? They would have looked for God's presence in every moment of their journey, just as people have been around New Zealand in this last week as they try to make meaning out of tragedy.
In our Gospel Reading, Jesus is away from the crowds and spending time with his disciples, preparing them to look with hope even through the eyes of tragedy. He is in a sense pointing them beyond the cross, to his coming in glory.
And the theme here is really quite simple, it is one of constant preparedness.
If there is one mark that should distinguish people of faith from those who choose to walk a different path, it should be that point of readiness.
It is a sense of readiness, knowing that what ever happens, we are assured of God's abiding presence.
This passage certainly took on new meaning as I contemplated it in the light the tragic events that dominated our week.
"No one knows, however, when that day and hour will come - neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, the Father alone knows."
The day nor date, nor the time of God's coming, which in this context is looking to his final coming among us, the Parousia, is unknown, even to the angels and Christ himself. This relationship combines both concepts of intimacy and filial dependence. Within this intimacy is the concept of trust, for there is no sense of eagerly wanting to know such detail, but a willing acceptance that there is one who knows all that is necessary.
This relationship of trust is balanced with a preparedness to be ready for that coming at any time.
Right through this section of Matthew's gospel Jesus is addressing his disciples on this concept of being ready, ready at a moments notice.
Jesus uses the example of Noah, who before the flood beavered away preparing for the time when the waters would rise. He did this against the back drop of a community that thought we was totally mad. Enduring insults and criticism, Noah continued in obedience to God, and when the waters rose he and his family were saved. Others, who were not prepared to heed the warning, probably because they seemed so ludicrous, perished.
Such is the nature of being prepared: there is that willingness to accept that all the detail of events is not known, but that ultimately God knows all things.
And while the church throughout its history has held that concept that Christ will one day return, and thus we celebrate the season of Advent as we await and prepare ourselves for that coming, in the mean time we get on with life in that state of readiness.
We build up our faith, we grow in our understanding of God and God's love for the world, we share that message that is there for all people, and yet we live with patient hope.
And of course there are those moments when we see God's hand at work; there are those moments when we discover we need God's sustaining power more closely. And as we have had brought home to us so closely this week, those moments between having and not having, between being and not being, can be so fine.
What does Matthew tell us?
"Two women will be at a mill grinding meal: one will be taken away, the other will be left."
How essential it is that we are prepared for God's coming among us, whether in moments of tragedy or in moments of great joy, for it is at such times that choice so often becomes a luxury that can so easily slip away from us.
This is the warning that Jesus was offering to his disciples and part of the message that the church down the ages has struggled with.
Such readiness seems easier in moments of heightened fear, but in the everyday tranquillity of life, it is so easy to slip into an attitude of complacency, where we can so easily pick up or choose to put aside matters of faith.
The message of hope and the need for constant faith and trust in God, seem so easily set aside for the apparently more attractive and yet often frivolous aspects of life.
Instant gratification and building up of security around ourselves in this life so often consumes us. And yet in the end what is secure, in the end what gives us true and lasting satisfaction. Most of what is offered in such regard can disappear in a flash, and it is gone.
The Gospel message is one that points us to lasting security in our relationship with God, where in matters of both life and death, we constantly prepare ourselves for those moments of encounter with God. We naturally think of those who perish in such tragedies that have been experienced this week as meeting that moment, but surely too, those who survive, those who are left behind, they too have those opportunities to encounter God in their sense of sorrow, and as they look to rebuild their lives and their communities they can search for that greater meaning and hope in life. It is in such moments that we can make opportunities to refocus on the real essential aspects of life and reconnect with God in real and meaningful ways. And if the nation is to truly mourn, these will be the moments of evaluating our readiness, our preparedness to encounter God. These will be the times to ask ourselves what it is that is really important to us, and what matters most for us in life?
Is it the clinging to the things that we have built around us, is it the relationships with one another that in a fleeting breath can be ripped from us, or is it our moment by moment encountering and trusting God who walks with us throughout our lives.
This is the God who Isaiah and his people looked to and sensed as they were called together as a people to go to the mountain of the Lord; to gather together as a people of faith, not to tear each other apart focusing on their differences and their feuds, but to beat the swords into ploughs, to hammer their spears into pruning knives so that the kingdom of God might be realised.
In this way we should be doing as Jesus suggested, being on guard, for we do not know the day nor the hour when he will come.
But in that waiting may our prayer continue to be, "Come Lord Jesus, come." For in his coming among us, our greatest hope is realised.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

A Glimpse of the resurrection Life.

Jesus is constantly being hounded by the religious leaders and teachers of the law as they try to trap him into saying something with which they can then take action against him. According to Luke at the end of chapter 19 this was becoming increasingly impossible because the crowds were hanging on every word that he said.
Such was the powerful nature of his message and the popularity that surrounded him from the common crowd.
Luke records a series of questions thrown at Jesus, beginning with questions of his authority, about taxes, and now about rising from death.
The initial questioning came from the Pharisees, and in v26 Luke records a detailed description of the effect of this process on the questioners. They had been unable to catch him. "Their question had seemed so certain to produce the desired effect," says one commentator, "but it had turned out to be a damp squib." So they were astonished and were reduced to silence.
Next, come the Sadducees replacing the discomfited Pharisees.
The Sadducees are not mentioned that much but they were the conservative, aristocratic, high-priestly party, and according to Leon Morris, were worldly minded and very ready to cooperate with the Romans, which, of course, enabled them to maintain their privileged position with in the structures of that dualistic society where the Jewish people were given a certain amount of freedom, while under the rule of the Roman Emperor.
One of the main aspects of the Sadducees teaching that is known is their denial of the whole doctrine of the afterlife and of rewards and punishments beyond the grave. They saw any concept of resurrection as a new-fangled idea brought in from Persia after the Old Testament period: thus their questioning here of Jesus about rising from death. The obvious desire of that questioning was to try and trap him so that he could not give a sensible answer.
They really wanted to silence him by exposing his limits. But they failed abysmally.
Talk of resurrection at this point in the Gospels is obviously prior to his own resurrection, although there is plenty in the gospels where Jesus points toward that concept.
Of course, while the Sadducees were deniers of any teaching on resurrection, the Pharisees were firm believers in such a concept.
Resurrection offers hope. It says there is more to the present and future than what we can even begin to imagine.
But how often we see the present or the past as defining all that there is to come. The people of Haggai's time, who had returned from exile, longed for the Temple to be rebuilt. For them that would make life as it used to be. The past seemed so rosy, and they wanted to cling to that which was familiar, and that which they knew, and yet God's message was to move on and to trust God in the process for in the future the new Temple would be even more splendid than the old one, and the prosperity Yahweh would bring would be even greater.
How often we find ourselves doing precisely this, longing for the past and in the process, without necessarily even thinking about it, denying the possibility of an even better future.
Jesus is posed with this almost outrageous story and offered the opportunity to furnish the Sadducees with a meaningful and coherent answer.
The law Moses states as follows, "If at man dies and leaves a wife but no children, that man's brother must marry the widow so that they can have children who will be considered the dead man's children."
With this in mind they then tell the story.
"Once there were seven brothers; the eldest got married and died without having children. Then the second one married the woman, and then the third. The same thing happened to all seven - they died without having children. Last of all the woman died. When the dead rise whose wife will she be?"
I supposed at least there were no children in this story to haggle over.
But the reality of Jesus' answer is that we should not look back at what once was, but that we should look forward with the hope of what is to come.
Looking back and trying to work out the puzzle posed in this question would tie even the modern day lawyers up in knots and keep the legal process occupied for months if not years.
For Jesus, it was simple, there was no looking back. What once was is not relevant for that which is to come.
The future life beyond what we know today, will not have the encumbrances of the past, for we will be in a new era, a new way of being community, the community of God's people. The new Temple will be even more glorious than the old.
This contrasted the traditional Jewish view of resurrection which was envisaged much more as an indefinite prolonging of this life, though no doubt with modifications and improvements, but obviously with some of the present commitments. I am not sure if this is not too far from what many think today, both within and outside the church. Some of the references people make at the time of death to meeting loved ones, or being reunited as a family, where as I wonder whether we need to view resurrection life as being focused much more around the community of all God's people with the primary focus being that of God.
But rather than clinging to the past and to what we know and are comfortable with, I think what Jesus is saying here is that, in fact as followers of Jesus, these commitments and relationships that we have known in this life will be in the shadows of any life we share in the resurrection.
Human relationships are for us about time and space, they are necessary in this world for the continuation of the human race and for the decent order and control of social life. But for Jesus resurrection will bring about the consummation of all that our human life has pointed toward, and will be fulfilled as the reign of God's kingdom reaches its culmination. We have seen glimpses of this in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and we have the hope of sharing in the fullness of this in the life to come.
But this still leaves for us the great unknown. We do not have any certainty of what that will be like, just the promise that we will be like angels, we will be sons and daughters of the living God. In other words our relationships will be point us directly toward God. They will be different than what we know now, and they will be even more glorious than what we can begin to imagine.
Our nature and our functions as sons and daughters in God's kingdom, will be vastly different than what we have experienced in this life.
Death brings an end to our physical existence, but not to a relationship that is by nature eternal. It is our relationship with God, through Jesus Christ that will bring us through death to undying life.
This is God's gift to us.
And so as Leon Morris has put it,
"Our certainty for resurrection rests not on some speculative doctrine of the immortality of the soul, but on the fact of God's eternal love."
This is God's work in us and with us: his work of rebuilding the Temple in an even more glorious way. And his message to us for today is to get on with life and not to be discouraged. We are to live life knowing that God is with us, just as he was with the people in Egypt, as he was with the people while they were in exile, and as he was with them in through all of their lives.
Thus we too can declare with confidence,
"I know that my redeemer lives. What joy and peace this sentence gives."
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Pentecost 12
15th August 15th 2010
Rev Heather Kennedy

Let us pray: As we respond to the readings from the Word, help us O God to gain a new understanding of the Scripture, which will sustain us for the week ahead. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Today's gospel reading is in the section of the Gospel according to Luke known as the "Journey Narrative" which includes most of Chapters 9 to 16. We have had passages from this section over the last few Sunday's and will continue to do so for the next few months. In these writings, Luke is telling us that Jesus was "resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem". Some of the stories in this section have Jesus literally on the road or telling stories of what can happen on the road, as we had last week. While, in other readings we find Jesus pausing in his travels, with the journey to Jerusalem always there as the subtext to the story. In today's passage he is off the road as the guest of Lazarus' two sisters Martha and Mary.
This is another familiar story for most of us and as we reflect on it and hear it retold again, some of us will rapidly draw on the preconceived conclusions we have already formed about this event. Many of us have fixed opinions about the episode so we tend to refer back to them fairly easily. Let us try then, as best we can, to hear this reading today with fresh ears.
For example, let us not criticise Martha and label her as an excessively worrisome, fretful, over-worked person who doesn't have time for the Lord, as this is the usual way we hear this message. Some of us might feel a bit guilty when we hear this story because, in our day and age, most of us can easily identify with Martha's busyness, her work ethic and her concerns. There is probably not a lot we can do about the busy lives we find our selves with. Maybe though, there is a way that Martha can speak to us about being Christian in our busy worlds? It's not that we need to make people feel guilty for working hard and worrying about the well being of family and friends, but we can try to hear this tale in a different way.
Imagine, for example, how a single parent or low-income couple might feel as they scramble to keep their families' heads above financial waters. Upon hearing this gospel they probably would love the "luxury," so it would seem to them, of sitting in a contemplative place to listen to the Lord, and we certainly don't want to exclude the hard workers from hearing the good news in today's story. We might well treat Martha with a sympathetic ear, on behalf of women who work at home as well as those who work in the marketplace, who are adept at multi-tasking and keeping an ear on what is being said as well as getting the work done. Many offer their lives in sacrifice for the benefit of their children and grandchildren. Some are widowed-maybe Martha was too?
Recent statistics on wages show that women still don't earn wages comparable to men in similar jobs. Besides their required daily employment, women often give of their time to volunteer in the church and other organisations, and often offer to assist others in need. They are the "good Samaritans" who, like Mary and Martha, have listened to Jesus' teachings and acted on them. So, we might try to understand that there is a balancing act necessary in order to follow Jesus: we welcome Jesus, listen to his teachings that show where Christian service lies and we set about being the "neighbour" as described in this parable, serving the Lord in our own unique ways, as best we can.
Some English translations of this text says Martha "welcomes" Jesus into her home, which initially portrays Jesus and Martha as the focus of the story. By contrast, Mary doesn't even speak in this passage. Martha follows the middle-eastern custom of extending hospitality to the traveller. Martha is following the custom of her ancestors in faith, who were told to welcome the stranger in their midst.
So too with Mary and Martha, we are their descendants, who also try to have open hearts and listening ears to the "guests" we welcome into our lives. Such guests are not always the usual people we find on guest lists, as some are not those of equal social and economic ranking to our own. Rather, we who hear week after week these selections from Luke's gospel, are like Mary sitting beside the "Lord at his feet," listening to his teaching so as to learn how to "welcome" the Lord into our lives. To welcome guests we need to be genuinely interested in them, to listen to them, pay attention to their needs and show that we are pleased to be in their company. Just as we have welcomed today members of PIC Samoan Church, as they come to learn more about us and our community.
Last Sunday we heard the teaching that immediately preceded today's in Luke' gospel-the tale of the neighbour in need on the Road to Jericho(10:25-37). In that story we were, like Mary, listeners at Jesus' feet and we learned about offering hospitality and neighbourliness to the one in need. It is no accident that Luke places today's episode immediately after the Good Samaritan. He is telling us to "pay attention!" -Jesus has something life-giving to offer us. We should also ask the question the lawyer asks Jesus, when he said "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (10:25). By placing the Mary and Martha story after this teaching from Jesus, Luke is saying, in effect, "Welcome Jesus into your life, listen to his words about loving your neighbours and you will learn the ways of eternal life."
When Jesus asks the lawyer the question, "What is written in the law?" the lawyer's answer came in two parts, "You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself." The parable about the Good Samaritan answered the question about loving our neighbours; and today's story about Mary and Martha addresses what loving God with our heart, being, strength and mind entails-it requires attentiveness to the Lord's word. Neither story is complete without the other. In the parable, the Samaritan "sees" the injured man; then Mary is the one who "hears" Jesus and Martha is the one who "serves".
We could also recall that women were marginalized in the culture of the time, just as the Samaritans were. Two marginalized people, a Samaritan and Jewish women, are indentified as concrete examples of those praised by Christ for hearing the word and doing it (8:21).
In these writings by Luke, Jesus is referred to with the post-resurrection title "Lord"; which gives us a clue for the setting of this gospel. Using the title "Lord" for Jesus deliberately places this reading in the context of the early church. This is a story about welcoming and listening to the resurrected "Lord" in our midst. There is also the double use of the word "diakonia" or "service" in verse 40, which refers to the church's ministerial role as being those who serve the Lord in all they do for others.
There was a debate though about the role of women in the early church. Possibly there was an issue of what constituted "women's work" in the community-as there has been and can still be in our own church today. In Luke's time women performed many ministries, apostolic work, leadership, gospel proclamation, as well as serving as caterers, cleaners, providers and supporters. (e.g. Rom 16: 1, 3-5; 16:6, 12; 1 Cor. 16:19; Phil 4: 3). But the epistles and readings like today's show that there was a division over the roles women should undertake. It seems some wanted women to stay in subservient roles, which may explain why Jesus' seems to side with Mary. Luke has portrayed, in this story at least, that the silent woman has the "better part." Maybe he was trying to promote women's silence and passivity, in order to appease men's sensibilities? But women were already undertaking important works in the early church, which balances Luke's favouring the silent and docile Mary. But, we should also remember that Mary was seated where only men were to be found, at the feet of a teacher, so by example Jesus is not letting the mores and values of his day limit him or restrict those who might hear him and become his disciples.
Martha's roles of welcome and service are examples of the important work of the church as we welcome the Lord in the stranger and the person in need. There were many gifts among women in the early church, some like Mary's, as quiet disciples attentive to the words of Christ; others were more active. In their own ways, both Martha and Mary welcome Christ, each has heard his teachings and shown love to God and service to neighbour.
As we are well aware, both men and women, with all their varied gifts, are called to serve others in which ever way we can. All Christians are called to be readers and listeners of the Word-something we do each time we gather here for worship and listen to the proclamation of the Word, as well as our own study of the Bible at home. We are also called to serve our neighbour, which we go to do as we leave this listening place to return to our busy lives.
Let us pray:
Loving God, we are well aware that you call us to be good neighbours, but all too often that task seems too big, beyond our capabilities. Help us to see that we can love our neighbours in small ways, one step at a time. Help us to go out of our way in some small way in loving our neighbours, during this coming week.
Amen.

JULY 11 2010-07-01
Mrs M Twaddle

Let us Pray
May the words on my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you O Lord. Amen

Todays Gospel reading is about the parable of the good Samaritan.

This parable is told about what happened on the Jericho Road. The road is about 17 miles long and it connects Jerusalem to Jericho. About the same distance as from Invercargill to Ryal Bush.

In Roman Times it was covered with paving stones but over the centuries the stones have been stolen and sold for other uses. So it's surface was very rough and uneven.

The road drops over one thousand metres in those seventeen miles so it is a steep, winding and descending remote road, renowned as a place where lots of robberies took place. It was seventeen miles of violence and suffering.

I believe that our 'Jericho Road' is always with us. It is any place where people are robbed. - Robbed of their diginity, robbed of love, robbed of their food and clothing, robbed of their value as human beings.
It is any place where there is suffering and oppression.

We are very blessed in New Zealand that we really don't have enemies for whom we need to feel hatred.
But even so, often there is a reluctance to 'help' some one because we don't know how to go about it. We are afraid that we might unintentionally do the wrong thing and upset them. Or we say that we are just too busy to be involved. We don't want to go down our own Jericho Road.

We hear of other stories in our lives about people who are in need of help but because we are afraid that we might become involved in some thing that we think we would not be able to handle we just ignore them.
For example, we see someone who has obviously been sleeping 'rough' in doorways or on park benches but we are afraid to greet them in case they become violent. Maybe we just ignore them and pretend we haven't seen them. Jesus is telling us that we must do something to help this person. Even just reporting to some other agency that is qualified in coping with a situation such as this. We must not just 'past by on the other side of the road'

You see this is a parable about not wanting to become involved with people who are suffering, because of safety, because of money, because of time, because of inconvenience, because of busyness with church and other activities. Jesus condemned that attitude. He expects that all Christians are good Samaritans. You cannot be a Christian and not be involved with people on the Jericho Road. This parable is an invitation for us to have gentle hearts, hearts of generosity, hearts of love and love for you enemy.

The Jews and the Samaritans hated each other, didn't talk with each other, or even acknowledge each other's presence. When Jesus said that there was a Jew on the road who was injured and a Samaritan came along and took care of him, everyone was shocked. Jews and Samaritans didn't even talk to each other. Jesus was inviting the Jews to take care of Samaritans and Samaritans to understand and respect their historic enemies.
This is an invitation for us today, and for people of all time, to love our enemies or to love people we would like to hate. I wonder who our enemies are in New Zealand?

Perhaps our neighbours keep having noisey drunken parties every week-end, or new neighbours don't seem to be able to 'fit in' with the rest of the street. In rural areas perhaps we don't agree with the way a neighbour runs their farm so we just ignore them and don't try to understand and perhps learn something new from them.

On a wider aspect perhaps our political leanings tend to make us suspicious of 'the other side'. Perhaps by not understanding peoples different beliefs, we may feel uncomfortable in their presence.
In the sports field of course it is the Aussies! But, we don't really hate them, we just hate being beaten by them!!

The first lesson that is to be learned from this parable, is that it is an attack on "non-involvement"
We don't want to get involved on the "Jericho Road"

I'm sure that a lot of people in this congregation have suffered, pain, loneliness, feelings of sadness and neglect. Remember how you felt when this happened. Perhaps you did have a Good Samaritan who was there when you needed them most?

Jesus tells this parable to show us that in this world we must be the 'Good Samaritan' who will look out for the unloved, the unhappy, the unwanted and those whom we consider 'different'.

The Jericho Road may be no further than your own house. Your Jericho Road can be in your own kitchen, your own bathroom, your own bedroom of your own home.

I have recently read of two families over-seas who are really struggling to cope with a member of their family who is very difficult to look after. People have said to them that they should have their relative admitteed into a nursing home. But that are quite adamant that there is no way they will ever do that. They have hearts full of love for this person and they have said that they can pay for someone to help with the housekeeping, do the dishes and the clothes washing but there is no way they can pay some one to feel the love for this person, that they have. This is their Jericho Road and they are determined to help their loved one on it, for as long as is necessary

Christians are always walking, loving and caring for people on the Jericho Road.

This parable is an invitation for us to have hearts that oveflow with love and mercy for those whom we don't understand. This parable is and invitation for us to love our enemies. Let us Pray.

Loving Lord, forgive us if we sometimes fail to help everyone who is on the Road to Jericho. Help us to heed your words day by day as we walk through our lives in this place. This we pray in your Son's name. AMEN

The church needs you.

Our Lectionary reading from the Gospel according to Luke for today does not include the passage from Chapter 9, verses 1-6, which depicts Jesus sending out the twelve disciples, empowering them with authority over demons, the ability to heal the sick, as they proclaim the good news of the nearness of God's kingdom. They are to accept hospitality where it is offered, and to move on where it is not. The symbolism of this sending out of the disciples cannot be overlooked: twelve disciples, one for each of the tribes of Israel.
Now in Luke Chapter 10, Jesus sends out 70, at the time thought to be the number of Gentile nations. The mission is broadened, and the number of missionaries goes beyond the twelve. At the very least 70 means a lot of people sent to a lot of places, representing every place imaginable. This time the 70 are sent out in pairs. No one is sent out alone. There is work for everyone to do, and it is recommended that we team up with others to do the work Jesus sends us to do.
We are all of us people who are sent. Jesus needs us. The church needs us. The world needs us to accept our role as those who are sent. And we would do well to partner up with at least one other person, or an organization, to do the work Jesus is sending us to do. We would also do well to note that we are being sent someplace else to do this work. We are to be someplace, anyplace, other than where we already find ourselves - so it means we have some where to go, outside of our comfort zone, and for some that may mean that we have some travelling to do, even if that travelling is achieved by helping others to go in our place.
Jesus is rather specific in giving instructions for travelling. We are to travel especially light. No trundler cases, no matched sets of luggage. No roof top carriers, no trailers or campervans. No 4-wheel drives crammed to the gills with "stuff." We are to travel really, really light.
The Book of Acts is the best place for us to see this plan being worked out. The early church is depicted as being very much like the wilderness sojourn depicted in Exodus throughout the book of Deuteronomy. People on the move cannot carry a lot of things and get anywhere easily. So in Acts we read that everyone sold all their property and possessions and pooled their resources to fund the mission in order to take care of one another. The first disciples were charged with the undertaking to go and make disciples, to recruit more and more to help in the work of telling the Good News. The incoming Moderator of Assembly, Rev. Peter Cheyne has written a booklet outlining this undertaking, title, Making Disciple-making Disciples. I encourage you all to get a copy from the Office and read it. You might even like to discuss it with others in a group situation.
The Book of Acts also depicts the early church as those people who received the Holy Spirit in the wind, which Jesus had said comes from 'we know not where' and sends us to 'we know not where'. Throughout the Book of Acts the church is regularly inspired by God's Spirit of vitality.
If we are to regard the testimony of the early church as a fair representation of what being the church is like, it appears as if there were lots of people, a lot more than 70, that took these instructions to travel lightly and depend on the hospitality of others quite seriously. We might want to consider what travelling light and regularly being blown by the wind really have to do with one another?
The alternative is to travel with lots or too much of our stuff and never having any energy. Any of us who have travelled will probably agree, we seem to take too much with us when we go away, just in case we need something. The importance of all this has to do with who we are. For those who are going to do the work of the church we need to have guidelines as to what to do and how to do it. It may be that an organisation representing the church can help there. The name for the Mission activity of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand is the Global Mission Office, soon to be under the oversight of the Very Reverend Pamela Tankersley, operating out of the Assembly Office in Welllington. The Global Mission Office informs us regularly of opportunities in which we can support their work, much as we did when we funded the purchase of a buffalo in Myanmar.
The group of ladies in this parish that have for years supported Mission in its traditional sense, has been the Mission and Service Group. This group became the Mission Group as they aged and their numbers decreased, diminishing their ability to serve. The have now decided that they have come the end of their effective life and will slowly wind up this activity, though continuing to meet for afternoon tea once a month, on the third Wednesday for fellowship and support. Over the many years this group has been active it has achieved great things, supporting many Mission projects as well as local organisations and outreach initiatives. They have supported the Hospital and School in Jagahdri, India, the Turakina Maori Girls School in Marton, various Chaplaincies, Bible in Schools, APW Mission Projects and many other groups as well as providing funds for Missionaries in foreign lands and those home on furlough.
That this group is no longer able to carry their support it is now our opportunity to support these organizations as individuals or as a congregation. This is our opportunity to go out and spread the Good News. That is, all of us are able to be domestic and/or foreign missionaries. Jesus seems to have had this in mind. He sent out twelve domestic missionaries and then teams of 70 missionaries to be sent to foreigners beyond the boundaries of Israel. He gives them instructions to travel light and depend on others for hospitality. Both of these ideas fly in the face of what seems to have become today's cultural norms: to acquire, accumulate, and consume as much as possible, and depend on no one but yourself (the myth of self-sufficiency).
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus asserts that these cultural norms of ours lead only to endless anxiety. Throughout scripture the same claims are often made: that the acquisition of possessions and self-reliance lead only to anxiety and an early grave. Travel light and allow yourself to be blown on by the wind, and discover a life of interdependence. Experience the hospitality of others, even radically different others! We have many opportunities to do this in Invercargill, especially through the activities of the Multi-Nations group.
Anyone who has spent an evening or even a few days in a foreign household of having someone of another culture in your own home, knows what an adventure in discovering new ways of doing things can really be like. And one need not even leave the country. There are enough foreign nationals in our country these days who maintain households by the norms of their own cultures for us to visit. If we are to allow ourselves to be sent out the way Jesus intends us to be sent out, we may need to reconsider our own cultural norms.
What Jesus says is really as true today as it was 2,000 years ago: "The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; pray therefore Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go your way ...". As we pray for the Lord of the harvest to send us, we might do well to consider the farmers of this land. In recent years many areas of our country have been stricken by drought, just as some have also experienced flooding. The harvest is anything but plentiful in these places. Yet, if you were to take the time to drive through our nation's farmlands, you will see those farmers out there every day and night tending to their fields, and harvesting even the most pitiful yields from their land. Care for the land and perseverance are the cornerstones of the agricultural life. It is a life of disciplined and steady labour.
What do we need to do to become as disciplined in our labour for the Lord as farmers are even in times of severe drought or flood? One suspects that the answer lies in part with our Lord's instructions to us, his domestic and foreign missionaries: travel light, depend on the hospitality of others, and let ourselves be blown on by the wind. Our faithfulness to this sort of lifestyle will, Jesus promises us, result in our having authority over demons, the ability to heal, and the capability of helping more and more people experience the nearness of God's kingdom. In this sort of life we will let go of anxiety and an early grave, choosing instead what Jesus often calls real life, true life, in his name.

20th June 2010
Pentecost 4

1 Kings 19:1-15a
Luke 8:26-39

If we were to compare and contrast our two readings today, we could begin with the observation that at the heart of both of these stories lies that common theme of the fight of good over evil. Elijah stood up to King Ahab and his wife Jezebel in their persistent promotion and following of the prophets of Baal and their disobedience to the God of Israel. And in fact, she had actively promoted the killing of the prophets of Israel. It sounds quite familiar in terms of Middle Easter Politics, tit for tat in a never ending flurry of violence, each claiming the rightness of their own actions over and against that of their opponents.
So Elijah had seen to the death of the prophets of Baal, and now the queen was threatening retaliation.
The story of the man healed of demons in our Gospel reading speaks of this inner conflict manifesting itself in this man through unusual behaviour. He was seen to have multiple personalities, expressed in the fact that he was known as Mob, in the Good News version, although other version are more explicit perhaps in the use of the word Legion, indicating a whole regiment of demons. A Roman legion was made up of something like 6000 soldiers. I think this merely gives graphic expression to the state in which this man was found.
And so Jesus' presence seemed initially to evoke some dramatic response from this man as the forces of good and evil come head to head.
Such is the nature of the interaction between Good and Evil. It would seem that as logical and as obvious as good may seem, it is not always met with open arms of peace and gratitude. We might well see this as being part of our humanity. Our natural bent is not always to do what is good and right, and so often we have to focus on the positive to make it happen. Good and right are part of our response in life that takes that conscious effort and act of our will.
In his conversation, this man called Mob approaches Jesus, calling out to him and throwing himself at his feet, Jesus is asked, "What do you want with me?"
Now, it is interesting that this man comes to Jesus. Is there recognition that here is someone who maybe interested in him? Is there acknowledgement that in his own mind he has needs? Does he merely see Jesus as yet another one who will come to condemn him and punish him? Or has he seen in Jesus a glimpse of something better, of the good that can prevail over the evil, and is it in his mind that there maybe something here for him?

What ever it is, he presents himself to Jesus, just as he is, naked, open, afraid, condemned and ostracized by society.
It is almost as if this man feels that Jesus has come to see him, and yet there is no indication from the story that this is the case.
On the other hand, Elijah, who has stood against Queen Jezebel and her prophets of Baal, has that same sense of being ostracized as she threatens him with retribution for the death of the prophets. He feels alone, as if he were the only one left who is faithful to God, probably considered by that society as a bit of a freak, and Elijah struggles to find God in this moment of his life, and yet God comes to him.
It seems to be at those moments of greatest need that we can sense God's presence to save and to bring us through the difficult times.
Elijah goes on to experience the wind and the fire and the earthquake, and in each of these he says, the Lord was not there, but at the end the still small voice of Yahweh comes to Elijah. And in that still small voice Elijah finds comfort and strength and direction.
God's apparent absence from the world that swirls around us in violence or confusion does not mean that he is not there to sustain and to strengthen us. It does not mean that even in the midst of evil, God's presence cannot come to bring good, to transform and make good.
Strength and power is so often portrayed in the big and the bold, the powers of nature and the storms and the uncontrollable, but how often the real power is found in the small still voice that brings change to the hearts of people.
It is the small rudder of the huge ship, after all that will change the direction of the vessel as it travels as a speck in the mighty ocean.
How often we feel alone in our attempts to bring about change. How often we feel the church has lost its power to bring about change in our society; where once we had a voice, where once we made a difference, today we are ignored and seem powerless. But that still small voice still comes to the faithful few. That still small voice can still bring about change in the lives of individuals who can then go on to have positive change in the society in all sorts of places.
We must never underestimate the power of God to change the lives of individuals, of nations, of making the seemingly impossible come to be.
Where society had written that one man off whom Jesus met on the shores of that lake, God was able to transform.
The dramatics of the story leave us gasping as he sends the demons into the herd of pigs and they are flung off some cliff into the lake below. And one could certainly spend time questioning the justice for the heardsman whose pigs were destroyed. But we need to be careful not to miss the point of God's power to transform the life of one person.
Interestingly, this mans desire was to go with Jesus, but Jesus turns him back to go and tell what God had done.
I am sure we can imagine that this man who had spent so much of his life ostracized by the community, would have been much happier following Jesus and sitting at his feet to learn more.
But discipleship, being a Christian, is not about isolating ourselves from the real world, and cocooning ourselves in the comfort and security of a sheltered environment. It is about going out and demonstrating what God has done for us.
It is about living in the real world with the expressed intention of sharing God's goodness, God's transforming love with those around us. It is about letting the world see the difference that God has made, the difference that our faith means to us, knowing that that still small voice still comes to us where ever we are. We are not abandoned by God, but equipped and enabled to live in world with all the storms that swirl around us, and in that environment to share God's abiding presence and his love with those around us.
The Gospel tells us that this man went through the town, telling what Jesus had done.
He verbalised, he articulated his experience to the community who had once evicted him, and no doubt they saw the difference.
I dare say there would still have been those who would have kept him at arms length, those who would have interpreted his actions still as being strange, and there would have been those prepared to listen and willing to see the change that had been wrought in his life.
Both Elijah and this man, were sent back into the fray of life, but both of them went aware of the power of God in that still small voice to bring the changes that were needed. Both were aware that it were not their power that carried them, but rather the power of God who changes and sustains, who empowers and equips, who walks with us to bring good even out of the evil that can so often swirl around us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

13th June 2010
Pentecost 3

1 Kings 21:1-10,15-21a
Luke 7:36-8:3

Luke's story opens up for us today something of what lies at the heart of the Gospel as we see a picture painted of Jesus being entertained by a Pharisee in his home. Entertainment here is both an account of an event in history, and each of the Gospels record a similar story to this one although some of the detail may vary a wee bit along with its placing in the life of Jesus, but in essence the stories are very similar, and it is also a metaphorical picture of God's acceptance and willingness to entertain us in the kingdom of God.
Thus it is a most appropriate story to have as we are welcomed at the Table of our Lord Jesus Christ, to eat this bread and drink this cup.
At this point we probably need to let our imaginations get a little wild as we try to picture this scene, for it is so vastly different than what we might imagine in our own day and age.
As a private function at the house of a religious leader, forget the closed front doors and the nicely set table with cutlery and crockery laid out for the guests.
No, this was a vastly different scene; an open function where people were free to come and observe what was going on.
Simon the Pharisee was the host, and yet we know very little of his connection with Jesus. He calls him teacher and acknowledges him as a prophet and there was obviously an enquiring mind. Whether this was an openness to what Jesus was saying or merely a trap to try and bring him down, we do not know.
We do know that Jesus was criticised by the religious leaders for his willingness to engage with all sorts of people and to spend time eating with them. The religious rules of purity would have forbidden such behaviour leaving a religious leader unclean and unable to fulfil his religious duties at the temple.
So this story contrasts his dining with those perceived as sinners as he comes to the house of this Pharisee. He is welcomed in and they recline around the table, engaged in conversation when this woman appears at Jesus' feet and begins to anoint them with perfume, kissing them, and drying them with her hair. She is described as a woman who lived a sinful life. Most commonly thought to be a prostitute.
She was probably part of the crowd observing this meal and may well have been moved by the conversation she heard. She may have been following Jesus as part of the crowd for some time and come to that point of wanting to respond as best she knew how, offering him what she had.
Simon of course is quick to pick up on the inappropriate nature of this behaviour and especially for someone claiming to be a teacher and a prophet to accept such a lavish and demonstrative outpouring of emotion at a meal. Simon does not actually vocalise his thoughts, but you can imagine the look of horror and disgust on face, and Jesus is quick to pick up on this.
But Jesus accepts the offering of this woman as she opens up in a public act of contrition and praise. Unlike Simon, he does not pass judgement on her, but if anything turns his judgment on the attitude of Simon who seems unable to forgive and unwilling to accept the praise and adoration being offered from left field.
Simon's thinking is simple. Here is a sinner, a prostitute, obviously well known in the community for the services she offers, although one might well question Simon as to how he knows this?
According to his thinking this woman is condemned, along with all those who associate with her.
And I am sure that this is the prevailing thought of most who face such situations. The daggers have been drawn this week for all the politicians who have miss used their credit cards, and haven't the journalists been fierce as they have fingered through the six or seven boxes of receipts looking for muck to throw. And then we see the worst of the sinners pilloried for their actions, strung out for the rest of us to hurl stones at.
I wonder how many of those journalists found mirrors at the bottom of the boxes where they were able to reflect on their own actions.
But Jesus takes a slightly different tack here as he reads the mind of Simon, and tells a clever story to illustrate his point.
Simon, who obviously sees himself as an OK guy, certainly better than this woman who has thrown herself at the feet of his guest, is asked whether a person who owes a debt of 500 silver coins and is forgiven, or the person who owed 50 silver coins and is forgiven, which ones response is likely to be greater, which one is likely to offer more love to the person doing the forgiving. The answer of course is blindingly obvious and so is the connection that Jesus is making. Simon was trapped. This woman's need of forgiveness, by Simon's own admission was greater than his, so it is only natural that her response to understanding her forgiven state would be greater. Jesus is probably also hinting strongly that Simon has probably not even considered that he has a need to be forgiven, after all he is a religious man.
I wonder as we come to table do we come with that deep sense of our need for forgiveness, or the understanding that the invitation Christ offers us to join him at the table is the confirmation that we have been forgiven, or do we see it as our right because we are Christian's after all, therefore we in some way are offering our righteousness to God.
You see we come because we recognise the need we have to receive from Christ his forgiveness and to celebrate that he has done this for us.
Jesus then goes on to dig the knife in a little deeper for poor old Simon and begins to offer some areas where he might not be as perfect as he thinks he is.
A true host in the setting they were in would have given a weary traveller water to wash his feet, a kiss of welcome and some olive oil to anoint his head as a blessing and a welcome. None of this was done, which probably suggests that this were more a time to try and trap Jesus rather than a genuine interest and enquiry of Jesus' message and mission.
And yet, this so called sinner, weeps at his feet and uses the tears to wash them and her hair to wipe them dry. She constantly kisses his feet, a real sign of humility and acknowledgement of ones own lowliness, and then she anoints him with expensive perfume where Simon had not even offered the usual cheap and plentiful olive oil.
Simon is left defenceless with no where to go in his argument.
And then of course comes the crux of the whole story. Jesus declares the sins of the woman forgiven.
This forms so much of the aggravation against Jesus throughout the Gospel's, for what right does he have to declare that anyone's sins are forgiven?
This is God's prerogative. This is what led to the cross. In offering such forgiveness, Jesus was claiming Divine status. The Religious leaders knew this, and they feared the implications of such a claim. It was blasphemous, and according to their law, punishable by death.
Thus the crucifixion! Pilate could see no wrong, he did not understand this aspect of their law. All he saw was a harmless preacher bringing the good out in people as their lives were turned around.
The Religious leaders saw Jesus claiming God's power to forgive, thus undermining their ability to hold their community together, and to dominate them and control them.
Forgiveness is about freedom; freedom from the fear of death, freedom from the power of sin to control us, freedom from the fear of one another. We all come to the table as people in need, not in our own righteousness, but to receive the righteousness offered by Christ through his death and resurrection. The invitation is to trust him for what he has done and what he will do.
Eat this bread, drink this cup, trust in me and you will not thirst.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

6th June 2010
Pentecost 2

1 Kings 17:8-16
Luke 7:11-17
Many of the biblical stories are accounts of people's responses to the needs of those they encounter in their daily lives. Particularly the Gospel's where Jesus as a wandering preacher gathers around him great crowds. So often the stories are about his touching the life of one person in that crowd that illustrates a theological point that he is trying to make. The illustration is not just for that purpose, but meets a real need in the process.
In both of our readings today, we see Jesus and Elijah acting with compassion for the people they have encountered. This compassion focuses us on the concept of God as our provider. This Provider is the God of the vast universe who dares to care for one person in our small world.
For Elijah, he was led to a widow, who because her husband had died, she was left destitute in society probably with no means support. Thus she was out gathering the firewood and probably any scraps she could to keep her and her son from starvation.
Jesus too, meets a widow at the gate of the city on the way to bury her only son. Destitute, left with no means of support, one who society will shun as her last shred of identity and respectability has just gone with this death, and Jesus is moved.
Such was the plight of women in this position with no mention of other male relatives to support them and look after them.
God, as the great provider, in his grace comes to both these woman to hold out a hand of salvation.
The widow in the Elijah story it would appear was a Gentile, but one who worshipped Yahweh. And Elijah's request for her last bit of food sounds like an act of selfishness, but it is seen in the context of this story as a test of her faith. Was she willing to give of the last that she had, trusting that God would provide for her and her son. Yes! She was.
This was her response to her understanding of God's grace and God's provision for her. Just as God had poured out his love and provided for her, so she was willing to give all that she had in response.
This is so similar is it not, to Jesus' story of the widow's mite? How far do we allow our response to our understanding of God's love to impact on our lives? We know God's love is free, we know that God provides, we know that even through the valleys and the shadows of death that God is with us, as the Psalmist puts it, and we can trust God in all these moments, but what are we willing to offer of our lives, of our wealth, of our very being in service to God in acknowledgement of such a generous and supportive God.
These stories illustrate that God's actions toward us are not merely about words, but have impact on our lives and challenge us to respond with a love that demonstrates trust in God and gratitude for all that he has done for us.
As I have outline, both of these story show woman, stripped of all they had and left with no real place in society in desperate need seeing God as the only way out.
We often ponder why the churches today are not making a marked impact on society. Maybe it is that until we experience the desperation that these women felt, we have no real understanding of what it is to rely totally on God. We like to think that this is where our trust lies, but how many of us have got to that point in our lives where we see that as being the only viable option.
Today we do live in an affluent society. That is not to say that we do not have both those who do have and those who do not, but we do have mechanisms in place to cope with those who have very little. We have a welfare system that means those with very little do not get left on the scrap pile with nowhere to go. So as a society we have advanced a long way since the times in which these stories were told. We also live in a society that does not alienate people to the same degree because of the circumstances they find themselves in.
These are all positive aspects of our society today.
But despite all of these factors people still find themselves in those times of despair and desperation. There are still people who strive to understand their own lives and why they find themselves struggling. Thus there remains a timeless nature to our gospel stories, for we still need that sense of God who cares, of that God who pours out his grace, of that God who provides for aspects of our being that are so often beyond our control. Our humanity is a constant reminder to us that there are always aspects of our lives that are beyond our control. Life and death are probably the most poignant reminders of our limits, and even here people are always wanting to take control even over these most sacred aspects of our being.
Jesus met this widow about to bury her only Son. In his compassion for her and her predicament he offers the gift of life to her son. But it is not only breath that is restored to the Son, but life is restored for her also. Her place in society is opened up for her once again.
It is interesting in this story, that this almost chance encounter does not see her cry out in desperation as she is no doubt consumed by her grief, but rather we see Christ move toward her in pity, motivated by her predicament. Jesus comes to her in her need. Jesus initiates this contact and offers the greatest gift he could, life.
The sad thing for many in our world is that they are unaware of their need of Christ. We become so engulfed in our own world and our own circumstances, whether it be subsumed by grief, or consumed by our wealth, or content with where we are, it is too easy to ignore that aspect of our life that cries out for meaning and purpose. We push aside the spiritual void that Christ alone can fill. The crowd in this story was moved.
"Filled with fear," we are told. This needs to be understood in the context of that awesome awareness of the greatness of God. This moment was for all who were there, the crowd following Jesus, encountering the funeral procession as it was leaving the city. In the midst of ordinary life, Jesus can come to us and touch us. We can become aware of that void.
What is the response? The crowd filled with this awe inspired fear praised God. Being brought face to face with Christ's power over both life and death, they offered worship to God.
And the timeless theme that emerges out of this encounter, is the same theme that was there for Elijah and the widow in that story, where Yahweh not only provided for her on going needs in the provision of the oil and the flour, but he too further in that story raised her son to life in very similar circumstances to this story of Jesus, thus the gospel writer records the crowd as saying, "A great prophet has appeared among us! God has come to save his people."
Salvation is the great theme of the Gospel that we continue to proclaim. It is the message of Christ who in his own death and resurrection brings life in all its fullness to us all. This is the bringing of salvation to a world that without God is lost and does not understand fully what it is to be human.
Our humanity is only complete in our understanding of God's love for us, otherwise when death comes, when tragedy strikes, when those things that are seemingly precious to us are stripped away, our lives suddenly loose meaning.
But with Christ who comes to us in our most vulnerable state, we can see that beyond anything that faces us stands God's love and God's gift of life even through death itself.
Thus Christ's death and resurrection mirror for us the hope that is there.
God has come, and continues to come to save his people.
This has been and is the timeless message of the Christian faith, and if we loose sight of it, what do we have to offer the world, nothing but an empty void of hopelessness and despair.
Christ is alive and because he lives, we live also.
Let us all take this message of hope into the world in which we live as we like the crowds that met that day are able to bear witness to God's love in our lives and offer that to the world today.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

30th May 2010
Trinity Sunday

Proverbs 8:1-4,22-31
John 16:12-15

We have now moved into the season of Pentecost, and today more specifically we honour the Trinity, God as Father, Son and Spirit. And as I spoke of a couple a weeks ago, this concept gives expression to the relational aspect of God. God is not remote or distant from us, but in fact, comes to us. We saw this coming in the Old Testament in Theophanies, where God appeared in the burning bush and other such encounters that special people had with God or through his prophets, in more recent times we saw the ultimate expression of God's coming as Jesus the Christ, the anointed one, and then we have his promise that despite his departure in physical terms, his continued presence would be understood in terms of the Spirit.
The writer to the Hebrew's expresses this quite well at the beginning of his letter when he says, "In the past, God spoke to our ancestors many times and in many ways through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son."
All of this points to a God who engages with us. This seems to be his prime desire. It is not a desire to sit back and let the world go bye. It is not a desire to control with precision every action and thought of his people, but it is a true engagement that is invited.
It is the Trinity that attempts to give expression to that as we see one God at work in a variety of ways.
Even in the book of Proverbs the writer expresses this closeness and relational aspect of the Divine as Wisdom.
He begins, interestingly enough, placing Wisdom's relevance at the heart of the community, on roads and at the intersections, at the city gate and in the market place. There is this invitation to engage and to see Wisdom's presence wherever we are.
Wisdom comes from beyond time and space and it presences is seen and felt within the context of every human being.
Such is this writer's picture of God. This is not a one dimensional being confined by the mould of human form, but it is a concept that pushes the boundaries of our understanding while remaining in the context of the world in which we live and know.
This is the Wisdom that is present in our world today, the Wisdom that can be seen in our streets and in our parliaments, in our councils and in our schools, it is the Wisdom that is there in the disciplines of science and maths, and in language where ever that is uttered.
This Wisdom is lived out in everyday life in everyday people.
This same Wisdom that is expressed all around us is the Wisdom that was in the very beginning.
The writer speaks of Wisdom being made before anything else, and having been there as Creation happened.
This theme is picked up in many New Testament writers as they given expression to the Divine Nature of Christ.
Take for instance the writer of Colossians,
"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, including spiritual powers, lords, rulers, and authorities. God created the whole universe through him and for him."
Paul sees the writer of Proverb's Wisdom in the person of Jesus Christ. Christ was that Wisdom given flesh and bones as he empties himself into the human realm, for us and for our salvation.
Such is God's desire to relate and to communicate.
Christ sees this relationship continuing even in his physical absence as he gives expression to the role of the Spirit who will not do a different work or a new thing, but will continue to bear witness to God's work as seen through him.
Both Son and Spirit bear witness to God in God's fullness bringing the truth to us.
Is it any wonder that put this way, God is seen as Wisdom.
As the Spirit comes to us we are drawn to this presence of God in our midst.
All of the activity of God as Father Son and Spirit; Creator, Redeemer and Giver of life, bring us to a greater understanding of God and of ourselves as human beings, inviting us to engage in this unfolding truth.
And with the dawning of this truth of ourselves and of God, we then should have a greater sense of ourselves in relation to one another as community.
Wisdom did not just come to the individual for the writer of Proverbs but came into the market place. The heart of the community is the place we should discover this Wisdom.
I think this is where we need to be careful as the church. On the one hand we must be nurtured in our faith, nurtured as people of God, but the danger is that we become isolated in this and confine ourselves to the life of the church, which is what Jesus constantly criticised the religious leaders of his day for.
There lives were so focused on the temple and the religious life that everything was tied back to that. Where as for Jesus and the model he promoted it was from his worship and his relationship with God that he then went out and engaged with the community. He took his life into the market place, not to confine and to restrict and to demand from them, but rather to live and to give expression to his faith in that place.
For us I think this is so important, for how else is the presence of God seen in our world today. Unfortunately too often is it only behind the doors of our churches. Sure they are open and people are welcome, (most of the time) to join us to do what we do and, if they like, to experience what we experience. But does this attitude not merely confine the presence of God to the gathering of the faithful few.
Surely we are to go out, as we say in our Order of Service with the commissioning and Benediction, into the world to take that presence of God to the heart of our communities, to enrich those places with God's presence.
Whether that be the sports team, the Rotary Club, Meels on wheels, whatever the organisation, the place, the work place we find ourselves, the whole notion that John is portraying here is that we go carrying with us the presence and love of God.
As God in his Spirit comes to us, so in us we carry the presence of God into the community.
God's presence is not confined to the church building, but dwells in the church, the people of God.
As the fruit of the Spirit ripens in us, bearing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self control, so the presence of Wisdom as the writer Proverb described it is brought out into the world.
Thus too we see this concept of Trinity, of inter-relatedness of being, spilling over into the world, bringing the God who is totally other than us into the realm of the God who is with us and in us.
A view of God other than Trinity, remains a remote and distant God.
Thus John expresses it,
"All that my Father has is mine; that is why I said that the Spirit will take what I give him and tell it to you."
And thus of course the Pentecost experience was the injunction to the disciples, to Go out into all the world, empowered by his Spirit and to proclaim the Gospel.
This becomes the key that we all need to grasp.
We should be intentional in our living as we engage in the world that we are there to proclaim God's love. This is not that we must be long faced and serious about everything, but that in our whole being, our humour, our love our work and pleasure the fruit of God's being should be there.
Surely we believe that God's presence adds the essence of our humanity to our being and therefore let us be willing to let that shine through in our living so that the world may recognise that presence of God in us.
May God equip us all as his disciples, to be the best we can, to help radiate his love and presence in the world beyond our doors.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Pentecost Sunday
23rd May 2010

"Wait just a little while."
John 14:8-17, 25-27 Acts 2:1-21
I thought I would start this morning by looking at the background of the feast of Pentecost. Pentecost isn't a feast that began when the tongues of fire appeared and the sound of strong driving wind filled the room where Jesus' disciples were gathered. Rather, Pentecost is first and foremast a feast of the Jewish people. It is celebrated fifty days after the Passover, and was called the Feast of Unleavened bread, or the Festival of Weeks, which was originally an agricultural feast, a celebration of the wheat harvest. Pentecost's significance in the Jewish community expanded to include the remembrance of God's giving the law on Sinai. Thus, it was a celebration of the newly covenanted community formed by God during the trials in the desert.
This all-too-quick review of the origins of Pentecost is not meant to be a history lesson. But as we reflect on its origins, we can see how "loaded" with meaning and imagery this feast is for Christians. The original feast was connected to Passover, which is the meal Jesus and the disciples were sharing in the Upper Room, prior to Jesus' arrest, crucifixion and resurrection and so our observance of these two festivals are significant for us as well. Pentecost therefore is linked to Jesus' suffering, death and exaltation at God's right hand as it occurs after Jesus' ascension to heaven. It is a harvest festival as well because the disciples, those who were gathered together in Jerusalem to receive the Spirit, were the "harvest" of Jesus' labours and we too as followers are the fruits of his work.
You may have also noticed the references to harvest and gathering in our Acts reading: when "the time of Pentecost was fulfilled"; "the noise like a strong driving wind filled the entire house" and that the gathered community was "filled with the Holy Spirit." In addition, the large crowds drawn by the sound were gathered from, "every nation under heaven." All this talk of fulfilment and people gathered together, sounds like harvest time and of the hymns we sing at that time, which suggests that Pentecost hasn't lost its harvest roots. The prophets had spoken of the dispersed gathering together on Mount Zion and now at Pentecost, devout Jews from all the nations (Parthians, Medes, Elamites, etc.) are gathered in Jerusalem, God's city (Is. 2: 2-4).
Membership of this first community; the recipients of the Holy Spirit, was open to all peoples, for"...we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God." In our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures for today we hear that because of idolatry and pride the tower of Babel became the symbol of human endeavours and aspirations, and the city was marked by the confusion of language among its peoples (Gen. 11: 1-9). Babel was the sign of division and dispersion; Pentecost that of unity and community. The old order has passed away, in order that the people become united under God's Spirit.
This liturgical cycle, in Year C of the Lectionary Calendar we have been focusing on Luke's gospel and Luke is also the author of Acts, though in the season of Easter we read from the gospel according to John and we have been reading from the Acts of the Apostles inplace of the Old Testament readings. The Holy Spirit has a prominent role in Luke's writings. The infancy narratives tell us that the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary and the Word became flesh. The Spirit also filled Elizabeth, Zechariah, Anna and Simeon with thanks and joy. The Holy Spirit is a living and active presence in Jesus' ministry. Just as his baptism marked the beginning of Jesus' ministry, now Pentecost, with its baptism in the Holy Spirit, marks the beginning of the church's ministry to the world. Acts begins with the coming of the Spirit on the early church. Soon those who received the Spirit will "act"- being empowered by the Spirit, they will go to the ends of the earth, to all people and languages to proclaim the gospel. Acts has been called "the Gospel of the Holy Spirit." It is less an account of what the first Christians did, and more the narrative of what believers can do who have received the "tongues as of fire." The harvest time has begun and the church will gather the wheat that Jesus planted with his life's blood. Pentecost truly is a feast of a new harvest.
While the bible is an account of God's activities on our behalf, it also tells a lot about the importance of waiting, as part of God's faithful people's activity. During this Easter season we have been celebrating God's good work in Jesus. Jesus was sent by God and throughout his life and in his dying he stayed faithful to God and his mission on our behalf. Our Spirit-filled Messiah did not turn away even though his path took him to the grave.
Meanwhile, aware of all God has been doing, we have been hearing Jesus' instruction to "wait just a little while" for the coming of the Spirit, even though the disciples had no idea of how long that little while would be. However they had their knowledge of history in the Scriptures to help them wait, for faithful biblical people were used to waiting. For long generations Israel waited and longed for the coming of the Messiah. The gospels show the fruits of that waiting in the arrival of Jesus and his Spirit-filled mission on our behalf. Also, Luke's gospel shows Anna and Simeon's waiting and praying in the temple for the fulfillment of God's promises. After the resurrection the disciples waited and hoped for the promised Spirit to come to fill the open space left in their lives by Jesus' ascension. While the disciples were waiting, God again acted and sent the fiery Spirit to comfort and strengthen them.
No one is suggesting we put aside all our labours and concerns and sit around, do nothing and "wait on the Lord." We have already received the gift of the Spirit and have been sent on mission to proclaim the Risen Christ through our words and actions. But there still is a longing within us. Maybe you can you feel it, in the in-between times when we pause to catch our breath? Call it "waiting." We are one community with our Jewish ancestors and Jesus' first followers. We are waiting and groaning. A quick look over the maps of the world, the church and our personal lives brings a vivid reminder that, even though we may be busy about the Lord's work-we are still waiting. We wait and groan for an end to the world's miseries; our church's brokenness; our family's divisions and nature's devastation.
Pentecost was a reminder to the disciples that God had not forgotten them. Jesus was no longer with them but, as he promised, they would not be left orphans. Our active God sent them the Spirit and on this day we celebrate the Spirit's coming and the birth of the church. Those gathered in the upper room became a community and began to breathe by means of a new breath-the breath of the Spirit-and to speak in a new way that would unite scattered people with the "tongues as of fire." Was it really such a big deal on Pentecost that people were speaking in strange tongues? Wasn't it more that so many God seekers ("devout Jews from every nation") heard the welcoming message of the gospel in utterances they understood from the disciples? That was the real attraction?
Pentecost assures us that God wants to be at one with us in helping communicate God's blessing upon all of creation. As permanent and as grounded as the present age seems: in a world dominated by a few powerful nations; with poverty shrouding most of the planet's peoples; the depletion of the earth's resources; unending violence and the quagmire of war; the displacement of millions, to highlight just a few realities-nevertheless, today we celebrate God's continual presence with us as we preach and care, reach out to the needy and help forge a Spirit-inspired unity among all people.
Do you think Luke is suggesting by this spectacular Pentecost event that the Spirit came, manifested itself and left? Hardly, since throughout the rest of Acts the early church, especially the apostles Peter and Paul, both formed by the Spirit, there is a keen awareness of being Spirit led. Which surely means we have to draw the conclusion that the Spirit is constantly with us now? For we are a Pentecost people and today is Pentecost; so is tomorrow and each day after that! So, what can we do to show our faith in the Spirit's abiding presence in our church?
We can work at breaking down any obstacles newcomers encounter when they try to join us. We can make sure "many tongues" are celebrated at our gatherings, in ritual, song and hospitality. We could speak more about the Spirit's presence with us now, just as it was in Jesus' ministry. We can start acting less like a private club and reach out to those on the edges of our society. With Pentecost, the under classes and gentile outsiders were given a privileged position in the community of believers.
Under the Pentecost Spirit, the believers were no longer a disjointed and dispirited group. They were empowered by the Spirit to live as Jesus did, for his power was now theirs. Hopefully that is possible for us too? Because today and tomorrow and all the days afterward, we celebrate Pentecost. We don't have to wait, even just a little while, to put the power invested in us, to the use that was intended when we receive the Holy Spirit.

Easter 6
10th May 2010

Acts 16:9-15
John 14:23-29
Peace! Christ's parting gift.

In times of confusion and turmoil, when our lives seem to be in utter confusion, the one thing we crave is peace - a sense of stillness.
Although the world may swirl around us buffeting us on every side, we like to find that calm spot that gives us a sense of hope as we look ahead.
This is the sort of talk that Jesus was having with his disciples here in the middle of John's gospel. It is almost like the eye of the storm, and Jesus is assuring his followers that they will not be alone in life. They have sensed God's presence with them in the company of Jesus, but he is saying even when he is not with them, they will not be alone.
The God who was in Creation, the God who has come to them in Jesus of Nazareth, this God will not abandon them but will live on in the Spirit, whose presence in the lives ordinary people can transform the world.
At this point Jesus has been hammering home the transforming nature of God in the lives of ordinary people. Just prior to today's reading John has said, "Whoever accepts my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me. My Father will love whoever loves me; I too will love him and reveal myself to him."
This spilling out of God's nature into our own enveloping us into the creative and transforming love of God is expected to show itself through the way we live our lives.
So the very nature of the Christian faith has always been about this transforming power of God to change us.
The term Repentance illustrates this beautifully as it is grounded in that concept that through heat and pressure the substance is transformed and changed. This seen geologically in the transformation of the sedimentary sandstone, where through heat and pressure a metamorphic process takes place and produces the much harder and more durable rock, marble. This has always been considered a rock of beauty and intrigue with its beautiful colours and grains giving depth and texture to that which was once a rather bland colourless sandstone.
Jesus was saying to his disciples
God's coming to us and his gift to us of the Holy Spirit, is his invitation to embark on a life long and life transforming process by which we become more and more God like in our attitudes and in our living.
In this way the nature of God begins to pervade his people in some small way.
It is interesting that here Jesus speaks of two qualities that later Paul describes as fruit of the Spirit. Fruit, the produces of the tree. Fruit is the very reason for the existence of the tree, and without the fruit, the tree has shape and form but very little use.
The Fruit that Jesus speaks of is that of love and Peace.
These are qualities that add flavour and colour to the lives of people. They will enhance the character of any person in a way that is tangible, and yet in many ways invisible, if that is not contradictory.
It is only through our actions and attitudes that such qualities come to life. We cannot produce a quantity of love or a piece of peace and say here it is, but we can see in the way people live their lives and in the way they treat other people or in the words that they utter, these qualities shine.
This is illustrated in the story from Acts, where Lydia, a powerful woman, a wealthy woman in her own right, a religious woman, heard the message that Paul was preaching and her life was changed.
It is recorded that, "the Lord opened her mind to pay attention to what Paul was saying." That creative power of God began to have effect in her life and she was a changed woman. But the effect was not only on her and for her, but for her whole household. I wonder was that because the other members of her household were able to see the change that had happened in her life, and they too wanted it?
As we live out our lives exhibiting God's transforming love, I wonder does the world around see that? Do our families, do our friends see the difference that God's love for us has made. In other words do our lives bear the fruit of God's nature?
And this is really where our faith becomes a very practical part of the reality of our lives. Love becomes tangible as we live out our lives. As we learn to view the world as God's world, as we learn to see that there is a much bigger picture of life than we can even begin to think or imagine, in which we are a part and that in that world, God's love is there for us, then we begin to see the world in a different light to many. We can then begin to approach life and even death with a different attitude, with an even greater vision of the world as a whole.
Jesus said, Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world does. Do not be worried and upset; do not be afraid."
We must be careful that we do not see this as becoming numb to the world, or blasé about tragedy or the feelings of others, but these qualities of peace and love must surely help us to respond to the needs of the world around us, to act with compassion and empathy, to stand along side and to support others. But it also gives us a message of hope to hold out to a world that so desperately seeks answer or that so often finds itself trapped in fear and confusion.
And as I said, it must not numb us to our own feelings of fear and despondency, but rather these qualities should help us to live through such times.
We cannot say from Jesus life that he was exempt from experiences that would bring on such feelings. But he gained strength to live through them as he was able to look beyond the immediate to that bigger picture.
The aggravation he received from the religious leaders, the Garden of Gethsemane, the betrayal, the scourging, the crucifixion, in all of these times he experienced anguish and no doubt fear, but his ability to look beyond with confident trust in his Father gave him a peace that the world could never explain.
Again he said, "If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father; for he is greater than I." This willingness to frame life as part of eternity, and that ability to leave some of the mysteries or those things that lie beyond our control, in the hands of our maker, can give us healthy attitude to life and even to death. As the psalmist and later William Freeman Lloyd the hymn writer penned, "My times are in Thy hand: My God, I wish them there; My life, my friends, my soul I leave entirely to Thy care.
And it is this sort of serene peace that Jesus speaks of leaving us that enables us, not to bury our heads in the sand, not to live in another world ignoring the happenings going on around us, not to expect to be in some way magically lifted out of the realities of the world in which we live, but rather to be firmly planted in the world with a grip of the reality of life, even when that causes us pain or suffering, and through that to be able to look with hope to the love of God that is there for us. That love that came to us through the cross of Christ, that love that conquered the cross and continues to be poured out on us through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
It is this understanding of life that enables us to follow Jesus' invitation that he issued to the disciples whom he was with, to "come, let us go from this place." This is an invitation to move forward in life, to acknowledge God's transforming work in our lives and in our world and to embrace life with both hands enjoying the gift of life. The first question of the Shorter Catechism asks "What the chief end of man is?" In other words, what is our main purpose in life? And the answer offered is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
Faith in God still offers people in all walks of life these two qualities of love and peace, both of which are gifts from God, lived out in the person of Jesus Christ, and given to us through the power of His Spirit who lives in us and with us empowering us to be God's people in the world today.
May God continue to give us the grace to live our lives offering to him all praise and glory and honour and witnessing his love and peace to the world in which we live.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Easter 2
11th April 2010

Acts 5:27-32
John 20:19-31

No answers for the sceptic

No doubt as the disciples and friends gathered on that first Resurrection Day behind locked doors, there was much excitement as a result of the events of that day, but also probably much confusion, and even fear.
What had they actually seen? Had that conversation happened as they remembered it?
How were they going to explain these happenings to the rest of the world, to their friends, to the religious and civil authorities? The atmosphere in the city was probably still heightened, and no doubt news of the disappearance of the body of Jesus would soon spread.
John's detail of the meeting being behind locked doors is important, for it is in this setting that the next appearance of Jesus occurs.
This time it is not the chance meeting of someone who may have looked like Jesus, it is not a gathering in an open forum, but in the seclusion of a locked room. Presumably with no access for those on the outside, and yet Jesus came and stood among them.
Clearly the gospel writer wants to convey to his audience that this was no common occurrence. In fact he declares at the end of this passage the purpose of his whole gospel, and we need to understand this story in that light, and that is, "that this has been written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through your faith in him you may have life."
There is nothing secretive in John's intent, there is nothing hidden to trap us, he is recording what he saw so that his hearers may benefit, believe, and receive a fullness in life that God intended for his people.
So in this passage we see the full range of human reaction to what in reality was something very difficult to comprehend.
Jesus executed by the most thorough and cruellest method know to mankind, laid in a tomb, anointed by Joseph of Aramathea, and yet here on this third, he is risen, not in some weak and feeble form, recovering from the trauma of the previous days, but strong and confident and yet with elements of mystery.
And now these begin to unfold.
But as they do, Jesus sets out to reassure his hearers, and his greeting of "peace be with you," is not uncommon, but is also used at this point with emphasis.
In that moment when all those emotions are running around, and in the confusion of the moment, Peace is what is needed.
Now this concept of peace is not just about an absence of war.
The OT equivalent, Salom, covers our well-being in the widest sense of the word and includes such concepts of prosperity, health, contentedness in every aspect of our lives while both waking and sleeping, and is speaks to us of salvation.
In the NT it builds on these themes to include harmony among people, and speaks of the Messianic salvation. It has been summed up to express the concept of Peace as primarily about wholeness.
In that upper room standing there in the presence of the risen Christ, the dawn of understanding that concept of peace came. Even in the midst of their doubts and their fears they could know God's peace with all those themes of prosperity, health, salvation and wholeness suddenly beginning to make sense. Christ risen presence was the very embodiment of that peace, and his presence filled them with joy.
Does this not lie at the heart of the church as the gather people of God, that as we come to understand life in its fullness, as we come to proclaim the risen Christ to the world, we are proclaiming the "Gospel of peace. Paul describes peace in this way as he paints the picture of the whole amour of God, "and as your shoes the readiness to announce the Good News of Peace."
In this locked room we see the fullness of this peace, not only in the calm focus that it brings to those gathered, but the wholeness of the risen Christ. John draws together in this confined place, the here and the now of the this peace, and the aspect of it that is yet to come as we see the scars in his side and in his hands.
So much about faith is about both here and now and that which is yet to come. Faith teaches us to hold these two point in tension, and yet as we live out that faith, it helps us to look beyond the immediate trials and tensions of life so that we are more equipped to cope with them as we focus our being on the risen Christ.
The writer to the Hebrews reminds us of this in the eleventh chapter when he says,
"To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see. "
And Jesus certainly reminds Thomas of this at a second appearance a week later, with the invitation to put his finger in the wounds on his hands and his hand in the side where the spear had pieced him to prove that death had taken place.
Jesus challenges Thomas and us all with those well known words,
"Do you believe because you see me? How happy are those who believe without seeing me?"
This is not a call to blind faith, but to be willing to accept the power and the majesty and awesome nature of God's being with us. In doing this we being to understand that peace that he offers.
And interestingly this is not just about me and God, it is not merely a personal peace, but it is equally about our relationship with one another.
This concept of peace is about the communal well-being of the nation. This is bought out as Jesus commissions his disciples at this point to go out in to the community as bearers of this peace, bearers of this well being.
"As the Father sent me, so I send you. Then he breathed on them and said receive the Holy Spirit."
God's empowering equips us to be bearers of this peace, for in so doing we are taking God's presence out into the world.
We are to be the ones who God uses to transmit that peace and love in the ways we live our lives.
Thus also the injunction to forgive. Where there is no forgiveness, peace cannot prevail.
Where we live in a world that constantly wants retribution, payment for wrongs of the past, there lacks that ability live in meaningful and peaceful relationship with one another.
This is an area that I believe we need to be mindful of in our world today. I am not saying that we should sweep wrongs under the carpet, but there is something powerful in the ability to be able to forgive, to lay aside things in life where we have been wronged. Where we are unable to forgive, it is we ourselves who are eaten up by the inability to forgive .
The cost of our forgiveness was borne by the crucified Christ. And like the Spirit that he breathed onto those first disciples, he breathes into us, offering forgiveness for our sins, that we too might offer that same Spirit filled forgiveness to the world in which we live.
If any one were to feel wronged and wanted retribution, it would have been Christ as he met those who had denied him, betrayed him, and left him to those who wanted him dead.
But as so often is the case, the bigger picture is the more important one, and the whole purpose behind the Easter events was the forgiveness bought, the price was paid.
But does it not then become incumbent on us to not only offer the peace and the love of Christ to the world but to live that out in an attitude of forgiveness, realising that any one of us would rightfully stand condemned in the eyes of God were it not for the forgiveness bought.
Many people want to see the Christian life as an easy option, but it is in areas like this where the rubber meets the road, and as we grow in our understanding of the sacrifice made for us, that we begin to realise the life we are called to if we are to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, "If you want to be my disciples, take up your cross and follow me."

To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Isaiah 65:12-25
John 20:1-18
Look again

The element of surprise always has that potential to catch you off guard when you least expect it too. I remember my uncle from Dunedin, ringing dad on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in Pukekohe, and telling him to look out the kitchen window, and they were sitting in the driveway. It was not what Dad was expecting, and it took a few moments for the penny to drop. He had to look twice.
Mary's arrival at the tomb was a bit like this. She and her companions were going there, probably to pay their respects. Mark and Luke, in their gospels suggest that they were going to anoint him with spices. The Sabbath had come and gone, and the magnitude of the events of the last few days was probably still sinking in.
Their minds mostly were on the task at hand, and so to arrive and discover that the body had gone, really threw them. It was not how they, in their nervousness and grief had pictured the morning unfolding.
What we expect to see, or even sometimes what we want to experience, so often shapes or colours the way we perceive things as actually happening.
Our vision for the future is shaped by the stories we hear and by the hopes that we hold onto as they have been shaped by such stories and experiences in our past.
The people of Isaiah's time were given a picture of the New Creation, the new heaven and the new earth. Having come out of a period of exile, this is how they saw the world should be. This was a picture of God's perfection, the garden of Eden restored. Harmony prevailed and even different animals that normally hunted one another would live in harmony. The whole of creation would resound with undistorted praise.
There seems to be a universal yearning for this harmony, but a human inability to make it happen.
It is God's work to bring about such a reconstitution of the created order.
And in the Easter story we see this happening; God's creative power restoring breath where once there had been death; his life given to put back a relationship broken between God and us.
And yet in the midst of the confusion of discovering the empty tomb, Mary's chorus rings out time and time again,
"They have taken my Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him."
This empty tomb became the first gathering point of the followers of the Risen Lord. They gathered but still were confused. They came to see, but the answers eluded them.
In confusion they rush to tell the others of their discovery, and they too run with that preconceived notion in their heads that the body of Jesus has been taken.
It is not hard to imagine such panic and confusion and the reactions of these friends as they wonder where they may have taken him and why such desecration, and disrespect would have been shown.
And even when eventually Jesus stands before them, she sees only the gardener. Tears may well have blurred her vision by this point as the agitation increases. Not even the angles dressed in white registered in her confused mind. She merely repeats her mantra, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have put him."
But there comes one unmistakable happening that lifts this cloud of confusion, and that is when Jesus speaks, and when he addresses her by name. "Mary!"
In that moment the cloud disperses, the tears are wiped away and there before her stands the Risen Lord.
And in one word of acknowledgement she utters her response, "Rabboni!" "Teacher".
In all that hour of confusion, one word from Christ dispels that anguish and offers hope beyond measure.
Sure, there are still questions flooding her mind and experiences and anguish and anxiety to live through, but in that one word, the calling of her name, charged with emotion, she is left in no doubt as to where her Lord now is.
Here, we see God's grace in its simplest form. We see grace stripped bare. The simple calling of our name, the recognition of the Christ who stand before us, and the only acknowledgement appropriate, "teacher."
Here is the Easter message, that the Risen Christ in his glory stands before us today, calling us, inviting us to come and follow him.
This is the picture of the feast laid before us, as we remember him in his glory.
He invites us to share with him at the table, the table that was prepared at the beginning of that first Easter Weekend. He is the host who calls us and who invites us to do this to remember him, to remember his blood shed and his body broken, but not to finish there. No, it is to remember that through this event, God's love has come into the world, and comes into our lives and invites us to share this hope.
This event in history was to form the heart of the message of hope that we have for the world. God loves the world, and God's risen presence continues to dwell with us and continues to call us to follow in obedience.
Paul in writing to the Colossians reminds his hearers,
"You have been raised to life with Christ, so set your hearts on the things that are in heaven, where Christ sits on his throne at the right-hand side of God. Keep you minds fixed on things there, not on things here on earth. For you have died, and you life is hidden with Christ in God. Your real life is Christ and when he appears, then you too will appear with him and share his glory." (Col 3:1-4)
Immediately, Jesus then commissions Mary to go and to tell the others. Her initial response was to embrace him, to hold on to him, probably not to let him out of her sight, for then she would feel secure in the knowledge of what she had seen and experienced. But rather than this, Jesus sends her out to spread the good news of his resurrection.
This is as much a lesson for us today, as is the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour. It is too easy to want to stay in the comfort of what we know, to embrace the familiar and comfortable, and to keep coming back for more of the same, but Jesus commissions us to go out into the world and to share this good news, to share the hope of the Gospel, that Christ is Risen, he is risen indeed.
It is easy to let the freshness of that moment fade, to let the sharpness of our message wear. Every year we have the media, or someone come up with another reason as to why what we believe is no longer relevant for today's world.
And yet here is a story, grounded in the history of our world, recorded in the Gospels and embraced in the lives of generation after generation who have experienced the power of the risen Christ in their own lives.
We continue to live in a world, that while wanting to ridicule the message of the Christian gospel of God's abiding love for humanity, continues to suffer decline in social and moral values, a world that continues to see violence increase and hatred spiral out of control, a world that sees our greed out weigh the needs of others less fortunate than ourselves.
The Christ faith stills offers hope even in the face of despair, life in the face of death.
Christ still invites us to look again as he calls us to come, to see through the surprise because it is not what we are expecting, and to listen to his voice as he sends us out to proclaim his risen presence to the world in which we live. Let us all be faithful in that calling and to God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

To understand the story of Jesus' Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, again we probably need to consider it in the context of the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead. This context seems to be peppered throughout this part of John's gospel. It offers a reason for some of the ecstatic behaviour of the crowds, and the reactions of the rather worried religious leaders, who had a real fear of an uprising that would tip the delicate balance that existed between the Jewish people and the occupying Roman Government.
Any social unrest might result in some of the privileges that had been afforded them, in terms of self governance, being withdrawn.
They did not want this under any circumstances. Their current life style was comfortable, and they as a people were accommodated and tolerated by the occupying government.
Lazarus' raising from dead had created so much intrigue among the people that crowds were turning up where ever Jesus and his followers went. Verses 9-10 of this chapter tell us that the Chief Priests were making plans to kill Lazarus, because people were paying such attention to Jesus and his teaching. Such measures seem incredible. It would make a great James Bond movie or espionage story in any period of history. But for John to record such reaction, would suggest that tensions were certainly running high.
At other times in Jesus life when he was being backed into a corner to show his true colours, he would often just go off for some peace and quiet and let the scene settle. But here the path to the cross seems inevitable. That road into Jerusalem seemed narrow and focused on Calvary.
The greeting as that of a King, with waving palm branches and shouts of acclamation, foretold by the prophet Zechariah, seemed to be irrepressible. The people had heard of this one who had raised Lazarus from the dead, they heard he was coming, they heard he was in town, and they came rushing out of their houses to see him and to welcome him.
And yet again, here is another example where the gospel writer explains that the full meaning of this experience didn't hit them, until after the resurrection. It was in the light of that, and looking back in hindsight that they saw the picture in all its glorious technicolour. The pieces of the puzzle fell into place for them.
I always find this story interesting too, in that this week while the crowds are crying Hosanna, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the following week so many are calling out, Crucify him.
No doubt both crowds had many of the same people in them, and we can learn so much about human nature and faith from this.
Firstly a crowd draws a crowd. It is much easier to sustain a buoyant, excited group of people, where enthusiasm oozes from one to another whipping up that sense of excitement. It is almost as if it is contagious.
People feed off the excitement and can so easily be carried along by the enthusiasm of others.
In the church one has seen this at every stage of its history. There have been times when faith has engaged the masses more than at others. The church lives through periods of growth, sometimes quite rapid, and at other times periods of decline.
In all of these stages, there are people engaged in faith at various levels, and although together as a group our worship may ring out, in our own individual lives, our levels of engagement should cover a wide spectrum of belief.
This should in fact be the case, for if we don't have people across such a spectrum we are probably failing to engage with the world and have probably closed ourselves into a ghetto mentality. Church by its very nature is a place to encourage the exploration of faith and belief. It is a place where people should be nurtured and supported.
Jesus never criticised people engaged in such journeys of faith. He didn't put people down, but rather affirmed them to continue their search. He did, however, challenge the religious leader for their criticism of people who failed to live up to the standards they set.
The church constantly lives with that tension of welcoming people who want to engage in searching issues of faith, and the temptation to set standards for people to live up to, so that the reputation of the church is not compromised. Jesus model of welcoming the sinners and outcasts must always remain our focus if we are to be true to our calling.
Jesus accepted the praise offering on the road to Jerusalem. His vision was clear and the path was straight as he saw the bigger picture that lay ahead. This picture, as I have said, only gained clarity for his disciples in hindsight.
The church in its worship must always remain focused on the Cross. As the Church we look through the tortured figure of Good Friday to the empty cross of the risen Christ as our focus remembering that the victory came through his suffering and death. This is a picture of the Christian life as we live through the day to day events of life on that journey. The fickleness of praise one moment and ridicule the next, the journey that finds a heightened excitement in faith one day and the sense of god forsakenness the next is a real faith journey that engages God in our day to day living.
All the while we are moving steadily closer to the Cross that gave us the ultimate hope of our human journey, helping us to see beyond the confines of the streets in which we walk today, looking beyond the crowds and their cries of praise or condemnation.
These too, are the people for whom Christ died, and our task as Christians is surely to invite them on that journey following Christ.
We need to invite people from being mere spectators, waving branches from the sidelines, to engaging on a step by step journey with Christ as we walk toward the cross. What was that invitation? If you want to be a disciple of Christ, you must take up your cross and follow him.
Christ paid the price himself at Calvary, and invites us to walk with him. Even as the disciples journeyed with him, they did not know the path they were taking, but when they discovered that journey for themselves following the Resurrection they too took up the task of bringing others onto that journey.
Thus the church grew, not to establish a institutional organisation, but it grew as people were invited to follow and as they took up the invitation and challenge offered to them. They saw the change that faith in Christ offered them, many of them witnessed the Easter events, and their lives were changed forever.
We too witness in our own lives and the lives of others at varying times the power of the Risen Christ. In those moments God's salvation can seem very close. At other times we rest in the knowledge of all that he has done for us as we look to the Cross.
May God's presence be real for us, even in those times when we struggle to connect with him.
And may we all take up the challenge to his disciples in our daily lives.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

21st March 2010
Lent 5

Isaiah 43:16-21
John 12:12-16
Extravagant Love

It is so easy to look at the actions of people and think that by what is done we are able to judge the underlying motives that have led to those actions. Often the assumptions we make in such cases show more about our own thoughts and motives than they do of the other person being observed.
There is often also the tendency to make judgements based on past events or occurrences assuming that what has happened before will happen again, and most probably in the same manner.
And so the people of Isaiah's time would look back to the parting of the Red Sea, and other events and expect God to be seen at work in exactly the same manner. They looked forward to God's grand and dramatic entry into the world, probably in some similar way to what he had done in the past, but certainly in a way that would be recognisable.
However, Isaiah's challenge was, not to cling to the events of the past, but to always look for the new things that God might do, things that might be unexpected, things that might surprise, for part of this is the idea that God is always able to do far more that we can ever begin to imagine, in ways that we would never dream possible.
In other words our preconceived assumptions and ideas about God often cause us to limit the possibilities where we might see God's hand at work.
Our Gospel story today is about anything but limiting, it is about extravagant love offered, it is about life in ways that we might not consider possible.
The story is that well known one of Jesus being entertain at the house of Lazarus, in Bethany on the outskirts of Jerusalem. This we know took place six days prior to the Passover, it would appear to have only been a short time after the event of Lazarus being raised from the dead, and it could well have been a place where pilgrims would have stayed on their way to the Passover celebrations in Jerusalem, or they may well have journey daily from there into Jerusalem for such events.
Mary and Martha, sister's of Lazarus, were perhaps used to entertaining crowds, and this group was probably no exception, except that here was Jesus, the one who had performed this miracle of raising their brother from the dead.
How delighted they would have been to have had the opportunity to host Jesus in their house.
This man had restored their brother to them, and this meal was to be in his honour.
The picture painted is of Lazarus as the host, Martha serving, and Mary goes off and appears with half a litre of very expensive perfume and began to pour it on Jesus' feet and then wiping them with her hair.
Here we see humility; the dusty feet of a weary traveller being lavished with this expensive perfume. There is nothing too great that Mary could offer in honour of this guest. We probably need to remember that while Jesus had saved Lazarus from death, he had probably saved his sisters from a life of uncertainty and perhaps poverty.
Only the best was good enough as far as Mary was concerned. This was her response, her gratitude expressed in lavish extravagance.
The placing of this story at the beginning of Jesus' journey to the cross, allows this to be seen as an anointing in preparation for death. Jesus has brought life to this house, but in so doing, he stares death in the face, and prepares the audience for this.
For in the criticism of extravagant waste that is levelled at Mary, Jesus' response is telling, "Leave her alone! Let her keep what she has for the day of my burial. You will always have poor people with you, but you will not always have me."
This act of Mary's is an act of worship. It is an act that honours the one who brings life and hope even in the face of death and despair.
There is no sense here, of Mary attempting to pay Jesus for what he has done, but rather she lives out a response of pure love offered in humility, even in the face of criticism.
People were quick to judge her motives, quick to point out all the other things that she could have done, that in their eyes would have been more important, and more appropriate.
Jesus however accepts her gift in the grace in which it were given.
How easy it is, as I have said, to judge the motives of others.
Jesus accepts the response of our hearts as we offer to him the praise and the worship that wells up within us.
Judas, the main critic in this story, suggests the money would be better given to the poor. There are always better and more worthy causes that we can find for our time, our talents and our resources, but Mary placed her offering at the feet of the one she recognised as the Lord and giver of Life. Jesus' love for the world was soon to be seen as extravagant as he hung on the cross before the people of that city. Here was a love that was beyond measure, a love that has continued to transform the lives of people throughout the world and in every generation. This is a love that is offered freely and without strings attached. There is no cost to this love and yet it invites response.
We could well ask that if we stood in the shoes of Mary, what our response would have been?
But there is a sense in which we do stand in those shoes, for here is Jesus who when proclaiming himself as the Good Shepherd, only a few chapters prior to this one, proclaimed,
"I have come that you might have life, life in all its fullness."
Jesus came to offer life to us all, life eternal, life, freed from the power of sin and death.
What greater gift could we be given, but more importantly we must ask, how can I respond to such a gift?
Jesus honoured Mary for the response that drew that pure emotion from her heart. It was a costly gift, it was a lavish gift, but it was the expression of love for Jesus.
Where do we see such love expressed in our own lives and in the life of the church today? And that is a rhetorical question, for it one that we can only answer for ourselves, for as soon as we point the finger to someone else we are acting like Judas. It is always easy to see what others should do, but impossible for us to see into the hearts of others and the motives that drive them in their response to God's gift of life and love.
Together as the church, the body of Christ we gather to offer our worship, and within the collective of the church we offer from ourselves our gifts of honour and praise that come from our hearts.
In our honouring of God and his work among us in many and varied ways, we look forward with hope to what God continues to do in our midst, knowing that we cannot limit God, for God is beyond us in every way we can dream of or imagine. If we are truly to honour God, we surely will not be wanting to put limits on where we see God working.
Isaiah's picture was one of even the wild animals honouring God, as God's love is lavished out on all creation.
His injunction still stands in our response to God's goodness to us,
"Watch for the new thing I am going to do. It is happening already - you can see it now! I will make a road through the wilderness and give you streams of water there."
May God give us all that continued sense of his loving presence and to Him be the glory, now and forever more. AMEN.

14th March 2010
Lent 4

Joshua 5:9-12
Luke 15:1-3,11b-32

No where more powerfully do we see a story that expresses God's love while screaming at the culture of its day. The contrast between what is expressed in this story, and what the world of its day understood as appropriate, could not be more vividly drawn.
And so in reading the story today, we see the measure of God's love and like the ones who originally heard it, we need to evaluate our attitudes and our actions in the light of the story.
The standard of God's love has not changed, and I suspect that largely the standard of the world's love in essence is not hugely different.
The first three verses of Chapter 15 of Luke's Gospel set the scene for the next few parables. The grumblings of the Pharisees and teachers of the law lies at the heart of Jesus' issue that he has with the established religious leaders of his day, and with the prevailing attitude of many in that society.
"This man welcomes outcasts and even eats with them!"
This is a society that had a system of putting people outside the bounds of the city and excluding them from the life of the community for all sorts of reasons. Often it was to do with health issues. Contagious diseases were contained by making such sufferers live and eat outside the city walls. Prostitutes and the lame, people impaired in all sorts of ways would be treated in such ways so that the rest of society were protected and did not have to deal with such people. Such people would have had no means of survival except begging, hoping that someone with slightest social conscience might give them something to help them survive another day.
However, contact with such people would leave one unclean, and in need of having to go through ritual purification ceremonies, thus the religious people in the story of the Good Samaritan, walked on the other side of the road. Contact with such people would have rendered them useless in their own daily tasks for which they were paid.
While such treatment of people may have been seen as understandable when it came to the likes of contagious diseases, it is hard to imagine why it need apply for those with physical or mental disabilities, or those who often were financially disadvantaged or socially unacceptable to the majority culture of the day.
Now the danger with this story is, when we feel we can pat ourselves to one side, and with some sense of pride suggest that we don't treat people like this today because our society has ways and means of dealing with such people. At this point we miss the whole meaning that Jesus tried to get across, for what really gets under the skins of those who first heard this story, is that they are able to see themselves as the sinners and outcasts. Their actions and attitudes to others paints them in a light that is no better than the people that they insist on excluding from the life of the city.
The criticism of Jesus mixing with such people was that he was making himself unclean by association. By welcoming such people, by eating with them in particular he has blurring those lines of social distinction.
And now in this story he paints God as one who welcomes such people, standing in contrast to the religious leaders who wanted to exclude them. How can we offer God's love to the world if we don't live that love in our daily lives.
God welcomes and accepts all who come to him; can we therefore afford to exclude any?
God welcomes people in all stages of change in their lives, why should the church turn people away who don't measure up to our preconceived notions of acceptability and righteousness.
Let's look at some of the detail of this story that would have pricked the conscience of the hearers of the day.
A man and two sons! He was a wealthy man, a man of honour, a man of great mana in the community. People would have looked up to him. He had hired servants, he had two sons, he was a land owner.
The religious leaders would have warmed to this bloke, the sort of man any self respecting preacher would have wanted as part of his flock. Well so they thought.
His two sons however, a different story.
The younger one wants his share of the inheritance; so that he can break the family tie and go off to do his own thing.
The mistake of the son is that in making this request he is wishing his father were dead. There is no respect for his father in this request. His turning his back on father and family should have really resulted in him being excluded from the family unity without a bean.
No way would any self respecting man contemplate giving in to such blatant arrogance and greed. Thus in the eyes of the society the Father's actions in giving in to the younger son is as much at fault as the younger son for asking. Interestingly enough this is the younger son, who was to say that as younger son there was an inheritance for him anyway. The norm would have been for the elder brother to be the son and heir. For such arrogance and rudeness to have been entertained put the father's perceived honour and respectability out the window.
The younger sons then actions of disgrace would have further denigrated the father's social standing and reputation.
His association with reckless living and then in his fight for survival lowering himself to work with pigs would have been considered beyond the pale. All these actions broke every social and religious rule in the book.
And yet when the father, having waited daily for his sons return, sees him coming over the horizon, again he breaks every social and religious code by running to meet him, by embracing him, by welcoming him back, and by celebrating with him and all his household. Such actions demand no proof of repentance, such actions accept unconditionally this sons return, and his actions of placing a ring on his finger and a robe on his back, restore him to the place he held before he left. He is not only welcomed back into the household, but he is accepted as a son.
Such is the Father's love for this lad, that he puts all the misdemeanours of the past behind him and restores him to his place in the family.
Understandably from this story, the elder son is deeply aggrieved. And this is the real twist in this story, for here is where the religious leaders and Pharisees saw themselves, and this is where Jesus' criticism lies.
His criticism is not with the Father, who clearly is seen as God in this story. God who gives freedom, God who welcomes back those who have strayed, God who celebrates with us, despite all our short comings and even when he has not seen or demanded evidence of change. God who restores rather than rebukes. God who appears to lowers himself, or puts aside his own honour to allow this freedom and response from his children.
No where in this story does the Father rebuke or chastise his son, he is too busy celebrating the fact that this son has returned. Opportunity for reform and change have come by the fact of the sons return, he is now safe in the family fold.
And is it not interesting that most of us, in hearing this story, feel deeply for the elder son. It is much easier to relate him, than it is to the younger son, and even to the Father's apparent indifference to the younger son's misdemeanours. This is where we feel most comfortable, and yet this is where Jesus puts the Pharisees. They wanted to hold the younger son at a distance, they wanted to see punishment, they wanted consequences for the actions of the younger son. They wanted justice to be seen and to be served.
The Father however offered mercy and grace.
As we come to table today, this is a picture of the same celebration of God who welcomes sinners and outcasts. It is not a feast for the righteous and worthy, but a gathering of those who have returned to the fold of God's love.
It is so easy to slip into the mentality of the Pharisees, forgetting that God's love is open to all, and that the real miracle of the Gospel is that God loves and accepts any of us, for non of us are worthy of his love. The moment we feel we are worthy, we have missed the whole point of Christ's coming. The Father who lowered himself in the eyes of his society by welcoming that scumbag son back into the family is the picture of God who lowered himself and came to us as one of us in the person of Jesus Christ to welcome us as sons and daughters of the living God.
Thus we gather as guests at his table, because he welcomes us.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

7th March 2010
Lent 3

Fruitfulness in the Kingdom of God
Isaiah 55:1-9
Luke 13:1-9

It is hardly surprising that Jesus tells stories that have either an agricultural or horticultural bent to them. The times and settings that these stories come out of, were from an age where such activity was common place for the necessary survival of every family. If it were our day I wonder what the basis of the stories would be. Possibly technological, or business focused I would imagine.
These are the activities that lie at the heart of our world, and yet when the crops fail, or the supply of food is blocked in one way or another, the societies are so easily brought to their knees.
It is good to pause once in a while to remember what lies at the heart of our being and what the basics are that are still necessary for our survival. It is good to look beyond this too, to remember that even the most basic elements in our lives emanate from the source of our being, namely God, the Lord and giver of life.
Harvest Festival, is an ancient celebration that dates well back in the Old Testament times when people honoured God with the first fruits of the harvest to acknowledge that God was the source of all. It was a giving back to God in grateful thanks of all that had been received.
In a sense it is offering to God God's worth out of the context of the time and the place of the people of the particular day. In other words it was the bringing of everyday life into the context of worship, obliterating any perceived gap their might be between our spiritual life and our everyday life.
All aspects of our daily lives are intertwined in our relationship with God and as such should bear the marks and the fruitfulness of the Kingdom of God. Everything that we do and say reflects our understanding of God and God's place in our world.
The times of Jesus, were obviously harsh and sometimes cruel, and there was always that temptation to associate hardship and persecution with moral and spiritual health. The harder ones experience the greater sinner they must be.
Jesus always rejected such arguments, just as he did in today's Gospel reading.
The crux for Jesus was never one of punishment and retribution on God's part, but always one of mercy and grace.
God's nature was never portrayed as capricious and short tempered, but rather as longsuffering and understanding of our human frailty.
Nevertheless the call for Jesus was always clear, that we are challenged to recognise and acknowledge our humanity, and our shortcomings within that human condition, and in so doing to learn to rely on God and his mercy and grace for our salvation. For if we fail to do that then we allow a self reliance to develop where one sees no need of God.
Jesus said, "No indeed! And I tell you that if you do not turn from your sins, you will die as they did."
Repentance is the theological word for this turning. It is about, both a once and for all transformation, that changes the very substance of our being. No longer are we to strive for goodness in an attempt to appease God, but rather we are to accept our humanity and take hold of God's mercy and grace acknowledging his supremacy in the world and in our lives.
This change in our view of the world, is an acknowledgement of a fundamental power shift from self reliance to God centeredness. Then there is born that aspect of repentance that is the day today process of putting away the sin in our lives in a desire to honour God in all that we do rather than the futile attempt to buy favour..
This is a life time process of recognition, of tripping and hopping up and moving forward. This is our humanity in relationship with God. This is the interaction in a relational way that keeps the reality of that relationship in focus.
Leon Morris says of this, "Repentance is both a once-for-all event that shapes the whole subsequent course of the life and a day-by-day affair that keeps putting sin away."
Christ then moves to illustrate both this point of repentance, and to stress the slowness in God's nature to punish, which are the very issues he has just been speaking on.
The picture, a simple one!
A fig tree among many stands in the vineyard, but this tree has not produced for three years. After three years of not fruiting, it is unlikely that it will once again bear fruit, so the owner gives the order to the gardener to remove it.
Three years has probably allowed for seasonal variations, and other factors that may have affected the productivity of this tree, so the decision reflects the fact that this tree is merely taking up space, and using up valuable ground and even drawing out valuable nutrients out of the soil.
I am sure that from a horticulturalist point of view one could understand the logic of this story.
None of those who have produced this fine produce here today would want to go on gardening if the crops continued to fail. We would all want to look for reasons and act in some way to ensure success.
The gardener in this story pleads for one more year, and in this time he will do all that he can to kick start this tree into production.
Christ's coming among us is part of the application of this clemency offered. God's expression of his love in a language that we can comprehend, comes in a form that we can related to, offers to us a the message of God's saving love. It gives us all the opportunity to respond in faith to God's mercy.
And thus we can look at the fruitfulness in our own lives to see how we take up the challenge of living a life of faith. How is the fruit of God's love expressed through us in our daily living so that others might see and come to know God's love for them.
We are called to be fruitful for the Kingdom of God, this is our response to understanding and knowing God's merciful love and grace.
This is our response to our understanding that without God, our lives lack the meaning and the purpose for which we were given the privilege of life.
Understanding God's love, understanding God as the Creator and provider of all that is, will give us an appreciation of life itself, helping us to value the most basic aspects of our being and of our humanity.
If God is so long suffering with us, that then surely becomes a quality, not necessarily evident in many, but surely one that in the context of understanding God, we should work on in our own lives.
Our world today wants quick fix solutions to all sorts of things, to crime, to quality control of parenting, to issues of aging, all in an attempt to mould human behaviour and response. Much of what we hear suggested or see done in our laws and institutions sometimes falls short in valuing human life especially in the face of peoples failures.
Mercy and grace, longsuffering and forgiveness are not qualities that are often promoted and yet they lie at the heart of God's nature, and are called for if we are to live a life of faith.
For people to give thanks to God for the harvest is probably as much misunderstood in the world, as are the concepts of mercy, grace and forgiveness
As Christian's surely we at times have to be prepared to stand out in the world in the values that we hold and promote.
It is often that case of being in the world but not of the world.
Where the world takes the simple things of life for granted, we want to pause to give thanks. Where the world wants to condemn, sometimes we have to stand back and offer forgiveness; where the world wants retribution, sometimes we have to look at a path of mercy.
Such choices are never the easy option, but often challenge us in our humanity to the core. But maybe in the process we begin to discover the true essence of humanity, and the fruitfulness of God's kingdom may begin to develop.
Let us become conscious of our actions, our motives, our reactions to the world in which we live so that we might be more determined in our efforts to live and to share God's love, and to demonstrate his mercy and grace.
To God be the glory, now and for ever more. AMEN.

Sunday 28th February 2010
Rev R Gray

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.