Bless thou, the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts that they be of profit to us and acceptable to thee, oh our rock and our redeemer. Amen!
Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a lighthouse that sat on a rocky shore and helped ships get through the water safely without hitting any big nasty rocks. One day the lighthouse operator became sick and a temporary substitute was put in charge of the lighthouse. While he was there tending the lighthouse a big storm blew up and sand and branches and all kinds of things were flying around in the wind. The temporary lighthouse keeper got out a big piece of canvas and covered up the lantern so it would not get wet or damaged in the storm. That night a ship blew upon the rocks and sank with all hands.
Sounds silly doesn't it - I mean - who, as Jesus puts it, lights a lamp and then put it under a bowl?
Shortly after my confirmation a question was put to me that I would like to ask you today - a friend at that church asked me - "What are you? Are you a thermometer or a thermostat?
I was a little bit slow that day - I couldn't figure out what he was driving at - so I asked him a simple question in return: "What the are you talking about?!
Edwin, he said - a thermometer reflects its environment, it shows what the temperature is, if its hot outside - it says its hot; if its cold, it says its cold; it exerts no influence on what's around it - rather it is influenced by it; but not so a thermostat. A thermostat has power, it sets the temperature, it changes things.
So - what are you? A thermometer, or a thermostat?
What a great question! It is one that Jesus puts to his disciples in today's reading when he says:
"You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven."
Think about it for a minute - Jesus tells us - "You are the salt of the earth..." And again, "You are the light of the world".
What an incredible thing that is! What an incredible gift! Somehow - because of who God has made us. Somehow - because of our decision to follow Jesus we are made into salt - into light - for the world.
That is the beautiful realty of what God does to us, in fact it is the most important thing that God does through us, when we live by our faith.
Think of the people who have touched you, the people who first spoke to your yearning heart, the people who first, because of their love and care for you, inspired you to believe in the God of Love.
Did they not light up your life? Did they not bring new savour and zest to the diet you once lived on? Did they not penetrate and change your lives with their care and concern and honesty? just as the presence of Jesus changed the life of Peter and John and James?
The divine is a light within us, and faith is the match that sets it glowing.
We are here today because the light of God has come into our life. The only question we need to address is - what are we going to do with that light?
Some time ago at a Bible Study someone asked the group:
Do you know what Christianity is? It is a wildly infectious disease. When you got a good case of it everyone around gets it too. The only problem is - so many people try to cure it...
People cure faith by stifling it and by ignoring it and by hiding it. They destroy faith by living like thermometers rather than like thermostats.
It doesn't take much to be a thermometer you know, all you have to do is be agreeable. All you have to do is to go along with what everyone else wants. All you have to do is think of your own comfort and ease.
When others around you are scoffing and mocking - all you need do is be quiet, to not make waves - you may even perhaps join with them in a gentle put down.
When someone is being racist and intolerant all you have to do is be silent about how in Christ there is no Jew nor Gentile, no Pakistanis nor Arabs....
When someone is hurt and alone, or feeling offended or betrayed, or simply depressed, all you have to do is walk on by - all you have to do is go on doing what you were doing before, as if nothing was happening that needed your attention.
All you have to do to be a thermometer - is go with the flow, to not speak about God's power and love, to not witness by your deeds to God's grace and mercy.
Reginald Bibby, a well known sociologist said in one of his books he examined the various churches in a certain part of North America, he polled their members and he polled a large number of non-Christians and he discovered an amazing fact - a disturbing fact:
He discovered that on almost all major social and political issues Christians did not differ in their opinions from non-Christians.
Bibby concludes his book by saying that the reason that the Christian church is dying in North America is because it does not offer anything that anyone else does not offer.
Indeed, Bibby continues - the very things that make the church unique - most of the established churches refuse to talk about - they would rather talk about psychology than about faith, and about the need for politic reform rather than about spiritual change.
Bibby, with the tools of modern social science echoes the statement of the 19th century philosopher and sceptic Frederick Nietzsche. Nietzsche said this about the churches of his day:
"They must sing better songs, ere I learn belief in their Saviour. They must act like they are redeemed before I will believe in their redeemer."
Well, we have great songs - but where do we sing them?...Are we like the Israelites at the time of the prophet Isaiah? Do we only sing the songs of the Lord when we are in church? Do we only sing about our faith when we want something from God?
Are we like those who believe quietly and only when it is safe? Or do we sing loudly and cheerfully and triumphantly in public? In those places where those who sing only the songs of the devil will be confronted; where those who hear only the songs of despair can at last know that there is hope; where those who have only the songs of self-hatred to listen to can, at last, hear that they are loved?
In the winter of 1978 a very heavy snow storm struck the city of Boston. It lasted a week, and during part of that time the power went off. While the power was off a number of things happened.
A man got lost trying to find his way to an unfamiliar section of the city. He almost froze to death wandering around the streets, until he happened upon a place he knew.
An elderly woman whose house was without power went through a night of terror. Of fragile health, she sometimes suffered hallucinations. Alone in her dark home her imagination distorted all the sounds of the wind and storm into signals of some kind of attack upon her.
In a house just a block away from her - a man died when the equipment he relied upon to breath failed to function.
A few blocks away, made bold by the darkness, vandals broke into an appliance store and carried off a lot of valuable merchandise.
The reality of one part of this parable I am telling you will help make all the rest clear.
The reality was that the Boston Edison Power Company had sufficient power in its generating system to meet all the needs of the city. The problem was in one simple transformer in the main plant and with the transmission lines from a substation.
This is like Christ and us as his disciples - we who are the light of the world.
Christ is indeed the one who shines with God's light.
But just as the whole city of Boston does not live in the generating plant itself, no more can people live in the immediate presence of their source of divine energy. Power has to come out into the world were they live.
That requires "transformers" and "transmission lines". It requires disciples who will cause their light to shine where people live and die.
We are the salt of the earth.
We are the light of the world.
We are the thermostats in a world of varying temperatures.
We are the infectious disease that God wants all people to catch.
We are the transmission lines, the transformers, that God has chosen.
We are the singers of the songs of the Lord.
And what in all this does God ask of us? The God who puts his light into us. The God who seasons us with his presence. The God who imparts his song into our hearts?
God asks very little. All he wants is that we be what we he has made us to be.
The power is, after all, his.
The light comes from him.
The seasoning is mined from his word, and the song is first sung by his lips.
All God asks is that we follow him, and witness to him as faithfully as we can.
And we can do that easily. All we need do is remember a simple fact, and do a simple deed.
The simple fact is this:
God makes us the salt of the earth. Salt, however, does not exist for its own sake. No one sits down to eat salt and salt alone. Salt is a seasoning meant to be applied to something, it is meant to penetrate and preserve and flavour the food that people eat. And in the same way light is not meant to be looked at, it is not meant to be covered and treasured like some precious object, it is given so that people might see what is around them and walk in safety, it is meant to penetrate and overcome darkness.
In other words we are saved - not just for ourselves, but to do the work of God.
And the simple thing we can do is this - we can stand up for our faith in God. And we can stand upon our faith in God.
When we do so - when we stand up and stand on - when we believe and act in faith, then we will be full of light, and of power, and of grace, we will be beacons in a dark place, and praise and glory unto God will be the result
We have God's word on it, that word by which we were made, and by which all life is given.
Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father in heaven. Amen!
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1; Luke 6:17-26
Lead us, O God, to streams of living water. Speak to us in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the meditations of our hearts. Bring us freshness, new growth and vitality, that we may be fruitful for thee, our rock and our redeemer.
Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev in the Ukraine, used to say that he had discovered the meaning of love from a drunken peasant.
The rabbi was visiting the owner of a tavern in the Polish countryside. As he walked in, he saw two peasants at a table. Both were gloriously in their cups. Arms around each other, they were protesting how much each loved the other.
Suddenly Ivan said to Peter; "Peter, tell me, what hurts me?'
Bleary-eyed, Peter looked at Ivan: "How do I know what hurts you?"
Ivan's answer was swift: "If you don't know what hurts me, how can you say you love me?"
In today's Gospel reading , we hear gives Luke's version of the beatitudes. It is a version that is strikingly different from that found in the Gospel according to Matthew.
Instead of Matthew's eight statements concerning those whom God will bless Luke gives four beatitudes - four statements concerning those who are blessed.
The four blessings at first glance seem familiar enough:
Blessed are you who are poor,
blessed are you who are hungry,
blessed are you who weep.
blessed are you when people hate you and revile and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
But then Luke goes on and instead of listing four more beatitudes - he lists four woes - four disturbing statements concerning those whom God will afflict.
Woe to you who are rich now.
Woe to you are full now.
Woe to you who are laughing now.
Woe to you when all speak well of you.
That my friend's is incredible stuff, upsetting stuff, stuff that the rich and the full and the happy and the well thought of do not want to believe - and can you blame them?
Think about what the average person in our society works for.
Think about what you work for....
And then consider the scripture you have just heard.
I think most of us in this world are prepared to accept that the God will bless the poor and the hungry. There is a part of us that is, in fact, relieved by this idea. It kind of takes some of the pressure off us doesn't it?
We like too the idea that God will comfort those who mourn - and the idea that those who do right and are hated for it will receive a reward from God is not unpleasant to our ears. We can imagine, after all, ourselves in the position of needing some of that comfort - and we know that doing right isn't always rewarded by those around us - so it is good to know that God will set the record straight.
But the idea that the riches we have - may lead to our being cursed by God, and that the food we have - may be taken from us, and the joy we have - may be replaced by sorrow, and the good name we enjoy - may be considered to be an evil, well that is a different kettle of fish isn't it?.
And so it is meant to be.
You know I can't count the number of times I have heard people, when discussing the beatitudes, say things like:
"well, you know, the poor - in some ways they are better off than the rich. They have to work together. They know just how good a meal tastes. They are more connected to God, because God is all they have."
You ever hear stuff like that?
There is, I suppose, a certain truth to it. But it all too quickly can sound like being poor is a good thing. And if that is so - why then don't those people who say those things sell what they have and give it to the poor, and follow Jesus - as Jesus told the rich young ruler to do?
No my friends - poverty - thirst - weeping - and persecution are not good things, and those who are poor and thirty and mourning and persecuted are not told by Jesus that they are blessed because poverty and thirst and sorrow and persecution are, in some fashion a blessing; rather Jesus tells them and us today that they are blessed because God loves them and because it is God's will that they have a full place in his Kingdom.
You must remember my friends that in the popular understanding of things those who have wealth and health have it for one of two reasons - they have it because they have worked hard for it - or they have it because they are "blessed by God". Often we think it is a combination of these two things. We are blessed by God because we do things that are pleasing to God.
Equally we normally think of misery as being self induced - or as being God's punishment on those who are not following in his way - the poor are poor because they are lazy or their parents were lazy - and the poor nations - well they are poor because they have the wrong kind of values, because they fight with each other, or squander their resources, or whatever.
Indeed - when you read Psalm One, or the Prophet Jeremiah as we did today, it is easy to get into that frame of mind. The bible often speaks of prosperity as coming on the heels of obedience to God - and of unhappiness and misery as coming about as the result of disobedience.
And common sense tells us that this is the case as well.
God, after all, is not mocked. And his word is not void.
Just as when you jump off a cliff you will crash down to the ground, so when you turn your back on the Spiritual principles of life you will end up in misery.
And just as when you sow a crop of corn and corn is produced rather than tomatoes, so when you live by the love of God the love of God will be seen in you and what you do.
So it becomes all too easy for us to look out on the world and blame the poor and the thirsty and the persecuted and the sorrowful for their own plight.
Either way - by the route of blaming the poor for their own situation - or by the route of saying that somehow the situation being poor is better than, or at least as good as the situation of being rich, we can easily let ourselves off the hook of really caring for those around us; of really regarding the less fortunate as people equal to ourselves in every way save that they need a portion of that which we already have.
I would like to share with you something called the Parable of the Pit. Some of you have heard it before - others have not. It goes on a bit - but that is part of it's effect. Perhaps you all can help me fill in the blanks.... It starts like this:
A man fell into a pit and could not get himself out.
A SUBJECTIVE person saw him and said, "I feel for you down there."
An OBJECTIVE person happened along and said, "It's logical that someone would fall, down there."
A CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST came along and said, "You only think that you're in a pit."
A PHARISEE said............... "Only bad people fall into a pit".
A ROCK HOUND asked........ "Are there any rare specimens in the pit?"
A NEWS REPORTER asked...... "Can I have the exclusive story on your pit?"
A FUNDAMENTALIST said....... "You deserve your pit."
CONFUCIOUS said, "If you would have listened to me, you would not be in that pit."
BUDDHA said to him, "Your pit is only a state of mind."
A REALIST happened along and said, "Now THAT'S a pit!"
A SCIENTIST saw him and said..... "I'll calculate the pressure necessary (pounds/square inches) to get you out of the pit.
A GEOLOGIST said..... "Just appreciate the rock strata in your pit."
An EVOLUTIONIST happened along and said, "You're a rejected mutant destined to die in that pit, before you product any pit-falling offspring."
A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL asked........ "Are you paying taxes on your pit?"
The LAND USE INSPECTOR asked, "Did you have a permit to dig a pit?"
A PROFESSOR gave him a lecture on "The Elementary Principles of a Pit"."
An EVASIVE PERSON talked to him and avoided the subject of the pit altogether.
A SELF-PITYING PERSON said..... "You haven't seen anything until you've see MY pit!"
An ODDS-MAKER noted..... "Chances are that anyone could fall into a pit."
An OPTIMIST said, "Things could be worse."
A PESSIMIST said, "Things WILL get worse!"
But JESUS, seeing the man........" took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit."
My friends, when we are confronted by the beatitudes we are confronted with the love of God: a love that - as we sang before this sermon - takes us just as we are, and so also takes the poor, the thirsty, the sorrowful, those who are despised just as they are.
Some ago we read the passage that is often called Jesus' mission statement, that statement from the prophet Isaiah - that goes:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me top proclaim release to the captives and recovery of site to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.
God's love extends to everyone my friends - the beatitudes confront us with this fact.
They also confront us with the fact that the rich, the well feed, the joyful and the well thought of persons among us may have forgotten the fundamentals concerning God's love - they may have forgotten just what it is that hurts God - how God is pained by disease when there is so much medicine close to hand - how God suffers when millions starve while enough food to feed them rots in corporate warehouses - how God is horrified by indifference and by a society that blames victims rather than helping them.
God is not against wealth or those who have full bellies. Nor does God condemn those who experience joyfulness or have good reputations.
But God does reminds us today - through the words of Jesus - and Jeremiah and David that there are two paths in this life, a choice of two roads that we can walk.
One path leads to life - the other leads to death.
The path to death is to rejoice in the blessings rather than in the one who blesses us, it is to seek the goodies that God gives rather than the to seek to do the good that God does.
The path of life - is the path of Jesus - who not counting equality with God a thing to be grasped, emptied himself and taking on human form, humbled himself, and became obedient to point of death even death on a cross.
You who are in need today - rejoice - for God will bless you, God loves you - and counts you as part of his chosen people, your time of suffering will come to an end.
You have abundance today - consider your brothers and sisters and how it is that Jesus gave himself for them - as he gave himself for you, and love them - love them deeply - love them with all you have, for in that love all the law and the prophets is fulfilled.
May His Name be praised day by day. Amen!
Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev in the Ukraine, used to say that he had discovered the meaning of love from a drunken peasant.
The rabbi was visiting the owner of a tavern in the Polish countryside. As he walked in, he saw two peasants at a table. Both were gloriously in their cups. Arms around each other, they were protesting how much each loved the other.
Suddenly Ivan said to Peter; "Peter, tell me, what hurts me?'
Bleary-eyed, Peter looked at Ivan: "How do I know what hurts you?"
Ivan's answer was swift: "If you don't know what hurts me, how can you say you love me?"
In today's Gospel reading , we hear gives Luke's version of the beatitudes. It is a version that is strikingly different from that found in the Gospel according to Matthew.
Instead of Matthew's eight statements concerning those whom God will bless Luke gives four beatitudes - four statements concerning those who are blessed.
The four blessings at first glance seem familiar enough:
Blessed are you who are poor,
blessed are you who are hungry,
blessed are you who weep.
blessed are you when people hate you and revile and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
But then Luke goes on and instead of listing four more beatitudes - he lists four woes - four disturbing statements concerning those whom God will afflict.
Woe to you who are rich now.
Woe to you are full now.
Woe to you who are laughing now.
Woe to you when all speak well of you.
That my friend's is incredible stuff, upsetting stuff, stuff that the rich and the full and the happy and the well thought of do not want to believe - and can you blame them?
Think about what the average person in our society works for.
Think about what you work for....
And then consider the scripture you have just heard.
I think most of us in this world are prepared to accept that the God will bless the poor and the hungry. There is a part of us that is, in fact, relieved by this idea. It kind of takes some of the pressure off us doesn't it?
We like too the idea that God will comfort those who mourn - and the idea that those who do right and are hated for it will receive a reward from God is not unpleasant to our ears. We can imagine, after all, ourselves in the position of needing some of that comfort - and we know that doing right isn't always rewarded by those around us - so it is good to know that God will set the record straight.
But the idea that the riches we have - may lead to our being cursed by God, and that the food we have - may be taken from us, and the joy we have - may be replaced by sorrow, and the good name we enjoy - may be considered to be an evil, well that is a different kettle of fish isn't it?.
And so it is meant to be.
You know I can't count the number of times I have heard people, when discussing the beatitudes, say things like:
"well, you know, the poor - in some ways they are better off than the rich. They have to work together. They know just how good a meal tastes. They are more connected to God, because God is all they have."
You ever hear stuff like that?
There is, I suppose, a certain truth to it. But it all too quickly can sound like being poor is a good thing. And if that is so - why then don't those people who say those things sell what they have and give it to the poor, and follow Jesus - as Jesus told the rich young ruler to do?
No my friends - poverty - thirst - weeping - and persecution are not good things, and those who are poor and thirty and mourning and persecuted are not told by Jesus that they are blessed because poverty and thirst and sorrow and persecution are, in some fashion a blessing; rather Jesus tells them and us today that they are blessed because God loves them and because it is God's will that they have a full place in his Kingdom.
You must remember my friends that in the popular understanding of things those who have wealth and health have it for one of two reasons - they have it because they have worked hard for it - or they have it because they are "blessed by God". Often we think it is a combination of these two things. We are blessed by God because we do things that are pleasing to God.
Equally we normally think of misery as being self induced - or as being God's punishment on those who are not following in his way - the poor are poor because they are lazy or their parents were lazy - and the poor nations - well they are poor because they have the wrong kind of values, because they fight with each other, or squander their resources, or whatever.
Indeed - when you read Psalm One, or the Prophet Jeremiah as we did today, it is easy to get into that frame of mind. The bible often speaks of prosperity as coming on the heels of obedience to God - and of unhappiness and misery as coming about as the result of disobedience.
And common sense tells us that this is the case as well.
God, after all, is not mocked. And his word is not void.
Just as when you jump off a cliff you will crash down to the ground, so when you turn your back on the Spiritual principles of life you will end up in misery.
And just as when you sow a crop of corn and corn is produced rather than tomatoes, so when you live by the love of God the love of God will be seen in you and what you do.
So it becomes all too easy for us to look out on the world and blame the poor and the thirsty and the persecuted and the sorrowful for their own plight.
Either way - by the route of blaming the poor for their own situation - or by the route of saying that somehow the situation being poor is better than, or at least as good as the situation of being rich, we can easily let ourselves off the hook of really caring for those around us; of really regarding the less fortunate as people equal to ourselves in every way save that they need a portion of that which we already have.
I would like to share with you something called the Parable of the Pit. Some of you have heard it before - others have not. It goes on a bit - but that is part of it's effect. Perhaps you all can help me fill in the blanks.... It starts like this:
A man fell into a pit and could not get himself out.
A SUBJECTIVE person saw him and said, "I feel for you down there."
An OBJECTIVE person happened along and said, "It's logical that someone would fall, down there."
A CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST came along and said, "You only think that you're in a pit."
A PHARISEE said............... "Only bad people fall into a pit".
A ROCK HOUND asked........ "Are there any rare specimens in the pit?"
A NEWS REPORTER asked...... "Can I have the exclusive story on your pit?"
A FUNDAMENTALIST said....... "You deserve your pit."
CONFUCIOUS said, "If you would have listened to me, you would not be in that pit."
BUDDHA said to him, "Your pit is only a state of mind."
A REALIST happened along and said, "Now THAT'S a pit!"
A SCIENTIST saw him and said..... "I'll calculate the pressure necessary (pounds/square inches) to get you out of the pit.
A GEOLOGIST said..... "Just appreciate the rock strata in your pit."
An EVOLUTIONIST happened along and said, "You're a rejected mutant destined to die in that pit, before you product any pit-falling offspring."
A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL asked........ "Are you paying taxes on your pit?"
The LAND USE INSPECTOR asked, "Did you have a permit to dig a pit?"
A PROFESSOR gave him a lecture on "The Elementary Principles of a Pit"."
An EVASIVE PERSON talked to him and avoided the subject of the pit altogether.
A SELF-PITYING PERSON said..... "You haven't seen anything until you've see MY pit!"
An ODDS-MAKER noted..... "Chances are that anyone could fall into a pit."
An OPTIMIST said, "Things could be worse."
A PESSIMIST said, "Things WILL get worse!"
But JESUS, seeing the man........" took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit."
My friends, when we are confronted by the beatitudes we are confronted with the love of God: a love that - as we sang before this sermon - takes us just as we are, and so also takes the poor, the thirsty, the sorrowful, those who are despised just as they are.
Some ago we read the passage that is often called Jesus' mission statement, that statement from the prophet Isaiah - that goes:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me top proclaim release to the captives and recovery of site to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.
God's love extends to everyone my friends - the beatitudes confront us with this fact.
They also confront us with the fact that the rich, the well feed, the joyful and the well thought of persons among us may have forgotten the fundamentals concerning God's love - they may have forgotten just what it is that hurts God - how God is pained by disease when there is so much medicine close to hand - how God suffers when millions starve while enough food to feed them rots in corporate warehouses - how God is horrified by indifference and by a society that blames victims rather than helping them.
God is not against wealth or those who have full bellies. Nor does God condemn those who experience joyfulness or have good reputations.
But God does reminds us today - through the words of Jesus - and Jeremiah and David that there are two paths in this life, a choice of two roads that we can walk.
One path leads to life - the other leads to death.
The path to death is to rejoice in the blessings rather than in the one who blesses us, it is to seek the goodies that God gives rather than the to seek to do the good that God does.
The path of life - is the path of Jesus - who not counting equality with God a thing to be grasped, emptied himself and taking on human form, humbled himself, and became obedient to point of death even death on a cross.
You who are in need today - rejoice - for God will bless you, God loves you - and counts you as part of his chosen people, your time of suffering will come to an end.
You have abundance today - consider your brothers and sisters and how it is that Jesus gave himself for them - as he gave himself for you, and love them - love them deeply - love them with all you have, for in that love all the law and the prophets is fulfilled.
May His Name be praised day by day. Amen!
Sunday, February 2, 2014
I Corinthians 1:18-31; Psalm 15; Matthew 5:1-12
O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
"For consider your call, brothers and sisters, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are..."
Consider your call. Consider who you were - who you are - and what God has promised to do for you and through you.
And consider too these words:
"The message of cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.... For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."
What God has chosen is a confounding thing. A thing which overturns the wisdom of the world. A thing which overturns all social expectation, all scientifically determined truths, all human strength and power - and establishes in its place the inexplicable.
Blessed are the poor in Spirit - Blessed are they that mourn - Blessed are the meek. Blessed are they who are persecuted because of righteousness. Blessed are you when people insult you and say all manner of evil against you falsely because of me...
That which God has chosen - that which God blesses - is not what the world would choose or what the world would bless - and God states that straight up front when he says: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
God has chosen you:
- you with your worries and anxieties about the future
- you with your secondary school education
- you with your bad back and your aching neck and feet
- you with your private thoughts - and your secret past
- you with your desperate needs and your hidden fears,
just as he chose so long ago Peter with his bull headed stubborn bravado - and Matthew with his unsavoury background as a tax-collector - Simon, with his reputation as a Zealot - and James and John, two fishermen with a strange ambition to somehow be first in the Kingdom they thought Jesus was going to establish somewhere in the middle of the Roman Empire.
The Lord chose nobodies to be the first to know his teaching, the first to witness his miracles, and the first to spread the good news - the good news concerning the message of the cross - the good news that God has acted to bring salvation to the world and that all we have to do is to believe and trust in him.
God chose nobodies to be the first to know and to spread the good news that eventually would change the world.
We all look my brother and sisters-in-Christ, for salvation - for wholeness.
But some look, not to God, but to other things, they look not to faith in Christ Jesus and in the message of the cross, but to programs and blueprints and clever items of organization, to doctors and lawyers and those wise in the ways of science and technology.
They look for better jobs, bigger pay cheques, more interesting hobbies, different marriage partners, and while all these things have an appearance of wisdom, while they all, in turn, may indeed be very good and even very necessary things they do not save anyone - often they do not even make us very happy...
In Corinth the church was divided in various factions and groups as the people there became captivated by one or another viewpoint concerning what was good and what was true and what was of saving benefit.
As we heard of how some boasted of how they followed Apollos, how he had the better way - and indeed Apollos was an eloquent and persuasive person, a person who planted many seeds of faith in the lives of others.
Others thought the way the message was preached by Peter was best that heeding him was the only thing to do - that because he was one of the twelve he should be heeded before all others - and so it went.
There was a group of people who insisted that all moral codes were irrelevant because the written law had been superceded by the spiritual law of freedom and of life, and others who were incredibly strict about what a person could or could not do - for the exactly same reason, and they argued back and forth incessantly about who was right and who was wrong and whether or not it affected one's status in the eyes of God, whether or not it affected one's salvation or the salvation of the entire community.
In our day and age and after over 2000 years of faith in Christ Jesus you might think that we are exempt from such disputes - from such misunderstandings about what is important and what is helpful to us before God - but sadly we are not.
There are still those who believe that all the problems that they have and all the problems that our church and our community and indeed Hong Kong has can be solved by following one political party instead of another; that they can be solved by challenging or blackmailing the Central Government of China by the unlawful act of occupying Central - or by promoting one kind of theology or promoting one particular way of doing things over another.
There are still those who believe that if they could only change the programs that are offered, if they could only do things in a modern manner - or if they could only do them in the old fashioned way - or if they could only do them in the way that they are personally comfortable with that everything would be fine in the church or in their lodge or club - or even in their families...
I do not know, my brothers and sisters-in-Christ, if the message of the cross is modern or old fashioned. But I do know that it isn't always comfortable.
It isn't always comfortable because it tells us that we are a people in desperate need - that we are a people who easily descend to acts of rejection - and ultimately to violence - to silence the voices we do not like to hear.
The message of the cross isn't always comfortable because it tells us not just that we are forgiven by God, but because it tells us well that we need forgiving in the first place.
And because it tells us that salvation is not something that we can win or earn, but rather that it is something free and gracious and ultimately only available to those who are humble enough and hungry enough to accept it.
Some people don't like that.
They think that they are pretty good, that they have good ideas, and that while they are not perfect, they still have a valuable contribution to make, one that will help set things straight - and well they might; but as long as you think that it is from you or from some other human agency or effort that the goodness comes - that healing power comes, you are missing the good news concerning the cross of Jesus Christ - you are missing all the marvellous freedom that comes when you embrace the truth concerning God's love.
Consider your calling my brothers and sisters.
Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are..."
These words do not mean that God does not use people of status and stature as well.
"He does - but only, remarkably enough, when they have learned that their usefulness does not derive from their position or their abilities, but rather from his presence in their lives."
It is God's presence that makes the difference. And it is to God that we should turn when we have a problem, or when we are looking to promote healing and wholeness in ourselves and in those around us.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who was for many years an outstanding pastor in London, England, says this:
"We Christians often quote 'not by might nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord,' and yet in practice we seem to rely upon the mighty dollar and the power of the press and advertising. We seem to think that our influence will depend on our technique and the program we can put forward and that it would be the numbers, the largeness, the bigness that would prove effective. We seem to have forgotten that God has done most of his deeds in the church throughout its history through remnants. We seem to have forgotten the great story of Gideon, for instance, and how God insisted on reducing the 32,000 men down to 300 before he would make use of them. We have become fascinated by the idea of bigness, and we are quite convinced that if we can only stage, yes, that's the word, stage something really big before the world, we will shake it and produce a mighty religious awakening. That seems to be the modern conception of authority."
There are many different things that we turn to for salvation - many different things that we seek out as a means of solving our problems - both those that are personal - and those that linked to our life together as a church or as a community.
"I find people everywhere who seem to think that it takes money to do God's work, that nothing can happen unless you get money first - "If we could only get so much money, then we could begin a great ministry." It seems to me that is a reversal of the whole position of scripture, for in scripture you do not begin with money, you begin with ministry. Anybody can be a minister of God. That is the glory of the Church, because God has put us all in the ministry. If you begin to do what God wants you to do, right where you are, and God begins to work through you, all the money that is ever necessary, will come.
God has chosen what seems foolishness and weak to save the world. He has chosen to use the way of faith and of trust to bless the world. And he calls us to rely upon him, and his Spirit, his presence in our lives, for everything.
He calls us to understand that
- no programs and devices,
- no surveys and samples
- no methods of government or organization
- no raw use of power
- or clever use of technology
- no fund raising nor system of taxation
- no single leader or person
can gain us what we need, what we all need.
What the Lord requires - what we require - is that we act justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
Believe my friends
- believe that God can help
- believe that only God can help
- and believe that God does help
and ask him to do so - ask him, and seek to follow the in the way of Christ - in the way of justice and mercy and salvation will come to you - and to your household - and indeed to the church and the world.
Blessed Be God, Day by Day, Amen
"For consider your call, brothers and sisters, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are..."
Consider your call. Consider who you were - who you are - and what God has promised to do for you and through you.
And consider too these words:
"The message of cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.... For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."
What God has chosen is a confounding thing. A thing which overturns the wisdom of the world. A thing which overturns all social expectation, all scientifically determined truths, all human strength and power - and establishes in its place the inexplicable.
Blessed are the poor in Spirit - Blessed are they that mourn - Blessed are the meek. Blessed are they who are persecuted because of righteousness. Blessed are you when people insult you and say all manner of evil against you falsely because of me...
That which God has chosen - that which God blesses - is not what the world would choose or what the world would bless - and God states that straight up front when he says: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
God has chosen you:
- you with your worries and anxieties about the future
- you with your secondary school education
- you with your bad back and your aching neck and feet
- you with your private thoughts - and your secret past
- you with your desperate needs and your hidden fears,
just as he chose so long ago Peter with his bull headed stubborn bravado - and Matthew with his unsavoury background as a tax-collector - Simon, with his reputation as a Zealot - and James and John, two fishermen with a strange ambition to somehow be first in the Kingdom they thought Jesus was going to establish somewhere in the middle of the Roman Empire.
The Lord chose nobodies to be the first to know his teaching, the first to witness his miracles, and the first to spread the good news - the good news concerning the message of the cross - the good news that God has acted to bring salvation to the world and that all we have to do is to believe and trust in him.
God chose nobodies to be the first to know and to spread the good news that eventually would change the world.
We all look my brother and sisters-in-Christ, for salvation - for wholeness.
But some look, not to God, but to other things, they look not to faith in Christ Jesus and in the message of the cross, but to programs and blueprints and clever items of organization, to doctors and lawyers and those wise in the ways of science and technology.
They look for better jobs, bigger pay cheques, more interesting hobbies, different marriage partners, and while all these things have an appearance of wisdom, while they all, in turn, may indeed be very good and even very necessary things they do not save anyone - often they do not even make us very happy...
In Corinth the church was divided in various factions and groups as the people there became captivated by one or another viewpoint concerning what was good and what was true and what was of saving benefit.
As we heard of how some boasted of how they followed Apollos, how he had the better way - and indeed Apollos was an eloquent and persuasive person, a person who planted many seeds of faith in the lives of others.
Others thought the way the message was preached by Peter was best that heeding him was the only thing to do - that because he was one of the twelve he should be heeded before all others - and so it went.
There was a group of people who insisted that all moral codes were irrelevant because the written law had been superceded by the spiritual law of freedom and of life, and others who were incredibly strict about what a person could or could not do - for the exactly same reason, and they argued back and forth incessantly about who was right and who was wrong and whether or not it affected one's status in the eyes of God, whether or not it affected one's salvation or the salvation of the entire community.
In our day and age and after over 2000 years of faith in Christ Jesus you might think that we are exempt from such disputes - from such misunderstandings about what is important and what is helpful to us before God - but sadly we are not.
There are still those who believe that all the problems that they have and all the problems that our church and our community and indeed Hong Kong has can be solved by following one political party instead of another; that they can be solved by challenging or blackmailing the Central Government of China by the unlawful act of occupying Central - or by promoting one kind of theology or promoting one particular way of doing things over another.
There are still those who believe that if they could only change the programs that are offered, if they could only do things in a modern manner - or if they could only do them in the old fashioned way - or if they could only do them in the way that they are personally comfortable with that everything would be fine in the church or in their lodge or club - or even in their families...
I do not know, my brothers and sisters-in-Christ, if the message of the cross is modern or old fashioned. But I do know that it isn't always comfortable.
It isn't always comfortable because it tells us that we are a people in desperate need - that we are a people who easily descend to acts of rejection - and ultimately to violence - to silence the voices we do not like to hear.
The message of the cross isn't always comfortable because it tells us not just that we are forgiven by God, but because it tells us well that we need forgiving in the first place.
And because it tells us that salvation is not something that we can win or earn, but rather that it is something free and gracious and ultimately only available to those who are humble enough and hungry enough to accept it.
Some people don't like that.
They think that they are pretty good, that they have good ideas, and that while they are not perfect, they still have a valuable contribution to make, one that will help set things straight - and well they might; but as long as you think that it is from you or from some other human agency or effort that the goodness comes - that healing power comes, you are missing the good news concerning the cross of Jesus Christ - you are missing all the marvellous freedom that comes when you embrace the truth concerning God's love.
Consider your calling my brothers and sisters.
Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are..."
These words do not mean that God does not use people of status and stature as well.
"He does - but only, remarkably enough, when they have learned that their usefulness does not derive from their position or their abilities, but rather from his presence in their lives."
It is God's presence that makes the difference. And it is to God that we should turn when we have a problem, or when we are looking to promote healing and wholeness in ourselves and in those around us.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who was for many years an outstanding pastor in London, England, says this:
"We Christians often quote 'not by might nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord,' and yet in practice we seem to rely upon the mighty dollar and the power of the press and advertising. We seem to think that our influence will depend on our technique and the program we can put forward and that it would be the numbers, the largeness, the bigness that would prove effective. We seem to have forgotten that God has done most of his deeds in the church throughout its history through remnants. We seem to have forgotten the great story of Gideon, for instance, and how God insisted on reducing the 32,000 men down to 300 before he would make use of them. We have become fascinated by the idea of bigness, and we are quite convinced that if we can only stage, yes, that's the word, stage something really big before the world, we will shake it and produce a mighty religious awakening. That seems to be the modern conception of authority."
There are many different things that we turn to for salvation - many different things that we seek out as a means of solving our problems - both those that are personal - and those that linked to our life together as a church or as a community.
"I find people everywhere who seem to think that it takes money to do God's work, that nothing can happen unless you get money first - "If we could only get so much money, then we could begin a great ministry." It seems to me that is a reversal of the whole position of scripture, for in scripture you do not begin with money, you begin with ministry. Anybody can be a minister of God. That is the glory of the Church, because God has put us all in the ministry. If you begin to do what God wants you to do, right where you are, and God begins to work through you, all the money that is ever necessary, will come.
God has chosen what seems foolishness and weak to save the world. He has chosen to use the way of faith and of trust to bless the world. And he calls us to rely upon him, and his Spirit, his presence in our lives, for everything.
He calls us to understand that
- no programs and devices,
- no surveys and samples
- no methods of government or organization
- no raw use of power
- or clever use of technology
- no fund raising nor system of taxation
- no single leader or person
can gain us what we need, what we all need.
What the Lord requires - what we require - is that we act justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
Believe my friends
- believe that God can help
- believe that only God can help
- and believe that God does help
and ask him to do so - ask him, and seek to follow the in the way of Christ - in the way of justice and mercy and salvation will come to you - and to your household - and indeed to the church and the world.
Blessed Be God, Day by Day, Amen
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