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.
After the baptism of his baby brother in church one Sunday, little Johnny sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong.
Finally, the boy replied, "That priest said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I want to stay with you guys!"
Father got the message and they began to go to church regularly...
Needless to say the family had a bit of catching up to do. One day the Sunday School Teacher asked Johnny, "Now, Johnny, tell me - do you say prayers before eating?"
"No madam," little Johnny replies, "I don't have to. My Mom is a very good cook."
As Jesus went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.
Thus began this morning's Gospel Reading.
The entire passage that Lok Man read today deals with blindness - but strangely enough it is not the blindness of the man who was born blind that is central to the passage - despite how this man is mentioned throughout it, rather it is the blindness of those around him and most especially the blindness of the religious teachers and authorities that is central to the passage - their blindness and their sins.
And this is so much so that the closing words of the story about the Man Born Blind - which come after the man born blind has been questioned, his parents questioned, and he has been questioned again and then thrown out of the synagogue by the priests and teachers of the law and has then been found by Jesus and has professed his faith in him and worshipped him are these: "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."
And then we hear that some Pharisees who were with Jesus heard him say this and asked,
"What? Are we blind too?"
And Jesus replies
"If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
What are we to make of the story of the man born blind? Well, it is a very rich passage - and today I have time only to touch on a couple of things.
The first thing I would like you to grasp is this - while all people sin and fall short of the glory of God, not all afflictions, perhaps not even most afflictions, can be blamed on the sin of the person who must bear that affliction, or - as in the case of a genetic defect or a birth accident like that the man born blind must have had - upon the sin of the parents.
God doesn't work that way.
While some afflictions obviously are the result of one kind of sin or another - for example someone driving drunk may have an accident in which they are crippled for life or in which they cripple someone else for life - for the most part many other afflictions can't be blamed on someone, nor should we try to blame them on someone.
Rather we should try to bring healing to those who are afflicted.
Which is the second point I want to make.
Jesus answers the question about who sinned that the man was born blind by saying: "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. "
And he healed him with mud and spit and the touch of his own precious hand.
This is how God operates. This is what Jesus is about. He has come to give us relief from those things afflict us - to give sight to the blind and to heal the lame - and to set free those who oppressed and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord to those who are poor.
Indeed - even if - and this is a big if - even if the particular affliction or tribulation that rests upon a person is the result of a direct sin, for example, that drunken driver who has wounded himself or some one else - even if this is the case - Jesus still wants them to be whole. He still wants to make the work of God manifest in their lives.
That is what the cross is ultimately all about - bringing forgiveness and salvation to sinners, and showing the love of God to those who, by any other standard, are unlovable.
But some will not accept this. They did not in the past, and they do not now.
As with some of the Pharisees and Scribes of old, they will persist in denying that there is anything good that could come out of Nazareth. They will deny the good that they see done around them is being done by a servant of God. And they, despite their love for God, will attempt to stop the one doing good from doing good.
They are many modern day self-righteous ones, both in the church and outside of it. They don't want the boat to be rocked - they don't want to have to change their comfortable accommodation with the status quo, they don't want to change the way they see the world.
And like some of the Pharisees and Scribes of old they will continue to seek to blame the condition of the poor upon the poor; and of the sick upon the sick; and the oppression of the oppressed upon the oppressed.
It is safer that way isn't it?
It means that they - or is it we - don't have to do anything - we don't have to change.
We can charge the rich low tax rates while we will do give those on welfare a decent living allowance, which is enough to live on. We can ignore the hunger in the third world while spend massive amounts on ski trips and vacations. Or we can call those who seek to help the street people and defend the abused women in our society unrealistic idealists who don't fully understand that those people are responsible for their own condition - and cheer as the welfare funds are reduced and funding for on government organisations and for counselling programs cut.
There is none so blind as those who will not see.
There is none so blind as those who will not accept the call of our Lord - the call to allow the work of God to be displayed in their lives - the call of God to bring healing and salvation to those around us who really need it - regardless of what sin those who need healing may have or may not have committed.
I don't know if you noticed, but all the hymns this morning except "Give To Us Laughter" and the "23rd Psalm were written by the same person.
"All the Way My Saviour Leads Me", "Jesus, Keep Me Near The Cross", "Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine" and "Pass Me Not Gentle Saviour" were written by a lady by the name of Fanny Crosby.
I chose hymns by her today because Fanny Crosby could not see.
When Fanny was six weeks old, she had an eye infection. Her regular doctor was out of town, and a man posing as a doctor gave her the wrong treatment. Within a few days, she was totally blind.
If that happened to some people, I am afraid they would be very bitter and would probably spend a lifetime feeling sorry for themselves. Fanny was never bitter and she never felt sorry for herself. When she was only eight years old, she wrote this poem:
Oh, what a happy child I am,
Although I can not see.
I am resolved that in this world,
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don't.
To weep and sigh
Because I'm blind,
I cannot and I won't!
Instead of being bitter and feeling sorry for herself, instead of blaming the doctor for his "sin" against her and dwelling in darkness all her days, Fanny used the gifts that God had given her to write over 8,000 hymns and poems to praise and glorify God.
We might know who caused her blindness - but to Fanny knowing who caused her blindness didn't matter. Nor did it matter to her that she was blind - because in her mind - and in mine - she could see.
As a Australian preacher by the name of Bruce Prewer put it this way in a discussion of the story of the Man Born Blind:
"Some people have excellent eyesight but do not see further than their noses. Some have good vision yet choose to see only a little of the way, the truth and the life. And some have no physical sight yet who see brilliantly along the path of Christ".
Christ didn't heal the physical blindness of Fanny Crosby as he healed the sight of the man born blind, but like that man at the end of today's Gospel reading - when he knelt at Jesus' feet and worshipped him, she saw more than we can imagine - she saw more - and felt more blessed - than millions about her with eyes to see, but no will to look past themselves and their own vision of what is and what should be.
The next time we you someone who is afflicted - in body, mind, or spirit - remember what Jesus said about the man born blind - remember how Jesus said that his affliction happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life and then healed him.
And the next time you see someone else engaged in disputes about who is doing the right thing and who is doing what is wrong - quietly remember what Jesus said to those who were confident of their rightness and all to ready to judge him and most others as less worthy of God's love than themselves.
Remember how Jesus said "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind." And remember too how he added when they asked him if they were blind too, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."
Remember too - all of you are blessed - you are blessed to be a blessing.
Amen.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Exodus 17:1-7 and John 4:5-42
"Gracious God - bless now the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts. Breath your Spirit into us and grant that we may hear and in hearing be led in the way you want us to go. Amen.
Some time ago I heard something which I would like to share with you:
When it comes to times of stress, the most reassuring companion isn't your sweetheart - it's your dog.
A study has found that people who were under stress showed the least amount of tension when accompanied by their dog. The stress levels were highest when the people were with their husbands or wives.
"I think that dogs are non-evaluative, and they love us", said Karen Allen, a research scientist at State University of New York at Buffalo's medical school.
This caught my attention, not because of what it says about stress and our spouses - I don't happen to find its assertion in this regard to be true in my experience of the in which I have been married to Carmel. NO, it caught my attention because of what asserts about how dogs love us - and of the benefits that kind of love has.
There is something very biblical in the assertion made by Ms. Allen that non-evaluative love, non-judgmental love, reduces tension.
In fact the scriptures testify that this kind of love does far more than reduce tension - it in fact gives life - it gives hope - it gives assurance - to all who receive it.
Non-judgmental - accepting - all embracing love is the essence of the Gospel message: it lies behind such statements as: "Do not judge others lest you be judged - for the judgement you give will be the judgement you receive" and it is at the root of what has happened whenever we find Jesus being criticized by the scribes and pharisees for the company that he keeps.
Jesus accepts and embraces those whom others find wanting. He loves those who seem unlovable - to others - and to themselves.
I'm not much of gardener, but one thing I do know is that every plant needs water to grow.
And I know this as well - the plants that are in the driest soil - the ones that are struggling the hardest and beginning to wither - the ones whose leaves are beginning to curl and which look worse than the rest need more water than those who are in damp ground are whose leaves are rich and full of moisture.
And I know too that dry plants respond better to water than they do to added heat - that they thrust down their roots to where they can find it or turn their leaves over so that they better receive it - and receiving it - they change - they begin to look better - they begin to grow - and at length - they produce the fruit that they have been designed to produce.
We are the plants in God's garden - placed here for a reason and a purpose - and some of us are awfully dry - and some of us are not.
But each one of us, whether we be dry or moist at this very moment, needs the living water that Jesus says he has come to give:
- that water which wells up to eternal life,
- that water which overflows and brings life to other plants near to it.
I give thanks to God today for his love - for that love shown by Christ - that love which was poured out me when I was withering and perishing as a young man - alone in a large city and which even now is poured out upon me -even though I am far from perfect.
I give thanks for his love which has given me hope that I never had, a peace that at one time I could only long for, and an assurance that I thought I would never see at work in my life.
In giving thanks before you today I do what thousands, indeed millions of people have done before me, I do what the woman at the well did after first encountering Jesus: I point to the one who is the Saviour promised from long ago, I point to the one who has accepted me - the one who calls me brother and does not hold my human failings against me - the one who encourages me and challenges me and never - even when I argue with him - rejects or condemns me.
That is what Jesus did with the woman at the well. He accepted her.
He accepted her though she was a Samaritan and an enemy to his people.
He spoke to her of God though she was a woman and not thought worthy of such conversation.
He offered her his blessing - even though she debated with him and questioned his statements.
He regards her as a dear sister - and gives her the same title of endearment he gave Mary when he calls her woman in verse 21 and asks her to believe his words concerning how the time is coming when true worshippers will worship Father in Spirit and in Truth.
And that is why she sang his praises in her village. Because of his acceptance - because of his love.
It was not just because knew her past.
It was not just because he could tell her things that no stranger should know that she spoke of him to her friends and neighbours.
It was because in knowing her, in knowing her nationality, her gender, her religious attitudes, and the mixed history of her marriages, he none-the-less treats her as if she was an equal, as if she was a person worthy of respect, worthy of affection - worthy of love.
And that is where it is at.
When we treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated - when we can talk to kings and to beggars and not show any preferences to the one and not the other - when we can debate with sinners and with saints - and have both feel that you respect them - when we can open our homes to both friends and strangers - and have both feel welcomed - when we can encounter people and not judge them - not put them down - not patronize them - then we know something of God's love, then we show something of God's love.
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen.
Some time ago I heard something which I would like to share with you:
When it comes to times of stress, the most reassuring companion isn't your sweetheart - it's your dog.
A study has found that people who were under stress showed the least amount of tension when accompanied by their dog. The stress levels were highest when the people were with their husbands or wives.
"I think that dogs are non-evaluative, and they love us", said Karen Allen, a research scientist at State University of New York at Buffalo's medical school.
This caught my attention, not because of what it says about stress and our spouses - I don't happen to find its assertion in this regard to be true in my experience of the in which I have been married to Carmel. NO, it caught my attention because of what asserts about how dogs love us - and of the benefits that kind of love has.
There is something very biblical in the assertion made by Ms. Allen that non-evaluative love, non-judgmental love, reduces tension.
In fact the scriptures testify that this kind of love does far more than reduce tension - it in fact gives life - it gives hope - it gives assurance - to all who receive it.
Non-judgmental - accepting - all embracing love is the essence of the Gospel message: it lies behind such statements as: "Do not judge others lest you be judged - for the judgement you give will be the judgement you receive" and it is at the root of what has happened whenever we find Jesus being criticized by the scribes and pharisees for the company that he keeps.
Jesus accepts and embraces those whom others find wanting. He loves those who seem unlovable - to others - and to themselves.
I'm not much of gardener, but one thing I do know is that every plant needs water to grow.
And I know this as well - the plants that are in the driest soil - the ones that are struggling the hardest and beginning to wither - the ones whose leaves are beginning to curl and which look worse than the rest need more water than those who are in damp ground are whose leaves are rich and full of moisture.
And I know too that dry plants respond better to water than they do to added heat - that they thrust down their roots to where they can find it or turn their leaves over so that they better receive it - and receiving it - they change - they begin to look better - they begin to grow - and at length - they produce the fruit that they have been designed to produce.
We are the plants in God's garden - placed here for a reason and a purpose - and some of us are awfully dry - and some of us are not.
But each one of us, whether we be dry or moist at this very moment, needs the living water that Jesus says he has come to give:
- that water which wells up to eternal life,
- that water which overflows and brings life to other plants near to it.
I give thanks to God today for his love - for that love shown by Christ - that love which was poured out me when I was withering and perishing as a young man - alone in a large city and which even now is poured out upon me -even though I am far from perfect.
I give thanks for his love which has given me hope that I never had, a peace that at one time I could only long for, and an assurance that I thought I would never see at work in my life.
In giving thanks before you today I do what thousands, indeed millions of people have done before me, I do what the woman at the well did after first encountering Jesus: I point to the one who is the Saviour promised from long ago, I point to the one who has accepted me - the one who calls me brother and does not hold my human failings against me - the one who encourages me and challenges me and never - even when I argue with him - rejects or condemns me.
That is what Jesus did with the woman at the well. He accepted her.
He accepted her though she was a Samaritan and an enemy to his people.
He spoke to her of God though she was a woman and not thought worthy of such conversation.
He offered her his blessing - even though she debated with him and questioned his statements.
He regards her as a dear sister - and gives her the same title of endearment he gave Mary when he calls her woman in verse 21 and asks her to believe his words concerning how the time is coming when true worshippers will worship Father in Spirit and in Truth.
And that is why she sang his praises in her village. Because of his acceptance - because of his love.
It was not just because knew her past.
It was not just because he could tell her things that no stranger should know that she spoke of him to her friends and neighbours.
It was because in knowing her, in knowing her nationality, her gender, her religious attitudes, and the mixed history of her marriages, he none-the-less treats her as if she was an equal, as if she was a person worthy of respect, worthy of affection - worthy of love.
And that is where it is at.
When we treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated - when we can talk to kings and to beggars and not show any preferences to the one and not the other - when we can debate with sinners and with saints - and have both feel that you respect them - when we can open our homes to both friends and strangers - and have both feel welcomed - when we can encounter people and not judge them - not put them down - not patronize them - then we know something of God's love, then we show something of God's love.
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Genesis 12:1-4; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5,13-17; John 3:1-17
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.
Some of you have heard this story before - It's about a congregation that undertook a long and diligent search for a new minister - and at last settled on one.
On the first Sunday the new minister went into the pulpit and delivered an absolutely amazing sermon. Everyone was deeply moved - they laughed, they cried, they were filled with awe. On the way out the door at the end of the service they congratulated the minister on his wonderful sermon, and when they got to the parking lot they congratulated each other on the wonderful choice they had made when they selected the new minister.
On the second Sunday the new minister went up into the pulpit and delivered exactly the same sermon has he had the week before. Again people were deeply moved - but some scratched their heads and wondered what was going on. But, they gave the new minister the benefit of the doubt - perhaps he had just picked up the wrong notes on the way to church that morning - and they didn't say too much.
On the third Sunday the minister once again gave exactly the same sermon as he had on the first and second Sundays. This time there was widespread consternation. The elders immediately called a meeting with the minister and asked him what was going on.
"Pastor", they said, "The sermon you preached today is a really great sermon - and we all are deeply impressed by your ability - but you've delivered it three times now. Don't you know any other sermons?'
"Oh, yes!, replied the new minister, "I have scads of them - and they are all just as good as the one you just heard."
"Well then," replied the elders, "Why don't you preach one of them next week."
"I'm not going to do that", the minister replied, "till all of you have started following the message of the first one."
Today I have a new sermon, but I have an old message, a message that each one of us needs to hear and to accept, it's the message of salvation. And it is found in this book here - and especially it is found in the New Testament passage we heard read this morning: the passage concerning Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus - where, and I quote, he says to Nicodemus:
"I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again."
Some of you here today probably had, at one time or another, the reaction that Nicodemus had to that word from our Lord.
You have felt confused by what Jesus said, and with Nicodemus you may have wanted to say: "How can a person be born when they are old? Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb?"
Others who are less literal than Nicodemus - others who understand the image of rebirth, may still have problems with the message that Jesus gives and the particular language that Jesus uses in today's Gospel story because it reminds you of all those
people who in one of two ways - and often in both:
- "Are you saved?"
- "Have you been born again??"
For some reason a lot of people who come to church, and a lot more who do not, resent that question - in either way that it may be asked.
Why is that anyway?
Unbelievers most often resent it because they feel put down by it:
- They feel that the person asking them the question is trying to sell them a bill of goods
- That the person asking those questions doesn't really care for them or want to understand them.
That may or may not be true, it depends on who is asking the question - and why they are asking it.
But why do so many church people resent the question?? Especially when the answer ought to be so easy to give??
I remember one time when I was asked this question by a total stranger in a shopping mall. The very first thing that this person introduced himself to me was - Are you saved?
Quick as a wink - I said - Yes.
Clearly this man had doubts to my answer when he further ask: "When were you saved", he asked, "And how were you saved? Did you receive the Holy Spirit? Do you believe in the forgiveness of sin and the life everlasting??" And the biggest question that either makes us a Christian or makes us something else - "Did you invite Jesus into your heart".
And I told him all that he wanted to know about my relationship with the Lord.
Finally he relaxed - and said to me - "I'm so very glad for you. It's so wonderful to know the Lord. I've talking to so many people, and they just won't answer my question. They always want to talk about something else - they just seems to want to get rid of me."
It's such a great thing to be able to tell someone - with confidence in your heart:
Yes, I am saved.
By the grace of God I have been reborn.
God's spirit has blown my way and every now and then I can hear its sound - and I feel tremendous because of it.
Most of you here, but probably not all, have likewise been compelled - or just perhaps propelled - and are able, as Jesus says to Nicodemus, "to see the Kingdom of God".
If you have, I know you're going to listen up because you know what I am about right now, and the reminders that I am giving right now you know are in the book and that they are important and good to hear now and then.
If you haven't yet been compelled or propelled, let me tell you right now that it is true what you have heard - that some things are simple - and some things are not.
It is also true that good things are invariably simple - so simple, in fact, that even the smallest child can grasp them.
The things of God are always simple in this way, at least when they come down to the basics.
The basics are known in our hearts, simply because we all were made by God - and I'm not talking here about the basics of morality - I'm not talking about whether we believe in loving one another and in forgiving one another - as we ourselves hope they will forgive us.
I'm talking about the basic thing in us that lets us know whether or not we have actually connected with the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob - the thing deep in down in us that tells us whether or not the God and Father of Christ Jesus our Lord actually lives within us.
You see - God made us in such a way that ultimately it is not enough for each one of us simply to believe in Him as a force who permeates the world - and especially nature.
Most everyone believes in this way - yet our corporations and our companies still rape and pillage our environment - and we ourselves, in personal and particular ways, still hurt our brothers and our sisters and ourselves.
Everything is not right either in us or around us.
God wants us to connect to him personally - to connect to him as one who is able to guide and direct us in our daily affairs - to connect to him as one who parents us - who is a father to us - to connect to God as a Father - and to Jesus as a brother - as one who is here to walk with us each day.
God wants us to connect with him as one who nurtures us:
- as a mother nurtures her children
- as the rain nurtures the dry ground
- as a friend nurtures another friend at a table - with bread and wine - and a communion of mind and heart and soul.
God wants to birth us into a new family, his own special family:
- where his love rules
- and his mercy and forgiveness washes and cleanses
- and his spirit gives energy and the seal to the promise of eternal life.
God wants us to know that with him there is a new life to be had and a whole new world a coming that, as it was for Abraham in this morning's old testament reading, there is a whole new land out there for us - and that all we have to do is trust in God and set forth on the journey he calls us to make, the journey of faith.
"Truly, truly, I say to you - no one call see the kingdom of God unless he is born again"
It's a process my friends, this being born again. It is journey - a journey of faith that leads us to places we have not been before.
It is an event - a process - that has a beginning - a place in which we ultimately say Yay or Nay to the Lord our Saviour and an end - when we do not know - when we inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for us.
In the middle - when you have said Yay - there are some things you can do and experience that none other experience:
- you can feel peace
- you can feel confident
- you can be humble without being prideful about it
- you can love those whom you do not like
- you can bless those who curse you
- you can be free - and yet give that freedom up to serve others and to help them in their weakness, you can do this because God is born in you and God is with you to help you.
The journey of faith - the kind of journey that Abraham made and which tradition tells us that Nicodemus also made is a tremendous journey:
- a journey that we should be glad we are on
- a journey that we need to be on.
It is a journey that gives us new life - which causes us to be reborn - and it begins - and it ends - in saying "I believe Lord, and I will follow".
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen!
Some of you have heard this story before - It's about a congregation that undertook a long and diligent search for a new minister - and at last settled on one.
On the first Sunday the new minister went into the pulpit and delivered an absolutely amazing sermon. Everyone was deeply moved - they laughed, they cried, they were filled with awe. On the way out the door at the end of the service they congratulated the minister on his wonderful sermon, and when they got to the parking lot they congratulated each other on the wonderful choice they had made when they selected the new minister.
On the second Sunday the new minister went up into the pulpit and delivered exactly the same sermon has he had the week before. Again people were deeply moved - but some scratched their heads and wondered what was going on. But, they gave the new minister the benefit of the doubt - perhaps he had just picked up the wrong notes on the way to church that morning - and they didn't say too much.
On the third Sunday the minister once again gave exactly the same sermon as he had on the first and second Sundays. This time there was widespread consternation. The elders immediately called a meeting with the minister and asked him what was going on.
"Pastor", they said, "The sermon you preached today is a really great sermon - and we all are deeply impressed by your ability - but you've delivered it three times now. Don't you know any other sermons?'
"Oh, yes!, replied the new minister, "I have scads of them - and they are all just as good as the one you just heard."
"Well then," replied the elders, "Why don't you preach one of them next week."
"I'm not going to do that", the minister replied, "till all of you have started following the message of the first one."
Today I have a new sermon, but I have an old message, a message that each one of us needs to hear and to accept, it's the message of salvation. And it is found in this book here - and especially it is found in the New Testament passage we heard read this morning: the passage concerning Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus - where, and I quote, he says to Nicodemus:
"I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again."
Some of you here today probably had, at one time or another, the reaction that Nicodemus had to that word from our Lord.
You have felt confused by what Jesus said, and with Nicodemus you may have wanted to say: "How can a person be born when they are old? Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb?"
Others who are less literal than Nicodemus - others who understand the image of rebirth, may still have problems with the message that Jesus gives and the particular language that Jesus uses in today's Gospel story because it reminds you of all those
people who in one of two ways - and often in both:
- "Are you saved?"
- "Have you been born again??"
For some reason a lot of people who come to church, and a lot more who do not, resent that question - in either way that it may be asked.
Why is that anyway?
Unbelievers most often resent it because they feel put down by it:
- They feel that the person asking them the question is trying to sell them a bill of goods
- That the person asking those questions doesn't really care for them or want to understand them.
That may or may not be true, it depends on who is asking the question - and why they are asking it.
But why do so many church people resent the question?? Especially when the answer ought to be so easy to give??
I remember one time when I was asked this question by a total stranger in a shopping mall. The very first thing that this person introduced himself to me was - Are you saved?
Quick as a wink - I said - Yes.
Clearly this man had doubts to my answer when he further ask: "When were you saved", he asked, "And how were you saved? Did you receive the Holy Spirit? Do you believe in the forgiveness of sin and the life everlasting??" And the biggest question that either makes us a Christian or makes us something else - "Did you invite Jesus into your heart".
And I told him all that he wanted to know about my relationship with the Lord.
Finally he relaxed - and said to me - "I'm so very glad for you. It's so wonderful to know the Lord. I've talking to so many people, and they just won't answer my question. They always want to talk about something else - they just seems to want to get rid of me."
It's such a great thing to be able to tell someone - with confidence in your heart:
Yes, I am saved.
By the grace of God I have been reborn.
God's spirit has blown my way and every now and then I can hear its sound - and I feel tremendous because of it.
Most of you here, but probably not all, have likewise been compelled - or just perhaps propelled - and are able, as Jesus says to Nicodemus, "to see the Kingdom of God".
If you have, I know you're going to listen up because you know what I am about right now, and the reminders that I am giving right now you know are in the book and that they are important and good to hear now and then.
If you haven't yet been compelled or propelled, let me tell you right now that it is true what you have heard - that some things are simple - and some things are not.
It is also true that good things are invariably simple - so simple, in fact, that even the smallest child can grasp them.
The things of God are always simple in this way, at least when they come down to the basics.
The basics are known in our hearts, simply because we all were made by God - and I'm not talking here about the basics of morality - I'm not talking about whether we believe in loving one another and in forgiving one another - as we ourselves hope they will forgive us.
I'm talking about the basic thing in us that lets us know whether or not we have actually connected with the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob - the thing deep in down in us that tells us whether or not the God and Father of Christ Jesus our Lord actually lives within us.
You see - God made us in such a way that ultimately it is not enough for each one of us simply to believe in Him as a force who permeates the world - and especially nature.
Most everyone believes in this way - yet our corporations and our companies still rape and pillage our environment - and we ourselves, in personal and particular ways, still hurt our brothers and our sisters and ourselves.
Everything is not right either in us or around us.
God wants us to connect to him personally - to connect to him as one who is able to guide and direct us in our daily affairs - to connect to him as one who parents us - who is a father to us - to connect to God as a Father - and to Jesus as a brother - as one who is here to walk with us each day.
God wants us to connect with him as one who nurtures us:
- as a mother nurtures her children
- as the rain nurtures the dry ground
- as a friend nurtures another friend at a table - with bread and wine - and a communion of mind and heart and soul.
God wants to birth us into a new family, his own special family:
- where his love rules
- and his mercy and forgiveness washes and cleanses
- and his spirit gives energy and the seal to the promise of eternal life.
God wants us to know that with him there is a new life to be had and a whole new world a coming that, as it was for Abraham in this morning's old testament reading, there is a whole new land out there for us - and that all we have to do is trust in God and set forth on the journey he calls us to make, the journey of faith.
"Truly, truly, I say to you - no one call see the kingdom of God unless he is born again"
It's a process my friends, this being born again. It is journey - a journey of faith that leads us to places we have not been before.
It is an event - a process - that has a beginning - a place in which we ultimately say Yay or Nay to the Lord our Saviour and an end - when we do not know - when we inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for us.
In the middle - when you have said Yay - there are some things you can do and experience that none other experience:
- you can feel peace
- you can feel confident
- you can be humble without being prideful about it
- you can love those whom you do not like
- you can bless those who curse you
- you can be free - and yet give that freedom up to serve others and to help them in their weakness, you can do this because God is born in you and God is with you to help you.
The journey of faith - the kind of journey that Abraham made and which tradition tells us that Nicodemus also made is a tremendous journey:
- a journey that we should be glad we are on
- a journey that we need to be on.
It is a journey that gives us new life - which causes us to be reborn - and it begins - and it ends - in saying "I believe Lord, and I will follow".
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen!
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Romans 5:12-19 and Matthew 4:1-11
God of law and of love, dispenser of justice and of mercy, judge of our actions and saviour of our lives - help us to hear your word this day. Bless my lips and our hearts - so that in speaking and in hearing your will may be known and that which you want us to have and do may be had and done - we ask it though Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our texts today deal with sin and temptation and with grace and faith.
- the first text tells us the story of how Adam and Eve were tempted and sinned against God in the Garden of Eden.
- the second shows Christ living blamelessly in the face of evil, by the power of faith.
Temptation and sin, grace and faith - these are the great motifs of our lives here and now in the world - the axes around which everything else revolves.
As Christians we believe that sin has power - a deadly power - that comes from evil; but we also believe that faith has power - a live giving power that comes from God.
In our lives we experience a struggle between these two powers, and even when we are on the side of life, even when we have faith in the God of life we experience temptation, we feel desires and live through events that test our faith and seek to lure us away from God and have us serve evil instead.
There is an old Scandinavian legend about mighty Thor and how one day he visited the land of the giants.
When Thor arrived there he found that the giants were engaged in various contests of strength. They asked him if he would like to take part in their games and he said that he would. So it was that they proposed three tests of strength for him.
First Thor was asked to drink all the liquid in a large two handed drinking bowl. But as much as he could drink of it, only a tiny portion of the liquid in it disappeared. Finally he had to put down the bowl and admit defeat. To him the giants seemed sympathetic - and they proposed something a bit easier for his second test. A black cat was walking by and Thor was instructed to lift it up. He grabbed hold of the animal, thinking it should be easy to hoist it up, but strain and tug as hard as he could, he couldn't even begin to budge the cat.
By this time the giants were beginning to be openly amused at Thor's predicament. "You are supposed to be strong", they said, "but it seems you are not. Well - we will give you something even easier for your third test."
So for the third test the giants challenged Thor to wrestle with an old woman and throw her to the ground. With every bit of strength that Thor could muster he grabbed hold of the toothless old woman, but all his pushing and pulling and twisting was in vain. He simply could not meet the challenge.
As Thor, humbled and dejected, left the giants to head back home, one of them went with him for a part of the way and told him that their was magic in the contests. "The cup," he said, "contained the sea and who can drink that? The cat was the evil in the world, and who is able to lift that up and take it away? And the old woman was time, and who is able to contend with her?"
I believe that most of us feel, when it comes to the sin that is in the world, that we are living in the land of giants.
We are tempted to give in to despair - the despair that nothing we can do will make a difference; the despair that says that there is no help or hope for us our for our world.
Indeed I believe that this is the greatest temptation of our age.
But my brothers and sisters-in-Christ, we have within us one who is stronger than the world, one who is greater than the tempter, one who has triumphed over evil both in life - as we see in the story of Jesus' temptations in the wilderness, and in death - as we see in the cross - and again three days later - in the resurrection.
Some people - most people perhaps - dwell too much on the negative side of things. Like the game show Jeopardy - all their answers to life's problems are expressed in the form of questions. They see the problems that exist all round us - but do not lay hold of the solutions - of the good news that also exists all round us - of the salvation that is offered to us all - without condition or qualification.
They despair on account of the giants - forgetting perhaps the story of David - and of how one small stone in his hands brought an end to the Goliath that threatened his nation that caused even Saul and his mighty army to despair of ever being victorious.
A man by the name of Richard Lederer collects funny signs. Some of these are simply the result of people in foreign countries having difficulty translating into English. He says that at the entrance to a hotel swimming pool on the French Riviera there is a sign that reads like this: "Swimming is forbidden in the absence of a Saviour."
Maybe the person who put up that sign knew English better than we may suppose. Not only swimming but life itself should not be lived in the absence of a Saviour.
We have a Saviour - one who remembers who we are - one who loves us as a father loves his children - one who seeks to nurture us as a mother nurtures her brood.
This Saviour has ventured into the same waters that we swim in each day. He has battled the currents - fought the foes - and shown that he is able and shown that we - when we swim with him - are able as well.
Our Saviour remembers who we are - and he loves us - and seeks the best for us. He knows that we are weak swimmers - that we from time to time we will flounder and thrash - and sink. He knows the waters we are in - and that is why he has been appointed the judge of the living and the dead.
Our Saviour is our judge. He does not judge us for the sake of condemning us - he takes no delight in catching us in our sin, he has no joy when we hurt ourselves or hurt others - rather he reaches out to us - he calls to us - he seek to guide us and help us - and like all good parents - he forgives us and does all that he can to make sure that we start each day new and fresh and bathed in love.
Kenneth Filkins has caught this beautifully in a poem entitled "The Pit." Let me share just a little bit of it with you: Visualize, if you will a great pit - a pit perhaps of your own devising - or perhaps one devised for you by others - visualize a pit into which you have fallen and cannot get out of.
Filkins writes: A man fell into a pit and he couldn't get out. BUDDHA said: "Your pit is only a state of mind." A HINDU said: "This pit is for purging you and making you more perfect." CONFUCIUS said: "If you would have listened to me, you would never have fallen into that pit." A NEW AGER said: "Maybe you should network with some other pit dwellers." A SELF-PITYING PERSON said: "You haven't seen anything until you've seen my pit." A NEWS REPORTER said: "Could I have the exclusive story on your pit?" A FEDERAL BUREAUCRAT said: "Have you paid your taxes on that pit?" A COUNTY INSPECTOR said: "Do you have a permit for that pit?" A REALIST said: "That's a pit." An IDEALIST said: "The world shouldn't have pits." 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.
A pit is an awful place to be -particularly the pit of created by the power of sin and temptation. But there is One who will help. There is one who has managed to avoid the pit and who seeks to help us out of the pit. His name is Jesus - and he lives and reigns with God - and with God he is able - able to help - able to save - able to redeem.
Not only is he able - he is willing.
And not only is he willing - he has already acted - acted to save us - acted to bring to the world a new day. Acted to bring to each of us a new life.
Do not dwell in the pit - Do not accept the pit - Rather reach out your hand to the one who has stretched out his hands for you - and who still reaches out for you today. Reach out to Christ - and through Christ - reach out to others around you and let the know that there is a better life to be had - a life that is given freely to all who desire it. May His Name be praised day by day! Amen!
Our texts today deal with sin and temptation and with grace and faith.
- the first text tells us the story of how Adam and Eve were tempted and sinned against God in the Garden of Eden.
- the second shows Christ living blamelessly in the face of evil, by the power of faith.
Temptation and sin, grace and faith - these are the great motifs of our lives here and now in the world - the axes around which everything else revolves.
As Christians we believe that sin has power - a deadly power - that comes from evil; but we also believe that faith has power - a live giving power that comes from God.
In our lives we experience a struggle between these two powers, and even when we are on the side of life, even when we have faith in the God of life we experience temptation, we feel desires and live through events that test our faith and seek to lure us away from God and have us serve evil instead.
There is an old Scandinavian legend about mighty Thor and how one day he visited the land of the giants.
When Thor arrived there he found that the giants were engaged in various contests of strength. They asked him if he would like to take part in their games and he said that he would. So it was that they proposed three tests of strength for him.
First Thor was asked to drink all the liquid in a large two handed drinking bowl. But as much as he could drink of it, only a tiny portion of the liquid in it disappeared. Finally he had to put down the bowl and admit defeat. To him the giants seemed sympathetic - and they proposed something a bit easier for his second test. A black cat was walking by and Thor was instructed to lift it up. He grabbed hold of the animal, thinking it should be easy to hoist it up, but strain and tug as hard as he could, he couldn't even begin to budge the cat.
By this time the giants were beginning to be openly amused at Thor's predicament. "You are supposed to be strong", they said, "but it seems you are not. Well - we will give you something even easier for your third test."
So for the third test the giants challenged Thor to wrestle with an old woman and throw her to the ground. With every bit of strength that Thor could muster he grabbed hold of the toothless old woman, but all his pushing and pulling and twisting was in vain. He simply could not meet the challenge.
As Thor, humbled and dejected, left the giants to head back home, one of them went with him for a part of the way and told him that their was magic in the contests. "The cup," he said, "contained the sea and who can drink that? The cat was the evil in the world, and who is able to lift that up and take it away? And the old woman was time, and who is able to contend with her?"
I believe that most of us feel, when it comes to the sin that is in the world, that we are living in the land of giants.
We are tempted to give in to despair - the despair that nothing we can do will make a difference; the despair that says that there is no help or hope for us our for our world.
Indeed I believe that this is the greatest temptation of our age.
But my brothers and sisters-in-Christ, we have within us one who is stronger than the world, one who is greater than the tempter, one who has triumphed over evil both in life - as we see in the story of Jesus' temptations in the wilderness, and in death - as we see in the cross - and again three days later - in the resurrection.
Some people - most people perhaps - dwell too much on the negative side of things. Like the game show Jeopardy - all their answers to life's problems are expressed in the form of questions. They see the problems that exist all round us - but do not lay hold of the solutions - of the good news that also exists all round us - of the salvation that is offered to us all - without condition or qualification.
They despair on account of the giants - forgetting perhaps the story of David - and of how one small stone in his hands brought an end to the Goliath that threatened his nation that caused even Saul and his mighty army to despair of ever being victorious.
A man by the name of Richard Lederer collects funny signs. Some of these are simply the result of people in foreign countries having difficulty translating into English. He says that at the entrance to a hotel swimming pool on the French Riviera there is a sign that reads like this: "Swimming is forbidden in the absence of a Saviour."
Maybe the person who put up that sign knew English better than we may suppose. Not only swimming but life itself should not be lived in the absence of a Saviour.
We have a Saviour - one who remembers who we are - one who loves us as a father loves his children - one who seeks to nurture us as a mother nurtures her brood.
This Saviour has ventured into the same waters that we swim in each day. He has battled the currents - fought the foes - and shown that he is able and shown that we - when we swim with him - are able as well.
Our Saviour remembers who we are - and he loves us - and seeks the best for us. He knows that we are weak swimmers - that we from time to time we will flounder and thrash - and sink. He knows the waters we are in - and that is why he has been appointed the judge of the living and the dead.
Our Saviour is our judge. He does not judge us for the sake of condemning us - he takes no delight in catching us in our sin, he has no joy when we hurt ourselves or hurt others - rather he reaches out to us - he calls to us - he seek to guide us and help us - and like all good parents - he forgives us and does all that he can to make sure that we start each day new and fresh and bathed in love.
Kenneth Filkins has caught this beautifully in a poem entitled "The Pit." Let me share just a little bit of it with you: Visualize, if you will a great pit - a pit perhaps of your own devising - or perhaps one devised for you by others - visualize a pit into which you have fallen and cannot get out of.
Filkins writes: A man fell into a pit and he couldn't get out. BUDDHA said: "Your pit is only a state of mind." A HINDU said: "This pit is for purging you and making you more perfect." CONFUCIUS said: "If you would have listened to me, you would never have fallen into that pit." A NEW AGER said: "Maybe you should network with some other pit dwellers." A SELF-PITYING PERSON said: "You haven't seen anything until you've seen my pit." A NEWS REPORTER said: "Could I have the exclusive story on your pit?" A FEDERAL BUREAUCRAT said: "Have you paid your taxes on that pit?" A COUNTY INSPECTOR said: "Do you have a permit for that pit?" A REALIST said: "That's a pit." An IDEALIST said: "The world shouldn't have pits." 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.
A pit is an awful place to be -particularly the pit of created by the power of sin and temptation. But there is One who will help. There is one who has managed to avoid the pit and who seeks to help us out of the pit. His name is Jesus - and he lives and reigns with God - and with God he is able - able to help - able to save - able to redeem.
Not only is he able - he is willing.
And not only is he willing - he has already acted - acted to save us - acted to bring to the world a new day. Acted to bring to each of us a new life.
Do not dwell in the pit - Do not accept the pit - Rather reach out your hand to the one who has stretched out his hands for you - and who still reaches out for you today. Reach out to Christ - and through Christ - reach out to others around you and let the know that there is a better life to be had - a life that is given freely to all who desire it. May His Name be praised day by day! Amen!
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Exodus 24:12-18; Psalm 99; II Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9
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 at least the last five hundred years the Western World - the industrial and scientific world - has been intolerant of mystery. Ours is an age which is obsessed with the idea of knowing and explaining everything.
A story is told of a little boy who lived in a religious home whose father expressed the usual before dinner command - "Hurry up, and wash your hands and come to the table so we can say a prayer and eat."
As the boy went toward the bathroom, he was heard to mutter, "Germs and Jesus, germs and Jesus! That's all I hear around here, and I can't see either one of them."
There are many things, my friends, that we can't see, many things that we can't touch, which are real and powerful:
- the light from the Sun
- the electrons which flow through the billions of miles of wires we have strung up around the world
- the radiation that we transmit from microwave dishes and radio antennae to power our telephones and televisions
- the love that we experience from our parents and our partners...
All these things are unseeable and untouchable - yet real.
Yet despite the evidence that there are real but invisible and untouchable forces all around us many people refuse to believe in God; and of those who do believe in God there are many who refuse to believe that God can do anything out of the ordinary:
- they refuse to believe in miracles
- they refuse to believe in the power of the Holy Spirit
- they refuse to believe in the healing touch and in prayer as a powerful instrument of change and transformation.
Sometimes it seems that we of the Church - particularly of the Western Church - are completely out of touch with why our faith has been so powerful a force in the world - sometimes it seems that we are out of touch with the invisible force that underlies our dogma and our belief.
Have you noticed that many people today seem to be hungry for some experience of what I call Spiritual Realities?
The dramatic upswing of interest in the existence of angels, of witches, and the number of people who consult psychics and future tellers speak of a longing that people have to go beyond the merely rational and scientific.
Certainly this longing is reflected in the New Age movement.
There was an interesting news report sometime back. It seems that a company called "Chi Pants" of Santa Cruz, CA, in keeping with the New Age belief in quartz crystals, is marketing a new line of trousers.
Each pair of the trousers has a tiny crystal sewn into the back seam which will rest at the base of the spine when the trousers are worn. The company advertises, "You won't feel the crystal; you'll just feel the energy."
There was another news story sometime back. An artist from Jersey City by the name of Marybeth Strobel explained why she wears a large chunk of quartz on a strap around her neck.
"It puts a circle of power around you that keeps you feeling protected," she says.
You and I may scoff but such beliefs have a great appeal for many people.
They have that appeal - because too many of us - especially those of us in the mainline churches have failed to connect others - let alone ourselves - to the very real power that is spoken of throughout the bible and the history of our faith.
We have been too head oriented and have placed too little emphasis on the heart for too many years - and the result has been confusion and the rise of charlatans and cheats who mislead those who suspect that there is more to the world than meets the eye - but who do not know how to test and evaluate other people's claims about the nature of the spiritual universe that exists all around us.
There is something we ought to acknowledge, something we need to confess and it is this.
Mystical experience is very much a part of our faith. Indeed it lays at the root of all that we believe in.
From stories like those we heard today where we see Moses going up on a mountain and hearing God speak and Jesus being transfigured by a bright light in the presence of three of his disciples, to the indescribable peace and joy that groups of praying and praising Christian pilgrims experience; unexplainable and unprovable - in the scientific sense at least - spiritual realities undergird and indeed, permeate, our faith.
Indeed throughout history right until the present day many of the greatest Christians who ever lived have reported experiences that are outside the realm of rational experience.
It is said that a friend wandered into Handel's room just as he was finishing the last notes of the "Hallelujah Chorus." He found the composer with tears streaming down his cheeks. The magnificent work lay completed on the desk in front of him. "I did think," Handel exclaimed to his friend, "I saw all heaven before me, and the great God Himself."
What do you make of an experience such as Handel reported? Is he speaking metaphorically? Or did he really see heaven?
And what do you make of the man who reports that a friend prayed for his sick brother - a man who was expected to die within a day - and that this brother was given another five years?
What do you make of reports that Elijah raised a poor woman's son from the dead or of the hundreds of people who reported that they saw Jesus alive and well long after he was laid in the tomb?
How do you explain the absolute conviction of those people who have died on an operating table or in a hospital room and on being brought back to life reported travelling down an ever brighter tunnel till at last they met their loved ones and were beckoned to either move onward toward God or to return to life and finish what needed finishing?
If we but believed what we have long preached, what we have long read in this book - how much different might our world be today?
My friends - today I do not want to do with you what so many generations of preachers have done with the story of Jesus and his transfiguration - I do not want to rush you down the mountain and tell you that what happened up there is not as important as what happens in the valley below.
What I want to do
- is have you understand that there really are spiritual realities that exist and which defy our conventional wisdom - our scientific reason
- and to give you one essential tool for evaluating them.
The first thing to be said about mystical experiences is - be careful.
The human brain is a tricky piece of machinery. It can see things that do not exist - or take the wrong message from what lies before it.
William James, a psychologist of religion early in the last century once pointed out that you can toss a bag of marbles on the floor and by selectively ignoring certain marbles find any pattern you wish. Our eyes and our minds can play tricks on us and lead us in directions that have no profit to them.
We see that tendency displayed in some Christians' obsessions with numbers.
Charles Swindoll tells about a lady in Kansas City who went to court to get her license plate changed because it ended with 666. She stated that her fellow church members were shunning her. As you may know, the mark of the beast in the Book of Revelation is 666.
Swindoll goes on to note that the 666 scare stuff is getting downright ridiculous. The fact is that those three digits can be uncovered in almost anybody's name if you're willing to work at it hard enough. Using the code A=100, B=101, and so on, Hitler adds up to 666, The same technique works on the word computer - a coincidence to which some of us might attach some validity.
By adopting the so-called "devil's code" whereby the alphabet is numbered backward from zero; Z=0, Y=1, X=2 as so forth - and then multiplying each letter-value by 6 (whew!), fundamentalist leader Jerry Falwell's last name equals 666. Even Billy Graham's name is not exempt. His initials are WFG. (William Franklin Graham). Using the A=1 code, the letters add up to 36. The sum of the counting numbers from 1 through 36 is 666, and 36=6 x 6. When Ronald Wilson Reagan was elected president, mischievous Democrats pointed out that each of the President's names had six letters - 666 - and so forth.
Maybe you find all this fascinating, maybe not. There are some people, though, who are very susceptible to such logic. And there are unscrupulous people who look for these susceptible people to manipulate to their own ends. Often they do it in the name of religion. They tell you that what they are saying is based on the invisible spiritual realities which undergird the world. Be careful.
If you wonder why most Christian churches put more emphasis on being true to the historical faith than on any one particular subjective experience, this is it.
We know feelings are subject to distortion and manipulation. It may make us seem somewhat dry and unexciting at times but we know that when we are faithful to Scripture and the teachings of the Church we cannot be misled by passing fads or sensations.
Be careful. But also be tolerant.
We don't know how God may choose to work in individual lives. It is the height of arrogance for any of us to declare that God can only work in one way or another - that God can only be found in one group or another.
Most of us would be thrilled to have the kind of mountaintop experience that Peter, James and John had where they beheld Christ transfigured before them; we would love to go up on a Mountain as did Moses and hear God's voice, but we may live a lifetime and never experience any more than a lump in our throat and a calm assurance in our hearts.
If that's all we experience, that is enough. God knows what we need. If other people discover a wider range of experiences, if they shout and dance and speak in tongues, then who's to say but that God knew their needs as well.
Remember this - and this is the crux of the matter: The test of faith is not our experience of, or our knowledge of, invisible spiritual realities, but in whether we bear fruit that is pleasing to God.
The fruit of the Spirit, says St. Paul, is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. (Gal 5:23)
Does your special experience make you more loving, more peaceful, more trusting, more humble? Does your knowledge of the Spiritual Realities which undergird the world make you more faithful, more prone to give God praise? Does your conviction that God has sent an angel to you to bring you comfort it result in your being a better neighbour? A better citizen?
If it does, then no matter what that experience is, you are not far from the Kingdom of God.
There are, my friends, spiritual realities that undergird not only our faith, but the very world around us.
There are angels. There is a resurrection. Miracles still occur - the blind can still be made to see and the lame to walk. Demons still chill the air and prayers still reach the ear of God. And God still speaks - in dreams and in visions - and through his Word.
And there are many here who can testify to these things.
My friends - there are spiritual things - spiritual realities that are beyond our ken - wonders that still reach out and touch those who expect them and those that don't.
The transfiguration of Jesus is one of these. It happened to strengthen Jesus before his journey to Jerusalem - and it was witnessed so that we might be encouraged in our faith. The spiritual reality - the spiritual power made evident that day - had a purpose. A good purpose.
And so it should be for all those things we call Spiritual.
The important thing is that we believe not simply in the power of the world that is beyond our everyday sight - but in the truth behind that power and in the God who makes it so - and that in believing in God and in his power - we strive - without fear - to live out a worthy life - a life like that of Christ Jesus our Lord. May His name be praised day by day. Amen!
For at least the last five hundred years the Western World - the industrial and scientific world - has been intolerant of mystery. Ours is an age which is obsessed with the idea of knowing and explaining everything.
A story is told of a little boy who lived in a religious home whose father expressed the usual before dinner command - "Hurry up, and wash your hands and come to the table so we can say a prayer and eat."
As the boy went toward the bathroom, he was heard to mutter, "Germs and Jesus, germs and Jesus! That's all I hear around here, and I can't see either one of them."
There are many things, my friends, that we can't see, many things that we can't touch, which are real and powerful:
- the light from the Sun
- the electrons which flow through the billions of miles of wires we have strung up around the world
- the radiation that we transmit from microwave dishes and radio antennae to power our telephones and televisions
- the love that we experience from our parents and our partners...
All these things are unseeable and untouchable - yet real.
Yet despite the evidence that there are real but invisible and untouchable forces all around us many people refuse to believe in God; and of those who do believe in God there are many who refuse to believe that God can do anything out of the ordinary:
- they refuse to believe in miracles
- they refuse to believe in the power of the Holy Spirit
- they refuse to believe in the healing touch and in prayer as a powerful instrument of change and transformation.
Sometimes it seems that we of the Church - particularly of the Western Church - are completely out of touch with why our faith has been so powerful a force in the world - sometimes it seems that we are out of touch with the invisible force that underlies our dogma and our belief.
Have you noticed that many people today seem to be hungry for some experience of what I call Spiritual Realities?
The dramatic upswing of interest in the existence of angels, of witches, and the number of people who consult psychics and future tellers speak of a longing that people have to go beyond the merely rational and scientific.
Certainly this longing is reflected in the New Age movement.
There was an interesting news report sometime back. It seems that a company called "Chi Pants" of Santa Cruz, CA, in keeping with the New Age belief in quartz crystals, is marketing a new line of trousers.
Each pair of the trousers has a tiny crystal sewn into the back seam which will rest at the base of the spine when the trousers are worn. The company advertises, "You won't feel the crystal; you'll just feel the energy."
There was another news story sometime back. An artist from Jersey City by the name of Marybeth Strobel explained why she wears a large chunk of quartz on a strap around her neck.
"It puts a circle of power around you that keeps you feeling protected," she says.
You and I may scoff but such beliefs have a great appeal for many people.
They have that appeal - because too many of us - especially those of us in the mainline churches have failed to connect others - let alone ourselves - to the very real power that is spoken of throughout the bible and the history of our faith.
We have been too head oriented and have placed too little emphasis on the heart for too many years - and the result has been confusion and the rise of charlatans and cheats who mislead those who suspect that there is more to the world than meets the eye - but who do not know how to test and evaluate other people's claims about the nature of the spiritual universe that exists all around us.
There is something we ought to acknowledge, something we need to confess and it is this.
Mystical experience is very much a part of our faith. Indeed it lays at the root of all that we believe in.
From stories like those we heard today where we see Moses going up on a mountain and hearing God speak and Jesus being transfigured by a bright light in the presence of three of his disciples, to the indescribable peace and joy that groups of praying and praising Christian pilgrims experience; unexplainable and unprovable - in the scientific sense at least - spiritual realities undergird and indeed, permeate, our faith.
Indeed throughout history right until the present day many of the greatest Christians who ever lived have reported experiences that are outside the realm of rational experience.
It is said that a friend wandered into Handel's room just as he was finishing the last notes of the "Hallelujah Chorus." He found the composer with tears streaming down his cheeks. The magnificent work lay completed on the desk in front of him. "I did think," Handel exclaimed to his friend, "I saw all heaven before me, and the great God Himself."
What do you make of an experience such as Handel reported? Is he speaking metaphorically? Or did he really see heaven?
And what do you make of the man who reports that a friend prayed for his sick brother - a man who was expected to die within a day - and that this brother was given another five years?
What do you make of reports that Elijah raised a poor woman's son from the dead or of the hundreds of people who reported that they saw Jesus alive and well long after he was laid in the tomb?
How do you explain the absolute conviction of those people who have died on an operating table or in a hospital room and on being brought back to life reported travelling down an ever brighter tunnel till at last they met their loved ones and were beckoned to either move onward toward God or to return to life and finish what needed finishing?
If we but believed what we have long preached, what we have long read in this book - how much different might our world be today?
My friends - today I do not want to do with you what so many generations of preachers have done with the story of Jesus and his transfiguration - I do not want to rush you down the mountain and tell you that what happened up there is not as important as what happens in the valley below.
What I want to do
- is have you understand that there really are spiritual realities that exist and which defy our conventional wisdom - our scientific reason
- and to give you one essential tool for evaluating them.
The first thing to be said about mystical experiences is - be careful.
The human brain is a tricky piece of machinery. It can see things that do not exist - or take the wrong message from what lies before it.
William James, a psychologist of religion early in the last century once pointed out that you can toss a bag of marbles on the floor and by selectively ignoring certain marbles find any pattern you wish. Our eyes and our minds can play tricks on us and lead us in directions that have no profit to them.
We see that tendency displayed in some Christians' obsessions with numbers.
Charles Swindoll tells about a lady in Kansas City who went to court to get her license plate changed because it ended with 666. She stated that her fellow church members were shunning her. As you may know, the mark of the beast in the Book of Revelation is 666.
Swindoll goes on to note that the 666 scare stuff is getting downright ridiculous. The fact is that those three digits can be uncovered in almost anybody's name if you're willing to work at it hard enough. Using the code A=100, B=101, and so on, Hitler adds up to 666, The same technique works on the word computer - a coincidence to which some of us might attach some validity.
By adopting the so-called "devil's code" whereby the alphabet is numbered backward from zero; Z=0, Y=1, X=2 as so forth - and then multiplying each letter-value by 6 (whew!), fundamentalist leader Jerry Falwell's last name equals 666. Even Billy Graham's name is not exempt. His initials are WFG. (William Franklin Graham). Using the A=1 code, the letters add up to 36. The sum of the counting numbers from 1 through 36 is 666, and 36=6 x 6. When Ronald Wilson Reagan was elected president, mischievous Democrats pointed out that each of the President's names had six letters - 666 - and so forth.
Maybe you find all this fascinating, maybe not. There are some people, though, who are very susceptible to such logic. And there are unscrupulous people who look for these susceptible people to manipulate to their own ends. Often they do it in the name of religion. They tell you that what they are saying is based on the invisible spiritual realities which undergird the world. Be careful.
If you wonder why most Christian churches put more emphasis on being true to the historical faith than on any one particular subjective experience, this is it.
We know feelings are subject to distortion and manipulation. It may make us seem somewhat dry and unexciting at times but we know that when we are faithful to Scripture and the teachings of the Church we cannot be misled by passing fads or sensations.
Be careful. But also be tolerant.
We don't know how God may choose to work in individual lives. It is the height of arrogance for any of us to declare that God can only work in one way or another - that God can only be found in one group or another.
Most of us would be thrilled to have the kind of mountaintop experience that Peter, James and John had where they beheld Christ transfigured before them; we would love to go up on a Mountain as did Moses and hear God's voice, but we may live a lifetime and never experience any more than a lump in our throat and a calm assurance in our hearts.
If that's all we experience, that is enough. God knows what we need. If other people discover a wider range of experiences, if they shout and dance and speak in tongues, then who's to say but that God knew their needs as well.
Remember this - and this is the crux of the matter: The test of faith is not our experience of, or our knowledge of, invisible spiritual realities, but in whether we bear fruit that is pleasing to God.
The fruit of the Spirit, says St. Paul, is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. (Gal 5:23)
Does your special experience make you more loving, more peaceful, more trusting, more humble? Does your knowledge of the Spiritual Realities which undergird the world make you more faithful, more prone to give God praise? Does your conviction that God has sent an angel to you to bring you comfort it result in your being a better neighbour? A better citizen?
If it does, then no matter what that experience is, you are not far from the Kingdom of God.
There are, my friends, spiritual realities that undergird not only our faith, but the very world around us.
There are angels. There is a resurrection. Miracles still occur - the blind can still be made to see and the lame to walk. Demons still chill the air and prayers still reach the ear of God. And God still speaks - in dreams and in visions - and through his Word.
And there are many here who can testify to these things.
My friends - there are spiritual things - spiritual realities that are beyond our ken - wonders that still reach out and touch those who expect them and those that don't.
The transfiguration of Jesus is one of these. It happened to strengthen Jesus before his journey to Jerusalem - and it was witnessed so that we might be encouraged in our faith. The spiritual reality - the spiritual power made evident that day - had a purpose. A good purpose.
And so it should be for all those things we call Spiritual.
The important thing is that we believe not simply in the power of the world that is beyond our everyday sight - but in the truth behind that power and in the God who makes it so - and that in believing in God and in his power - we strive - without fear - to live out a worthy life - a life like that of Christ Jesus our Lord. May His name be praised day by day. Amen!
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