Let us pray. Creator and maker of us all – bless the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts – grow in us and show us your ways and inspire us to live by your truth. Amen.
I do not how many times we have heard the parable of the sheep and the goats – it is a well known story to many of us. It is a church favourite here in Hong Kong. It is also one the passages in the Gospels that underlies what theologians call “The Social Gospel.”
Every nation is gathered before the judge, before the throne of the Son of Man, before the King, and the King separates them. The right from the left, the sheep from the goats, and he judges them. Only those on the right hand side are save, and those on the left are condemned.
Most of us know this parable, and we know therefore the basis upon which the King makes His final judgement about the various nations when they are gathered before Him.
I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was a stranger and you took me in..”
How well we know this story, and for some of us – those who measure things by how much they have done – it serves as a warning – and for others, who also measure themselves by what they have done for others – it is a comfort.
Yet, despite all our knowledge of this parable, our being reassured that we know what it means, and that we know the God of whom the story tells us about, we may not have grasped the fullness of the story.
I am going to ask you to think with me on the response of the sheep and of the goats who were standing before the King, and at the same time to consider with me the message that is found in the surprise that were expressed by both the sheep and the goats.
This parable is full of shocking, unexpected, dumbfounded surprises to everyone:
- surprise at the words and the judgements of the King
- surprise that it is not our beliefts that are considered by the King, but our actions
- surprise that it is not which denomination or how long we believe in Jesus that is being taken into consideration but our compassion and our love.
Some theologians will tell us that this is because the judgement of the nations are just that, a judgement on those people who are not joined to Christ, a judgement on those people who do not profess or follow Jesus, on those who, as the Scriptures tells us, are judged by the law that is written in their hearts.
Others will say that the judgement of the King applies to all the people. Whether you are a believer or unbeliever, it makes no difference, that Jesus, in telling this story, makes no distinction between those who follow him and those who do not. For all people are expected by God to live by the law that is written in their hearts – that, as the Apostle James puts it in the second chapter of his letter to the church, “faith without works is dead”.
Whatever is the truth of the matter there is a judgement; and in that judgement, there is a great sense of surprise in both those is the “sheep” and those who are the “goats”.
We, of course, might expect the goats to be dumbfounded at the words of the King.
They are supposed to be confused, shocked and surprised when they at last come fact to face with God, are they not? Their unbelief is meant to be condemned, is it not? Their lack of compassion and of mercy for the least amongst us, is worthy of condemnation, is it not?
Yet, what makes the parable amazing is that the sheep were just as surprised.
The sheep, the righteous - those who have given the cup of cold water, who have visited those in prison, and worked for many different causes in society for the poor and needy, and have given so much to charity, and taken in refugees and strangers into their homes. They were just as dumbfounded and shocked by the King’s judgement as the unrighteous.
Both groups, both the sheep and the goats, asked the very same question of the King when he renders His judgement. Both groups asked, “Lord, when did we see you?”
Lord, when did we see you? Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry, or thirsty, or naked, or in prison, and took care of you?
There was a time in my life when I thought that this surprise was a good thing – a very good thing that is for the sheep.
I felt and believed that their surprise fit in well with the Biblical injunction, not to let your left hand know what your hand is doing – especially when you are doing good.
I felt that the surprise of the sheep was good because it indicated to us that they were not simply doing nice things to the people around them as a way of gaining credit from God; that it meant that their love and compassion for other people was unstained by any selfish thoughts – unstained by the idea that they were somehow working towards their salvation.
The words of surprise of the sheep seemed rather sweet to me: Lord, when did we see you? When was it we saw you hungry, or thirsty, or naked, or in prison, and took care of you?
And so I let the more hidden message of the parable go by.
After reading and studying this passage once again, I have come to realize that the surprise of the sheep can be seen in a different light, and I do not really know how to characterize what that light reveals, but I do know that it makes me feel a little bit sad.
Why is it that the sheep, the righteous, were surprised? Why is it that they did not see their Lord as they reached out in acts of love and compassion? What did they really miss?
What do we miss?
I think of the great joy I have had when I have been the recipient of other people’s kindness, the recipient of other people’s love.
As a young man, during my first year in England, I joined a church over there.
I was not that well known to the people of the church. I had just joined the congregation. I was not involved in much more than Sunday worship, and my skin colour is not even white. But during my first Christmas there, I and the people I shared the house that I was living in, were showered with boxes and boxes of food, and other good things.
It was an incredible feeling to be so richly and unexpectedly blessed. I felt cared for and understood, and I praised God for those who had reached out to me.
Their act of kindness and others done by that particular congregation changed my life and helped to bring me standing here in front of you today.
Alex Haley, the author of the story ‘Roots’ tells the story of how his father had his life changed by a similar act of kindness.
He was the youngest of eight children, living in a farming family. Everyone in the family was needed to help with the crops. After several years of schooling, the family will pressed each child to work on the farm. Fortunately for the boy, the mother intervened on behalf of this child, and he was allowed to stay on in school.
When he completed secondary school, he chose the Lane Institute for his university education, working as many as four jobs in addition full-time studies. It was all physically and emotionally tiring.
During the summer holidays he worked as a porter on a train, and early one morning when he was working on the train, he met a man who could not sleep and wanted someone to talk with. This man was impressed by a black porter working to earn money for university and tipped him the princely sum of five dollars, which was a lot of money in those days.
When the summer holidays came to an end that year, Mr. Harley had to make a decision as to whether he should use his summer earnings to purchase a mule and began to work on the farm, or to complete his last year of university. He took the risk of completing his university education.
Alex Haley tells us what happened next. When his father arrived on campus, the president called him into his office and showed him a letter he had just received. The letter was from the elderly man whom his father had met on the train, and inside the envelope was a cheque for the sum of $518, enough money to cover his father’s tuition fees and living expenses for one full year.
The kindness of an unknown person made all the difference in the life of Alex Haley’s father, Alex Haley himself, and every succeeding generation of that family.
As a person who has been in need of help in the past, I know what the acts of love and care performed by a stranger can mean to oneself.
Each of you here, I am almost certain, also knows what it can mean.
Each of you, I am almost certain, has a story like mine, or like that of Alex Haley’s father, stored away somewhere in your personal history in your family’s history.
So – what are we really missing, when, as the doers of these deeds of kindness, we are surprised when the Son of Man says: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcome me?”
What are we missing when we feel burned out, tired from giving to too many worthy organization, worn out from working on too many worthy causes?
What are we missing when we doing good deeds and yet feel that we have not yet met God?
I think that the answer is simple. We are missing the sense of holy in the ordinary. We are missing the sense of the imminence of God.
It may be stretching the point of the parable of the sheep and the goats a bit far, but I just cannot get away from the feeling that we all to often lead our lives as if Christ did not exist. Our moment and our days, even when filled with doing good deeds, often are not sanctified, blessed, made fully alive by the sense of Christ’s living presence.
My best moments as a human being, are not just the moments when I show care to one of the least of my brothers and sisters. My best moments are when I do so in the awareness that I am ministering to my Lord and Saviour: when I am aware that Christ lives inside the least of my brothers and sisters, whether these brothers and sisters are the less fortunate of those of us who are joined to Christ, or the pagans and gentiles amongst us, the ones in whom no form of blessed can be detected. Those of whom, we do not consider to be our brothers and sisters because of who they are or what they may have done.
Such a sense of awareness serves to keep me humble. Such an awareness serves to keep me alert.
It is an awareness that should all be cultivating. This awareness that Christ may be found and found especially amongst the poor, and the lonely and the sick, amongst those in prison, and those who simply needed nothing more but a drink of cold water.
Let us all think of it, think back 2000 years ago, when the Son of Man, the one who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords wandered this earth as a poor preacher in a poor land, having no home to call his own, much less a throne of righteousness. Think if when the Son of God was put on trail for blasphemy and flogged 39 times, and then was hung on a cross as a common criminal.
Lord, when did we see you? When was it we saw you hungry, or thirsty, or naked, or in prison, and took care of you?
And think of it today, 2000 more years later.
Where is Christ to be found?
Is it not among us, as it was so very long ago?
Is he not, according to His own words, to be found in the least of our brothers and sisters, in those who are most neglected, scorn or despise?
Thinking about where Christ is to be found transforms what I do and helps me to transform into who I am.
It gives a rich meaning to my actions, it lifts up my spirit in hope and in worship. It makes me wanting to praise God, even when I am feeling tired and worn out. It gives me new strength.
What a privilege we have, each and every one of us, when we reach out and touch someone, for in doing so, we may be, no, we are, in fact, reaching out to touch God, reaching out to touch Christ.
I understand the surprise of those on the right side of the Son of Man. I understand the feeling of shock and surprise of the sheep. I understand it because it is so very easy for me to forget the privilege that I have. So easy for me to start living a life as if Christ was not actually here in this building, this town, and this place we call Hong Kong. So easy for me to do what I do as if it were a burden, rather than as a glorious service to my God…
I understand, but at the same time, I do find it a little sad. Sad, not because doing good has no effect, but feeling sad, because seeing Christ in those around us is so enriching, so helpful, as we walk the walk that he calls us to walk, and yet seeing so many losing the way in this walk.
Lord, when did we see you? When was it we saw you hungry, or thirsty, or naked, or in prison, and took care of you?
And the King will answer them, “Truly I tell you – just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.
May you be with Christ in your walk, day by day. Amen.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Acts 16:9-15; Psalm 67; John 14:23-29
Loving God, as you opened the tomb and raised Jesus to new life, so open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit that as your Word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today, and in confidence go forth to live what you show us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
One of the hardest things for people to grasp about faith and the salvation that arises from faith is the connection between what we do - and what God does, the connection between the work of God in our lives and the work that we must do if God is, in fact, to be in our lives in our lives in a way that makes a difference to us, in a way that makes a difference to our world.
Our story today from the Book of The Acts of The Apostles tells us that when Paul arrived in Philippi and began to preach the good news there, a woman by the name of Lydia - a dealer in purple cloth (which was an extremely valuable commodity in those days) responded to Paul's message and, with the members of her household - was baptized.
The scripture says this about that event:
She was a worshipper of God. And the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message.
The implication seems to be that it is "God's action that opens people's hearts", that it is God who brings people to faith in Jesus Christ.
Yet, almost in contrary fashion, in the Gospel reading this morning, we hear say Jesus say this:
If anyone loves me, they will keep my word, and God will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
The implication seems to be that if we don't keep God's word, if we don't obey the commandments that God gives us, that Jesus gives us, that God won't love us or make a home with us.
This seems to a problem:
- Just how much of faith and love is a result of God's doing and how much is our part?
- Just how much of the peace God gives comes because God gives it freely, and how much comes because we are doing what God wants.
There is no simple answer to this.
In fact I think it is one of the mysteries of our faith; but I think that it is a wonderful mystery; a mystery that both keeps the grace of God held high as a grace, a gift; and the individual's response to grace held high as an important part of what it means to be a believer.
The Methodist tradition - from which our Church, arose, speaks to this issue by talking of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives - by speaking of how the Spirit seeks to lead all people to respond to God's love and to come to a deep and saving faith in him - and in Christ
This work of the Spirit in our lives - before faith is discovered - is called "Prevenient Grace." God is seen as something like the "Hound of Heaven" - pursuing us - seeking to claim us.
And God - in this view - seeks us all. God seeks to work in all our lives. God seeks to bring all people to an awareness of his love. God desires that everybody comes to a faith that He can use to change their lives.
But persons who are thus called
- those who are thus sought
- those who are thus desired and that is all of us here, must eventually respond with Faith, they must make a decision if the fullness of the love of God, the fullness of the peace of God, is to inhabit them; just as one who receives a proposal of marriage must eventually respond, yes or no if they are to enter in the fullness of the love of the one who freely proposes to them and if they are to inhabit with each other in the fullness of the way that only marriage can provide.
In this sense then - Lydia's heart, like our own hearts, is opened by God, to respond to the Gospel. But - in that - it is Lydia who decides to say yes to the message that she finally "hears" through Paul just as we, have responded today
- responded to the degree that we are here to listen to the Word of God
to seek God's wisdom
- and just as we - to one degree or another - have said yes to the
message of God's love
- yes - I believe
- yes - I want to follow Jesus and to keep his word
- Yes - I want to have him, to have God, dwell fully in me.
In short - God is not to blame for those who do not respond to Him, but God is to be praised for opening our hearts, and God is not to blame for those who do not experience the fullness of his presence in their lives, but God is be praised for helping us follow Christ and in that following for dwelling in us and granting us an ever greater sense of peace, an ever increasing ability to love, an ever growing sense of the assurance of our immortality and an ever expanding sense of how God will in fact bring his kingdom to pass and create a new heaven and new earth in which there is no darkness - no pain - no evil.
I recall the story of a little girl who, when trains were popular transportation, was taking her first train ride with her parents. As night descended, the mother took the girl, who was clearly quite anxious, and placed her on the upper bunk of the sleeper. She told her little one that up there she would be nearer to God and that God would watch over her.
As silence enveloped the young lady she became afraid and called softly, "Mommy, are you there?"
"Yes dear," came the response.
A little later, in a louder voice, the child called, "Daddy, are you there, too?"
"Yes dear," was the reply.
After this had been repeated several times one of the passengers sharing their sleeper car finally lost his patience and shouted loudly, "Yes, we're all here, your father, your mother, your brother, and all your aunts and cousins; now settle down and go to sleep!"
There was a moment of silence and then, in hushed tones a little voice asked, "Mommy, was that God?"
Jesus, in offering peace, in offering to dwell within us, does not say, "I'm here, the Holy Spirit's here and God is here, now be at peace!"
The peace that Jesus offers cannot be had simply by desiring it. The peace of God is a gift.
A gift that can only be received as a by-product of faith - as a by product of saying yes, I believe; and yes - I am going to keep your word - I am going to obey you as best I can.
I am going to keep your word, O Lord, knowing that it is in your word and by your word that the gifts you offer to us all arrive.
Keeping the Word of God is not as common as it might be in our world. That's why the world is largely a stranger to the peace of God. That is why there is still darkness. And that is why it is so important to share the word of God with as many people as we can.
By accepting the word, the word comes to dwell in us; By living the word the word lives in us.
And the word that lives in us does what the living word does best, it shines - and it attracts others, It gives them the opportunity to hear - and to see - and to feel - to have their hearts opened opened to the degree that they decide to say yes to the marriage proposal of God or - no - not at this time - because I do not want to live in the house you have made nor to have you live in my house.
Soon enough we celebrate the pouring out of the gift of the Holy Spirit upon all who believe; a gift that enables the apostles and disciples of our Lord to move from being men and women afraid to speak the message lest they be mocked, scorned, or killed - to ones who not only speak the message - but speak it in a way that everyone, regardless of their language - or culture - or background - could hear.
Soon enough we celebrate the manner in which Christ - in which God - comes to live with us and in us, and we celebrate what that relationship does for us - and for the world.
What is that God does? And what is it that we must do?
God proposes to us a kind of marriage - and I thank God for that - God does everything God can do to lay the foundation - and then God proposes to me - and to you - and to all people saying
"love me and let me live with you and in you and give to you all that I am. Let me change your life. Let me build a wonderful home for you in which we can dwell a home of joy and peace - a home that has room for all who are one with us."
The response - well that is ours to make, and ours to pray for and work for so that others might make it to.
And when we say yes and keep the word of God, the word of Christ - the word keeps us.
I note about Lydia's story what she did after her heart was opened to Paul's message, she did what God wants us all to do - she believed.
She kept his word by being baptized - and then she opened her home to Paul and his companions, saying to them, "If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house."
Isn't that a fascinating connection with the Gospel reading?
Lydia invites Paul and his companions - strangers to her city - but now brothers to her in faith - to come and stay at her house. In the Gospel today it is promised that God will come to make a home with us.
Both stories point to the faith which is lived as one of hospitality and home making.
As the Spirit makes a home with us, so we are moved to make a home for others. And as we make a home for others - as we keep God's word - so God makes a home with us.
A mystery and a marvel. God loves us - and calls us to himself. God dwells within us and loves us - even as we say yes - and love him.
Blessed be the name of God, day by day. Amen
One of the hardest things for people to grasp about faith and the salvation that arises from faith is the connection between what we do - and what God does, the connection between the work of God in our lives and the work that we must do if God is, in fact, to be in our lives in our lives in a way that makes a difference to us, in a way that makes a difference to our world.
Our story today from the Book of The Acts of The Apostles tells us that when Paul arrived in Philippi and began to preach the good news there, a woman by the name of Lydia - a dealer in purple cloth (which was an extremely valuable commodity in those days) responded to Paul's message and, with the members of her household - was baptized.
The scripture says this about that event:
She was a worshipper of God. And the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message.
The implication seems to be that it is "God's action that opens people's hearts", that it is God who brings people to faith in Jesus Christ.
Yet, almost in contrary fashion, in the Gospel reading this morning, we hear say Jesus say this:
If anyone loves me, they will keep my word, and God will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
The implication seems to be that if we don't keep God's word, if we don't obey the commandments that God gives us, that Jesus gives us, that God won't love us or make a home with us.
This seems to a problem:
- Just how much of faith and love is a result of God's doing and how much is our part?
- Just how much of the peace God gives comes because God gives it freely, and how much comes because we are doing what God wants.
There is no simple answer to this.
In fact I think it is one of the mysteries of our faith; but I think that it is a wonderful mystery; a mystery that both keeps the grace of God held high as a grace, a gift; and the individual's response to grace held high as an important part of what it means to be a believer.
The Methodist tradition - from which our Church, arose, speaks to this issue by talking of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives - by speaking of how the Spirit seeks to lead all people to respond to God's love and to come to a deep and saving faith in him - and in Christ
This work of the Spirit in our lives - before faith is discovered - is called "Prevenient Grace." God is seen as something like the "Hound of Heaven" - pursuing us - seeking to claim us.
And God - in this view - seeks us all. God seeks to work in all our lives. God seeks to bring all people to an awareness of his love. God desires that everybody comes to a faith that He can use to change their lives.
But persons who are thus called
- those who are thus sought
- those who are thus desired and that is all of us here, must eventually respond with Faith, they must make a decision if the fullness of the love of God, the fullness of the peace of God, is to inhabit them; just as one who receives a proposal of marriage must eventually respond, yes or no if they are to enter in the fullness of the love of the one who freely proposes to them and if they are to inhabit with each other in the fullness of the way that only marriage can provide.
In this sense then - Lydia's heart, like our own hearts, is opened by God, to respond to the Gospel. But - in that - it is Lydia who decides to say yes to the message that she finally "hears" through Paul just as we, have responded today
- responded to the degree that we are here to listen to the Word of God
to seek God's wisdom
- and just as we - to one degree or another - have said yes to the
message of God's love
- yes - I believe
- yes - I want to follow Jesus and to keep his word
- Yes - I want to have him, to have God, dwell fully in me.
In short - God is not to blame for those who do not respond to Him, but God is to be praised for opening our hearts, and God is not to blame for those who do not experience the fullness of his presence in their lives, but God is be praised for helping us follow Christ and in that following for dwelling in us and granting us an ever greater sense of peace, an ever increasing ability to love, an ever growing sense of the assurance of our immortality and an ever expanding sense of how God will in fact bring his kingdom to pass and create a new heaven and new earth in which there is no darkness - no pain - no evil.
I recall the story of a little girl who, when trains were popular transportation, was taking her first train ride with her parents. As night descended, the mother took the girl, who was clearly quite anxious, and placed her on the upper bunk of the sleeper. She told her little one that up there she would be nearer to God and that God would watch over her.
As silence enveloped the young lady she became afraid and called softly, "Mommy, are you there?"
"Yes dear," came the response.
A little later, in a louder voice, the child called, "Daddy, are you there, too?"
"Yes dear," was the reply.
After this had been repeated several times one of the passengers sharing their sleeper car finally lost his patience and shouted loudly, "Yes, we're all here, your father, your mother, your brother, and all your aunts and cousins; now settle down and go to sleep!"
There was a moment of silence and then, in hushed tones a little voice asked, "Mommy, was that God?"
Jesus, in offering peace, in offering to dwell within us, does not say, "I'm here, the Holy Spirit's here and God is here, now be at peace!"
The peace that Jesus offers cannot be had simply by desiring it. The peace of God is a gift.
A gift that can only be received as a by-product of faith - as a by product of saying yes, I believe; and yes - I am going to keep your word - I am going to obey you as best I can.
I am going to keep your word, O Lord, knowing that it is in your word and by your word that the gifts you offer to us all arrive.
Keeping the Word of God is not as common as it might be in our world. That's why the world is largely a stranger to the peace of God. That is why there is still darkness. And that is why it is so important to share the word of God with as many people as we can.
By accepting the word, the word comes to dwell in us; By living the word the word lives in us.
And the word that lives in us does what the living word does best, it shines - and it attracts others, It gives them the opportunity to hear - and to see - and to feel - to have their hearts opened opened to the degree that they decide to say yes to the marriage proposal of God or - no - not at this time - because I do not want to live in the house you have made nor to have you live in my house.
Soon enough we celebrate the pouring out of the gift of the Holy Spirit upon all who believe; a gift that enables the apostles and disciples of our Lord to move from being men and women afraid to speak the message lest they be mocked, scorned, or killed - to ones who not only speak the message - but speak it in a way that everyone, regardless of their language - or culture - or background - could hear.
Soon enough we celebrate the manner in which Christ - in which God - comes to live with us and in us, and we celebrate what that relationship does for us - and for the world.
What is that God does? And what is it that we must do?
God proposes to us a kind of marriage - and I thank God for that - God does everything God can do to lay the foundation - and then God proposes to me - and to you - and to all people saying
"love me and let me live with you and in you and give to you all that I am. Let me change your life. Let me build a wonderful home for you in which we can dwell a home of joy and peace - a home that has room for all who are one with us."
The response - well that is ours to make, and ours to pray for and work for so that others might make it to.
And when we say yes and keep the word of God, the word of Christ - the word keeps us.
I note about Lydia's story what she did after her heart was opened to Paul's message, she did what God wants us all to do - she believed.
She kept his word by being baptized - and then she opened her home to Paul and his companions, saying to them, "If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house."
Isn't that a fascinating connection with the Gospel reading?
Lydia invites Paul and his companions - strangers to her city - but now brothers to her in faith - to come and stay at her house. In the Gospel today it is promised that God will come to make a home with us.
Both stories point to the faith which is lived as one of hospitality and home making.
As the Spirit makes a home with us, so we are moved to make a home for others. And as we make a home for others - as we keep God's word - so God makes a home with us.
A mystery and a marvel. God loves us - and calls us to himself. God dwells within us and loves us - even as we say yes - and love him.
Blessed be the name of God, day by day. Amen
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Luke 17:15-16
And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan" Luke 17:15-16
Isn't it interesting that of ten lepers healed of their terrible disease, only one returned to the Physician who performed the miracle? And that one was a Samaritan. It seems that Jesus had a "thing" for Samaritans.
We have this poor leper as an example. We also have the parable of the Good Samaritan to show us that Jesus thought highly of them. It was the Samaritan who, unlike the priest and the Levite, helped the beaten and broken Jewish merchant and showed mercy. Finally, we have the example of Jesus and the woman at the well. Instead of circumventing the province of Samaria as most Jews did, He headed through the heart of the state. Instead of avoiding the woman at the well, He not only spoke to her, He asked her for a drink. Any self-respecting Jew would never have accepted a sip of water from a spiritually "soiled" person.
Yes, Jesus did have something favorable for the Samaritans. What was it? He had love for them. And how was He rewarded? The healed leper returned to show his gratitude. The woman at the well, she told the entire city of Samaria about the Man who "told me all about my life!" The result was the salvation of a community. And the Samaritan in the parable, he is immortalized as a true neighbor even though he was one scorned by the very people represented by the robbed and beaten man. All of this leads me to ask two questions.
First, how thankful are you for your salvation and the blessings God has showered upon you? We have been forgiven much. Do we really appreciate it, or are we too much like the nine Jewish lepers who never say "Thank you?" Second, how do you view those who are "different" than you? Do you look down upon them as lesser citizens of the Kingdom of God? Do we mock them, scorn them, ridicule them, and consider them "beneath us?" I suggest that we take some time to seriously consider these two questions. Don't take the first answer that comes to your mind, but stop, ponder, pray and seek the truth. Only then can we make necessary adjustments to our attitudes. Amen and Amen.
Isn't it interesting that of ten lepers healed of their terrible disease, only one returned to the Physician who performed the miracle? And that one was a Samaritan. It seems that Jesus had a "thing" for Samaritans.
We have this poor leper as an example. We also have the parable of the Good Samaritan to show us that Jesus thought highly of them. It was the Samaritan who, unlike the priest and the Levite, helped the beaten and broken Jewish merchant and showed mercy. Finally, we have the example of Jesus and the woman at the well. Instead of circumventing the province of Samaria as most Jews did, He headed through the heart of the state. Instead of avoiding the woman at the well, He not only spoke to her, He asked her for a drink. Any self-respecting Jew would never have accepted a sip of water from a spiritually "soiled" person.
Yes, Jesus did have something favorable for the Samaritans. What was it? He had love for them. And how was He rewarded? The healed leper returned to show his gratitude. The woman at the well, she told the entire city of Samaria about the Man who "told me all about my life!" The result was the salvation of a community. And the Samaritan in the parable, he is immortalized as a true neighbor even though he was one scorned by the very people represented by the robbed and beaten man. All of this leads me to ask two questions.
First, how thankful are you for your salvation and the blessings God has showered upon you? We have been forgiven much. Do we really appreciate it, or are we too much like the nine Jewish lepers who never say "Thank you?" Second, how do you view those who are "different" than you? Do you look down upon them as lesser citizens of the Kingdom of God? Do we mock them, scorn them, ridicule them, and consider them "beneath us?" I suggest that we take some time to seriously consider these two questions. Don't take the first answer that comes to your mind, but stop, ponder, pray and seek the truth. Only then can we make necessary adjustments to our attitudes. Amen and Amen.
I remember talking to a person one time who commented that someone we knew was not just a Christian but a "Moral Christian."
What a commentary on Christianity as it is often practiced in today's world. Being moral and naming the name of Christ should go together, but altogether too often they do not. Instead, Christians very often evoke the same amoral pragmatism that we see around us in the world.
I hear Christians say things like, "Well, you can't be a Sunday School boy and succeed in business" and "So-and-so is a louse but you have to admit he gets the job done." I even heard one "Christian" Filipino lawyer describe himself with pride as being "meaner than a junk yard dog" in the courtroom.
What does all this talk about morality have to do with the fruit of the spirit called goodness? Well, the Greek word for goodness in this verse is Agathos which means moral goodness. In the Greek there are two words which are translated "good." One is doros which means good, practical, useful. Like I have a good computer at home. The other is agathos which means moral goodness. So, what this scripture is saying is that the spirit-filled life will be marked by moral and ethical behavior.
Unfortunately, in the world around us, making decisions based on moral principles is rarely practiced. And, in spite of the prevalent romantic image of the past, an honest look at history shows that morality has rarely been the deciding factor in making choices. Usually, pragmatism or practicality takes over. What works usually takes precedence over what's right.
Why is this? Well, the natural man works with a broken moral barometer. It's not that we don't care about what is right, or worse consciously decide to do evil, it's that we just don't know what the right thing is. So, instead of worrying about the ethics of a situation, we focus on the practicality.
Sadly, I've even seen ministries run in this manner. I know of a Minister here in Hong Kong who broke a promise he committed to a member of his church, and making excuses for his unchristian behaviour when confronted by this particular member. I've heard people involved in ministry justify unethical and downright deceptive behavior by saying "Well, it wasn't totally honest, but it worked." God does not sanction such "Ends justifies the Means" mentality. What the Holy Spirit does in your life is to restore the spiritual barometer so that you can address the difficult question of what is right in each situation. Of course, the first step in using that spiritual barometer is to simply ask the question. The second is to listen to the answer.
Lord, let my spiritual barometer be adjusted to your standards. Keep me focused on what is good, and then let me do that good thing. Amen and Amen.
What a commentary on Christianity as it is often practiced in today's world. Being moral and naming the name of Christ should go together, but altogether too often they do not. Instead, Christians very often evoke the same amoral pragmatism that we see around us in the world.
I hear Christians say things like, "Well, you can't be a Sunday School boy and succeed in business" and "So-and-so is a louse but you have to admit he gets the job done." I even heard one "Christian" Filipino lawyer describe himself with pride as being "meaner than a junk yard dog" in the courtroom.
What does all this talk about morality have to do with the fruit of the spirit called goodness? Well, the Greek word for goodness in this verse is Agathos which means moral goodness. In the Greek there are two words which are translated "good." One is doros which means good, practical, useful. Like I have a good computer at home. The other is agathos which means moral goodness. So, what this scripture is saying is that the spirit-filled life will be marked by moral and ethical behavior.
Unfortunately, in the world around us, making decisions based on moral principles is rarely practiced. And, in spite of the prevalent romantic image of the past, an honest look at history shows that morality has rarely been the deciding factor in making choices. Usually, pragmatism or practicality takes over. What works usually takes precedence over what's right.
Why is this? Well, the natural man works with a broken moral barometer. It's not that we don't care about what is right, or worse consciously decide to do evil, it's that we just don't know what the right thing is. So, instead of worrying about the ethics of a situation, we focus on the practicality.
Sadly, I've even seen ministries run in this manner. I know of a Minister here in Hong Kong who broke a promise he committed to a member of his church, and making excuses for his unchristian behaviour when confronted by this particular member. I've heard people involved in ministry justify unethical and downright deceptive behavior by saying "Well, it wasn't totally honest, but it worked." God does not sanction such "Ends justifies the Means" mentality. What the Holy Spirit does in your life is to restore the spiritual barometer so that you can address the difficult question of what is right in each situation. Of course, the first step in using that spiritual barometer is to simply ask the question. The second is to listen to the answer.
Lord, let my spiritual barometer be adjusted to your standards. Keep me focused on what is good, and then let me do that good thing. Amen and Amen.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Ezekiel 37:1-14 and John 11:1-45
"My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways"
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.
It would be interesting to poll this congregation and ask -- what do you
think is the hardest problem to handle in the Christian life???
Your answer might be different than mine.
For me, the hardest problem I have to handle as a Christian is what to do
when God does not do what I have been taught to expect him to do; when God gets out of line and does not act the way I think he ought.
We have an occasion like that in the story of the raising of Lazarus from
the dead.
John introduces this last of the great miracles of Jesus in chapter 11 in
these words:
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying "Lord, he whom you love is ill."
When the message reached Jesus, this was his remarkable response:
"This illness is not unto death, but it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it."
The remarkable thing about that is, if you carefully check out the schedule of timing of this event, Lazarus was already dead when the message reached Jesus. It took two days for the messenger to get to the Jordan, so when Jesus returned to Bethany, Lazarus had been dead four days.
It is difficult for us to believe that Jesus did not know that because of
the insight that the Spirit of God had given him on numerous occasions.
But he sees this as a signal from the Father that something tremendous is
going to happen in connection with it, thus he sent back this remarkable
word: "This illness is not unto death."
In verses 5 and 6 we get the real shocker here, however when we read:
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill... he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
That is incredible to us. That is the part of the story which is hard to handle.
Martha loved Jesus; Mary loved Jesus; Lazarus loved Jesus; and Jesus loved them. From the record of scripture we know that their home was filled with love and that it was one of the most welcome havens for our Lord during his three years of ministry.
But when Jesus hears that Lazarus is sick - what does he do?? He waits.
It is a tough thing to believe that Jesus deliberately waited. We are so
used to critical illness being a signal for immediate action –ambulance rushing with sirens on, flashing red lights, frantic phone calls - get right down to the hospital, that it seems incredible that Jesus, knowing that his friend was ill, or in this case dead, nevertheless stayed right where he was for two more days.
Somebody may well say,
"If he knew Lazarus was dead why would he hurry? There was nothing he could do."
But remember Mary and Martha's hearts were breaking. This was a dearly loved brother, and his death would be a grievous loss to them. Jesus' presence with them would have been a tremendous comfort even though he may never did a thing about raising Lazarus from the dead.
Yet, knowing that they needed him there to comfort them, knowing that they longed to have him there to the point that they sent a messenger to let him know the situation, he deliberately remained two days longer at the place where he was.
Why?
That is the question we all ask.
Why?
When you have gone to God for help which you feel you desperately need and nothing happens, when your heart is breaking over something and you need God to intervene, but the heavens are silent, it is not at all easy to understand, it is very difficult to accept, and it is tough to get any kind of grip on why there is complete silence from God.
But what this passage is telling us is that a delay in answer like that is
not a sign of God's indifference or his failure to hear. It is a sign of
his love. The delay will help us. It is for our sake. And it is so that
Christ may be glorified through it.
Jesus deliberately delayed going to Mary and Martha because he loved them and knew this would strengthen their faith as they learned the ultimate outcome which God would work through Him.
That is a very hard and difficult lesson to accept. I myself have struggled over this many times. But it works - something we expect and long for does not occur and then - bingo - sometime after we think that everything is lost and that there is no hope, God does something remarkable that totally reverses our view.
Think of the reaction in Bethany as the messenger returned with the news
that when he told Jesus that Lazarus was ill, Jesus had said, "This illness
is not unto death." Yet when the messenger got back with that message
Lazarus had already been dead for two days.
What do you think the reaction of his sisters was?
How do you think they felt?
According to the account, two days later Jesus acts. He says to his
disciples
"Let us go back Judea... Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up."
The disciples, who had every reason to believe that if they returned to Judea that Jesus would be stoned to death, protest, saying:
"Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover."
To which Jesus replies
"Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe"
Notice that Jesus says he was glad he was not there when Lazarus died,
"for the sake of the disciples."
Just as Jesus delayed his going for Mary and Martha's sake in order that their faith might be strengthened by that delay, so that they might see His glory in it what will happen because of it. So he delayed as well for the sake of his disciples that they might believe.
I want to tell you there have been times when I have cried out to God for
help and said, "Things are so bad it can't get any worse. Lord, do
something. Help me!" But no answer came. That is hard. It is hard to
believe. It is hard and difficult to wait.
But I am gradually learning that this is never the end of the story, gradually learning what God said so clearly through the prophet Isaiah, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways."
That is what is so difficult. God is sovereign. God is not a mortal that
he should act like we act. There are dimensions of the problems which he sees that we do not remotely imagine. There are possibilities and
opportunities in every situation that we cannot conceive of.
So we must wait and quietly trust, knowing that he is working out
something.
"Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe"
As we go in the story, as Jesus arrives at the outskirts of Bethany - we
see that Martha greets Jesus with a phrase that must have been frequently
on all of their lips when Lazarus was sick.
How many times must they have said, "Oh, if Jesus were only here." They had said it so many times that it comes automatically to Martha's lips when she meets him: "Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died."
I do not believe this is a word of reproach.
Martha is not saying, "Lord, why didn't you come sooner? We sent for you. If you had responded we wouldn't be in this pickle." It is clear from the account, that she realizes that the message did not reach him until Lazarus was dead. Martha's word rather is one of regret: "Lord, I wish you could have been here, because if you had, my brother would not have died."
Then she goes on to say, "But even now, even now, whatever you ask of God, he will give it to you."
Many ask at this point, "What does she expect? What is it that she wants
from him?" Some commentators say that she really did expect Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead, pointing to her words, "Even now."
These commentators miss the point because, of course, the very next word of Jesus is, "Your brother will rise again."
If Martha had any idea that would happen then, she would have said, "How wonderful, Lord! That is exactly what I expected you to do now that you have come."
But she does not say that. What she says is, "Yes, I know. He will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
Clearly Martha is not looking for the immediate resurrection of her
brother. What, then, is she looking for from Jesus? What does she mean by the words, "Even now, whatever you ask of God, God will give it to you?"
We have to conclude that she is looking for his comfort, for the release
that God can give to a heart that is burdened and saddened, torn with
grief, anticipating the loneliness and emptiness of the days ahead. God
can give marvellous inward peace. Many have testified to that. This is
what Martha is asking for, "Even now, Lord, even though he is gone..."
There is so much God can give us at a time like this. As we listen to the
story we can see that Martha's faith is like the faith we so often have.
She believes in what she thinks will happen now and then later, rather than in what God might make happen whenever God decides to make it happen.
How many times have you said to yourself, "I know God has worked in the past, and I know that he will work again in the future, but today, well,
this is not the day of miracles..."
This is Martha's faith: in the future, at the resurrection of the last day, yes, the program of God is certain. But for today - well - that is a different matter.
The same thing can be said of Mary -- who greets Jesus with the same words that Martha used: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.".
Neither Martha, nor Mary, nor any of those who accompany her to the grave side - nor the disciples expect what happens next. They do not even hope for it.
How often are we in the same position with regard to the Lord's work in our lives?
In our brokenness - in our experience of grief - in our despair- we weep,
as Mary wept - we weep and we expect nothing - nothing but heartache for today and for as long as we live and breathe..
Jesus wept too - It says that Jesus asked where they had laid Lazarus, and
as he started out to the tomb, that "he wept".
He weeps not because he loves Lazarus - not because Lazarus has died – for he knows what he is about to do -- he weeps because Mary weeps. He weeps because he is sharing the heartache of the sisters - because he sympathizes with them in their pain..
I read once of a little girl who hurt her finger, and she ran to her daddy, who was busy studying for an exam in his study. She showed him her finger, but he was so caught up in what he was doing he just looked at it and said, "Oh, that will be all right," and sent her on out. She ran to her mother, weeping and crying, and her mother said, "Oh, dear, does it hurt so much?" The little girl said, "No, mommy, it's just that daddy didn't even say, 'Oh.'" That is what she wanted, somebody to say "Oh" with her.
In Romans 12, Paul tells us to "weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice." Here our Lord himself sets the example of this.
Knowing that he is going to turn it all around, he yet feels the sorrow of
their hearts and weeps.
Now we come to the actual miracle.
Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb; It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, by this time there will be an odour, for he has been dead four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone."
Notice how he answers. He does not rebuke her, he encourages her in the words, "Remember what I said." "Did I not say to you that 'if you would believe you would see the glory of God?"
Then Jesus turns to do the great deed. He begins with a simple prayer.
And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."
Notice the many times in this account that what Jesus did he did for the
sake of the ones involved.
Earlier he said to the disciples, "I am glad I was not there for your sake.
He stayed two days where he was when the message reached him "because he loved Mary and Martha." Now he prays out loud for the sake of the people there.
When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. And Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
What does this miracle say to us this morning?
One answer to that is given by the apostle Paul in his Second Letter to
Timothy. Timothy was a young man who was left in the pagan city of Ephesus. He had to struggle to live as a Christian in that polluted, pagan
environment, just as we have to today in our society. He was sometimes
discouraged, sometimes defeated, facing many problems. He was a little afraid. He was frail of health.
What were Paul's words to him?
"Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead. Remember Jesus right where you are. Remember he is with you."
This is his word. He is with you.
He knows how to handle the situation you are in.
He knows how to lead you through it,
he can - and in fact will even raise the dead.
He can do anything.
Focus your faith on him, not on the solution to the problem or the eventual working out of it.
Trust in him, despite the delays
- turn to him, knowing that he is able
- and knowing that whatever illness may strike, with him it is never an
illness unto death - rather it may well be the pathway to new life.
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen.
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.
It would be interesting to poll this congregation and ask -- what do you
think is the hardest problem to handle in the Christian life???
Your answer might be different than mine.
For me, the hardest problem I have to handle as a Christian is what to do
when God does not do what I have been taught to expect him to do; when God gets out of line and does not act the way I think he ought.
We have an occasion like that in the story of the raising of Lazarus from
the dead.
John introduces this last of the great miracles of Jesus in chapter 11 in
these words:
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying "Lord, he whom you love is ill."
When the message reached Jesus, this was his remarkable response:
"This illness is not unto death, but it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it."
The remarkable thing about that is, if you carefully check out the schedule of timing of this event, Lazarus was already dead when the message reached Jesus. It took two days for the messenger to get to the Jordan, so when Jesus returned to Bethany, Lazarus had been dead four days.
It is difficult for us to believe that Jesus did not know that because of
the insight that the Spirit of God had given him on numerous occasions.
But he sees this as a signal from the Father that something tremendous is
going to happen in connection with it, thus he sent back this remarkable
word: "This illness is not unto death."
In verses 5 and 6 we get the real shocker here, however when we read:
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was ill... he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
That is incredible to us. That is the part of the story which is hard to handle.
Martha loved Jesus; Mary loved Jesus; Lazarus loved Jesus; and Jesus loved them. From the record of scripture we know that their home was filled with love and that it was one of the most welcome havens for our Lord during his three years of ministry.
But when Jesus hears that Lazarus is sick - what does he do?? He waits.
It is a tough thing to believe that Jesus deliberately waited. We are so
used to critical illness being a signal for immediate action –ambulance rushing with sirens on, flashing red lights, frantic phone calls - get right down to the hospital, that it seems incredible that Jesus, knowing that his friend was ill, or in this case dead, nevertheless stayed right where he was for two more days.
Somebody may well say,
"If he knew Lazarus was dead why would he hurry? There was nothing he could do."
But remember Mary and Martha's hearts were breaking. This was a dearly loved brother, and his death would be a grievous loss to them. Jesus' presence with them would have been a tremendous comfort even though he may never did a thing about raising Lazarus from the dead.
Yet, knowing that they needed him there to comfort them, knowing that they longed to have him there to the point that they sent a messenger to let him know the situation, he deliberately remained two days longer at the place where he was.
Why?
That is the question we all ask.
Why?
When you have gone to God for help which you feel you desperately need and nothing happens, when your heart is breaking over something and you need God to intervene, but the heavens are silent, it is not at all easy to understand, it is very difficult to accept, and it is tough to get any kind of grip on why there is complete silence from God.
But what this passage is telling us is that a delay in answer like that is
not a sign of God's indifference or his failure to hear. It is a sign of
his love. The delay will help us. It is for our sake. And it is so that
Christ may be glorified through it.
Jesus deliberately delayed going to Mary and Martha because he loved them and knew this would strengthen their faith as they learned the ultimate outcome which God would work through Him.
That is a very hard and difficult lesson to accept. I myself have struggled over this many times. But it works - something we expect and long for does not occur and then - bingo - sometime after we think that everything is lost and that there is no hope, God does something remarkable that totally reverses our view.
Think of the reaction in Bethany as the messenger returned with the news
that when he told Jesus that Lazarus was ill, Jesus had said, "This illness
is not unto death." Yet when the messenger got back with that message
Lazarus had already been dead for two days.
What do you think the reaction of his sisters was?
How do you think they felt?
According to the account, two days later Jesus acts. He says to his
disciples
"Let us go back Judea... Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up."
The disciples, who had every reason to believe that if they returned to Judea that Jesus would be stoned to death, protest, saying:
"Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover."
To which Jesus replies
"Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe"
Notice that Jesus says he was glad he was not there when Lazarus died,
"for the sake of the disciples."
Just as Jesus delayed his going for Mary and Martha's sake in order that their faith might be strengthened by that delay, so that they might see His glory in it what will happen because of it. So he delayed as well for the sake of his disciples that they might believe.
I want to tell you there have been times when I have cried out to God for
help and said, "Things are so bad it can't get any worse. Lord, do
something. Help me!" But no answer came. That is hard. It is hard to
believe. It is hard and difficult to wait.
But I am gradually learning that this is never the end of the story, gradually learning what God said so clearly through the prophet Isaiah, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways."
That is what is so difficult. God is sovereign. God is not a mortal that
he should act like we act. There are dimensions of the problems which he sees that we do not remotely imagine. There are possibilities and
opportunities in every situation that we cannot conceive of.
So we must wait and quietly trust, knowing that he is working out
something.
"Lazarus is dead; and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe"
As we go in the story, as Jesus arrives at the outskirts of Bethany - we
see that Martha greets Jesus with a phrase that must have been frequently
on all of their lips when Lazarus was sick.
How many times must they have said, "Oh, if Jesus were only here." They had said it so many times that it comes automatically to Martha's lips when she meets him: "Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died."
I do not believe this is a word of reproach.
Martha is not saying, "Lord, why didn't you come sooner? We sent for you. If you had responded we wouldn't be in this pickle." It is clear from the account, that she realizes that the message did not reach him until Lazarus was dead. Martha's word rather is one of regret: "Lord, I wish you could have been here, because if you had, my brother would not have died."
Then she goes on to say, "But even now, even now, whatever you ask of God, he will give it to you."
Many ask at this point, "What does she expect? What is it that she wants
from him?" Some commentators say that she really did expect Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead, pointing to her words, "Even now."
These commentators miss the point because, of course, the very next word of Jesus is, "Your brother will rise again."
If Martha had any idea that would happen then, she would have said, "How wonderful, Lord! That is exactly what I expected you to do now that you have come."
But she does not say that. What she says is, "Yes, I know. He will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
Clearly Martha is not looking for the immediate resurrection of her
brother. What, then, is she looking for from Jesus? What does she mean by the words, "Even now, whatever you ask of God, God will give it to you?"
We have to conclude that she is looking for his comfort, for the release
that God can give to a heart that is burdened and saddened, torn with
grief, anticipating the loneliness and emptiness of the days ahead. God
can give marvellous inward peace. Many have testified to that. This is
what Martha is asking for, "Even now, Lord, even though he is gone..."
There is so much God can give us at a time like this. As we listen to the
story we can see that Martha's faith is like the faith we so often have.
She believes in what she thinks will happen now and then later, rather than in what God might make happen whenever God decides to make it happen.
How many times have you said to yourself, "I know God has worked in the past, and I know that he will work again in the future, but today, well,
this is not the day of miracles..."
This is Martha's faith: in the future, at the resurrection of the last day, yes, the program of God is certain. But for today - well - that is a different matter.
The same thing can be said of Mary -- who greets Jesus with the same words that Martha used: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.".
Neither Martha, nor Mary, nor any of those who accompany her to the grave side - nor the disciples expect what happens next. They do not even hope for it.
How often are we in the same position with regard to the Lord's work in our lives?
In our brokenness - in our experience of grief - in our despair- we weep,
as Mary wept - we weep and we expect nothing - nothing but heartache for today and for as long as we live and breathe..
Jesus wept too - It says that Jesus asked where they had laid Lazarus, and
as he started out to the tomb, that "he wept".
He weeps not because he loves Lazarus - not because Lazarus has died – for he knows what he is about to do -- he weeps because Mary weeps. He weeps because he is sharing the heartache of the sisters - because he sympathizes with them in their pain..
I read once of a little girl who hurt her finger, and she ran to her daddy, who was busy studying for an exam in his study. She showed him her finger, but he was so caught up in what he was doing he just looked at it and said, "Oh, that will be all right," and sent her on out. She ran to her mother, weeping and crying, and her mother said, "Oh, dear, does it hurt so much?" The little girl said, "No, mommy, it's just that daddy didn't even say, 'Oh.'" That is what she wanted, somebody to say "Oh" with her.
In Romans 12, Paul tells us to "weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice." Here our Lord himself sets the example of this.
Knowing that he is going to turn it all around, he yet feels the sorrow of
their hearts and weeps.
Now we come to the actual miracle.
Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb; It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, by this time there will be an odour, for he has been dead four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone."
Notice how he answers. He does not rebuke her, he encourages her in the words, "Remember what I said." "Did I not say to you that 'if you would believe you would see the glory of God?"
Then Jesus turns to do the great deed. He begins with a simple prayer.
And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."
Notice the many times in this account that what Jesus did he did for the
sake of the ones involved.
Earlier he said to the disciples, "I am glad I was not there for your sake.
He stayed two days where he was when the message reached him "because he loved Mary and Martha." Now he prays out loud for the sake of the people there.
When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. And Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
What does this miracle say to us this morning?
One answer to that is given by the apostle Paul in his Second Letter to
Timothy. Timothy was a young man who was left in the pagan city of Ephesus. He had to struggle to live as a Christian in that polluted, pagan
environment, just as we have to today in our society. He was sometimes
discouraged, sometimes defeated, facing many problems. He was a little afraid. He was frail of health.
What were Paul's words to him?
"Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead. Remember Jesus right where you are. Remember he is with you."
This is his word. He is with you.
He knows how to handle the situation you are in.
He knows how to lead you through it,
he can - and in fact will even raise the dead.
He can do anything.
Focus your faith on him, not on the solution to the problem or the eventual working out of it.
Trust in him, despite the delays
- turn to him, knowing that he is able
- and knowing that whatever illness may strike, with him it is never an
illness unto death - rather it may well be the pathway to new life.
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen.
Genesis 50:15-21; Psalm 103; Matthew 18:21-35
O Lord, we pray, speak in the calming of our minds and in the longings of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
One clergy family decided to let their three-year old son record the message for their home answering machine. The rehearsals went smoothly: “Mommy and Daddy cannot come to the phone right now. If you will leave your name, phone number, and a brief message, they will get back to you as soon as possible.” Then came the test. The father pressed the record button and their son said sweetly, “Mommy and Daddy cannot come to the phone right now. If you will leave your name, phone number, and a brief message, they will get back to you as soon as Jesus comes.”
The three readings of this morning speak to us today of sin and of forgiveness.
Our first reading shows Joseph’s brothers begging him, in the name of the God of their Father, to forgive them. And Joseph does – saying as he does:
“Do not be afraid. Do I act for God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives…”
You may remember, Joseph, was sold into slavery by his brothers, who were envious of the favoritism shown by their father towards him and resentful of the attitude that Joseph seemed to have towards them. They would have murdered him, but for their reluctance to actually have his blood on their hands, but the fate that they condemned him to was little better than murder, for no slave is able to do as they wish, and the life of a slave could be taken at the whim of his master.
It was only due to Joseph having favour in the eyes of God that Joseph was able to prosper even in his slavery and, after many trials and tribulations, including a spell of over two years in prison for an offence that he did not commit, rise to the position of being at the right hand of the Pharaoh, where he was appointed with the task of keeping Egypt safe from seven years of drought and famine.
Certainly his brothers committed a grave sin against Joseph. And yet, many years later, when hunger brought them into Egypt – he fed them; indeed he provided richly for both them and his father, saying even then, that God had a purpose in allowing them to sell him into slavery, for it made it possible for him to save them and all his people in their greatest time of need.
God gave to Joseph the grace to see beyond the pain to the gain. The grace to see what while evil was done to him – God was able to use that evil for good.
Often that is a most difficult thing for us, at least it is for me.
We cannot see anything good coming out of the harm that others have done to us. We cannot see any reason for giving out mercy, we cannot see any reason for giving to them forgiveness, even if, in other areas of our life we may have prosper.
We carry the wounds of the past with us, we remember the hurt done to us.
We tend to think of what might have been, rather than taking a look at our life as it is now, and seeing in it the hand of God to do good for many, and from that point of view, forgiving other people for the harm that they may have done to us in the past, and often in the very distant past.
If the truth ever be told – even in the story of Joseph, sin remains sin, even though God brought good out of it.
That is a simple fact of truth, and we should never lose track of it.
No matter what God does with the sins that have been committed against us, they remain as sins.
The Psalm reading of this morning speaks to us of what God does with our sins. Let me quote from the first eleven verses:
Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases…the LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens above the earth, so great is this love of those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us…
God does indeed remove our sins from us. Out of love for us, God forgives us our sins. God cancels them out. God makes the debt that in justice we owe to him – of no account. That is the great message of the cross that God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him might not perish, but have eternal life.
As we all know from our experience in life sin is serious. Sin is always wrong, it is always bad. It always hurt someone. However, the incredible news is, that while sin always hurt, its power to hurt ends when forgiveness is applied to it.
We have all been forgiven by God. Sin no longer has the power to harm our relationship with God. It has been washed away; it has been nailed to the cross. It has been buried by God, never to rise again. In the place of sin has new life comes forth, a life that we have but to reach out to receive.
That is what God does for each and every one of us. Instead of punishing us for our sins, instead of keeping us away at arm’s length, instead of turning away his face from us as we so very much deserves, God turns to us.
God turns to us, and in pain, and in tears, and finally in death itself, he forgives us and calls us, as well as empowers us, to live as ones who are able, just like Joseph, to save many lives – as ones, just like Jesus, are able to bring the word of life to those who are living in darkness, the word of love those who are perishing on account of their lack of love.
Max Lucado in his thesis “The Grip of Grace” tells us that “God does not condone our sin, nor does he compromise his standard. He does not ignore our rebellion, nor does he relax his demands. Rather than dismiss our sin, he assumes our sin and, incredibly, incredibly sentences himself. God is still holy. Sin is still sin. And we are redeemed.”
We are indeed redeemed. We have been bought out of slavery to sin and death. God is good to us – even though some of our brothers and sisters have not been good to us – even though we ourselves have not been good to God.
And so, we finally arrive at the Gospel lesson of today as well as at the title of our Sermon “as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
After listening to Jesus speak to him and the other disciples about how to treat a brother or a sister who has sinned against them, Peter comes up to Jesus and asks him:
“Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” And then Jesus gave his famous answer - “I tell you not seven times, but seventy times seven times”.
And then Jesus tells them an alarming parable about how the Kingdom of Heaven is like a King who wanted to settle accounts with his servants, and how one of these servants, even he is forgiven a massive debt by his master, fails to be equally forgiving of a fellow servant who owes him but a very small debt.
“You wicked servant” says the master to the one he had forgiven so much. “I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” And in anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
This is alarming, is it not? And how much more so when you remember the punch line of Jesus. “This”, says Jesus “is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
This parable is alarming because a lot of people find it difficult to forgive. And because, in some way or other, from the parable, it seems like that the forgiveness that we will finally receive from God depends on the forgiveness we give….
“This”, says Jesus, “is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” And again, from earlier in the Gospel according to Matthew, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. This, says Jesus, is how you should pray, “forgive our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.”
God loves and forgives us – even before we even ask. His forgiveness is total and unconditional, and he calls on us to open our live to him and to accept that love and forgiveness.
If you are worrying about not being able to forgive someone one time, let alone seventy times seven times, there is something you can do about it. Or if you are worrying that your perhaps your prayer to God might be fulfilled before you are ready for it, and that God will end up in forgiving you in the same way that you forgive others, there is something you can do about it.
That something is this:
Surrender your judgment to God, surrender your judgment to God and keep on praying the prayer that Jesus taught us, and pray this prayer with deep earnestness. From time to time try changing the words. Change them from “And Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” to “And, as You have forgiven us our trespasses, help us to forgive those who trespass against us”, and change the words back again.
Pray the prayer of Christ and taste the grace of God of which our Psalm reading sings of today.
Remember that sin is sin –and that it all hurts – and yet God removes it from us as far as the east is from the west. He forgives us, he has compassion for us, like a father has for his children, like a mother has for her child.
Taste what that means for you. Think of how God has shown love for you, forgiveness to you, even before you even asked for it, even before you thought to ask.
Then you will be, as the Psalm puts it, “Like a tree planted by streams of water”. You will be drawing upon the love of God – the story of God’s wonder and grace – the word of God. You will be able to yield your fruit in season, and your leaves will not wither, your actions, and later even your feelings, will be good.
Yes, sin is sin, and we have every right to be angry about it. We should be angry about it. But work to let go of your anger to those who have sinned against you. Work on it by not only remembering what God has done for you, but also by remembering who is in the end, the only one who has the right to render judgment.
Forgiveness means that we must forever give up the idea that we are the judge.
I, personally, am so happy about that, because I know that I will make a lousy judge. Because I know also how my judgments of other people have in times past proven wrong, and I know how even when they have been “right”, they have done nothing to improve the situation for me. For those I am worried about. For the one that has done wrong.
Think on all these things. Think about how God’s ways are greater than ours, and how God cares for us, and wants us to care for other people.
Then pray again. “Lord, forgive my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me” and again, “Lord, as you have forgiven my trespasses, help me to forgive those who have trespass against me.”
God will certainly help you, as he has helped me, as you remember what is near to God’s own heart – and ask his help with it. God will help you even as you continue the prayer as Jesus taught us to pray.
Fear not that you have already lost – or will loose your salvation – your joy or peace. Rather keep trying to forgive – for in trying to forgive, forgiveness comes.
Do not fear your failures to forgive despite your resolve to forgive. The Lord who calls us to forgive seventy times seven times has himself done the same – and indeed even more.
Your salvation is not lost by one act of malice, or even by a series of such acts. It can only be lost if you commit what the Scriptures call the unforgivable sin, the sin against the Holy Spirit, the sin which we understand to be the denial of God and of God’s power; the denial of the Truth of God that seeks to leaven your life.
The truth of God is that God is forgiving.
The power of God is the power to help you to stand firm and to show that truth to others, through the love that we give.
Praise the Lord, O my soul. All my innermost being, praise his holy name. Amen.
One clergy family decided to let their three-year old son record the message for their home answering machine. The rehearsals went smoothly: “Mommy and Daddy cannot come to the phone right now. If you will leave your name, phone number, and a brief message, they will get back to you as soon as possible.” Then came the test. The father pressed the record button and their son said sweetly, “Mommy and Daddy cannot come to the phone right now. If you will leave your name, phone number, and a brief message, they will get back to you as soon as Jesus comes.”
The three readings of this morning speak to us today of sin and of forgiveness.
Our first reading shows Joseph’s brothers begging him, in the name of the God of their Father, to forgive them. And Joseph does – saying as he does:
“Do not be afraid. Do I act for God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives…”
You may remember, Joseph, was sold into slavery by his brothers, who were envious of the favoritism shown by their father towards him and resentful of the attitude that Joseph seemed to have towards them. They would have murdered him, but for their reluctance to actually have his blood on their hands, but the fate that they condemned him to was little better than murder, for no slave is able to do as they wish, and the life of a slave could be taken at the whim of his master.
It was only due to Joseph having favour in the eyes of God that Joseph was able to prosper even in his slavery and, after many trials and tribulations, including a spell of over two years in prison for an offence that he did not commit, rise to the position of being at the right hand of the Pharaoh, where he was appointed with the task of keeping Egypt safe from seven years of drought and famine.
Certainly his brothers committed a grave sin against Joseph. And yet, many years later, when hunger brought them into Egypt – he fed them; indeed he provided richly for both them and his father, saying even then, that God had a purpose in allowing them to sell him into slavery, for it made it possible for him to save them and all his people in their greatest time of need.
God gave to Joseph the grace to see beyond the pain to the gain. The grace to see what while evil was done to him – God was able to use that evil for good.
Often that is a most difficult thing for us, at least it is for me.
We cannot see anything good coming out of the harm that others have done to us. We cannot see any reason for giving out mercy, we cannot see any reason for giving to them forgiveness, even if, in other areas of our life we may have prosper.
We carry the wounds of the past with us, we remember the hurt done to us.
We tend to think of what might have been, rather than taking a look at our life as it is now, and seeing in it the hand of God to do good for many, and from that point of view, forgiving other people for the harm that they may have done to us in the past, and often in the very distant past.
If the truth ever be told – even in the story of Joseph, sin remains sin, even though God brought good out of it.
That is a simple fact of truth, and we should never lose track of it.
No matter what God does with the sins that have been committed against us, they remain as sins.
The Psalm reading of this morning speaks to us of what God does with our sins. Let me quote from the first eleven verses:
Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases…the LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens above the earth, so great is this love of those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us…
God does indeed remove our sins from us. Out of love for us, God forgives us our sins. God cancels them out. God makes the debt that in justice we owe to him – of no account. That is the great message of the cross that God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him might not perish, but have eternal life.
As we all know from our experience in life sin is serious. Sin is always wrong, it is always bad. It always hurt someone. However, the incredible news is, that while sin always hurt, its power to hurt ends when forgiveness is applied to it.
We have all been forgiven by God. Sin no longer has the power to harm our relationship with God. It has been washed away; it has been nailed to the cross. It has been buried by God, never to rise again. In the place of sin has new life comes forth, a life that we have but to reach out to receive.
That is what God does for each and every one of us. Instead of punishing us for our sins, instead of keeping us away at arm’s length, instead of turning away his face from us as we so very much deserves, God turns to us.
God turns to us, and in pain, and in tears, and finally in death itself, he forgives us and calls us, as well as empowers us, to live as ones who are able, just like Joseph, to save many lives – as ones, just like Jesus, are able to bring the word of life to those who are living in darkness, the word of love those who are perishing on account of their lack of love.
Max Lucado in his thesis “The Grip of Grace” tells us that “God does not condone our sin, nor does he compromise his standard. He does not ignore our rebellion, nor does he relax his demands. Rather than dismiss our sin, he assumes our sin and, incredibly, incredibly sentences himself. God is still holy. Sin is still sin. And we are redeemed.”
We are indeed redeemed. We have been bought out of slavery to sin and death. God is good to us – even though some of our brothers and sisters have not been good to us – even though we ourselves have not been good to God.
And so, we finally arrive at the Gospel lesson of today as well as at the title of our Sermon “as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
After listening to Jesus speak to him and the other disciples about how to treat a brother or a sister who has sinned against them, Peter comes up to Jesus and asks him:
“Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” And then Jesus gave his famous answer - “I tell you not seven times, but seventy times seven times”.
And then Jesus tells them an alarming parable about how the Kingdom of Heaven is like a King who wanted to settle accounts with his servants, and how one of these servants, even he is forgiven a massive debt by his master, fails to be equally forgiving of a fellow servant who owes him but a very small debt.
“You wicked servant” says the master to the one he had forgiven so much. “I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” And in anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
This is alarming, is it not? And how much more so when you remember the punch line of Jesus. “This”, says Jesus “is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
This parable is alarming because a lot of people find it difficult to forgive. And because, in some way or other, from the parable, it seems like that the forgiveness that we will finally receive from God depends on the forgiveness we give….
“This”, says Jesus, “is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” And again, from earlier in the Gospel according to Matthew, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. This, says Jesus, is how you should pray, “forgive our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.”
God loves and forgives us – even before we even ask. His forgiveness is total and unconditional, and he calls on us to open our live to him and to accept that love and forgiveness.
If you are worrying about not being able to forgive someone one time, let alone seventy times seven times, there is something you can do about it. Or if you are worrying that your perhaps your prayer to God might be fulfilled before you are ready for it, and that God will end up in forgiving you in the same way that you forgive others, there is something you can do about it.
That something is this:
Surrender your judgment to God, surrender your judgment to God and keep on praying the prayer that Jesus taught us, and pray this prayer with deep earnestness. From time to time try changing the words. Change them from “And Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” to “And, as You have forgiven us our trespasses, help us to forgive those who trespass against us”, and change the words back again.
Pray the prayer of Christ and taste the grace of God of which our Psalm reading sings of today.
Remember that sin is sin –and that it all hurts – and yet God removes it from us as far as the east is from the west. He forgives us, he has compassion for us, like a father has for his children, like a mother has for her child.
Taste what that means for you. Think of how God has shown love for you, forgiveness to you, even before you even asked for it, even before you thought to ask.
Then you will be, as the Psalm puts it, “Like a tree planted by streams of water”. You will be drawing upon the love of God – the story of God’s wonder and grace – the word of God. You will be able to yield your fruit in season, and your leaves will not wither, your actions, and later even your feelings, will be good.
Yes, sin is sin, and we have every right to be angry about it. We should be angry about it. But work to let go of your anger to those who have sinned against you. Work on it by not only remembering what God has done for you, but also by remembering who is in the end, the only one who has the right to render judgment.
Forgiveness means that we must forever give up the idea that we are the judge.
I, personally, am so happy about that, because I know that I will make a lousy judge. Because I know also how my judgments of other people have in times past proven wrong, and I know how even when they have been “right”, they have done nothing to improve the situation for me. For those I am worried about. For the one that has done wrong.
Think on all these things. Think about how God’s ways are greater than ours, and how God cares for us, and wants us to care for other people.
Then pray again. “Lord, forgive my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me” and again, “Lord, as you have forgiven my trespasses, help me to forgive those who have trespass against me.”
God will certainly help you, as he has helped me, as you remember what is near to God’s own heart – and ask his help with it. God will help you even as you continue the prayer as Jesus taught us to pray.
Fear not that you have already lost – or will loose your salvation – your joy or peace. Rather keep trying to forgive – for in trying to forgive, forgiveness comes.
Do not fear your failures to forgive despite your resolve to forgive. The Lord who calls us to forgive seventy times seven times has himself done the same – and indeed even more.
Your salvation is not lost by one act of malice, or even by a series of such acts. It can only be lost if you commit what the Scriptures call the unforgivable sin, the sin against the Holy Spirit, the sin which we understand to be the denial of God and of God’s power; the denial of the Truth of God that seeks to leaven your life.
The truth of God is that God is forgiving.
The power of God is the power to help you to stand firm and to show that truth to others, through the love that we give.
Praise the Lord, O my soul. All my innermost being, praise his holy name. Amen.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Exodus 32:7-14, I Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10
The old testament lesson I read today is set at the time of the Exodus.
It is a story that reveals to us how God is called out of anger at his people, an anger that is fully justified; and is called to remember his purpose - his saving purpose, when he selected Abraham and Isaac and Jacob to father a great nation, a nation created to bear his word and his love to the entire world.
God's nature is to save - but God is also a holy God - a God of justice and truth and God - like us - is angered by unfaithfulness, by dishonesty, by people who abandon their values and act out of fear and greed.
So it was that God was mightily ticked off at his people Israel when after having delivered them from slavery in Egypt and from the army of Pharaoh at the Red Sea they grumbled and complained in the wilderness and then created their own god - a golden calf - an idol at the very moment that Moses was receiving the law on Mount Sinai.
God was angry, very angry - and he told Moses
"Go down at once - get off the mountain - for your people have been quick to turn aside - they are perverse and corrupt - and I am going to destroy them.."
Anger - anger like ours - right down to the fact that God did what we do, what a parent does when he or she is talking to their partner about a disobedient child - they disown their connection to the child... it is your child - not mine - your child that has fouled up, your child that is wrong.
"Go down at once Moses - for your people have been quick to turn aside."
Moses replies to God as a father might to a mother or a mother to father - he reminds God of his connection, of his relationship - of the fact that he created the people Israel -- saying to him:
"O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people... whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?"
And Moses then goes on to remind God of his purpose in calling Israel out of slavery and of his promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; promises that included the fact that he would make them a great nation, and that he would work his saving grace to all the world through them.
Moses calls God to change his mind and to not destroy his people - And as we read - God does change his mind: - God does remember what he was about, - God does recall his relationship with his people, and he does not bring the disaster upon Israel that he had planned in his anger.
The purpose of God is a saving purpose my friends, and so ought our purpose be a saving purpose and that purpose we should have with everyone - not just with our children and those who are close to us.
Many of us I know get angry as God got angry at his people.
In our rage we vow destruction to those who have offended against us and those we love; and after a while we calm down - we remember on our own, or we are reminded by others, what is important in our relationship with the person we are angry at and of what is important to us in how we deal with them and with all those around us, and we, like God at Sinai, do relent and continue on - in a wiser way - a better way.
At least we often do this. But we do not always do so - do we?
Especially we do not relent, such is our sin, when we feel particularly justified in our anger - when we regard the other person or persons involved as somehow different than us, as not only not being related to us - but as being more evil or mean spirited than we are.
Consider the gospel lesson today. - a lesson in which Jesus tells two parables - the parable of the lost sheep - the one in a hundred that strays in the wilderness - and the parable of the lost coin - the one of ten that is misplaced somehow.
Jesus tells us in this lesson about the rejoicing that is done on earth and in heaven when the sheep is found - the coin located - the sinner saved; and Jesus tells us that - indeed he tells three parables - for he also goes on to tell the parable of the prodigal son, he tells us these parables not because we are stupid and can't understand that God rejoices when people are saved - but rather he tells the parables to remind his listeners what God's purpose is - and what our purpose is.
And we often need reminding don't we? - perhaps not every day - but often enough.
Recall the setting in which the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, and indeed the parable of the prodigal son, are told.
It says in chapter 15, verse 1 and two of today's reading from Luke -
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to Jesus to listen to him - those people are bad people my friends -- and the pharisees and the scribes (the good people - the people who obeyed God's law) were grumbling and saying "This fellow Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them."
The scribes and Pharisees - not all of them - but many of them - could not understand Jesus - they could not understand how he could associate with bad people and yet claim to be able to teach the word of God's purity - they could not understand how he could urge others to follow God's law - a law which demands that each and every person be holy as God is holy - and yet sit down to eat with sinners.
The scribes and pharisees were mystified by Jesus, - for he did not express the anger at the tax collectors and sinners that they had, - he did not show the fear of being contaminated by evil that they felt. - nor he did not demonstrate the holy rage that they felt and believed that he ought to have over the sinfulness of certain members of his audience.
And so Jesus reminds them - and them in particular of what is important, of what God is about - by telling them the parables we heard this morning.
I would like to tell you a parable as well - it is told by Henri Nouwen and it concerns an old man who used to meditate each day be the Ganges River in India.
One morning he saw a scorpion floating on the water. When the scorpion drifted near the old man he reached to rescue it but was stung by the scorpion. A bit later he tried again and was stung again, the bite swelling his hand painfully and giving him much pain. Another man passing by saw what was happening and yelled at the meditater, "Hey, stupid old man, what's wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don't you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?"
The old man calmly replied, "My friend, just it is in the scorpion's nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save."
It is in God's nature to save - because it is in God's nature to love.
God seeks the lost, heals the wounded, forgives the offender, and gives hope to those who are in despair.
It is what God does.
It matters not that we might be scorpions - that we might hurt him - God has made promises to us - and he keeps them.
That is what the story of the cross is all about.
Paul speaks of this in today's reading from First Timothy when he says:
The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinner
Our purpose - the purpose God calls us to - is to save as well: - to change our minds about the destruction we want to bring about when we feel hurt, - to relent of the anger we have,and to work to save others as God has saved us, us who are sinners no less than those whom we are angry at.
H.H. Staton in his book, "A Guide To the Parables of Jesus" tells the story of having been on an ocean liner headed to the Middle East.
Nine hundred miles out to sea a sail was sighted on the horizon. As the liner drew closer, the passengers saw that the boat - a small sloop flying a Turkish flag - had run up a distress signal and other flags asking for its position at sea. Through a faulty chronometer or immature navigation the small vessel had become lost. For nearly an hour the liner circled the little boat, giving its crew correct latitude and longitude. Naturally there was a great deal of interest in all the proceeding among the passengers of the liner. A boy of about 12 standing on the deck and watching all that was taking place remarked aloud to himself - "It's a big ocean to be lost in."
It is a big universe to be lost in too.
And we do get lost - we get mixed up and turned around. We despair, we make mistakes, we do evil to each other. And at times we incur the wrath of God and of man. And most deservedly so..
But while it is a big universe out there it is not a hostile one - at least not on God's part.
God's wrath does not last forever - indeed it barely lasts but a moment for God remembers who we are, what we are made of, and whose we are, and it is in his nature - even when dealing with scorpions - to seek the lost, to save the sinner and have compassion on those seek his shelter.
God offers to each one of us the opportunity to start over again, fresh each day. The question for us - who are made in his image is quite simply this - Should we do any less? If God can have a change of mind and relent of his anger - cannot we?
Praise be to God for his love and his faithfulness. AMEN
It is a story that reveals to us how God is called out of anger at his people, an anger that is fully justified; and is called to remember his purpose - his saving purpose, when he selected Abraham and Isaac and Jacob to father a great nation, a nation created to bear his word and his love to the entire world.
God's nature is to save - but God is also a holy God - a God of justice and truth and God - like us - is angered by unfaithfulness, by dishonesty, by people who abandon their values and act out of fear and greed.
So it was that God was mightily ticked off at his people Israel when after having delivered them from slavery in Egypt and from the army of Pharaoh at the Red Sea they grumbled and complained in the wilderness and then created their own god - a golden calf - an idol at the very moment that Moses was receiving the law on Mount Sinai.
God was angry, very angry - and he told Moses
"Go down at once - get off the mountain - for your people have been quick to turn aside - they are perverse and corrupt - and I am going to destroy them.."
Anger - anger like ours - right down to the fact that God did what we do, what a parent does when he or she is talking to their partner about a disobedient child - they disown their connection to the child... it is your child - not mine - your child that has fouled up, your child that is wrong.
"Go down at once Moses - for your people have been quick to turn aside."
Moses replies to God as a father might to a mother or a mother to father - he reminds God of his connection, of his relationship - of the fact that he created the people Israel -- saying to him:
"O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people... whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?"
And Moses then goes on to remind God of his purpose in calling Israel out of slavery and of his promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; promises that included the fact that he would make them a great nation, and that he would work his saving grace to all the world through them.
Moses calls God to change his mind and to not destroy his people - And as we read - God does change his mind: - God does remember what he was about, - God does recall his relationship with his people, and he does not bring the disaster upon Israel that he had planned in his anger.
The purpose of God is a saving purpose my friends, and so ought our purpose be a saving purpose and that purpose we should have with everyone - not just with our children and those who are close to us.
Many of us I know get angry as God got angry at his people.
In our rage we vow destruction to those who have offended against us and those we love; and after a while we calm down - we remember on our own, or we are reminded by others, what is important in our relationship with the person we are angry at and of what is important to us in how we deal with them and with all those around us, and we, like God at Sinai, do relent and continue on - in a wiser way - a better way.
At least we often do this. But we do not always do so - do we?
Especially we do not relent, such is our sin, when we feel particularly justified in our anger - when we regard the other person or persons involved as somehow different than us, as not only not being related to us - but as being more evil or mean spirited than we are.
Consider the gospel lesson today. - a lesson in which Jesus tells two parables - the parable of the lost sheep - the one in a hundred that strays in the wilderness - and the parable of the lost coin - the one of ten that is misplaced somehow.
Jesus tells us in this lesson about the rejoicing that is done on earth and in heaven when the sheep is found - the coin located - the sinner saved; and Jesus tells us that - indeed he tells three parables - for he also goes on to tell the parable of the prodigal son, he tells us these parables not because we are stupid and can't understand that God rejoices when people are saved - but rather he tells the parables to remind his listeners what God's purpose is - and what our purpose is.
And we often need reminding don't we? - perhaps not every day - but often enough.
Recall the setting in which the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, and indeed the parable of the prodigal son, are told.
It says in chapter 15, verse 1 and two of today's reading from Luke -
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to Jesus to listen to him - those people are bad people my friends -- and the pharisees and the scribes (the good people - the people who obeyed God's law) were grumbling and saying "This fellow Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them."
The scribes and Pharisees - not all of them - but many of them - could not understand Jesus - they could not understand how he could associate with bad people and yet claim to be able to teach the word of God's purity - they could not understand how he could urge others to follow God's law - a law which demands that each and every person be holy as God is holy - and yet sit down to eat with sinners.
The scribes and pharisees were mystified by Jesus, - for he did not express the anger at the tax collectors and sinners that they had, - he did not show the fear of being contaminated by evil that they felt. - nor he did not demonstrate the holy rage that they felt and believed that he ought to have over the sinfulness of certain members of his audience.
And so Jesus reminds them - and them in particular of what is important, of what God is about - by telling them the parables we heard this morning.
I would like to tell you a parable as well - it is told by Henri Nouwen and it concerns an old man who used to meditate each day be the Ganges River in India.
One morning he saw a scorpion floating on the water. When the scorpion drifted near the old man he reached to rescue it but was stung by the scorpion. A bit later he tried again and was stung again, the bite swelling his hand painfully and giving him much pain. Another man passing by saw what was happening and yelled at the meditater, "Hey, stupid old man, what's wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don't you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?"
The old man calmly replied, "My friend, just it is in the scorpion's nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save."
It is in God's nature to save - because it is in God's nature to love.
God seeks the lost, heals the wounded, forgives the offender, and gives hope to those who are in despair.
It is what God does.
It matters not that we might be scorpions - that we might hurt him - God has made promises to us - and he keeps them.
That is what the story of the cross is all about.
Paul speaks of this in today's reading from First Timothy when he says:
The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinner
Our purpose - the purpose God calls us to - is to save as well: - to change our minds about the destruction we want to bring about when we feel hurt, - to relent of the anger we have,and to work to save others as God has saved us, us who are sinners no less than those whom we are angry at.
H.H. Staton in his book, "A Guide To the Parables of Jesus" tells the story of having been on an ocean liner headed to the Middle East.
Nine hundred miles out to sea a sail was sighted on the horizon. As the liner drew closer, the passengers saw that the boat - a small sloop flying a Turkish flag - had run up a distress signal and other flags asking for its position at sea. Through a faulty chronometer or immature navigation the small vessel had become lost. For nearly an hour the liner circled the little boat, giving its crew correct latitude and longitude. Naturally there was a great deal of interest in all the proceeding among the passengers of the liner. A boy of about 12 standing on the deck and watching all that was taking place remarked aloud to himself - "It's a big ocean to be lost in."
It is a big universe to be lost in too.
And we do get lost - we get mixed up and turned around. We despair, we make mistakes, we do evil to each other. And at times we incur the wrath of God and of man. And most deservedly so..
But while it is a big universe out there it is not a hostile one - at least not on God's part.
God's wrath does not last forever - indeed it barely lasts but a moment for God remembers who we are, what we are made of, and whose we are, and it is in his nature - even when dealing with scorpions - to seek the lost, to save the sinner and have compassion on those seek his shelter.
God offers to each one of us the opportunity to start over again, fresh each day. The question for us - who are made in his image is quite simply this - Should we do any less? If God can have a change of mind and relent of his anger - cannot we?
Praise be to God for his love and his faithfulness. AMEN
Monday, May 3, 2010
Job 42:1-6,10-17; Psalm 34; Mark 10:46-52
In the silence of the stars, in the quiet of the hills and in the heaving of the sea, you speak O Lord. In the words of the prophets and the message of the Apostles, you speak O Lord. Now we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts. Speak, O Lord, for you servants listen. Amen.
I would imagine that at one time Bartimeaus, the blind beggar who sat by the roadside, have eyes that could see. His life would have been full of light, and one can also assume that it was full of hope at the time.
However, something unfortunate must have happened to him – and he ended up being unable to see – and as he has been deprived of the usage of his eyesight – all his options in life collapsed, and he ended up as a beggar, sitting and begging by the roadside, hoping upon hope that somebody passing by would take pity on him, always hoping that somebody would fill up his bowl with food, or that some one will give him a few coins in order for him to purchase the little things in life that everybody needs.
In those ancient days of the first century there was very little sympathy one could expect for the misfortune, for those who are blind and those who are handicapped in any manner. I can say with absolute certainty that Bartimaeus was living a very hard life. In some circles in Israel in those days, there were people who assumed that misfortunes was cause by one’s own fault, and that blindness or handicapped of any nature is always a punishment from God, either for something that they have themselves done or for something that their parents may have done.
In some circles the fact that a person was blind simply meant that the person was a drain on precious resources, in other words, a social liability – best to be ignored – best to be left by the roadside begging. How little things have changed in that respect throughout the centuries!
As Bartimaeus was blind and could not see, he was, in the eyes of many people, not even a human being at all. He became to them only an object, an object to be pitied, or cursed, or to even to be completely ignored.
How many of us present here today, I wonder feel as Bartimeaus must have felted?
How many of us present here today feels cut off from the land of the living – being prevented by one reason or another from taking part fully in the life that goes on all around us. How many of us are unable to exercise the options that everybody else seems to be in possession of, feeling hurt and alone, and wondering, wondering if perhaps in some way we do deserve what we are going through right now.
How many of us feel trapped in the life that we are having?
- in the job that we have?
- In the relationships we have?
How many of us have the feeling that we are not able to break free, to change things, or unable to do anything at all, except dream of how it used to be, or dream of how things should have been?
How many of us, being in this kind of position, do anything about it? How many of us reaches out to other people or to God for help?
How many of us reach out to our friends and neighbours and confide to them of our own feelings, our own needs? How many of us here actually ask our family members for help when help is needed? How many of us even think of reaching out to God and ask Him for His help?
Sometimes we suffer really hard; sometimes we suffer for a very long time, not because the situation we found ourselves in cannot be overcome, but only because we are afraid to ask for help. Often we do not ask for help as we do not want to become a burden to others, or perhaps we do not want to seem weak to other people, or even admit our own weaknesses to our own selves.
I have heard of a woman who will not pray to God for herself, just because she thinks he has much more important things to do than to listen to her.
I have heard of a man who will not tell his own wife as to how much he is hurting inside himself, just because he does not think that she will be interested in his plight, as she already has so many of her own problems to bear.
I know of several people in Hong Kong who will not ask other people for help with their own substance abuse problems, just because they cannot admit to themselves that their problems have become much bigger than they themselves are.
I also know of children who are having a very difficult time dealing with life. They will not ask their parents or their teachers for help, just because they are afraid that they by asking for help, they will either get into trouble, or, even worse, be ignored, if they do ask for help from the adults.
There are times in our lives when we all needed help. There are times in our lifetime when if we are to survive at all, if we are to continue living, if we are go keep on growing, we must turn to other people and to God and ask Him for help in getting what we need.
Doctor Fred Collier, a retired medical doctor tells this story about himself when he was a youth.
He was a medical student in the Army Specialized Training Corps in 1945 when the Second World War came to a close. He was from a poor family that did not have the kind of money that he needed in order to complete medical school on his own. So when he was discharged out of the army, he had absolutely no idea as to how he will ever finish his schooling, if indeed he will ever finish it at all.
One day he happened to pick up a copy of a magazine while he was sitting inside a barber’s shop. One of the articles in the magazine talked about the kindness and compassion of Eleanor Roosevelt, whose husband, the late President Franklin Roosevelt had passed away only a few months ago.
That particular article in the magazine planted the seed of an idea into Fred’s mind. He went off to the local library and with the help of the librarian found Mrs. Roosevelt’s home address. He got home, sat down and wrote a letter to her, telling her about his problems. He wrote it and rewrote the letter until he had the letter written exactly the way that he wanted it.
When he put the letter in an envelope and deposits it into the mailbox, even his young wife wondered whether the effort was worth the time and the postage stamp that Fred spent on the letter.
Much to Fred’s surprise, Mrs. Roosevelt sent him a letter agreeing to a meeting with him. At the end of the meeting, she gave him her promise to help him. In the months and years of his study, Fred regularly received checks from Mrs. Roosevelt. Fred in turn, kept her informed of his progress and sent her copies of all of his term papers. Her secretary later on said that Mrs. Roosevelt always read Fred’s letters and reports with great interest.
Later on, Mrs. Roosevelt even paid the couple a visit in their sparsely furnished flat. The landlord of the flat nearly had a heart attack when he recognized their famous visitor.
When Fred finally finishes Medical School from Yale University, he told Mrs. Roosevelt that he did not know as to how he would ever be able to repay her. She told him that repayment was not necessary, nor does she want any repayment. Then she told him that she will be adequately repaid, if when one day, after he becomes financially secured, he will help out someone who is truly deserving of help, as he was.
Doctor Fred Collier reached out for help and he received it. So did the blind Bartimaeus. They both reached out for help from someone whom they knew could help them in their respective situations. They reached out to someone they hoped and prayed would help.
It is a very difficult thing to do, this act of asking for help. A very difficult thing, a very humbling thing, but there are times in our lives when each and every one of us will need help from someone. There are times when we must turn to other people and to God for help or else we will perish.
The good news is that there is absolutely no situation in life that is so bad that someone cannot help us with it, that someone cannot help us to overcome such a situation. Or at least to bear it with a hope and strength that will transforms it, and us as a result completely.
And even if it is a situation where we cannot go to someone else for that help that we so desperately needed, there is no situation where we cannot go to God for help and still find the help that we needed so badly.
God does not always answer our prayers in the way or manner that we had in mind, but God will always answer our prayers in a way that is appropriate to the situation. God will always give to us what we need, and God will always give us the strength to bear what we must bear and to bear it so well that our world will changes because of it.
This is the lesson of the Garden of Gethsemane and of every dark night of the soul. It is also the lesson of the cross and of the tomb and of all the sufferings that God may ask us to bear.
It is what lies behind all transformation that matters. What lies behind Easter, what lies behind new life, eternal life, and an abundant and rich life.
Jesus told us that seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened to you. Ask and you shall receive. These are all promises of our Lord, Jesus Christ; promises that He kept time and time again in His walk upon this earth with us. Those are promises that he keeps from heaven as he intercedes for us before the throne of God.
Many Bible commentators who commented on today’s Scripture readings from the Gospel of mark commented on how the blind Bartimeaus could see more than many people who have good eyes can see with their sight.
When I was preparing for today’s sermon, I was struck by this. I am struck by this because I know just how easy it is for anyone to be blind to Christ. I know just how easy that we can ignore His presence when I am struggling with some problems or caught up in some situation or other that is hurting me and also hurting someone else. I know the faith that it takes in order to ask God for help; the courage that it takes in order to go to someone and confess your need to them; and the vision that it will require in order to admit your blindness and to beg them for help when deep inside you, there is a voice telling to keep quite about your problems.
But what really strikes me even more about the blind Bartimeaus is not that he not only saw Jesus as the one who could help him and had the faith to ask Jesus for that help. It was that after Jesus helped him and told him to go on his own way, that he had the faith to follow Jesus.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, God can and definitely help you with your problems, as He helped me all those years with my problems, no matter how big or how small your problem is, He is never too busy to help. From my own experiences I know that His word will give you the wisdom and the insight that you will need when you feel lost.
Our Lord, Jesus Christ will always reach out and touch you when you call upon Him for His help, and that He will always give you your rest when you seek it from Him. The Holy Spirit will give you the strength that you needed when you waited upon the Holy Sprit and will guide you and lead you when you turn to the Spirit for help and guidance.
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit will do all this freely for you, without demanding that you do anything special in return or that you need to be someone special, for every one of you are special in God’s sight.
God will help every one of us, just as Eleanor Roosevelt helped Dr. Fred Collier. God will help us in many and various ways – sometimes through other people, sometimes directly within your hearts, and always helping us without any expectation of return or repayment of any kind.
After He help those who have had the faith to turn to Him for help, Jesus almost always tell them, as He said to Bartimeaus, “go – your faith has made you well.”
What a wonderful thing it is, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, if and when we have the faith to ask, we, like Bartimeaus, also have the faith to follow Jesus and to learn to do for other people what has been done for us.
Never be afraid to ask for help. Do not be afraid to turn to your friends and your neighbours and share your needs; and most important of all, do not be afraid to turn to God, who alone can help you when nobody else can.
Do not be afraid to ask, and after asking – in perfect freedom – pass on what you have received, and follow the one who gives the entire all He has for you.
Praise be to God for the salvation He grants us through Jesus Christ our Lord, brother, our friend, and our servant. Amen.
I would imagine that at one time Bartimeaus, the blind beggar who sat by the roadside, have eyes that could see. His life would have been full of light, and one can also assume that it was full of hope at the time.
However, something unfortunate must have happened to him – and he ended up being unable to see – and as he has been deprived of the usage of his eyesight – all his options in life collapsed, and he ended up as a beggar, sitting and begging by the roadside, hoping upon hope that somebody passing by would take pity on him, always hoping that somebody would fill up his bowl with food, or that some one will give him a few coins in order for him to purchase the little things in life that everybody needs.
In those ancient days of the first century there was very little sympathy one could expect for the misfortune, for those who are blind and those who are handicapped in any manner. I can say with absolute certainty that Bartimaeus was living a very hard life. In some circles in Israel in those days, there were people who assumed that misfortunes was cause by one’s own fault, and that blindness or handicapped of any nature is always a punishment from God, either for something that they have themselves done or for something that their parents may have done.
In some circles the fact that a person was blind simply meant that the person was a drain on precious resources, in other words, a social liability – best to be ignored – best to be left by the roadside begging. How little things have changed in that respect throughout the centuries!
As Bartimaeus was blind and could not see, he was, in the eyes of many people, not even a human being at all. He became to them only an object, an object to be pitied, or cursed, or to even to be completely ignored.
How many of us present here today, I wonder feel as Bartimeaus must have felted?
How many of us present here today feels cut off from the land of the living – being prevented by one reason or another from taking part fully in the life that goes on all around us. How many of us are unable to exercise the options that everybody else seems to be in possession of, feeling hurt and alone, and wondering, wondering if perhaps in some way we do deserve what we are going through right now.
How many of us feel trapped in the life that we are having?
- in the job that we have?
- In the relationships we have?
How many of us have the feeling that we are not able to break free, to change things, or unable to do anything at all, except dream of how it used to be, or dream of how things should have been?
How many of us, being in this kind of position, do anything about it? How many of us reaches out to other people or to God for help?
How many of us reach out to our friends and neighbours and confide to them of our own feelings, our own needs? How many of us here actually ask our family members for help when help is needed? How many of us even think of reaching out to God and ask Him for His help?
Sometimes we suffer really hard; sometimes we suffer for a very long time, not because the situation we found ourselves in cannot be overcome, but only because we are afraid to ask for help. Often we do not ask for help as we do not want to become a burden to others, or perhaps we do not want to seem weak to other people, or even admit our own weaknesses to our own selves.
I have heard of a woman who will not pray to God for herself, just because she thinks he has much more important things to do than to listen to her.
I have heard of a man who will not tell his own wife as to how much he is hurting inside himself, just because he does not think that she will be interested in his plight, as she already has so many of her own problems to bear.
I know of several people in Hong Kong who will not ask other people for help with their own substance abuse problems, just because they cannot admit to themselves that their problems have become much bigger than they themselves are.
I also know of children who are having a very difficult time dealing with life. They will not ask their parents or their teachers for help, just because they are afraid that they by asking for help, they will either get into trouble, or, even worse, be ignored, if they do ask for help from the adults.
There are times in our lives when we all needed help. There are times in our lifetime when if we are to survive at all, if we are to continue living, if we are go keep on growing, we must turn to other people and to God and ask Him for help in getting what we need.
Doctor Fred Collier, a retired medical doctor tells this story about himself when he was a youth.
He was a medical student in the Army Specialized Training Corps in 1945 when the Second World War came to a close. He was from a poor family that did not have the kind of money that he needed in order to complete medical school on his own. So when he was discharged out of the army, he had absolutely no idea as to how he will ever finish his schooling, if indeed he will ever finish it at all.
One day he happened to pick up a copy of a magazine while he was sitting inside a barber’s shop. One of the articles in the magazine talked about the kindness and compassion of Eleanor Roosevelt, whose husband, the late President Franklin Roosevelt had passed away only a few months ago.
That particular article in the magazine planted the seed of an idea into Fred’s mind. He went off to the local library and with the help of the librarian found Mrs. Roosevelt’s home address. He got home, sat down and wrote a letter to her, telling her about his problems. He wrote it and rewrote the letter until he had the letter written exactly the way that he wanted it.
When he put the letter in an envelope and deposits it into the mailbox, even his young wife wondered whether the effort was worth the time and the postage stamp that Fred spent on the letter.
Much to Fred’s surprise, Mrs. Roosevelt sent him a letter agreeing to a meeting with him. At the end of the meeting, she gave him her promise to help him. In the months and years of his study, Fred regularly received checks from Mrs. Roosevelt. Fred in turn, kept her informed of his progress and sent her copies of all of his term papers. Her secretary later on said that Mrs. Roosevelt always read Fred’s letters and reports with great interest.
Later on, Mrs. Roosevelt even paid the couple a visit in their sparsely furnished flat. The landlord of the flat nearly had a heart attack when he recognized their famous visitor.
When Fred finally finishes Medical School from Yale University, he told Mrs. Roosevelt that he did not know as to how he would ever be able to repay her. She told him that repayment was not necessary, nor does she want any repayment. Then she told him that she will be adequately repaid, if when one day, after he becomes financially secured, he will help out someone who is truly deserving of help, as he was.
Doctor Fred Collier reached out for help and he received it. So did the blind Bartimaeus. They both reached out for help from someone whom they knew could help them in their respective situations. They reached out to someone they hoped and prayed would help.
It is a very difficult thing to do, this act of asking for help. A very difficult thing, a very humbling thing, but there are times in our lives when each and every one of us will need help from someone. There are times when we must turn to other people and to God for help or else we will perish.
The good news is that there is absolutely no situation in life that is so bad that someone cannot help us with it, that someone cannot help us to overcome such a situation. Or at least to bear it with a hope and strength that will transforms it, and us as a result completely.
And even if it is a situation where we cannot go to someone else for that help that we so desperately needed, there is no situation where we cannot go to God for help and still find the help that we needed so badly.
God does not always answer our prayers in the way or manner that we had in mind, but God will always answer our prayers in a way that is appropriate to the situation. God will always give to us what we need, and God will always give us the strength to bear what we must bear and to bear it so well that our world will changes because of it.
This is the lesson of the Garden of Gethsemane and of every dark night of the soul. It is also the lesson of the cross and of the tomb and of all the sufferings that God may ask us to bear.
It is what lies behind all transformation that matters. What lies behind Easter, what lies behind new life, eternal life, and an abundant and rich life.
Jesus told us that seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened to you. Ask and you shall receive. These are all promises of our Lord, Jesus Christ; promises that He kept time and time again in His walk upon this earth with us. Those are promises that he keeps from heaven as he intercedes for us before the throne of God.
Many Bible commentators who commented on today’s Scripture readings from the Gospel of mark commented on how the blind Bartimeaus could see more than many people who have good eyes can see with their sight.
When I was preparing for today’s sermon, I was struck by this. I am struck by this because I know just how easy it is for anyone to be blind to Christ. I know just how easy that we can ignore His presence when I am struggling with some problems or caught up in some situation or other that is hurting me and also hurting someone else. I know the faith that it takes in order to ask God for help; the courage that it takes in order to go to someone and confess your need to them; and the vision that it will require in order to admit your blindness and to beg them for help when deep inside you, there is a voice telling to keep quite about your problems.
But what really strikes me even more about the blind Bartimeaus is not that he not only saw Jesus as the one who could help him and had the faith to ask Jesus for that help. It was that after Jesus helped him and told him to go on his own way, that he had the faith to follow Jesus.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, God can and definitely help you with your problems, as He helped me all those years with my problems, no matter how big or how small your problem is, He is never too busy to help. From my own experiences I know that His word will give you the wisdom and the insight that you will need when you feel lost.
Our Lord, Jesus Christ will always reach out and touch you when you call upon Him for His help, and that He will always give you your rest when you seek it from Him. The Holy Spirit will give you the strength that you needed when you waited upon the Holy Sprit and will guide you and lead you when you turn to the Spirit for help and guidance.
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit will do all this freely for you, without demanding that you do anything special in return or that you need to be someone special, for every one of you are special in God’s sight.
God will help every one of us, just as Eleanor Roosevelt helped Dr. Fred Collier. God will help us in many and various ways – sometimes through other people, sometimes directly within your hearts, and always helping us without any expectation of return or repayment of any kind.
After He help those who have had the faith to turn to Him for help, Jesus almost always tell them, as He said to Bartimeaus, “go – your faith has made you well.”
What a wonderful thing it is, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, if and when we have the faith to ask, we, like Bartimeaus, also have the faith to follow Jesus and to learn to do for other people what has been done for us.
Never be afraid to ask for help. Do not be afraid to turn to your friends and your neighbours and share your needs; and most important of all, do not be afraid to turn to God, who alone can help you when nobody else can.
Do not be afraid to ask, and after asking – in perfect freedom – pass on what you have received, and follow the one who gives the entire all He has for you.
Praise be to God for the salvation He grants us through Jesus Christ our Lord, brother, our friend, and our servant. Amen.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Revelation 21:10,22 - 22:5; Psalm 67; John 14:23-29
Loving God, as you opened the tomb and raised Jesus to new life, so open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit that as your Word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today, and in confidence go forth to live what you show us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Today's gospel reading is set at the time of the Last Supper - the night before Jesus gives himself over to death for our sakes.
In it Jesus tells his disciples that they should not grieve or sorrow over his going from them, that at his going - he would not only bestow the Holy Spirit upon them to teach and comfort them, but he would leave them his peace.
Hear his words again: My peace I leave with you
my peace I give to you.
I do not give to you as
the world gives.
What a wonderful set of words - a wonderful promise - this promise of peace. Yet there is a strangeness to them as well - a strangeness found in the last phrase - the phrase that says: "I do not give to you as the world gives."
What do they mean for us? for us who greet one another in the liturgy - the worship - with the words - the Peace of Christ be with you?
What is this peace that Christ gives and that we pray upon one another? the peace that he gives, which is not like that which the world gives?
There is a story told about peace that may help answer that question.
"It seems that one day an artist was commissioned by a wealthy man to paint something that would depict peace. After a great deal of thought, the artist painted a beautiful country scene. There were green fields with cows standing in them, birds were flying in the blue sky and a lovely little village lay in a distant valley. The artist gave the picture to the man, but there was a look of disappointment on the patron's face. The man said to the artist, "This isn't a picture of true peace. It isn't right. Go back and try again."
The artist went back to his studio, thought for several hours about peace, then went to his canvas and began to paint. When he was finished, there on the canvas was a beautiful picture of a mother, holding a sleeping baby in her arms, smiling lovingly at the child. He thought, surely, this is true peace, and hurried to give the picture to the wealthy man. But again, the wealthy man refused the painting and asked the painter to try again.
The artist returned again to his studio. He was discouraged, he was tired and he was disappointed. Anger swelled inside him, he felt the rejection of this wealthy man. Again, he thought; he even prayed for inspiration to paint a picture of true peace. Then, all of a sudden an idea came, he rushed to the canvas and began to paint as he had never painted before. When he finished, he hurried to the wealthy man.
He gave the painting to the man. He studied it carefully for several minutes. The artist held his breath. Then the wealthy man said, "Now this is a picture of true peace." He accepted the painting, paid the artist and everyone was happy.
And what was this picture of true peace?? The picture showed a stormy sea pounding against a cliff. The artist had captured the furry of the wind as it whipped black rain clouds which were laced with streaks of lightening. The sea was roaring in turmoil, waves churning, the dark sky filled with the power of the furious thunderstorm. And in the middle of the picture, under a cliff, the artist had painted a small bird, safe and dry in her nest snuggled safely in the rocks. The bird was at peace midst the storm that raged about her."
This seems to be portion of the picture of peace that Jesus gives not a worldly kind of peace
- the peace of a spot in nature - beautiful and serene
- the peace of a mother and child - tender and gentle
- the peace of an absence of conflict - where there are no storms or violent waves
but rather a peace of knowing that in the midst of turmoil there is a rock which can shelter us, a place where we can nurture and raise a new generation without fear a power that can spread it's wings over us and keep us safe .
As one of my favourite hymns puts it as it contemplates the storms of life
we have a anchor that will not move; grounded firm and deep in the Saviour's love
So many of us look for peace in this world. We look for the safe places where there is nothing that can disturb us. We look for the quieting of our hearts - disturbed so often by fear. We look for assurance - for hope - for joy. And this is a good thing to do - for God does not want us to suffer needlessly.
Many of us pray too about peace, about peace not only for us - inside our hearts - and inside our families - we pray for peace in the world for an end to armed conflicts, and an end to war and terrorism, an end for the violence that nations and individuals do to one another and this too is a good thing to do this praying for peace.
But often I think we look for peace in a way that is not helpful, and even perhaps pray for peace in a way that is not helpful.
We look for peace, we seek peace thinking of it as an end to those things that disturb us, as an absence of fear, as an absence of conflict, as an absence of turmoil and forget, I believe, that the lack of peace in our hearts and in our world is a consequence of other factors - rather than the actual problem we are facing.
In Hebrew - peace - Shalom - is much more than the absence of things that disturb us. Peace is rather linked to the concept of wholeness, of being "at one" with God and with our neighbours - and ourselves, of having not only an absence of war but of having the causes of war - greed, hate, fear, and their children - injustice, intolerance, and prejudices - eliminated, of having not only an absence of pain and distress - like that Morphine or Demerol might provide but of having the disease that causes the pain and distress cured.
And that is what Jesus was about when he walked among us and what he is about through his Spirit, from his place next to the Father above, as we await the new heaven and the new earth - that heaven and that earth to be inherited by those who keep faith with him to be inherited by those who claim the vision and walk by the light it sheds.
My peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
Jesus was - and Jesus is - one who heals the disease rather than one who simply masks the symptoms.
Jesus was - and Jesus is - one who builds a new world, a new heaven and a new earth rather than simply trying to fix the old one.
That's what the book says. That's what the spirit says, and that's what the heart says - the heart of faith.
We have, my friends, a vision, a vision to guide our walking and to provide assurance to us as we walk - we have a destination and a goal, a purpose and a plan.
But more - we have one who is able to bring about what he has promised, one who is able to bring to pass a new world - we know this - for two reasons - the first being what was promised in the past has been performed by him, the prophecies made have come true. - and the second reason being we are witnesses to how he brings to pass new people, transformed people, people who have moved from blindness to sight, from despair to hope, from sickness to health, from hatred of self to love of all, from death - to life.
But more than a destination that provides us direction, more than a vision that provides us hope, more than a goal that keeps us busy, we have a presence here and now a presence that comforts us and helps us to known peace - and to share peace, this day, a presence that reminds us that the Word of God is effective and that it accomplishes what it sets out to do, and that what it does is work towards wholeness.
That presence is the presence of Christ himself, the presence of the Spirit, the presence of God.
That is part of what Jesus means when he says
My peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.
He does not give as the world gives - because what he gives is effective, what he gives is eternal, what he gives cannot and will not fail.
He gives us peace with God through his love, through his life and his death, and his resurrection, and he gives us a new world through his sharing with us the eternal plan of God.
And this, my friends, goes beyond even the picture of the artist that I started with, the picture of the bird sitting safely on its nest in the midst of a violent storm.
We should be looking at the great promises made by God through the prophet Isaiah, how God spoke to Israel when the nation was in captivity - and called the people to "remember no more the things of the past, for behold I do a new thing"
As we talked about the how God in fact set his people free from slavery in Babylon a few years later, and about how God brought the former things he prophecied to pass; it was noted that we are in fact in the same position today as the people of Israel were then.
We are in captivity - a spiritual captivity - a spiritual captivity that tempts us to cling to the past and to complain about the present, rather than to move into the future with confidence.
What would it be like one person asked - if instead of complaining about things are not perfect here in the church - or at home - or at work - we instead claimed the promises of God and praised God for all the good things that he is working on in our midst even now?
What would it be like if we, instead of moaning about how 1 out of 3 marriages fail, we thanked God for how 2 out of 3 work?
Or instead of getting agitated about how few people helped out when asked to help out, we got excited about how many people help out all the time - often without being asked?
Or Instead of complaining about all the bad news that we can so easily complain about, we spoke of the good things that God is doing in lives all around us - all the time.
What it be like, what would our church be like - and eventually our whole community be like, if instead of sweating about all the little stuff that goes wrong, we really got hold of the promises of God, and looked to the little stuff that goes right - as signs of God's faithfulness towards us and towards the world he has made?
An intriguing set of questions isn't it? A set of questions that reminds us that there are more enduring things than the pains we experience - more important things to do than simply moan about what is not good - things to do that decrease pain and increase wholeness - to the glory of God..
As Jesus said at the beginning of his ministry, behold - the Kingdom of God is at hand, see - the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the prisoners are set free.
Peace is found in living a life of faith.
Peace is found in walking according to the words of Christ.
Peace is found in trusting in the living God and in his everlasting love.
We have a vision.
we have a goal.
And we have a God able to accomplish all that he purposes, a God who vanquishes death - and opens the way to eternal life to all, a God who serves where others would rule, and rules where no other force can rule.
The world is, my friends, in a turmoil, there is a great storm raging round us. But look to the good that is also all around us. And do the good - as Jesus calls us to do in today's gospel reading, by keeping his word; do it knowing that this word will not return to us - nor to God - empty, but will accomplish all that it is meant to accomplish.
The peace of Christ is not simply a peace of huddling on the nest while the storm rages - it is a peace of knowing that when the storm is over, it is over forever, and all of creation will be at peace.
As the scripture says, "grief may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning."
The words of Jesus concerning his peace are not easy words, his peace is not always peace to receive but it is a peace that lasts, a peace that triumphs, a peace that heals, and that is not something that the world can give us it can only come to us from God.
Let us Pray. Compassionate and loving Lord, you promised to leave us your peace, a peace unlike that which the world offers to us. Father, lead us all to that peace. Help us to trust in your living word and to do what you ask of us. Grant us a confident faith - one that looks to the light rather than at the darkness - one that dares to enter the turmoil of the world - knowing that you are making the world new. Help us, dear Father, to die with Christ, so that we might also live with him. Amen.
Today's gospel reading is set at the time of the Last Supper - the night before Jesus gives himself over to death for our sakes.
In it Jesus tells his disciples that they should not grieve or sorrow over his going from them, that at his going - he would not only bestow the Holy Spirit upon them to teach and comfort them, but he would leave them his peace.
Hear his words again: My peace I leave with you
my peace I give to you.
I do not give to you as
the world gives.
What a wonderful set of words - a wonderful promise - this promise of peace. Yet there is a strangeness to them as well - a strangeness found in the last phrase - the phrase that says: "I do not give to you as the world gives."
What do they mean for us? for us who greet one another in the liturgy - the worship - with the words - the Peace of Christ be with you?
What is this peace that Christ gives and that we pray upon one another? the peace that he gives, which is not like that which the world gives?
There is a story told about peace that may help answer that question.
"It seems that one day an artist was commissioned by a wealthy man to paint something that would depict peace. After a great deal of thought, the artist painted a beautiful country scene. There were green fields with cows standing in them, birds were flying in the blue sky and a lovely little village lay in a distant valley. The artist gave the picture to the man, but there was a look of disappointment on the patron's face. The man said to the artist, "This isn't a picture of true peace. It isn't right. Go back and try again."
The artist went back to his studio, thought for several hours about peace, then went to his canvas and began to paint. When he was finished, there on the canvas was a beautiful picture of a mother, holding a sleeping baby in her arms, smiling lovingly at the child. He thought, surely, this is true peace, and hurried to give the picture to the wealthy man. But again, the wealthy man refused the painting and asked the painter to try again.
The artist returned again to his studio. He was discouraged, he was tired and he was disappointed. Anger swelled inside him, he felt the rejection of this wealthy man. Again, he thought; he even prayed for inspiration to paint a picture of true peace. Then, all of a sudden an idea came, he rushed to the canvas and began to paint as he had never painted before. When he finished, he hurried to the wealthy man.
He gave the painting to the man. He studied it carefully for several minutes. The artist held his breath. Then the wealthy man said, "Now this is a picture of true peace." He accepted the painting, paid the artist and everyone was happy.
And what was this picture of true peace?? The picture showed a stormy sea pounding against a cliff. The artist had captured the furry of the wind as it whipped black rain clouds which were laced with streaks of lightening. The sea was roaring in turmoil, waves churning, the dark sky filled with the power of the furious thunderstorm. And in the middle of the picture, under a cliff, the artist had painted a small bird, safe and dry in her nest snuggled safely in the rocks. The bird was at peace midst the storm that raged about her."
This seems to be portion of the picture of peace that Jesus gives not a worldly kind of peace
- the peace of a spot in nature - beautiful and serene
- the peace of a mother and child - tender and gentle
- the peace of an absence of conflict - where there are no storms or violent waves
but rather a peace of knowing that in the midst of turmoil there is a rock which can shelter us, a place where we can nurture and raise a new generation without fear a power that can spread it's wings over us and keep us safe .
As one of my favourite hymns puts it as it contemplates the storms of life
we have a anchor that will not move; grounded firm and deep in the Saviour's love
So many of us look for peace in this world. We look for the safe places where there is nothing that can disturb us. We look for the quieting of our hearts - disturbed so often by fear. We look for assurance - for hope - for joy. And this is a good thing to do - for God does not want us to suffer needlessly.
Many of us pray too about peace, about peace not only for us - inside our hearts - and inside our families - we pray for peace in the world for an end to armed conflicts, and an end to war and terrorism, an end for the violence that nations and individuals do to one another and this too is a good thing to do this praying for peace.
But often I think we look for peace in a way that is not helpful, and even perhaps pray for peace in a way that is not helpful.
We look for peace, we seek peace thinking of it as an end to those things that disturb us, as an absence of fear, as an absence of conflict, as an absence of turmoil and forget, I believe, that the lack of peace in our hearts and in our world is a consequence of other factors - rather than the actual problem we are facing.
In Hebrew - peace - Shalom - is much more than the absence of things that disturb us. Peace is rather linked to the concept of wholeness, of being "at one" with God and with our neighbours - and ourselves, of having not only an absence of war but of having the causes of war - greed, hate, fear, and their children - injustice, intolerance, and prejudices - eliminated, of having not only an absence of pain and distress - like that Morphine or Demerol might provide but of having the disease that causes the pain and distress cured.
And that is what Jesus was about when he walked among us and what he is about through his Spirit, from his place next to the Father above, as we await the new heaven and the new earth - that heaven and that earth to be inherited by those who keep faith with him to be inherited by those who claim the vision and walk by the light it sheds.
My peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
Jesus was - and Jesus is - one who heals the disease rather than one who simply masks the symptoms.
Jesus was - and Jesus is - one who builds a new world, a new heaven and a new earth rather than simply trying to fix the old one.
That's what the book says. That's what the spirit says, and that's what the heart says - the heart of faith.
We have, my friends, a vision, a vision to guide our walking and to provide assurance to us as we walk - we have a destination and a goal, a purpose and a plan.
But more - we have one who is able to bring about what he has promised, one who is able to bring to pass a new world - we know this - for two reasons - the first being what was promised in the past has been performed by him, the prophecies made have come true. - and the second reason being we are witnesses to how he brings to pass new people, transformed people, people who have moved from blindness to sight, from despair to hope, from sickness to health, from hatred of self to love of all, from death - to life.
But more than a destination that provides us direction, more than a vision that provides us hope, more than a goal that keeps us busy, we have a presence here and now a presence that comforts us and helps us to known peace - and to share peace, this day, a presence that reminds us that the Word of God is effective and that it accomplishes what it sets out to do, and that what it does is work towards wholeness.
That presence is the presence of Christ himself, the presence of the Spirit, the presence of God.
That is part of what Jesus means when he says
My peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.
He does not give as the world gives - because what he gives is effective, what he gives is eternal, what he gives cannot and will not fail.
He gives us peace with God through his love, through his life and his death, and his resurrection, and he gives us a new world through his sharing with us the eternal plan of God.
And this, my friends, goes beyond even the picture of the artist that I started with, the picture of the bird sitting safely on its nest in the midst of a violent storm.
We should be looking at the great promises made by God through the prophet Isaiah, how God spoke to Israel when the nation was in captivity - and called the people to "remember no more the things of the past, for behold I do a new thing"
As we talked about the how God in fact set his people free from slavery in Babylon a few years later, and about how God brought the former things he prophecied to pass; it was noted that we are in fact in the same position today as the people of Israel were then.
We are in captivity - a spiritual captivity - a spiritual captivity that tempts us to cling to the past and to complain about the present, rather than to move into the future with confidence.
What would it be like one person asked - if instead of complaining about things are not perfect here in the church - or at home - or at work - we instead claimed the promises of God and praised God for all the good things that he is working on in our midst even now?
What would it be like if we, instead of moaning about how 1 out of 3 marriages fail, we thanked God for how 2 out of 3 work?
Or instead of getting agitated about how few people helped out when asked to help out, we got excited about how many people help out all the time - often without being asked?
Or Instead of complaining about all the bad news that we can so easily complain about, we spoke of the good things that God is doing in lives all around us - all the time.
What it be like, what would our church be like - and eventually our whole community be like, if instead of sweating about all the little stuff that goes wrong, we really got hold of the promises of God, and looked to the little stuff that goes right - as signs of God's faithfulness towards us and towards the world he has made?
An intriguing set of questions isn't it? A set of questions that reminds us that there are more enduring things than the pains we experience - more important things to do than simply moan about what is not good - things to do that decrease pain and increase wholeness - to the glory of God..
As Jesus said at the beginning of his ministry, behold - the Kingdom of God is at hand, see - the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the prisoners are set free.
Peace is found in living a life of faith.
Peace is found in walking according to the words of Christ.
Peace is found in trusting in the living God and in his everlasting love.
We have a vision.
we have a goal.
And we have a God able to accomplish all that he purposes, a God who vanquishes death - and opens the way to eternal life to all, a God who serves where others would rule, and rules where no other force can rule.
The world is, my friends, in a turmoil, there is a great storm raging round us. But look to the good that is also all around us. And do the good - as Jesus calls us to do in today's gospel reading, by keeping his word; do it knowing that this word will not return to us - nor to God - empty, but will accomplish all that it is meant to accomplish.
The peace of Christ is not simply a peace of huddling on the nest while the storm rages - it is a peace of knowing that when the storm is over, it is over forever, and all of creation will be at peace.
As the scripture says, "grief may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning."
The words of Jesus concerning his peace are not easy words, his peace is not always peace to receive but it is a peace that lasts, a peace that triumphs, a peace that heals, and that is not something that the world can give us it can only come to us from God.
Let us Pray. Compassionate and loving Lord, you promised to leave us your peace, a peace unlike that which the world offers to us. Father, lead us all to that peace. Help us to trust in your living word and to do what you ask of us. Grant us a confident faith - one that looks to the light rather than at the darkness - one that dares to enter the turmoil of the world - knowing that you are making the world new. Help us, dear Father, to die with Christ, so that we might also live with him. Amen.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 63; Matthew 16:21-27
O Lord, we pray, speak in the calming of our minds and in the longings of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
Father Murphy dies due to an old age. Upon entering St. Peter’s gate, there is another man in front, waiting to go into heaven. St. Peter asks the man “What is your name and what did you accomplish during your life?” The man responds “My name is Robert Chan, and I was a mini-bus driver for 14 years.” “Very well,” says St. Peter, “Here is your silk robe and golden scepter, now you may walk in the streets of our Lord.” St. Peter looks at the priest, and asks “What is your name and what did you accomplish?” He responds, “I am Father Murphy, and have devoted the last 62 years to the Lord.” “Very well,” says St. Peter, “Here is your cotton robe and wooden staff, you may enter.” “Wait a minute,” says Murphy, “You gave the mini-bus driver a silk robe and golden scepter, why did I only get a cotton robe and wooden staff?” “Well,” St. Peter replied, “We work on a performance scale, you see while you preached, everyone slept, when he drove, everyone prayed!”
In view of what I just said, I better be careful that you do not all end up in the shampoo position.
To really understand the significance of today’s Gospel reading with all its talk of the cross and of suffering and dying and being raised from the dead you need to know what happened just minutes earlier in the scene.
Jesus had led his disciples to the region of Caesarea Philippi, and there he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
They tell him – “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
Then he asks them – “But what about you? Who do you say I am?” And Peter answers “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus answers Peter’s statement by saying that Peter is truly blessed – that this confession has been revealed to him by God the Father and then he say to Peter that on him he would build his church – an everlasting church – and to him he would give “the keys of the kingdom of heaven so that whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” And then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
There today’s reading begins – with the words
“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Notice the word that repeated twice in this single verse, the word that Peter reacts so strongly to immediately by taking Jesus aside and attempting to rebuke Jesus by saying “Never Lord! This shall never happen to you.”
I am referring to the word ‘MUST’.
I must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things.
I must be killed and be killed – and on the third day be raised to life.
I think that we can all understand where Peter is at. Many of us here may feel the same today as Peter felt at the time.
To Peter, it makes absolutely no sense that the Messiah, the Son of the Living God must suffer and die.
It makes no sense to Peter that the King over Israel, the one God promised who will arise from the line of David and will rule over David’s kingdom, must suffer many things at the hands of the very people who should be welcoming him with open arms.
It makes no sense to Peter at all that a dear friend – a holy man – a righteous man – a man destined to rule God’ sown people should be speaking of defeat instead of victory – of disgrace instead of honour – of a shameful and early death – instead of a glorious long life – and saying that it MUST be so.
Peter simply did not hear what Jesus is saying – and what he did not hear – he did not want nor wish to accept.
And Jesus condemns that lack of hearing – that lack of accepting – that lack of understanding by saying to Peter:
“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
And then he continued by telling all the disciples, who have been listening to this conversation between Peter and Jesus:
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself (there is that word again) and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it…”
Have you ever wondered why it is that throughout the Gospels Jesus has been rebuking demons who identify him as the Son of God and warns his disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Christ, the Son of the Living God?
When I first started reading the Bible many, many years ago, I did find it to be very strange. After all, is not our entire faith based on the understanding that Jesus is the Logos, the Word of God made flesh? Is not our faith based on the understanding that he is the promised shoot arising out of the stump of Jesse? That he is the fulfillment of the promises made in the past to Abraham and to Moses, to David and to Jeremiah and to Isaiah and all the prophets?
Is it not the job of the Holy Spirit to reveal this very truth to us, much as Jesus says to Peter at Caesarea Philippi that his is blessed because the Father has revealed it to him?
“Jesus – You are the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the Living god!” Why is it that we cannot say it? Why can we not tell the whole world – right now – today?”
Well, of course, we all can. But in the Scriptures, the disciples were told not to do so.
The reason for all this secrecy is because the people of the time, the faithful people of God, the hopeful people, who are waiting for the Messiah, would, upon hearing the news, will fail, such as Peter failed, to hear the message of the Messiah.
The message concerning his life – I must suffer. I must be killed and on the third day rise.
As well as the message concerning their lives – If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
We see this symptom today in some churches – this failure to hear what the Messiah is all about, and what the Messiah, the Christ expects of each and every one of his followers.
We see it wherever forgiveness is proclaimed without requiring repentance, where baptism is practiced without requiring that one be a part of the body of Christ, where communion is offered without the need for confession as a church and reconciliation with God, and where wealth and health is promised if you will just believe – rather than the service and sacrifice, the humility and the self-giving that is the sign of our calling, and indeed the necessary sign of our sainthood.
Someone once said: “Jesus promised his disciples three things – they would be entirely fearless, absurdly happy and always in trouble.”
I am sure that is not the kind of message that most people will want to hear.
Trouble we already have plenty of.
What we want is a world without trouble – a world where al our problems are taken away with the snap of the fingers, a world where our enemies are made to vanish, a world of peace and of plenty and of happiness; a world where we and those we love can have everything a person desires.
That is what the Messiah is suppose to do – the Messiah is supposed to make our world better, to bring in the age of peace and plenty with one quick snap of the fingers, and it will be a glorious affair, one with no injury or cost to the good people, one where the enemy will be routed completely and where those who have fought for the King will be honoured in their victory with him and the world will be safe forevermore….
From the moment that Peter and all the other disciples recognized Jesus as the Messiah, fort the time that Jesus began to explain to them that he must suffer and that he must be killed and on the third day rise.
I would love to be able to tell you that this is not the way that things must be.
But I am going to disappoint you, for God’s ways – praise be to God – are not our ways and will never be our ways.
The emblem of our faith is not a crown – but a cross, and the field of battle upon which our Lord wins his victory is not the on the sands of Judah and of Palestine, but in the hearts and minds of men and women just like you and me.
What the Messiah fights against, and that is also we, together fights against, is not an enemy of flesh and blood, but it is the principalities and powers of this world, it is the world’s way of doing things – which was began in this world when the serpent suggested to Eve that she could become like God if she simply reached out her hand and take the fruit that God said she should not eat.
I am not a gardener – but to my limited knowledge of gardening, I do know a few things. The most important of them all is that a flower’s beauty can only be realized by first being planted in the ground, in the form of a see. I also know that in order to fight forest fires on lantau Island, that fighting fire with fire is not of much use when the fire is a very big one and the land is very dry. But rain – the rain we so often complain about in the middle of the summer months, is the most useful weapon against fires.
Evil is not overcome by evil.
A life worth living is not found by clinging to the life we have, and surrounding it with all the toys that we can afford.
A life worth living is found by letting go of ourselves and our very own selfish desires, as well as our own feeble ways of understanding things – and being obedient tot eh Living God who make seeds grow.
Yes, Peter, Jesus must suffer and must die – and yes, it does seem so very wrong for that to happen to him – but listen – did you not also hear him telling you that “and on the third day be raised?”
Or, thinking about the call of Moses which we heard in our first reading of today: Yes, Moses, I want you to leave the comfortable life you have found here in Midian. I know that you are wanted for murder in Egypt. I know that you cannot speak well. I know that you require my help in convincing my people that you have talked to me. I know all that Moses. I AM WHO I AM – the God of your ancestors, I have spoken to you. I know that you do not want to go. But have you not heard what I just said? I have heard my people’s cry – and I am going to lead them out of bondage and bring them to this very mountain to worship, if you but do as I ask.
Or again – Yes, Josephine – I know that I am asking you to go an extra mile when – in an ideal world you should not even have to go the first mile. Yes, I know that Paul and Mary do not deserve your time and your care after all that they have done to hurt themselves and their families. Yes, I know that you have worked hard for what you have and should not have to share it with those who have not worked at all. I know all that you have done and I know that other people should be taking their turn instead of you – but have you not heard?
It is not only about what you are being asked to give up, it is not only about dying to your self – to your idea of what is good and what is not good – it is not only about taking up my cross and doing my will instead of indulging on your own.
It is also about gaining the very thing that you and indeed everyone else needs the most: a life worth living – a life that gives life – a life that is joyful and unafraid – a life which death cannot destroy – a life in which the Kingdom of God draws near and is lived and shared with all.
Yes, I talk about how you need to die to yourself each and every day and to put my will first in your lives, and yes, it is not going to be fun or easy – especially to start with; but think about what is coming and what you will eventually become, or not.
Praise be to Christ our Lord who died so that we might live and who lives that we will never die. Amen.
Father Murphy dies due to an old age. Upon entering St. Peter’s gate, there is another man in front, waiting to go into heaven. St. Peter asks the man “What is your name and what did you accomplish during your life?” The man responds “My name is Robert Chan, and I was a mini-bus driver for 14 years.” “Very well,” says St. Peter, “Here is your silk robe and golden scepter, now you may walk in the streets of our Lord.” St. Peter looks at the priest, and asks “What is your name and what did you accomplish?” He responds, “I am Father Murphy, and have devoted the last 62 years to the Lord.” “Very well,” says St. Peter, “Here is your cotton robe and wooden staff, you may enter.” “Wait a minute,” says Murphy, “You gave the mini-bus driver a silk robe and golden scepter, why did I only get a cotton robe and wooden staff?” “Well,” St. Peter replied, “We work on a performance scale, you see while you preached, everyone slept, when he drove, everyone prayed!”
In view of what I just said, I better be careful that you do not all end up in the shampoo position.
To really understand the significance of today’s Gospel reading with all its talk of the cross and of suffering and dying and being raised from the dead you need to know what happened just minutes earlier in the scene.
Jesus had led his disciples to the region of Caesarea Philippi, and there he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
They tell him – “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
Then he asks them – “But what about you? Who do you say I am?” And Peter answers “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus answers Peter’s statement by saying that Peter is truly blessed – that this confession has been revealed to him by God the Father and then he say to Peter that on him he would build his church – an everlasting church – and to him he would give “the keys of the kingdom of heaven so that whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” And then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.
There today’s reading begins – with the words
“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Notice the word that repeated twice in this single verse, the word that Peter reacts so strongly to immediately by taking Jesus aside and attempting to rebuke Jesus by saying “Never Lord! This shall never happen to you.”
I am referring to the word ‘MUST’.
I must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things.
I must be killed and be killed – and on the third day be raised to life.
I think that we can all understand where Peter is at. Many of us here may feel the same today as Peter felt at the time.
To Peter, it makes absolutely no sense that the Messiah, the Son of the Living God must suffer and die.
It makes no sense to Peter that the King over Israel, the one God promised who will arise from the line of David and will rule over David’s kingdom, must suffer many things at the hands of the very people who should be welcoming him with open arms.
It makes no sense to Peter at all that a dear friend – a holy man – a righteous man – a man destined to rule God’ sown people should be speaking of defeat instead of victory – of disgrace instead of honour – of a shameful and early death – instead of a glorious long life – and saying that it MUST be so.
Peter simply did not hear what Jesus is saying – and what he did not hear – he did not want nor wish to accept.
And Jesus condemns that lack of hearing – that lack of accepting – that lack of understanding by saying to Peter:
“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
And then he continued by telling all the disciples, who have been listening to this conversation between Peter and Jesus:
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself (there is that word again) and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it…”
Have you ever wondered why it is that throughout the Gospels Jesus has been rebuking demons who identify him as the Son of God and warns his disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Christ, the Son of the Living God?
When I first started reading the Bible many, many years ago, I did find it to be very strange. After all, is not our entire faith based on the understanding that Jesus is the Logos, the Word of God made flesh? Is not our faith based on the understanding that he is the promised shoot arising out of the stump of Jesse? That he is the fulfillment of the promises made in the past to Abraham and to Moses, to David and to Jeremiah and to Isaiah and all the prophets?
Is it not the job of the Holy Spirit to reveal this very truth to us, much as Jesus says to Peter at Caesarea Philippi that his is blessed because the Father has revealed it to him?
“Jesus – You are the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the Living god!” Why is it that we cannot say it? Why can we not tell the whole world – right now – today?”
Well, of course, we all can. But in the Scriptures, the disciples were told not to do so.
The reason for all this secrecy is because the people of the time, the faithful people of God, the hopeful people, who are waiting for the Messiah, would, upon hearing the news, will fail, such as Peter failed, to hear the message of the Messiah.
The message concerning his life – I must suffer. I must be killed and on the third day rise.
As well as the message concerning their lives – If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
We see this symptom today in some churches – this failure to hear what the Messiah is all about, and what the Messiah, the Christ expects of each and every one of his followers.
We see it wherever forgiveness is proclaimed without requiring repentance, where baptism is practiced without requiring that one be a part of the body of Christ, where communion is offered without the need for confession as a church and reconciliation with God, and where wealth and health is promised if you will just believe – rather than the service and sacrifice, the humility and the self-giving that is the sign of our calling, and indeed the necessary sign of our sainthood.
Someone once said: “Jesus promised his disciples three things – they would be entirely fearless, absurdly happy and always in trouble.”
I am sure that is not the kind of message that most people will want to hear.
Trouble we already have plenty of.
What we want is a world without trouble – a world where al our problems are taken away with the snap of the fingers, a world where our enemies are made to vanish, a world of peace and of plenty and of happiness; a world where we and those we love can have everything a person desires.
That is what the Messiah is suppose to do – the Messiah is supposed to make our world better, to bring in the age of peace and plenty with one quick snap of the fingers, and it will be a glorious affair, one with no injury or cost to the good people, one where the enemy will be routed completely and where those who have fought for the King will be honoured in their victory with him and the world will be safe forevermore….
From the moment that Peter and all the other disciples recognized Jesus as the Messiah, fort the time that Jesus began to explain to them that he must suffer and that he must be killed and on the third day rise.
I would love to be able to tell you that this is not the way that things must be.
But I am going to disappoint you, for God’s ways – praise be to God – are not our ways and will never be our ways.
The emblem of our faith is not a crown – but a cross, and the field of battle upon which our Lord wins his victory is not the on the sands of Judah and of Palestine, but in the hearts and minds of men and women just like you and me.
What the Messiah fights against, and that is also we, together fights against, is not an enemy of flesh and blood, but it is the principalities and powers of this world, it is the world’s way of doing things – which was began in this world when the serpent suggested to Eve that she could become like God if she simply reached out her hand and take the fruit that God said she should not eat.
I am not a gardener – but to my limited knowledge of gardening, I do know a few things. The most important of them all is that a flower’s beauty can only be realized by first being planted in the ground, in the form of a see. I also know that in order to fight forest fires on lantau Island, that fighting fire with fire is not of much use when the fire is a very big one and the land is very dry. But rain – the rain we so often complain about in the middle of the summer months, is the most useful weapon against fires.
Evil is not overcome by evil.
A life worth living is not found by clinging to the life we have, and surrounding it with all the toys that we can afford.
A life worth living is found by letting go of ourselves and our very own selfish desires, as well as our own feeble ways of understanding things – and being obedient tot eh Living God who make seeds grow.
Yes, Peter, Jesus must suffer and must die – and yes, it does seem so very wrong for that to happen to him – but listen – did you not also hear him telling you that “and on the third day be raised?”
Or, thinking about the call of Moses which we heard in our first reading of today: Yes, Moses, I want you to leave the comfortable life you have found here in Midian. I know that you are wanted for murder in Egypt. I know that you cannot speak well. I know that you require my help in convincing my people that you have talked to me. I know all that Moses. I AM WHO I AM – the God of your ancestors, I have spoken to you. I know that you do not want to go. But have you not heard what I just said? I have heard my people’s cry – and I am going to lead them out of bondage and bring them to this very mountain to worship, if you but do as I ask.
Or again – Yes, Josephine – I know that I am asking you to go an extra mile when – in an ideal world you should not even have to go the first mile. Yes, I know that Paul and Mary do not deserve your time and your care after all that they have done to hurt themselves and their families. Yes, I know that you have worked hard for what you have and should not have to share it with those who have not worked at all. I know all that you have done and I know that other people should be taking their turn instead of you – but have you not heard?
It is not only about what you are being asked to give up, it is not only about dying to your self – to your idea of what is good and what is not good – it is not only about taking up my cross and doing my will instead of indulging on your own.
It is also about gaining the very thing that you and indeed everyone else needs the most: a life worth living – a life that gives life – a life that is joyful and unafraid – a life which death cannot destroy – a life in which the Kingdom of God draws near and is lived and shared with all.
Yes, I talk about how you need to die to yourself each and every day and to put my will first in your lives, and yes, it is not going to be fun or easy – especially to start with; but think about what is coming and what you will eventually become, or not.
Praise be to Christ our Lord who died so that we might live and who lives that we will never die. Amen.
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