O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
After the baptism of his baby brother in church one Sunday, little Johnny sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong.
Finally, the boy replied, "That priest said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I want to stay with you guys!"
Father got the message and they began to go to church regularly...
Needless to say the family had a bit of catching up to do. One day the Sunday School Teacher asked Johnny, "Now, Johnny, tell me - do you say prayers before eating?"
"No madam," little Johnny replies, "I don't have to. My Mom is a very good cook."
As Jesus went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.
Thus began this morning's Gospel Reading.
The entire passage that Lok Man read today deals with blindness - but strangely enough it is not the blindness of the man who was born blind that is central to the passage - despite how this man is mentioned throughout it, rather it is the blindness of those around him and most especially the blindness of the religious teachers and authorities that is central to the passage - their blindness and their sins.
And this is so much so that the closing words of the story about the Man Born Blind - which come after the man born blind has been questioned, his parents questioned, and he has been questioned again and then thrown out of the synagogue by the priests and teachers of the law and has then been found by Jesus and has professed his faith in him and worshipped him are these: "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."
And then we hear that some Pharisees who were with Jesus heard him say this and asked,
"What? Are we blind too?"
And Jesus replies
"If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
What are we to make of the story of the man born blind? Well, it is a very rich passage - and today I have time only to touch on a couple of things.
The first thing I would like you to grasp is this - while all people sin and fall short of the glory of God, not all afflictions, perhaps not even most afflictions, can be blamed on the sin of the person who must bear that affliction, or - as in the case of a genetic defect or a birth accident like that the man born blind must have had - upon the sin of the parents.
God doesn't work that way.
While some afflictions obviously are the result of one kind of sin or another - for example someone driving drunk may have an accident in which they are crippled for life or in which they cripple someone else for life - for the most part many other afflictions can't be blamed on someone, nor should we try to blame them on someone.
Rather we should try to bring healing to those who are afflicted.
Which is the second point I want to make.
Jesus answers the question about who sinned that the man was born blind by saying: "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. "
And he healed him with mud and spit and the touch of his own precious hand.
This is how God operates. This is what Jesus is about. He has come to give us relief from those things afflict us - to give sight to the blind and to heal the lame - and to set free those who oppressed and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord to those who are poor.
Indeed - even if - and this is a big if - even if the particular affliction or tribulation that rests upon a person is the result of a direct sin, for example, that drunken driver who has wounded himself or some one else - even if this is the case - Jesus still wants them to be whole. He still wants to make the work of God manifest in their lives.
That is what the cross is ultimately all about - bringing forgiveness and salvation to sinners, and showing the love of God to those who, by any other standard, are unlovable.
But some will not accept this. They did not in the past, and they do not now.
As with some of the Pharisees and Scribes of old, they will persist in denying that there is anything good that could come out of Nazareth. They will deny the good that they see done around them is being done by a servant of God. And they, despite their love for God, will attempt to stop the one doing good from doing good.
They are many modern day self-righteous ones, both in the church and outside of it. They don't want the boat to be rocked - they don't want to have to change their comfortable accommodation with the status quo, they don't want to change the way they see the world.
And like some of the Pharisees and Scribes of old they will continue to seek to blame the condition of the poor upon the poor; and of the sick upon the sick; and the oppression of the oppressed upon the oppressed.
It is safer that way isn't it?
It means that they - or is it we - don't have to do anything - we don't have to change.
We can charge the rich low tax rates while we will do give those on welfare a decent living allowance, which is enough to live on. We can ignore the hunger in the third world while spend massive amounts on ski trips and vacations. Or we can call those who seek to help the street people and defend the abused women in our society unrealistic idealists who don't fully understand that those people are responsible for their own condition - and cheer as the welfare funds are reduced and funding for on government organisations and for counselling programs cut.
There is none so blind as those who will not see.
There is none so blind as those who will not accept the call of our Lord - the call to allow the work of God to be displayed in their lives - the call of God to bring healing and salvation to those around us who really need it - regardless of what sin those who need healing may have or may not have committed.
I don't know if you noticed, but all the hymns this morning except "Give To Us Laughter" and the "23rd Psalm were written by the same person.
"All the Way My Saviour Leads Me", "Jesus, Keep Me Near The Cross", "Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine" and "Pass Me Not Gentle Saviour" were written by a lady by the name of Fanny Crosby.
I chose hymns by her today because Fanny Crosby could not see.
When Fanny was six weeks old, she had an eye infection. Her regular doctor was out of town, and a man posing as a doctor gave her the wrong treatment. Within a few days, she was totally blind.
If that happened to some people, I am afraid they would be very bitter and would probably spend a lifetime feeling sorry for themselves. Fanny was never bitter and she never felt sorry for herself. When she was only eight years old, she wrote this poem:
Oh, what a happy child I am,
Although I can not see.
I am resolved that in this world,
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don't.
To weep and sigh
Because I'm blind,
I cannot and I won't!
Instead of being bitter and feeling sorry for herself, instead of blaming the doctor for his "sin" against her and dwelling in darkness all her days, Fanny used the gifts that God had given her to write over 8,000 hymns and poems to praise and glorify God.
We might know who caused her blindness - but to Fanny knowing who caused her blindness didn't matter. Nor did it matter to her that she was blind - because in her mind - and in mine - she could see.
As a Australian preacher by the name of Bruce Prewer put it this way in a discussion of the story of the Man Born Blind:
"Some people have excellent eyesight but do not see further than their noses. Some have good vision yet choose to see only a little of the way, the truth and the life. And some have no physical sight yet who see brilliantly along the path of Christ".
Christ didn't heal the physical blindness of Fanny Crosby as he healed the sight of the man born blind, but like that man at the end of today's Gospel reading - when he knelt at Jesus' feet and worshipped him, she saw more than we can imagine - she saw more - and felt more blessed - than millions about her with eyes to see, but no will to look past themselves and their own vision of what is and what should be.
The next time we you someone who is afflicted - in body, mind, or spirit - remember what Jesus said about the man born blind - remember how Jesus said that his affliction happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life and then healed him.
And the next time you see someone else engaged in disputes about who is doing the right thing and who is doing what is wrong - quietly remember what Jesus said to those who were confident of their rightness and all to ready to judge him and most others as less worthy of God's love than themselves.
Remember how Jesus said "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind." And remember too how he added when they asked him if they were blind too, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."
Remember too - all of you are blessed - you are blessed to be a blessing.
Amen.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Exodus 17:1-7 and John 4:5-42
"Gracious God - bless now the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts. Breath your Spirit into us and grant that we may hear and in hearing be led in the way you want us to go. Amen.
Some time ago I heard something which I would like to share with you:
When it comes to times of stress, the most reassuring companion isn't your sweetheart - it's your dog.
A study has found that people who were under stress showed the least amount of tension when accompanied by their dog. The stress levels were highest when the people were with their husbands or wives.
"I think that dogs are non-evaluative, and they love us", said Karen Allen, a research scientist at State University of New York at Buffalo's medical school.
This caught my attention, not because of what it says about stress and our spouses - I don't happen to find its assertion in this regard to be true in my experience of the in which I have been married to Carmel. NO, it caught my attention because of what asserts about how dogs love us - and of the benefits that kind of love has.
There is something very biblical in the assertion made by Ms. Allen that non-evaluative love, non-judgmental love, reduces tension.
In fact the scriptures testify that this kind of love does far more than reduce tension - it in fact gives life - it gives hope - it gives assurance - to all who receive it.
Non-judgmental - accepting - all embracing love is the essence of the Gospel message: it lies behind such statements as: "Do not judge others lest you be judged - for the judgement you give will be the judgement you receive" and it is at the root of what has happened whenever we find Jesus being criticized by the scribes and pharisees for the company that he keeps.
Jesus accepts and embraces those whom others find wanting. He loves those who seem unlovable - to others - and to themselves.
I'm not much of gardener, but one thing I do know is that every plant needs water to grow.
And I know this as well - the plants that are in the driest soil - the ones that are struggling the hardest and beginning to wither - the ones whose leaves are beginning to curl and which look worse than the rest need more water than those who are in damp ground are whose leaves are rich and full of moisture.
And I know too that dry plants respond better to water than they do to added heat - that they thrust down their roots to where they can find it or turn their leaves over so that they better receive it - and receiving it - they change - they begin to look better - they begin to grow - and at length - they produce the fruit that they have been designed to produce.
We are the plants in God's garden - placed here for a reason and a purpose - and some of us are awfully dry - and some of us are not.
But each one of us, whether we be dry or moist at this very moment, needs the living water that Jesus says he has come to give:
- that water which wells up to eternal life,
- that water which overflows and brings life to other plants near to it.
I give thanks to God today for his love - for that love shown by Christ - that love which was poured out me when I was withering and perishing as a young man - alone in a large city and which even now is poured out upon me -even though I am far from perfect.
I give thanks for his love which has given me hope that I never had, a peace that at one time I could only long for, and an assurance that I thought I would never see at work in my life.
In giving thanks before you today I do what thousands, indeed millions of people have done before me, I do what the woman at the well did after first encountering Jesus: I point to the one who is the Saviour promised from long ago, I point to the one who has accepted me - the one who calls me brother and does not hold my human failings against me - the one who encourages me and challenges me and never - even when I argue with him - rejects or condemns me.
That is what Jesus did with the woman at the well. He accepted her.
He accepted her though she was a Samaritan and an enemy to his people.
He spoke to her of God though she was a woman and not thought worthy of such conversation.
He offered her his blessing - even though she debated with him and questioned his statements.
He regards her as a dear sister - and gives her the same title of endearment he gave Mary when he calls her woman in verse 21 and asks her to believe his words concerning how the time is coming when true worshippers will worship Father in Spirit and in Truth.
And that is why she sang his praises in her village. Because of his acceptance - because of his love.
It was not just because knew her past.
It was not just because he could tell her things that no stranger should know that she spoke of him to her friends and neighbours.
It was because in knowing her, in knowing her nationality, her gender, her religious attitudes, and the mixed history of her marriages, he none-the-less treats her as if she was an equal, as if she was a person worthy of respect, worthy of affection - worthy of love.
And that is where it is at.
When we treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated - when we can talk to kings and to beggars and not show any preferences to the one and not the other - when we can debate with sinners and with saints - and have both feel that you respect them - when we can open our homes to both friends and strangers - and have both feel welcomed - when we can encounter people and not judge them - not put them down - not patronize them - then we know something of God's love, then we show something of God's love.
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen.
Some time ago I heard something which I would like to share with you:
When it comes to times of stress, the most reassuring companion isn't your sweetheart - it's your dog.
A study has found that people who were under stress showed the least amount of tension when accompanied by their dog. The stress levels were highest when the people were with their husbands or wives.
"I think that dogs are non-evaluative, and they love us", said Karen Allen, a research scientist at State University of New York at Buffalo's medical school.
This caught my attention, not because of what it says about stress and our spouses - I don't happen to find its assertion in this regard to be true in my experience of the in which I have been married to Carmel. NO, it caught my attention because of what asserts about how dogs love us - and of the benefits that kind of love has.
There is something very biblical in the assertion made by Ms. Allen that non-evaluative love, non-judgmental love, reduces tension.
In fact the scriptures testify that this kind of love does far more than reduce tension - it in fact gives life - it gives hope - it gives assurance - to all who receive it.
Non-judgmental - accepting - all embracing love is the essence of the Gospel message: it lies behind such statements as: "Do not judge others lest you be judged - for the judgement you give will be the judgement you receive" and it is at the root of what has happened whenever we find Jesus being criticized by the scribes and pharisees for the company that he keeps.
Jesus accepts and embraces those whom others find wanting. He loves those who seem unlovable - to others - and to themselves.
I'm not much of gardener, but one thing I do know is that every plant needs water to grow.
And I know this as well - the plants that are in the driest soil - the ones that are struggling the hardest and beginning to wither - the ones whose leaves are beginning to curl and which look worse than the rest need more water than those who are in damp ground are whose leaves are rich and full of moisture.
And I know too that dry plants respond better to water than they do to added heat - that they thrust down their roots to where they can find it or turn their leaves over so that they better receive it - and receiving it - they change - they begin to look better - they begin to grow - and at length - they produce the fruit that they have been designed to produce.
We are the plants in God's garden - placed here for a reason and a purpose - and some of us are awfully dry - and some of us are not.
But each one of us, whether we be dry or moist at this very moment, needs the living water that Jesus says he has come to give:
- that water which wells up to eternal life,
- that water which overflows and brings life to other plants near to it.
I give thanks to God today for his love - for that love shown by Christ - that love which was poured out me when I was withering and perishing as a young man - alone in a large city and which even now is poured out upon me -even though I am far from perfect.
I give thanks for his love which has given me hope that I never had, a peace that at one time I could only long for, and an assurance that I thought I would never see at work in my life.
In giving thanks before you today I do what thousands, indeed millions of people have done before me, I do what the woman at the well did after first encountering Jesus: I point to the one who is the Saviour promised from long ago, I point to the one who has accepted me - the one who calls me brother and does not hold my human failings against me - the one who encourages me and challenges me and never - even when I argue with him - rejects or condemns me.
That is what Jesus did with the woman at the well. He accepted her.
He accepted her though she was a Samaritan and an enemy to his people.
He spoke to her of God though she was a woman and not thought worthy of such conversation.
He offered her his blessing - even though she debated with him and questioned his statements.
He regards her as a dear sister - and gives her the same title of endearment he gave Mary when he calls her woman in verse 21 and asks her to believe his words concerning how the time is coming when true worshippers will worship Father in Spirit and in Truth.
And that is why she sang his praises in her village. Because of his acceptance - because of his love.
It was not just because knew her past.
It was not just because he could tell her things that no stranger should know that she spoke of him to her friends and neighbours.
It was because in knowing her, in knowing her nationality, her gender, her religious attitudes, and the mixed history of her marriages, he none-the-less treats her as if she was an equal, as if she was a person worthy of respect, worthy of affection - worthy of love.
And that is where it is at.
When we treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated - when we can talk to kings and to beggars and not show any preferences to the one and not the other - when we can debate with sinners and with saints - and have both feel that you respect them - when we can open our homes to both friends and strangers - and have both feel welcomed - when we can encounter people and not judge them - not put them down - not patronize them - then we know something of God's love, then we show something of God's love.
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Genesis 12:1-4; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5,13-17; John 3:1-17
O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
Some of you have heard this story before - It's about a congregation that undertook a long and diligent search for a new minister - and at last settled on one.
On the first Sunday the new minister went into the pulpit and delivered an absolutely amazing sermon. Everyone was deeply moved - they laughed, they cried, they were filled with awe. On the way out the door at the end of the service they congratulated the minister on his wonderful sermon, and when they got to the parking lot they congratulated each other on the wonderful choice they had made when they selected the new minister.
On the second Sunday the new minister went up into the pulpit and delivered exactly the same sermon has he had the week before. Again people were deeply moved - but some scratched their heads and wondered what was going on. But, they gave the new minister the benefit of the doubt - perhaps he had just picked up the wrong notes on the way to church that morning - and they didn't say too much.
On the third Sunday the minister once again gave exactly the same sermon as he had on the first and second Sundays. This time there was widespread consternation. The elders immediately called a meeting with the minister and asked him what was going on.
"Pastor", they said, "The sermon you preached today is a really great sermon - and we all are deeply impressed by your ability - but you've delivered it three times now. Don't you know any other sermons?'
"Oh, yes!, replied the new minister, "I have scads of them - and they are all just as good as the one you just heard."
"Well then," replied the elders, "Why don't you preach one of them next week."
"I'm not going to do that", the minister replied, "till all of you have started following the message of the first one."
Today I have a new sermon, but I have an old message, a message that each one of us needs to hear and to accept, it's the message of salvation. And it is found in this book here - and especially it is found in the New Testament passage we heard read this morning: the passage concerning Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus - where, and I quote, he says to Nicodemus:
"I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again."
Some of you here today probably had, at one time or another, the reaction that Nicodemus had to that word from our Lord.
You have felt confused by what Jesus said, and with Nicodemus you may have wanted to say: "How can a person be born when they are old? Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb?"
Others who are less literal than Nicodemus - others who understand the image of rebirth, may still have problems with the message that Jesus gives and the particular language that Jesus uses in today's Gospel story because it reminds you of all those
people who in one of two ways - and often in both:
- "Are you saved?"
- "Have you been born again??"
For some reason a lot of people who come to church, and a lot more who do not, resent that question - in either way that it may be asked.
Why is that anyway?
Unbelievers most often resent it because they feel put down by it:
- They feel that the person asking them the question is trying to sell them a bill of goods
- That the person asking those questions doesn't really care for them or want to understand them.
That may or may not be true, it depends on who is asking the question - and why they are asking it.
But why do so many church people resent the question?? Especially when the answer ought to be so easy to give??
I remember one time when I was asked this question by a total stranger in a shopping mall. The very first thing that this person introduced himself to me was - Are you saved?
Quick as a wink - I said - Yes.
Clearly this man had doubts to my answer when he further ask: "When were you saved", he asked, "And how were you saved? Did you receive the Holy Spirit? Do you believe in the forgiveness of sin and the life everlasting??" And the biggest question that either makes us a Christian or makes us something else - "Did you invite Jesus into your heart".
And I told him all that he wanted to know about my relationship with the Lord.
Finally he relaxed - and said to me - "I'm so very glad for you. It's so wonderful to know the Lord. I've talking to so many people, and they just won't answer my question. They always want to talk about something else - they just seems to want to get rid of me."
It's such a great thing to be able to tell someone - with confidence in your heart:
Yes, I am saved.
By the grace of God I have been reborn.
God's spirit has blown my way and every now and then I can hear its sound - and I feel tremendous because of it.
Most of you here, but probably not all, have likewise been compelled - or just perhaps propelled - and are able, as Jesus says to Nicodemus, "to see the Kingdom of God".
If you have, I know you're going to listen up because you know what I am about right now, and the reminders that I am giving right now you know are in the book and that they are important and good to hear now and then.
If you haven't yet been compelled or propelled, let me tell you right now that it is true what you have heard - that some things are simple - and some things are not.
It is also true that good things are invariably simple - so simple, in fact, that even the smallest child can grasp them.
The things of God are always simple in this way, at least when they come down to the basics.
The basics are known in our hearts, simply because we all were made by God - and I'm not talking here about the basics of morality - I'm not talking about whether we believe in loving one another and in forgiving one another - as we ourselves hope they will forgive us.
I'm talking about the basic thing in us that lets us know whether or not we have actually connected with the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob - the thing deep in down in us that tells us whether or not the God and Father of Christ Jesus our Lord actually lives within us.
You see - God made us in such a way that ultimately it is not enough for each one of us simply to believe in Him as a force who permeates the world - and especially nature.
Most everyone believes in this way - yet our corporations and our companies still rape and pillage our environment - and we ourselves, in personal and particular ways, still hurt our brothers and our sisters and ourselves.
Everything is not right either in us or around us.
God wants us to connect to him personally - to connect to him as one who is able to guide and direct us in our daily affairs - to connect to him as one who parents us - who is a father to us - to connect to God as a Father - and to Jesus as a brother - as one who is here to walk with us each day.
God wants us to connect with him as one who nurtures us:
- as a mother nurtures her children
- as the rain nurtures the dry ground
- as a friend nurtures another friend at a table - with bread and wine - and a communion of mind and heart and soul.
God wants to birth us into a new family, his own special family:
- where his love rules
- and his mercy and forgiveness washes and cleanses
- and his spirit gives energy and the seal to the promise of eternal life.
God wants us to know that with him there is a new life to be had and a whole new world a coming that, as it was for Abraham in this morning's old testament reading, there is a whole new land out there for us - and that all we have to do is trust in God and set forth on the journey he calls us to make, the journey of faith.
"Truly, truly, I say to you - no one call see the kingdom of God unless he is born again"
It's a process my friends, this being born again. It is journey - a journey of faith that leads us to places we have not been before.
It is an event - a process - that has a beginning - a place in which we ultimately say Yay or Nay to the Lord our Saviour and an end - when we do not know - when we inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for us.
In the middle - when you have said Yay - there are some things you can do and experience that none other experience:
- you can feel peace
- you can feel confident
- you can be humble without being prideful about it
- you can love those whom you do not like
- you can bless those who curse you
- you can be free - and yet give that freedom up to serve others and to help them in their weakness, you can do this because God is born in you and God is with you to help you.
The journey of faith - the kind of journey that Abraham made and which tradition tells us that Nicodemus also made is a tremendous journey:
- a journey that we should be glad we are on
- a journey that we need to be on.
It is a journey that gives us new life - which causes us to be reborn - and it begins - and it ends - in saying "I believe Lord, and I will follow".
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen!
Some of you have heard this story before - It's about a congregation that undertook a long and diligent search for a new minister - and at last settled on one.
On the first Sunday the new minister went into the pulpit and delivered an absolutely amazing sermon. Everyone was deeply moved - they laughed, they cried, they were filled with awe. On the way out the door at the end of the service they congratulated the minister on his wonderful sermon, and when they got to the parking lot they congratulated each other on the wonderful choice they had made when they selected the new minister.
On the second Sunday the new minister went up into the pulpit and delivered exactly the same sermon has he had the week before. Again people were deeply moved - but some scratched their heads and wondered what was going on. But, they gave the new minister the benefit of the doubt - perhaps he had just picked up the wrong notes on the way to church that morning - and they didn't say too much.
On the third Sunday the minister once again gave exactly the same sermon as he had on the first and second Sundays. This time there was widespread consternation. The elders immediately called a meeting with the minister and asked him what was going on.
"Pastor", they said, "The sermon you preached today is a really great sermon - and we all are deeply impressed by your ability - but you've delivered it three times now. Don't you know any other sermons?'
"Oh, yes!, replied the new minister, "I have scads of them - and they are all just as good as the one you just heard."
"Well then," replied the elders, "Why don't you preach one of them next week."
"I'm not going to do that", the minister replied, "till all of you have started following the message of the first one."
Today I have a new sermon, but I have an old message, a message that each one of us needs to hear and to accept, it's the message of salvation. And it is found in this book here - and especially it is found in the New Testament passage we heard read this morning: the passage concerning Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus - where, and I quote, he says to Nicodemus:
"I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again."
Some of you here today probably had, at one time or another, the reaction that Nicodemus had to that word from our Lord.
You have felt confused by what Jesus said, and with Nicodemus you may have wanted to say: "How can a person be born when they are old? Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb?"
Others who are less literal than Nicodemus - others who understand the image of rebirth, may still have problems with the message that Jesus gives and the particular language that Jesus uses in today's Gospel story because it reminds you of all those
people who in one of two ways - and often in both:
- "Are you saved?"
- "Have you been born again??"
For some reason a lot of people who come to church, and a lot more who do not, resent that question - in either way that it may be asked.
Why is that anyway?
Unbelievers most often resent it because they feel put down by it:
- They feel that the person asking them the question is trying to sell them a bill of goods
- That the person asking those questions doesn't really care for them or want to understand them.
That may or may not be true, it depends on who is asking the question - and why they are asking it.
But why do so many church people resent the question?? Especially when the answer ought to be so easy to give??
I remember one time when I was asked this question by a total stranger in a shopping mall. The very first thing that this person introduced himself to me was - Are you saved?
Quick as a wink - I said - Yes.
Clearly this man had doubts to my answer when he further ask: "When were you saved", he asked, "And how were you saved? Did you receive the Holy Spirit? Do you believe in the forgiveness of sin and the life everlasting??" And the biggest question that either makes us a Christian or makes us something else - "Did you invite Jesus into your heart".
And I told him all that he wanted to know about my relationship with the Lord.
Finally he relaxed - and said to me - "I'm so very glad for you. It's so wonderful to know the Lord. I've talking to so many people, and they just won't answer my question. They always want to talk about something else - they just seems to want to get rid of me."
It's such a great thing to be able to tell someone - with confidence in your heart:
Yes, I am saved.
By the grace of God I have been reborn.
God's spirit has blown my way and every now and then I can hear its sound - and I feel tremendous because of it.
Most of you here, but probably not all, have likewise been compelled - or just perhaps propelled - and are able, as Jesus says to Nicodemus, "to see the Kingdom of God".
If you have, I know you're going to listen up because you know what I am about right now, and the reminders that I am giving right now you know are in the book and that they are important and good to hear now and then.
If you haven't yet been compelled or propelled, let me tell you right now that it is true what you have heard - that some things are simple - and some things are not.
It is also true that good things are invariably simple - so simple, in fact, that even the smallest child can grasp them.
The things of God are always simple in this way, at least when they come down to the basics.
The basics are known in our hearts, simply because we all were made by God - and I'm not talking here about the basics of morality - I'm not talking about whether we believe in loving one another and in forgiving one another - as we ourselves hope they will forgive us.
I'm talking about the basic thing in us that lets us know whether or not we have actually connected with the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob - the thing deep in down in us that tells us whether or not the God and Father of Christ Jesus our Lord actually lives within us.
You see - God made us in such a way that ultimately it is not enough for each one of us simply to believe in Him as a force who permeates the world - and especially nature.
Most everyone believes in this way - yet our corporations and our companies still rape and pillage our environment - and we ourselves, in personal and particular ways, still hurt our brothers and our sisters and ourselves.
Everything is not right either in us or around us.
God wants us to connect to him personally - to connect to him as one who is able to guide and direct us in our daily affairs - to connect to him as one who parents us - who is a father to us - to connect to God as a Father - and to Jesus as a brother - as one who is here to walk with us each day.
God wants us to connect with him as one who nurtures us:
- as a mother nurtures her children
- as the rain nurtures the dry ground
- as a friend nurtures another friend at a table - with bread and wine - and a communion of mind and heart and soul.
God wants to birth us into a new family, his own special family:
- where his love rules
- and his mercy and forgiveness washes and cleanses
- and his spirit gives energy and the seal to the promise of eternal life.
God wants us to know that with him there is a new life to be had and a whole new world a coming that, as it was for Abraham in this morning's old testament reading, there is a whole new land out there for us - and that all we have to do is trust in God and set forth on the journey he calls us to make, the journey of faith.
"Truly, truly, I say to you - no one call see the kingdom of God unless he is born again"
It's a process my friends, this being born again. It is journey - a journey of faith that leads us to places we have not been before.
It is an event - a process - that has a beginning - a place in which we ultimately say Yay or Nay to the Lord our Saviour and an end - when we do not know - when we inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for us.
In the middle - when you have said Yay - there are some things you can do and experience that none other experience:
- you can feel peace
- you can feel confident
- you can be humble without being prideful about it
- you can love those whom you do not like
- you can bless those who curse you
- you can be free - and yet give that freedom up to serve others and to help them in their weakness, you can do this because God is born in you and God is with you to help you.
The journey of faith - the kind of journey that Abraham made and which tradition tells us that Nicodemus also made is a tremendous journey:
- a journey that we should be glad we are on
- a journey that we need to be on.
It is a journey that gives us new life - which causes us to be reborn - and it begins - and it ends - in saying "I believe Lord, and I will follow".
Blessed be God, day by day. Amen!
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Romans 5:12-19 and Matthew 4:1-11
God of law and of love, dispenser of justice and of mercy, judge of our actions and saviour of our lives - help us to hear your word this day. Bless my lips and our hearts - so that in speaking and in hearing your will may be known and that which you want us to have and do may be had and done - we ask it though Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our texts today deal with sin and temptation and with grace and faith.
- the first text tells us the story of how Adam and Eve were tempted and sinned against God in the Garden of Eden.
- the second shows Christ living blamelessly in the face of evil, by the power of faith.
Temptation and sin, grace and faith - these are the great motifs of our lives here and now in the world - the axes around which everything else revolves.
As Christians we believe that sin has power - a deadly power - that comes from evil; but we also believe that faith has power - a live giving power that comes from God.
In our lives we experience a struggle between these two powers, and even when we are on the side of life, even when we have faith in the God of life we experience temptation, we feel desires and live through events that test our faith and seek to lure us away from God and have us serve evil instead.
There is an old Scandinavian legend about mighty Thor and how one day he visited the land of the giants.
When Thor arrived there he found that the giants were engaged in various contests of strength. They asked him if he would like to take part in their games and he said that he would. So it was that they proposed three tests of strength for him.
First Thor was asked to drink all the liquid in a large two handed drinking bowl. But as much as he could drink of it, only a tiny portion of the liquid in it disappeared. Finally he had to put down the bowl and admit defeat. To him the giants seemed sympathetic - and they proposed something a bit easier for his second test. A black cat was walking by and Thor was instructed to lift it up. He grabbed hold of the animal, thinking it should be easy to hoist it up, but strain and tug as hard as he could, he couldn't even begin to budge the cat.
By this time the giants were beginning to be openly amused at Thor's predicament. "You are supposed to be strong", they said, "but it seems you are not. Well - we will give you something even easier for your third test."
So for the third test the giants challenged Thor to wrestle with an old woman and throw her to the ground. With every bit of strength that Thor could muster he grabbed hold of the toothless old woman, but all his pushing and pulling and twisting was in vain. He simply could not meet the challenge.
As Thor, humbled and dejected, left the giants to head back home, one of them went with him for a part of the way and told him that their was magic in the contests. "The cup," he said, "contained the sea and who can drink that? The cat was the evil in the world, and who is able to lift that up and take it away? And the old woman was time, and who is able to contend with her?"
I believe that most of us feel, when it comes to the sin that is in the world, that we are living in the land of giants.
We are tempted to give in to despair - the despair that nothing we can do will make a difference; the despair that says that there is no help or hope for us our for our world.
Indeed I believe that this is the greatest temptation of our age.
But my brothers and sisters-in-Christ, we have within us one who is stronger than the world, one who is greater than the tempter, one who has triumphed over evil both in life - as we see in the story of Jesus' temptations in the wilderness, and in death - as we see in the cross - and again three days later - in the resurrection.
Some people - most people perhaps - dwell too much on the negative side of things. Like the game show Jeopardy - all their answers to life's problems are expressed in the form of questions. They see the problems that exist all round us - but do not lay hold of the solutions - of the good news that also exists all round us - of the salvation that is offered to us all - without condition or qualification.
They despair on account of the giants - forgetting perhaps the story of David - and of how one small stone in his hands brought an end to the Goliath that threatened his nation that caused even Saul and his mighty army to despair of ever being victorious.
A man by the name of Richard Lederer collects funny signs. Some of these are simply the result of people in foreign countries having difficulty translating into English. He says that at the entrance to a hotel swimming pool on the French Riviera there is a sign that reads like this: "Swimming is forbidden in the absence of a Saviour."
Maybe the person who put up that sign knew English better than we may suppose. Not only swimming but life itself should not be lived in the absence of a Saviour.
We have a Saviour - one who remembers who we are - one who loves us as a father loves his children - one who seeks to nurture us as a mother nurtures her brood.
This Saviour has ventured into the same waters that we swim in each day. He has battled the currents - fought the foes - and shown that he is able and shown that we - when we swim with him - are able as well.
Our Saviour remembers who we are - and he loves us - and seeks the best for us. He knows that we are weak swimmers - that we from time to time we will flounder and thrash - and sink. He knows the waters we are in - and that is why he has been appointed the judge of the living and the dead.
Our Saviour is our judge. He does not judge us for the sake of condemning us - he takes no delight in catching us in our sin, he has no joy when we hurt ourselves or hurt others - rather he reaches out to us - he calls to us - he seek to guide us and help us - and like all good parents - he forgives us and does all that he can to make sure that we start each day new and fresh and bathed in love.
Kenneth Filkins has caught this beautifully in a poem entitled "The Pit." Let me share just a little bit of it with you: Visualize, if you will a great pit - a pit perhaps of your own devising - or perhaps one devised for you by others - visualize a pit into which you have fallen and cannot get out of.
Filkins writes: A man fell into a pit and he couldn't get out. BUDDHA said: "Your pit is only a state of mind." A HINDU said: "This pit is for purging you and making you more perfect." CONFUCIUS said: "If you would have listened to me, you would never have fallen into that pit." A NEW AGER said: "Maybe you should network with some other pit dwellers." A SELF-PITYING PERSON said: "You haven't seen anything until you've seen my pit." A NEWS REPORTER said: "Could I have the exclusive story on your pit?" A FEDERAL BUREAUCRAT said: "Have you paid your taxes on that pit?" A COUNTY INSPECTOR said: "Do you have a permit for that pit?" A REALIST said: "That's a pit." An IDEALIST said: "The world shouldn't have pits." An OPTIMIST said: "Things could be worse." A PESSIMIST said: "Things will get worse." BUT JESUS, SEEING THE MAN, TOOK HIM BY THE HAND AND LIFTED HIM OUT OF THE PIT.
A pit is an awful place to be -particularly the pit of created by the power of sin and temptation. But there is One who will help. There is one who has managed to avoid the pit and who seeks to help us out of the pit. His name is Jesus - and he lives and reigns with God - and with God he is able - able to help - able to save - able to redeem.
Not only is he able - he is willing.
And not only is he willing - he has already acted - acted to save us - acted to bring to the world a new day. Acted to bring to each of us a new life.
Do not dwell in the pit - Do not accept the pit - Rather reach out your hand to the one who has stretched out his hands for you - and who still reaches out for you today. Reach out to Christ - and through Christ - reach out to others around you and let the know that there is a better life to be had - a life that is given freely to all who desire it. May His Name be praised day by day! Amen!
Our texts today deal with sin and temptation and with grace and faith.
- the first text tells us the story of how Adam and Eve were tempted and sinned against God in the Garden of Eden.
- the second shows Christ living blamelessly in the face of evil, by the power of faith.
Temptation and sin, grace and faith - these are the great motifs of our lives here and now in the world - the axes around which everything else revolves.
As Christians we believe that sin has power - a deadly power - that comes from evil; but we also believe that faith has power - a live giving power that comes from God.
In our lives we experience a struggle between these two powers, and even when we are on the side of life, even when we have faith in the God of life we experience temptation, we feel desires and live through events that test our faith and seek to lure us away from God and have us serve evil instead.
There is an old Scandinavian legend about mighty Thor and how one day he visited the land of the giants.
When Thor arrived there he found that the giants were engaged in various contests of strength. They asked him if he would like to take part in their games and he said that he would. So it was that they proposed three tests of strength for him.
First Thor was asked to drink all the liquid in a large two handed drinking bowl. But as much as he could drink of it, only a tiny portion of the liquid in it disappeared. Finally he had to put down the bowl and admit defeat. To him the giants seemed sympathetic - and they proposed something a bit easier for his second test. A black cat was walking by and Thor was instructed to lift it up. He grabbed hold of the animal, thinking it should be easy to hoist it up, but strain and tug as hard as he could, he couldn't even begin to budge the cat.
By this time the giants were beginning to be openly amused at Thor's predicament. "You are supposed to be strong", they said, "but it seems you are not. Well - we will give you something even easier for your third test."
So for the third test the giants challenged Thor to wrestle with an old woman and throw her to the ground. With every bit of strength that Thor could muster he grabbed hold of the toothless old woman, but all his pushing and pulling and twisting was in vain. He simply could not meet the challenge.
As Thor, humbled and dejected, left the giants to head back home, one of them went with him for a part of the way and told him that their was magic in the contests. "The cup," he said, "contained the sea and who can drink that? The cat was the evil in the world, and who is able to lift that up and take it away? And the old woman was time, and who is able to contend with her?"
I believe that most of us feel, when it comes to the sin that is in the world, that we are living in the land of giants.
We are tempted to give in to despair - the despair that nothing we can do will make a difference; the despair that says that there is no help or hope for us our for our world.
Indeed I believe that this is the greatest temptation of our age.
But my brothers and sisters-in-Christ, we have within us one who is stronger than the world, one who is greater than the tempter, one who has triumphed over evil both in life - as we see in the story of Jesus' temptations in the wilderness, and in death - as we see in the cross - and again three days later - in the resurrection.
Some people - most people perhaps - dwell too much on the negative side of things. Like the game show Jeopardy - all their answers to life's problems are expressed in the form of questions. They see the problems that exist all round us - but do not lay hold of the solutions - of the good news that also exists all round us - of the salvation that is offered to us all - without condition or qualification.
They despair on account of the giants - forgetting perhaps the story of David - and of how one small stone in his hands brought an end to the Goliath that threatened his nation that caused even Saul and his mighty army to despair of ever being victorious.
A man by the name of Richard Lederer collects funny signs. Some of these are simply the result of people in foreign countries having difficulty translating into English. He says that at the entrance to a hotel swimming pool on the French Riviera there is a sign that reads like this: "Swimming is forbidden in the absence of a Saviour."
Maybe the person who put up that sign knew English better than we may suppose. Not only swimming but life itself should not be lived in the absence of a Saviour.
We have a Saviour - one who remembers who we are - one who loves us as a father loves his children - one who seeks to nurture us as a mother nurtures her brood.
This Saviour has ventured into the same waters that we swim in each day. He has battled the currents - fought the foes - and shown that he is able and shown that we - when we swim with him - are able as well.
Our Saviour remembers who we are - and he loves us - and seeks the best for us. He knows that we are weak swimmers - that we from time to time we will flounder and thrash - and sink. He knows the waters we are in - and that is why he has been appointed the judge of the living and the dead.
Our Saviour is our judge. He does not judge us for the sake of condemning us - he takes no delight in catching us in our sin, he has no joy when we hurt ourselves or hurt others - rather he reaches out to us - he calls to us - he seek to guide us and help us - and like all good parents - he forgives us and does all that he can to make sure that we start each day new and fresh and bathed in love.
Kenneth Filkins has caught this beautifully in a poem entitled "The Pit." Let me share just a little bit of it with you: Visualize, if you will a great pit - a pit perhaps of your own devising - or perhaps one devised for you by others - visualize a pit into which you have fallen and cannot get out of.
Filkins writes: A man fell into a pit and he couldn't get out. BUDDHA said: "Your pit is only a state of mind." A HINDU said: "This pit is for purging you and making you more perfect." CONFUCIUS said: "If you would have listened to me, you would never have fallen into that pit." A NEW AGER said: "Maybe you should network with some other pit dwellers." A SELF-PITYING PERSON said: "You haven't seen anything until you've seen my pit." A NEWS REPORTER said: "Could I have the exclusive story on your pit?" A FEDERAL BUREAUCRAT said: "Have you paid your taxes on that pit?" A COUNTY INSPECTOR said: "Do you have a permit for that pit?" A REALIST said: "That's a pit." An IDEALIST said: "The world shouldn't have pits." An OPTIMIST said: "Things could be worse." A PESSIMIST said: "Things will get worse." BUT JESUS, SEEING THE MAN, TOOK HIM BY THE HAND AND LIFTED HIM OUT OF THE PIT.
A pit is an awful place to be -particularly the pit of created by the power of sin and temptation. But there is One who will help. There is one who has managed to avoid the pit and who seeks to help us out of the pit. His name is Jesus - and he lives and reigns with God - and with God he is able - able to help - able to save - able to redeem.
Not only is he able - he is willing.
And not only is he willing - he has already acted - acted to save us - acted to bring to the world a new day. Acted to bring to each of us a new life.
Do not dwell in the pit - Do not accept the pit - Rather reach out your hand to the one who has stretched out his hands for you - and who still reaches out for you today. Reach out to Christ - and through Christ - reach out to others around you and let the know that there is a better life to be had - a life that is given freely to all who desire it. May His Name be praised day by day! Amen!
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Exodus 24:12-18; Psalm 99; II Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9
O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
For at least the last five hundred years the Western World - the industrial and scientific world - has been intolerant of mystery. Ours is an age which is obsessed with the idea of knowing and explaining everything.
A story is told of a little boy who lived in a religious home whose father expressed the usual before dinner command - "Hurry up, and wash your hands and come to the table so we can say a prayer and eat."
As the boy went toward the bathroom, he was heard to mutter, "Germs and Jesus, germs and Jesus! That's all I hear around here, and I can't see either one of them."
There are many things, my friends, that we can't see, many things that we can't touch, which are real and powerful:
- the light from the Sun
- the electrons which flow through the billions of miles of wires we have strung up around the world
- the radiation that we transmit from microwave dishes and radio antennae to power our telephones and televisions
- the love that we experience from our parents and our partners...
All these things are unseeable and untouchable - yet real.
Yet despite the evidence that there are real but invisible and untouchable forces all around us many people refuse to believe in God; and of those who do believe in God there are many who refuse to believe that God can do anything out of the ordinary:
- they refuse to believe in miracles
- they refuse to believe in the power of the Holy Spirit
- they refuse to believe in the healing touch and in prayer as a powerful instrument of change and transformation.
Sometimes it seems that we of the Church - particularly of the Western Church - are completely out of touch with why our faith has been so powerful a force in the world - sometimes it seems that we are out of touch with the invisible force that underlies our dogma and our belief.
Have you noticed that many people today seem to be hungry for some experience of what I call Spiritual Realities?
The dramatic upswing of interest in the existence of angels, of witches, and the number of people who consult psychics and future tellers speak of a longing that people have to go beyond the merely rational and scientific.
Certainly this longing is reflected in the New Age movement.
There was an interesting news report sometime back. It seems that a company called "Chi Pants" of Santa Cruz, CA, in keeping with the New Age belief in quartz crystals, is marketing a new line of trousers.
Each pair of the trousers has a tiny crystal sewn into the back seam which will rest at the base of the spine when the trousers are worn. The company advertises, "You won't feel the crystal; you'll just feel the energy."
There was another news story sometime back. An artist from Jersey City by the name of Marybeth Strobel explained why she wears a large chunk of quartz on a strap around her neck.
"It puts a circle of power around you that keeps you feeling protected," she says.
You and I may scoff but such beliefs have a great appeal for many people.
They have that appeal - because too many of us - especially those of us in the mainline churches have failed to connect others - let alone ourselves - to the very real power that is spoken of throughout the bible and the history of our faith.
We have been too head oriented and have placed too little emphasis on the heart for too many years - and the result has been confusion and the rise of charlatans and cheats who mislead those who suspect that there is more to the world than meets the eye - but who do not know how to test and evaluate other people's claims about the nature of the spiritual universe that exists all around us.
There is something we ought to acknowledge, something we need to confess and it is this.
Mystical experience is very much a part of our faith. Indeed it lays at the root of all that we believe in.
From stories like those we heard today where we see Moses going up on a mountain and hearing God speak and Jesus being transfigured by a bright light in the presence of three of his disciples, to the indescribable peace and joy that groups of praying and praising Christian pilgrims experience; unexplainable and unprovable - in the scientific sense at least - spiritual realities undergird and indeed, permeate, our faith.
Indeed throughout history right until the present day many of the greatest Christians who ever lived have reported experiences that are outside the realm of rational experience.
It is said that a friend wandered into Handel's room just as he was finishing the last notes of the "Hallelujah Chorus." He found the composer with tears streaming down his cheeks. The magnificent work lay completed on the desk in front of him. "I did think," Handel exclaimed to his friend, "I saw all heaven before me, and the great God Himself."
What do you make of an experience such as Handel reported? Is he speaking metaphorically? Or did he really see heaven?
And what do you make of the man who reports that a friend prayed for his sick brother - a man who was expected to die within a day - and that this brother was given another five years?
What do you make of reports that Elijah raised a poor woman's son from the dead or of the hundreds of people who reported that they saw Jesus alive and well long after he was laid in the tomb?
How do you explain the absolute conviction of those people who have died on an operating table or in a hospital room and on being brought back to life reported travelling down an ever brighter tunnel till at last they met their loved ones and were beckoned to either move onward toward God or to return to life and finish what needed finishing?
If we but believed what we have long preached, what we have long read in this book - how much different might our world be today?
My friends - today I do not want to do with you what so many generations of preachers have done with the story of Jesus and his transfiguration - I do not want to rush you down the mountain and tell you that what happened up there is not as important as what happens in the valley below.
What I want to do
- is have you understand that there really are spiritual realities that exist and which defy our conventional wisdom - our scientific reason
- and to give you one essential tool for evaluating them.
The first thing to be said about mystical experiences is - be careful.
The human brain is a tricky piece of machinery. It can see things that do not exist - or take the wrong message from what lies before it.
William James, a psychologist of religion early in the last century once pointed out that you can toss a bag of marbles on the floor and by selectively ignoring certain marbles find any pattern you wish. Our eyes and our minds can play tricks on us and lead us in directions that have no profit to them.
We see that tendency displayed in some Christians' obsessions with numbers.
Charles Swindoll tells about a lady in Kansas City who went to court to get her license plate changed because it ended with 666. She stated that her fellow church members were shunning her. As you may know, the mark of the beast in the Book of Revelation is 666.
Swindoll goes on to note that the 666 scare stuff is getting downright ridiculous. The fact is that those three digits can be uncovered in almost anybody's name if you're willing to work at it hard enough. Using the code A=100, B=101, and so on, Hitler adds up to 666, The same technique works on the word computer - a coincidence to which some of us might attach some validity.
By adopting the so-called "devil's code" whereby the alphabet is numbered backward from zero; Z=0, Y=1, X=2 as so forth - and then multiplying each letter-value by 6 (whew!), fundamentalist leader Jerry Falwell's last name equals 666. Even Billy Graham's name is not exempt. His initials are WFG. (William Franklin Graham). Using the A=1 code, the letters add up to 36. The sum of the counting numbers from 1 through 36 is 666, and 36=6 x 6. When Ronald Wilson Reagan was elected president, mischievous Democrats pointed out that each of the President's names had six letters - 666 - and so forth.
Maybe you find all this fascinating, maybe not. There are some people, though, who are very susceptible to such logic. And there are unscrupulous people who look for these susceptible people to manipulate to their own ends. Often they do it in the name of religion. They tell you that what they are saying is based on the invisible spiritual realities which undergird the world. Be careful.
If you wonder why most Christian churches put more emphasis on being true to the historical faith than on any one particular subjective experience, this is it.
We know feelings are subject to distortion and manipulation. It may make us seem somewhat dry and unexciting at times but we know that when we are faithful to Scripture and the teachings of the Church we cannot be misled by passing fads or sensations.
Be careful. But also be tolerant.
We don't know how God may choose to work in individual lives. It is the height of arrogance for any of us to declare that God can only work in one way or another - that God can only be found in one group or another.
Most of us would be thrilled to have the kind of mountaintop experience that Peter, James and John had where they beheld Christ transfigured before them; we would love to go up on a Mountain as did Moses and hear God's voice, but we may live a lifetime and never experience any more than a lump in our throat and a calm assurance in our hearts.
If that's all we experience, that is enough. God knows what we need. If other people discover a wider range of experiences, if they shout and dance and speak in tongues, then who's to say but that God knew their needs as well.
Remember this - and this is the crux of the matter: The test of faith is not our experience of, or our knowledge of, invisible spiritual realities, but in whether we bear fruit that is pleasing to God.
The fruit of the Spirit, says St. Paul, is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. (Gal 5:23)
Does your special experience make you more loving, more peaceful, more trusting, more humble? Does your knowledge of the Spiritual Realities which undergird the world make you more faithful, more prone to give God praise? Does your conviction that God has sent an angel to you to bring you comfort it result in your being a better neighbour? A better citizen?
If it does, then no matter what that experience is, you are not far from the Kingdom of God.
There are, my friends, spiritual realities that undergird not only our faith, but the very world around us.
There are angels. There is a resurrection. Miracles still occur - the blind can still be made to see and the lame to walk. Demons still chill the air and prayers still reach the ear of God. And God still speaks - in dreams and in visions - and through his Word.
And there are many here who can testify to these things.
My friends - there are spiritual things - spiritual realities that are beyond our ken - wonders that still reach out and touch those who expect them and those that don't.
The transfiguration of Jesus is one of these. It happened to strengthen Jesus before his journey to Jerusalem - and it was witnessed so that we might be encouraged in our faith. The spiritual reality - the spiritual power made evident that day - had a purpose. A good purpose.
And so it should be for all those things we call Spiritual.
The important thing is that we believe not simply in the power of the world that is beyond our everyday sight - but in the truth behind that power and in the God who makes it so - and that in believing in God and in his power - we strive - without fear - to live out a worthy life - a life like that of Christ Jesus our Lord. May His name be praised day by day. Amen!
For at least the last five hundred years the Western World - the industrial and scientific world - has been intolerant of mystery. Ours is an age which is obsessed with the idea of knowing and explaining everything.
A story is told of a little boy who lived in a religious home whose father expressed the usual before dinner command - "Hurry up, and wash your hands and come to the table so we can say a prayer and eat."
As the boy went toward the bathroom, he was heard to mutter, "Germs and Jesus, germs and Jesus! That's all I hear around here, and I can't see either one of them."
There are many things, my friends, that we can't see, many things that we can't touch, which are real and powerful:
- the light from the Sun
- the electrons which flow through the billions of miles of wires we have strung up around the world
- the radiation that we transmit from microwave dishes and radio antennae to power our telephones and televisions
- the love that we experience from our parents and our partners...
All these things are unseeable and untouchable - yet real.
Yet despite the evidence that there are real but invisible and untouchable forces all around us many people refuse to believe in God; and of those who do believe in God there are many who refuse to believe that God can do anything out of the ordinary:
- they refuse to believe in miracles
- they refuse to believe in the power of the Holy Spirit
- they refuse to believe in the healing touch and in prayer as a powerful instrument of change and transformation.
Sometimes it seems that we of the Church - particularly of the Western Church - are completely out of touch with why our faith has been so powerful a force in the world - sometimes it seems that we are out of touch with the invisible force that underlies our dogma and our belief.
Have you noticed that many people today seem to be hungry for some experience of what I call Spiritual Realities?
The dramatic upswing of interest in the existence of angels, of witches, and the number of people who consult psychics and future tellers speak of a longing that people have to go beyond the merely rational and scientific.
Certainly this longing is reflected in the New Age movement.
There was an interesting news report sometime back. It seems that a company called "Chi Pants" of Santa Cruz, CA, in keeping with the New Age belief in quartz crystals, is marketing a new line of trousers.
Each pair of the trousers has a tiny crystal sewn into the back seam which will rest at the base of the spine when the trousers are worn. The company advertises, "You won't feel the crystal; you'll just feel the energy."
There was another news story sometime back. An artist from Jersey City by the name of Marybeth Strobel explained why she wears a large chunk of quartz on a strap around her neck.
"It puts a circle of power around you that keeps you feeling protected," she says.
You and I may scoff but such beliefs have a great appeal for many people.
They have that appeal - because too many of us - especially those of us in the mainline churches have failed to connect others - let alone ourselves - to the very real power that is spoken of throughout the bible and the history of our faith.
We have been too head oriented and have placed too little emphasis on the heart for too many years - and the result has been confusion and the rise of charlatans and cheats who mislead those who suspect that there is more to the world than meets the eye - but who do not know how to test and evaluate other people's claims about the nature of the spiritual universe that exists all around us.
There is something we ought to acknowledge, something we need to confess and it is this.
Mystical experience is very much a part of our faith. Indeed it lays at the root of all that we believe in.
From stories like those we heard today where we see Moses going up on a mountain and hearing God speak and Jesus being transfigured by a bright light in the presence of three of his disciples, to the indescribable peace and joy that groups of praying and praising Christian pilgrims experience; unexplainable and unprovable - in the scientific sense at least - spiritual realities undergird and indeed, permeate, our faith.
Indeed throughout history right until the present day many of the greatest Christians who ever lived have reported experiences that are outside the realm of rational experience.
It is said that a friend wandered into Handel's room just as he was finishing the last notes of the "Hallelujah Chorus." He found the composer with tears streaming down his cheeks. The magnificent work lay completed on the desk in front of him. "I did think," Handel exclaimed to his friend, "I saw all heaven before me, and the great God Himself."
What do you make of an experience such as Handel reported? Is he speaking metaphorically? Or did he really see heaven?
And what do you make of the man who reports that a friend prayed for his sick brother - a man who was expected to die within a day - and that this brother was given another five years?
What do you make of reports that Elijah raised a poor woman's son from the dead or of the hundreds of people who reported that they saw Jesus alive and well long after he was laid in the tomb?
How do you explain the absolute conviction of those people who have died on an operating table or in a hospital room and on being brought back to life reported travelling down an ever brighter tunnel till at last they met their loved ones and were beckoned to either move onward toward God or to return to life and finish what needed finishing?
If we but believed what we have long preached, what we have long read in this book - how much different might our world be today?
My friends - today I do not want to do with you what so many generations of preachers have done with the story of Jesus and his transfiguration - I do not want to rush you down the mountain and tell you that what happened up there is not as important as what happens in the valley below.
What I want to do
- is have you understand that there really are spiritual realities that exist and which defy our conventional wisdom - our scientific reason
- and to give you one essential tool for evaluating them.
The first thing to be said about mystical experiences is - be careful.
The human brain is a tricky piece of machinery. It can see things that do not exist - or take the wrong message from what lies before it.
William James, a psychologist of religion early in the last century once pointed out that you can toss a bag of marbles on the floor and by selectively ignoring certain marbles find any pattern you wish. Our eyes and our minds can play tricks on us and lead us in directions that have no profit to them.
We see that tendency displayed in some Christians' obsessions with numbers.
Charles Swindoll tells about a lady in Kansas City who went to court to get her license plate changed because it ended with 666. She stated that her fellow church members were shunning her. As you may know, the mark of the beast in the Book of Revelation is 666.
Swindoll goes on to note that the 666 scare stuff is getting downright ridiculous. The fact is that those three digits can be uncovered in almost anybody's name if you're willing to work at it hard enough. Using the code A=100, B=101, and so on, Hitler adds up to 666, The same technique works on the word computer - a coincidence to which some of us might attach some validity.
By adopting the so-called "devil's code" whereby the alphabet is numbered backward from zero; Z=0, Y=1, X=2 as so forth - and then multiplying each letter-value by 6 (whew!), fundamentalist leader Jerry Falwell's last name equals 666. Even Billy Graham's name is not exempt. His initials are WFG. (William Franklin Graham). Using the A=1 code, the letters add up to 36. The sum of the counting numbers from 1 through 36 is 666, and 36=6 x 6. When Ronald Wilson Reagan was elected president, mischievous Democrats pointed out that each of the President's names had six letters - 666 - and so forth.
Maybe you find all this fascinating, maybe not. There are some people, though, who are very susceptible to such logic. And there are unscrupulous people who look for these susceptible people to manipulate to their own ends. Often they do it in the name of religion. They tell you that what they are saying is based on the invisible spiritual realities which undergird the world. Be careful.
If you wonder why most Christian churches put more emphasis on being true to the historical faith than on any one particular subjective experience, this is it.
We know feelings are subject to distortion and manipulation. It may make us seem somewhat dry and unexciting at times but we know that when we are faithful to Scripture and the teachings of the Church we cannot be misled by passing fads or sensations.
Be careful. But also be tolerant.
We don't know how God may choose to work in individual lives. It is the height of arrogance for any of us to declare that God can only work in one way or another - that God can only be found in one group or another.
Most of us would be thrilled to have the kind of mountaintop experience that Peter, James and John had where they beheld Christ transfigured before them; we would love to go up on a Mountain as did Moses and hear God's voice, but we may live a lifetime and never experience any more than a lump in our throat and a calm assurance in our hearts.
If that's all we experience, that is enough. God knows what we need. If other people discover a wider range of experiences, if they shout and dance and speak in tongues, then who's to say but that God knew their needs as well.
Remember this - and this is the crux of the matter: The test of faith is not our experience of, or our knowledge of, invisible spiritual realities, but in whether we bear fruit that is pleasing to God.
The fruit of the Spirit, says St. Paul, is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. (Gal 5:23)
Does your special experience make you more loving, more peaceful, more trusting, more humble? Does your knowledge of the Spiritual Realities which undergird the world make you more faithful, more prone to give God praise? Does your conviction that God has sent an angel to you to bring you comfort it result in your being a better neighbour? A better citizen?
If it does, then no matter what that experience is, you are not far from the Kingdom of God.
There are, my friends, spiritual realities that undergird not only our faith, but the very world around us.
There are angels. There is a resurrection. Miracles still occur - the blind can still be made to see and the lame to walk. Demons still chill the air and prayers still reach the ear of God. And God still speaks - in dreams and in visions - and through his Word.
And there are many here who can testify to these things.
My friends - there are spiritual things - spiritual realities that are beyond our ken - wonders that still reach out and touch those who expect them and those that don't.
The transfiguration of Jesus is one of these. It happened to strengthen Jesus before his journey to Jerusalem - and it was witnessed so that we might be encouraged in our faith. The spiritual reality - the spiritual power made evident that day - had a purpose. A good purpose.
And so it should be for all those things we call Spiritual.
The important thing is that we believe not simply in the power of the world that is beyond our everyday sight - but in the truth behind that power and in the God who makes it so - and that in believing in God and in his power - we strive - without fear - to live out a worthy life - a life like that of Christ Jesus our Lord. May His name be praised day by day. Amen!
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Isaiah 58:1-12; I Corinthians 2:1-16; and Matthew 5:13-20
Bless thou, the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts that they be of profit to us and acceptable to thee, oh our rock and our redeemer. Amen!
Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a lighthouse that sat on a rocky shore and helped ships get through the water safely without hitting any big nasty rocks. One day the lighthouse operator became sick and a temporary substitute was put in charge of the lighthouse. While he was there tending the lighthouse a big storm blew up and sand and branches and all kinds of things were flying around in the wind. The temporary lighthouse keeper got out a big piece of canvas and covered up the lantern so it would not get wet or damaged in the storm. That night a ship blew upon the rocks and sank with all hands.
Sounds silly doesn't it - I mean - who, as Jesus puts it, lights a lamp and then put it under a bowl?
Shortly after my confirmation a question was put to me that I would like to ask you today - a friend at that church asked me - "What are you? Are you a thermometer or a thermostat?
I was a little bit slow that day - I couldn't figure out what he was driving at - so I asked him a simple question in return: "What the are you talking about?!
Edwin, he said - a thermometer reflects its environment, it shows what the temperature is, if its hot outside - it says its hot; if its cold, it says its cold; it exerts no influence on what's around it - rather it is influenced by it; but not so a thermostat. A thermostat has power, it sets the temperature, it changes things.
So - what are you? A thermometer, or a thermostat?
What a great question! It is one that Jesus puts to his disciples in today's reading when he says:
"You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven."
Think about it for a minute - Jesus tells us - "You are the salt of the earth..." And again, "You are the light of the world".
What an incredible thing that is! What an incredible gift! Somehow - because of who God has made us. Somehow - because of our decision to follow Jesus we are made into salt - into light - for the world.
That is the beautiful realty of what God does to us, in fact it is the most important thing that God does through us, when we live by our faith.
Think of the people who have touched you, the people who first spoke to your yearning heart, the people who first, because of their love and care for you, inspired you to believe in the God of Love.
Did they not light up your life? Did they not bring new savour and zest to the diet you once lived on? Did they not penetrate and change your lives with their care and concern and honesty? just as the presence of Jesus changed the life of Peter and John and James?
The divine is a light within us, and faith is the match that sets it glowing.
We are here today because the light of God has come into our life. The only question we need to address is - what are we going to do with that light?
Some time ago at a Bible Study someone asked the group:
Do you know what Christianity is? It is a wildly infectious disease. When you got a good case of it everyone around gets it too. The only problem is - so many people try to cure it...
People cure faith by stifling it and by ignoring it and by hiding it. They destroy faith by living like thermometers rather than like thermostats.
It doesn't take much to be a thermometer you know, all you have to do is be agreeable. All you have to do is to go along with what everyone else wants. All you have to do is think of your own comfort and ease.
When others around you are scoffing and mocking - all you need do is be quiet, to not make waves - you may even perhaps join with them in a gentle put down.
When someone is being racist and intolerant all you have to do is be silent about how in Christ there is no Jew nor Gentile, no Pakistanis nor Arabs....
When someone is hurt and alone, or feeling offended or betrayed, or simply depressed, all you have to do is walk on by - all you have to do is go on doing what you were doing before, as if nothing was happening that needed your attention.
All you have to do to be a thermometer - is go with the flow, to not speak about God's power and love, to not witness by your deeds to God's grace and mercy.
Reginald Bibby, a well known sociologist said in one of his books he examined the various churches in a certain part of North America, he polled their members and he polled a large number of non-Christians and he discovered an amazing fact - a disturbing fact:
He discovered that on almost all major social and political issues Christians did not differ in their opinions from non-Christians.
Bibby concludes his book by saying that the reason that the Christian church is dying in North America is because it does not offer anything that anyone else does not offer.
Indeed, Bibby continues - the very things that make the church unique - most of the established churches refuse to talk about - they would rather talk about psychology than about faith, and about the need for politic reform rather than about spiritual change.
Bibby, with the tools of modern social science echoes the statement of the 19th century philosopher and sceptic Frederick Nietzsche. Nietzsche said this about the churches of his day:
"They must sing better songs, ere I learn belief in their Saviour. They must act like they are redeemed before I will believe in their redeemer."
Well, we have great songs - but where do we sing them?...Are we like the Israelites at the time of the prophet Isaiah? Do we only sing the songs of the Lord when we are in church? Do we only sing about our faith when we want something from God?
Are we like those who believe quietly and only when it is safe? Or do we sing loudly and cheerfully and triumphantly in public? In those places where those who sing only the songs of the devil will be confronted; where those who hear only the songs of despair can at last know that there is hope; where those who have only the songs of self-hatred to listen to can, at last, hear that they are loved?
In the winter of 1978 a very heavy snow storm struck the city of Boston. It lasted a week, and during part of that time the power went off. While the power was off a number of things happened.
A man got lost trying to find his way to an unfamiliar section of the city. He almost froze to death wandering around the streets, until he happened upon a place he knew.
An elderly woman whose house was without power went through a night of terror. Of fragile health, she sometimes suffered hallucinations. Alone in her dark home her imagination distorted all the sounds of the wind and storm into signals of some kind of attack upon her.
In a house just a block away from her - a man died when the equipment he relied upon to breath failed to function.
A few blocks away, made bold by the darkness, vandals broke into an appliance store and carried off a lot of valuable merchandise.
The reality of one part of this parable I am telling you will help make all the rest clear.
The reality was that the Boston Edison Power Company had sufficient power in its generating system to meet all the needs of the city. The problem was in one simple transformer in the main plant and with the transmission lines from a substation.
This is like Christ and us as his disciples - we who are the light of the world.
Christ is indeed the one who shines with God's light.
But just as the whole city of Boston does not live in the generating plant itself, no more can people live in the immediate presence of their source of divine energy. Power has to come out into the world were they live.
That requires "transformers" and "transmission lines". It requires disciples who will cause their light to shine where people live and die.
We are the salt of the earth.
We are the light of the world.
We are the thermostats in a world of varying temperatures.
We are the infectious disease that God wants all people to catch.
We are the transmission lines, the transformers, that God has chosen.
We are the singers of the songs of the Lord.
And what in all this does God ask of us? The God who puts his light into us. The God who seasons us with his presence. The God who imparts his song into our hearts?
God asks very little. All he wants is that we be what we he has made us to be.
The power is, after all, his.
The light comes from him.
The seasoning is mined from his word, and the song is first sung by his lips.
All God asks is that we follow him, and witness to him as faithfully as we can.
And we can do that easily. All we need do is remember a simple fact, and do a simple deed.
The simple fact is this:
God makes us the salt of the earth. Salt, however, does not exist for its own sake. No one sits down to eat salt and salt alone. Salt is a seasoning meant to be applied to something, it is meant to penetrate and preserve and flavour the food that people eat. And in the same way light is not meant to be looked at, it is not meant to be covered and treasured like some precious object, it is given so that people might see what is around them and walk in safety, it is meant to penetrate and overcome darkness.
In other words we are saved - not just for ourselves, but to do the work of God.
And the simple thing we can do is this - we can stand up for our faith in God. And we can stand upon our faith in God.
When we do so - when we stand up and stand on - when we believe and act in faith, then we will be full of light, and of power, and of grace, we will be beacons in a dark place, and praise and glory unto God will be the result
We have God's word on it, that word by which we were made, and by which all life is given.
Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father in heaven. Amen!
Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a lighthouse that sat on a rocky shore and helped ships get through the water safely without hitting any big nasty rocks. One day the lighthouse operator became sick and a temporary substitute was put in charge of the lighthouse. While he was there tending the lighthouse a big storm blew up and sand and branches and all kinds of things were flying around in the wind. The temporary lighthouse keeper got out a big piece of canvas and covered up the lantern so it would not get wet or damaged in the storm. That night a ship blew upon the rocks and sank with all hands.
Sounds silly doesn't it - I mean - who, as Jesus puts it, lights a lamp and then put it under a bowl?
Shortly after my confirmation a question was put to me that I would like to ask you today - a friend at that church asked me - "What are you? Are you a thermometer or a thermostat?
I was a little bit slow that day - I couldn't figure out what he was driving at - so I asked him a simple question in return: "What the are you talking about?!
Edwin, he said - a thermometer reflects its environment, it shows what the temperature is, if its hot outside - it says its hot; if its cold, it says its cold; it exerts no influence on what's around it - rather it is influenced by it; but not so a thermostat. A thermostat has power, it sets the temperature, it changes things.
So - what are you? A thermometer, or a thermostat?
What a great question! It is one that Jesus puts to his disciples in today's reading when he says:
"You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven."
Think about it for a minute - Jesus tells us - "You are the salt of the earth..." And again, "You are the light of the world".
What an incredible thing that is! What an incredible gift! Somehow - because of who God has made us. Somehow - because of our decision to follow Jesus we are made into salt - into light - for the world.
That is the beautiful realty of what God does to us, in fact it is the most important thing that God does through us, when we live by our faith.
Think of the people who have touched you, the people who first spoke to your yearning heart, the people who first, because of their love and care for you, inspired you to believe in the God of Love.
Did they not light up your life? Did they not bring new savour and zest to the diet you once lived on? Did they not penetrate and change your lives with their care and concern and honesty? just as the presence of Jesus changed the life of Peter and John and James?
The divine is a light within us, and faith is the match that sets it glowing.
We are here today because the light of God has come into our life. The only question we need to address is - what are we going to do with that light?
Some time ago at a Bible Study someone asked the group:
Do you know what Christianity is? It is a wildly infectious disease. When you got a good case of it everyone around gets it too. The only problem is - so many people try to cure it...
People cure faith by stifling it and by ignoring it and by hiding it. They destroy faith by living like thermometers rather than like thermostats.
It doesn't take much to be a thermometer you know, all you have to do is be agreeable. All you have to do is to go along with what everyone else wants. All you have to do is think of your own comfort and ease.
When others around you are scoffing and mocking - all you need do is be quiet, to not make waves - you may even perhaps join with them in a gentle put down.
When someone is being racist and intolerant all you have to do is be silent about how in Christ there is no Jew nor Gentile, no Pakistanis nor Arabs....
When someone is hurt and alone, or feeling offended or betrayed, or simply depressed, all you have to do is walk on by - all you have to do is go on doing what you were doing before, as if nothing was happening that needed your attention.
All you have to do to be a thermometer - is go with the flow, to not speak about God's power and love, to not witness by your deeds to God's grace and mercy.
Reginald Bibby, a well known sociologist said in one of his books he examined the various churches in a certain part of North America, he polled their members and he polled a large number of non-Christians and he discovered an amazing fact - a disturbing fact:
He discovered that on almost all major social and political issues Christians did not differ in their opinions from non-Christians.
Bibby concludes his book by saying that the reason that the Christian church is dying in North America is because it does not offer anything that anyone else does not offer.
Indeed, Bibby continues - the very things that make the church unique - most of the established churches refuse to talk about - they would rather talk about psychology than about faith, and about the need for politic reform rather than about spiritual change.
Bibby, with the tools of modern social science echoes the statement of the 19th century philosopher and sceptic Frederick Nietzsche. Nietzsche said this about the churches of his day:
"They must sing better songs, ere I learn belief in their Saviour. They must act like they are redeemed before I will believe in their redeemer."
Well, we have great songs - but where do we sing them?...Are we like the Israelites at the time of the prophet Isaiah? Do we only sing the songs of the Lord when we are in church? Do we only sing about our faith when we want something from God?
Are we like those who believe quietly and only when it is safe? Or do we sing loudly and cheerfully and triumphantly in public? In those places where those who sing only the songs of the devil will be confronted; where those who hear only the songs of despair can at last know that there is hope; where those who have only the songs of self-hatred to listen to can, at last, hear that they are loved?
In the winter of 1978 a very heavy snow storm struck the city of Boston. It lasted a week, and during part of that time the power went off. While the power was off a number of things happened.
A man got lost trying to find his way to an unfamiliar section of the city. He almost froze to death wandering around the streets, until he happened upon a place he knew.
An elderly woman whose house was without power went through a night of terror. Of fragile health, she sometimes suffered hallucinations. Alone in her dark home her imagination distorted all the sounds of the wind and storm into signals of some kind of attack upon her.
In a house just a block away from her - a man died when the equipment he relied upon to breath failed to function.
A few blocks away, made bold by the darkness, vandals broke into an appliance store and carried off a lot of valuable merchandise.
The reality of one part of this parable I am telling you will help make all the rest clear.
The reality was that the Boston Edison Power Company had sufficient power in its generating system to meet all the needs of the city. The problem was in one simple transformer in the main plant and with the transmission lines from a substation.
This is like Christ and us as his disciples - we who are the light of the world.
Christ is indeed the one who shines with God's light.
But just as the whole city of Boston does not live in the generating plant itself, no more can people live in the immediate presence of their source of divine energy. Power has to come out into the world were they live.
That requires "transformers" and "transmission lines". It requires disciples who will cause their light to shine where people live and die.
We are the salt of the earth.
We are the light of the world.
We are the thermostats in a world of varying temperatures.
We are the infectious disease that God wants all people to catch.
We are the transmission lines, the transformers, that God has chosen.
We are the singers of the songs of the Lord.
And what in all this does God ask of us? The God who puts his light into us. The God who seasons us with his presence. The God who imparts his song into our hearts?
God asks very little. All he wants is that we be what we he has made us to be.
The power is, after all, his.
The light comes from him.
The seasoning is mined from his word, and the song is first sung by his lips.
All God asks is that we follow him, and witness to him as faithfully as we can.
And we can do that easily. All we need do is remember a simple fact, and do a simple deed.
The simple fact is this:
God makes us the salt of the earth. Salt, however, does not exist for its own sake. No one sits down to eat salt and salt alone. Salt is a seasoning meant to be applied to something, it is meant to penetrate and preserve and flavour the food that people eat. And in the same way light is not meant to be looked at, it is not meant to be covered and treasured like some precious object, it is given so that people might see what is around them and walk in safety, it is meant to penetrate and overcome darkness.
In other words we are saved - not just for ourselves, but to do the work of God.
And the simple thing we can do is this - we can stand up for our faith in God. And we can stand upon our faith in God.
When we do so - when we stand up and stand on - when we believe and act in faith, then we will be full of light, and of power, and of grace, we will be beacons in a dark place, and praise and glory unto God will be the result
We have God's word on it, that word by which we were made, and by which all life is given.
Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father in heaven. Amen!
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1; Luke 6:17-26
Lead us, O God, to streams of living water. Speak to us in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the meditations of our hearts. Bring us freshness, new growth and vitality, that we may be fruitful for thee, our rock and our redeemer.
Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev in the Ukraine, used to say that he had discovered the meaning of love from a drunken peasant.
The rabbi was visiting the owner of a tavern in the Polish countryside. As he walked in, he saw two peasants at a table. Both were gloriously in their cups. Arms around each other, they were protesting how much each loved the other.
Suddenly Ivan said to Peter; "Peter, tell me, what hurts me?'
Bleary-eyed, Peter looked at Ivan: "How do I know what hurts you?"
Ivan's answer was swift: "If you don't know what hurts me, how can you say you love me?"
In today's Gospel reading , we hear gives Luke's version of the beatitudes. It is a version that is strikingly different from that found in the Gospel according to Matthew.
Instead of Matthew's eight statements concerning those whom God will bless Luke gives four beatitudes - four statements concerning those who are blessed.
The four blessings at first glance seem familiar enough:
Blessed are you who are poor,
blessed are you who are hungry,
blessed are you who weep.
blessed are you when people hate you and revile and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
But then Luke goes on and instead of listing four more beatitudes - he lists four woes - four disturbing statements concerning those whom God will afflict.
Woe to you who are rich now.
Woe to you are full now.
Woe to you who are laughing now.
Woe to you when all speak well of you.
That my friend's is incredible stuff, upsetting stuff, stuff that the rich and the full and the happy and the well thought of do not want to believe - and can you blame them?
Think about what the average person in our society works for.
Think about what you work for....
And then consider the scripture you have just heard.
I think most of us in this world are prepared to accept that the God will bless the poor and the hungry. There is a part of us that is, in fact, relieved by this idea. It kind of takes some of the pressure off us doesn't it?
We like too the idea that God will comfort those who mourn - and the idea that those who do right and are hated for it will receive a reward from God is not unpleasant to our ears. We can imagine, after all, ourselves in the position of needing some of that comfort - and we know that doing right isn't always rewarded by those around us - so it is good to know that God will set the record straight.
But the idea that the riches we have - may lead to our being cursed by God, and that the food we have - may be taken from us, and the joy we have - may be replaced by sorrow, and the good name we enjoy - may be considered to be an evil, well that is a different kettle of fish isn't it?.
And so it is meant to be.
You know I can't count the number of times I have heard people, when discussing the beatitudes, say things like:
"well, you know, the poor - in some ways they are better off than the rich. They have to work together. They know just how good a meal tastes. They are more connected to God, because God is all they have."
You ever hear stuff like that?
There is, I suppose, a certain truth to it. But it all too quickly can sound like being poor is a good thing. And if that is so - why then don't those people who say those things sell what they have and give it to the poor, and follow Jesus - as Jesus told the rich young ruler to do?
No my friends - poverty - thirst - weeping - and persecution are not good things, and those who are poor and thirty and mourning and persecuted are not told by Jesus that they are blessed because poverty and thirst and sorrow and persecution are, in some fashion a blessing; rather Jesus tells them and us today that they are blessed because God loves them and because it is God's will that they have a full place in his Kingdom.
You must remember my friends that in the popular understanding of things those who have wealth and health have it for one of two reasons - they have it because they have worked hard for it - or they have it because they are "blessed by God". Often we think it is a combination of these two things. We are blessed by God because we do things that are pleasing to God.
Equally we normally think of misery as being self induced - or as being God's punishment on those who are not following in his way - the poor are poor because they are lazy or their parents were lazy - and the poor nations - well they are poor because they have the wrong kind of values, because they fight with each other, or squander their resources, or whatever.
Indeed - when you read Psalm One, or the Prophet Jeremiah as we did today, it is easy to get into that frame of mind. The bible often speaks of prosperity as coming on the heels of obedience to God - and of unhappiness and misery as coming about as the result of disobedience.
And common sense tells us that this is the case as well.
God, after all, is not mocked. And his word is not void.
Just as when you jump off a cliff you will crash down to the ground, so when you turn your back on the Spiritual principles of life you will end up in misery.
And just as when you sow a crop of corn and corn is produced rather than tomatoes, so when you live by the love of God the love of God will be seen in you and what you do.
So it becomes all too easy for us to look out on the world and blame the poor and the thirsty and the persecuted and the sorrowful for their own plight.
Either way - by the route of blaming the poor for their own situation - or by the route of saying that somehow the situation being poor is better than, or at least as good as the situation of being rich, we can easily let ourselves off the hook of really caring for those around us; of really regarding the less fortunate as people equal to ourselves in every way save that they need a portion of that which we already have.
I would like to share with you something called the Parable of the Pit. Some of you have heard it before - others have not. It goes on a bit - but that is part of it's effect. Perhaps you all can help me fill in the blanks.... It starts like this:
A man fell into a pit and could not get himself out.
A SUBJECTIVE person saw him and said, "I feel for you down there."
An OBJECTIVE person happened along and said, "It's logical that someone would fall, down there."
A CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST came along and said, "You only think that you're in a pit."
A PHARISEE said............... "Only bad people fall into a pit".
A ROCK HOUND asked........ "Are there any rare specimens in the pit?"
A NEWS REPORTER asked...... "Can I have the exclusive story on your pit?"
A FUNDAMENTALIST said....... "You deserve your pit."
CONFUCIOUS said, "If you would have listened to me, you would not be in that pit."
BUDDHA said to him, "Your pit is only a state of mind."
A REALIST happened along and said, "Now THAT'S a pit!"
A SCIENTIST saw him and said..... "I'll calculate the pressure necessary (pounds/square inches) to get you out of the pit.
A GEOLOGIST said..... "Just appreciate the rock strata in your pit."
An EVOLUTIONIST happened along and said, "You're a rejected mutant destined to die in that pit, before you product any pit-falling offspring."
A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL asked........ "Are you paying taxes on your pit?"
The LAND USE INSPECTOR asked, "Did you have a permit to dig a pit?"
A PROFESSOR gave him a lecture on "The Elementary Principles of a Pit"."
An EVASIVE PERSON talked to him and avoided the subject of the pit altogether.
A SELF-PITYING PERSON said..... "You haven't seen anything until you've see MY pit!"
An ODDS-MAKER noted..... "Chances are that anyone could fall into a pit."
An OPTIMIST said, "Things could be worse."
A PESSIMIST said, "Things WILL get worse!"
But JESUS, seeing the man........" took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit."
My friends, when we are confronted by the beatitudes we are confronted with the love of God: a love that - as we sang before this sermon - takes us just as we are, and so also takes the poor, the thirsty, the sorrowful, those who are despised just as they are.
Some ago we read the passage that is often called Jesus' mission statement, that statement from the prophet Isaiah - that goes:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me top proclaim release to the captives and recovery of site to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.
God's love extends to everyone my friends - the beatitudes confront us with this fact.
They also confront us with the fact that the rich, the well feed, the joyful and the well thought of persons among us may have forgotten the fundamentals concerning God's love - they may have forgotten just what it is that hurts God - how God is pained by disease when there is so much medicine close to hand - how God suffers when millions starve while enough food to feed them rots in corporate warehouses - how God is horrified by indifference and by a society that blames victims rather than helping them.
God is not against wealth or those who have full bellies. Nor does God condemn those who experience joyfulness or have good reputations.
But God does reminds us today - through the words of Jesus - and Jeremiah and David that there are two paths in this life, a choice of two roads that we can walk.
One path leads to life - the other leads to death.
The path to death is to rejoice in the blessings rather than in the one who blesses us, it is to seek the goodies that God gives rather than the to seek to do the good that God does.
The path of life - is the path of Jesus - who not counting equality with God a thing to be grasped, emptied himself and taking on human form, humbled himself, and became obedient to point of death even death on a cross.
You who are in need today - rejoice - for God will bless you, God loves you - and counts you as part of his chosen people, your time of suffering will come to an end.
You have abundance today - consider your brothers and sisters and how it is that Jesus gave himself for them - as he gave himself for you, and love them - love them deeply - love them with all you have, for in that love all the law and the prophets is fulfilled.
May His Name be praised day by day. Amen!
Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev in the Ukraine, used to say that he had discovered the meaning of love from a drunken peasant.
The rabbi was visiting the owner of a tavern in the Polish countryside. As he walked in, he saw two peasants at a table. Both were gloriously in their cups. Arms around each other, they were protesting how much each loved the other.
Suddenly Ivan said to Peter; "Peter, tell me, what hurts me?'
Bleary-eyed, Peter looked at Ivan: "How do I know what hurts you?"
Ivan's answer was swift: "If you don't know what hurts me, how can you say you love me?"
In today's Gospel reading , we hear gives Luke's version of the beatitudes. It is a version that is strikingly different from that found in the Gospel according to Matthew.
Instead of Matthew's eight statements concerning those whom God will bless Luke gives four beatitudes - four statements concerning those who are blessed.
The four blessings at first glance seem familiar enough:
Blessed are you who are poor,
blessed are you who are hungry,
blessed are you who weep.
blessed are you when people hate you and revile and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
But then Luke goes on and instead of listing four more beatitudes - he lists four woes - four disturbing statements concerning those whom God will afflict.
Woe to you who are rich now.
Woe to you are full now.
Woe to you who are laughing now.
Woe to you when all speak well of you.
That my friend's is incredible stuff, upsetting stuff, stuff that the rich and the full and the happy and the well thought of do not want to believe - and can you blame them?
Think about what the average person in our society works for.
Think about what you work for....
And then consider the scripture you have just heard.
I think most of us in this world are prepared to accept that the God will bless the poor and the hungry. There is a part of us that is, in fact, relieved by this idea. It kind of takes some of the pressure off us doesn't it?
We like too the idea that God will comfort those who mourn - and the idea that those who do right and are hated for it will receive a reward from God is not unpleasant to our ears. We can imagine, after all, ourselves in the position of needing some of that comfort - and we know that doing right isn't always rewarded by those around us - so it is good to know that God will set the record straight.
But the idea that the riches we have - may lead to our being cursed by God, and that the food we have - may be taken from us, and the joy we have - may be replaced by sorrow, and the good name we enjoy - may be considered to be an evil, well that is a different kettle of fish isn't it?.
And so it is meant to be.
You know I can't count the number of times I have heard people, when discussing the beatitudes, say things like:
"well, you know, the poor - in some ways they are better off than the rich. They have to work together. They know just how good a meal tastes. They are more connected to God, because God is all they have."
You ever hear stuff like that?
There is, I suppose, a certain truth to it. But it all too quickly can sound like being poor is a good thing. And if that is so - why then don't those people who say those things sell what they have and give it to the poor, and follow Jesus - as Jesus told the rich young ruler to do?
No my friends - poverty - thirst - weeping - and persecution are not good things, and those who are poor and thirty and mourning and persecuted are not told by Jesus that they are blessed because poverty and thirst and sorrow and persecution are, in some fashion a blessing; rather Jesus tells them and us today that they are blessed because God loves them and because it is God's will that they have a full place in his Kingdom.
You must remember my friends that in the popular understanding of things those who have wealth and health have it for one of two reasons - they have it because they have worked hard for it - or they have it because they are "blessed by God". Often we think it is a combination of these two things. We are blessed by God because we do things that are pleasing to God.
Equally we normally think of misery as being self induced - or as being God's punishment on those who are not following in his way - the poor are poor because they are lazy or their parents were lazy - and the poor nations - well they are poor because they have the wrong kind of values, because they fight with each other, or squander their resources, or whatever.
Indeed - when you read Psalm One, or the Prophet Jeremiah as we did today, it is easy to get into that frame of mind. The bible often speaks of prosperity as coming on the heels of obedience to God - and of unhappiness and misery as coming about as the result of disobedience.
And common sense tells us that this is the case as well.
God, after all, is not mocked. And his word is not void.
Just as when you jump off a cliff you will crash down to the ground, so when you turn your back on the Spiritual principles of life you will end up in misery.
And just as when you sow a crop of corn and corn is produced rather than tomatoes, so when you live by the love of God the love of God will be seen in you and what you do.
So it becomes all too easy for us to look out on the world and blame the poor and the thirsty and the persecuted and the sorrowful for their own plight.
Either way - by the route of blaming the poor for their own situation - or by the route of saying that somehow the situation being poor is better than, or at least as good as the situation of being rich, we can easily let ourselves off the hook of really caring for those around us; of really regarding the less fortunate as people equal to ourselves in every way save that they need a portion of that which we already have.
I would like to share with you something called the Parable of the Pit. Some of you have heard it before - others have not. It goes on a bit - but that is part of it's effect. Perhaps you all can help me fill in the blanks.... It starts like this:
A man fell into a pit and could not get himself out.
A SUBJECTIVE person saw him and said, "I feel for you down there."
An OBJECTIVE person happened along and said, "It's logical that someone would fall, down there."
A CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST came along and said, "You only think that you're in a pit."
A PHARISEE said............... "Only bad people fall into a pit".
A ROCK HOUND asked........ "Are there any rare specimens in the pit?"
A NEWS REPORTER asked...... "Can I have the exclusive story on your pit?"
A FUNDAMENTALIST said....... "You deserve your pit."
CONFUCIOUS said, "If you would have listened to me, you would not be in that pit."
BUDDHA said to him, "Your pit is only a state of mind."
A REALIST happened along and said, "Now THAT'S a pit!"
A SCIENTIST saw him and said..... "I'll calculate the pressure necessary (pounds/square inches) to get you out of the pit.
A GEOLOGIST said..... "Just appreciate the rock strata in your pit."
An EVOLUTIONIST happened along and said, "You're a rejected mutant destined to die in that pit, before you product any pit-falling offspring."
A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL asked........ "Are you paying taxes on your pit?"
The LAND USE INSPECTOR asked, "Did you have a permit to dig a pit?"
A PROFESSOR gave him a lecture on "The Elementary Principles of a Pit"."
An EVASIVE PERSON talked to him and avoided the subject of the pit altogether.
A SELF-PITYING PERSON said..... "You haven't seen anything until you've see MY pit!"
An ODDS-MAKER noted..... "Chances are that anyone could fall into a pit."
An OPTIMIST said, "Things could be worse."
A PESSIMIST said, "Things WILL get worse!"
But JESUS, seeing the man........" took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit."
My friends, when we are confronted by the beatitudes we are confronted with the love of God: a love that - as we sang before this sermon - takes us just as we are, and so also takes the poor, the thirsty, the sorrowful, those who are despised just as they are.
Some ago we read the passage that is often called Jesus' mission statement, that statement from the prophet Isaiah - that goes:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me top proclaim release to the captives and recovery of site to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.
God's love extends to everyone my friends - the beatitudes confront us with this fact.
They also confront us with the fact that the rich, the well feed, the joyful and the well thought of persons among us may have forgotten the fundamentals concerning God's love - they may have forgotten just what it is that hurts God - how God is pained by disease when there is so much medicine close to hand - how God suffers when millions starve while enough food to feed them rots in corporate warehouses - how God is horrified by indifference and by a society that blames victims rather than helping them.
God is not against wealth or those who have full bellies. Nor does God condemn those who experience joyfulness or have good reputations.
But God does reminds us today - through the words of Jesus - and Jeremiah and David that there are two paths in this life, a choice of two roads that we can walk.
One path leads to life - the other leads to death.
The path to death is to rejoice in the blessings rather than in the one who blesses us, it is to seek the goodies that God gives rather than the to seek to do the good that God does.
The path of life - is the path of Jesus - who not counting equality with God a thing to be grasped, emptied himself and taking on human form, humbled himself, and became obedient to point of death even death on a cross.
You who are in need today - rejoice - for God will bless you, God loves you - and counts you as part of his chosen people, your time of suffering will come to an end.
You have abundance today - consider your brothers and sisters and how it is that Jesus gave himself for them - as he gave himself for you, and love them - love them deeply - love them with all you have, for in that love all the law and the prophets is fulfilled.
May His Name be praised day by day. Amen!
Sunday, February 2, 2014
I Corinthians 1:18-31; Psalm 15; Matthew 5:1-12
O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
"For consider your call, brothers and sisters, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are..."
Consider your call. Consider who you were - who you are - and what God has promised to do for you and through you.
And consider too these words:
"The message of cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.... For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."
What God has chosen is a confounding thing. A thing which overturns the wisdom of the world. A thing which overturns all social expectation, all scientifically determined truths, all human strength and power - and establishes in its place the inexplicable.
Blessed are the poor in Spirit - Blessed are they that mourn - Blessed are the meek. Blessed are they who are persecuted because of righteousness. Blessed are you when people insult you and say all manner of evil against you falsely because of me...
That which God has chosen - that which God blesses - is not what the world would choose or what the world would bless - and God states that straight up front when he says: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
God has chosen you:
- you with your worries and anxieties about the future
- you with your secondary school education
- you with your bad back and your aching neck and feet
- you with your private thoughts - and your secret past
- you with your desperate needs and your hidden fears,
just as he chose so long ago Peter with his bull headed stubborn bravado - and Matthew with his unsavoury background as a tax-collector - Simon, with his reputation as a Zealot - and James and John, two fishermen with a strange ambition to somehow be first in the Kingdom they thought Jesus was going to establish somewhere in the middle of the Roman Empire.
The Lord chose nobodies to be the first to know his teaching, the first to witness his miracles, and the first to spread the good news - the good news concerning the message of the cross - the good news that God has acted to bring salvation to the world and that all we have to do is to believe and trust in him.
God chose nobodies to be the first to know and to spread the good news that eventually would change the world.
We all look my brother and sisters-in-Christ, for salvation - for wholeness.
But some look, not to God, but to other things, they look not to faith in Christ Jesus and in the message of the cross, but to programs and blueprints and clever items of organization, to doctors and lawyers and those wise in the ways of science and technology.
They look for better jobs, bigger pay cheques, more interesting hobbies, different marriage partners, and while all these things have an appearance of wisdom, while they all, in turn, may indeed be very good and even very necessary things they do not save anyone - often they do not even make us very happy...
In Corinth the church was divided in various factions and groups as the people there became captivated by one or another viewpoint concerning what was good and what was true and what was of saving benefit.
As we heard of how some boasted of how they followed Apollos, how he had the better way - and indeed Apollos was an eloquent and persuasive person, a person who planted many seeds of faith in the lives of others.
Others thought the way the message was preached by Peter was best that heeding him was the only thing to do - that because he was one of the twelve he should be heeded before all others - and so it went.
There was a group of people who insisted that all moral codes were irrelevant because the written law had been superceded by the spiritual law of freedom and of life, and others who were incredibly strict about what a person could or could not do - for the exactly same reason, and they argued back and forth incessantly about who was right and who was wrong and whether or not it affected one's status in the eyes of God, whether or not it affected one's salvation or the salvation of the entire community.
In our day and age and after over 2000 years of faith in Christ Jesus you might think that we are exempt from such disputes - from such misunderstandings about what is important and what is helpful to us before God - but sadly we are not.
There are still those who believe that all the problems that they have and all the problems that our church and our community and indeed Hong Kong has can be solved by following one political party instead of another; that they can be solved by challenging or blackmailing the Central Government of China by the unlawful act of occupying Central - or by promoting one kind of theology or promoting one particular way of doing things over another.
There are still those who believe that if they could only change the programs that are offered, if they could only do things in a modern manner - or if they could only do them in the old fashioned way - or if they could only do them in the way that they are personally comfortable with that everything would be fine in the church or in their lodge or club - or even in their families...
I do not know, my brothers and sisters-in-Christ, if the message of the cross is modern or old fashioned. But I do know that it isn't always comfortable.
It isn't always comfortable because it tells us that we are a people in desperate need - that we are a people who easily descend to acts of rejection - and ultimately to violence - to silence the voices we do not like to hear.
The message of the cross isn't always comfortable because it tells us not just that we are forgiven by God, but because it tells us well that we need forgiving in the first place.
And because it tells us that salvation is not something that we can win or earn, but rather that it is something free and gracious and ultimately only available to those who are humble enough and hungry enough to accept it.
Some people don't like that.
They think that they are pretty good, that they have good ideas, and that while they are not perfect, they still have a valuable contribution to make, one that will help set things straight - and well they might; but as long as you think that it is from you or from some other human agency or effort that the goodness comes - that healing power comes, you are missing the good news concerning the cross of Jesus Christ - you are missing all the marvellous freedom that comes when you embrace the truth concerning God's love.
Consider your calling my brothers and sisters.
Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are..."
These words do not mean that God does not use people of status and stature as well.
"He does - but only, remarkably enough, when they have learned that their usefulness does not derive from their position or their abilities, but rather from his presence in their lives."
It is God's presence that makes the difference. And it is to God that we should turn when we have a problem, or when we are looking to promote healing and wholeness in ourselves and in those around us.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who was for many years an outstanding pastor in London, England, says this:
"We Christians often quote 'not by might nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord,' and yet in practice we seem to rely upon the mighty dollar and the power of the press and advertising. We seem to think that our influence will depend on our technique and the program we can put forward and that it would be the numbers, the largeness, the bigness that would prove effective. We seem to have forgotten that God has done most of his deeds in the church throughout its history through remnants. We seem to have forgotten the great story of Gideon, for instance, and how God insisted on reducing the 32,000 men down to 300 before he would make use of them. We have become fascinated by the idea of bigness, and we are quite convinced that if we can only stage, yes, that's the word, stage something really big before the world, we will shake it and produce a mighty religious awakening. That seems to be the modern conception of authority."
There are many different things that we turn to for salvation - many different things that we seek out as a means of solving our problems - both those that are personal - and those that linked to our life together as a church or as a community.
"I find people everywhere who seem to think that it takes money to do God's work, that nothing can happen unless you get money first - "If we could only get so much money, then we could begin a great ministry." It seems to me that is a reversal of the whole position of scripture, for in scripture you do not begin with money, you begin with ministry. Anybody can be a minister of God. That is the glory of the Church, because God has put us all in the ministry. If you begin to do what God wants you to do, right where you are, and God begins to work through you, all the money that is ever necessary, will come.
God has chosen what seems foolishness and weak to save the world. He has chosen to use the way of faith and of trust to bless the world. And he calls us to rely upon him, and his Spirit, his presence in our lives, for everything.
He calls us to understand that
- no programs and devices,
- no surveys and samples
- no methods of government or organization
- no raw use of power
- or clever use of technology
- no fund raising nor system of taxation
- no single leader or person
can gain us what we need, what we all need.
What the Lord requires - what we require - is that we act justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
Believe my friends
- believe that God can help
- believe that only God can help
- and believe that God does help
and ask him to do so - ask him, and seek to follow the in the way of Christ - in the way of justice and mercy and salvation will come to you - and to your household - and indeed to the church and the world.
Blessed Be God, Day by Day, Amen
"For consider your call, brothers and sisters, not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are..."
Consider your call. Consider who you were - who you are - and what God has promised to do for you and through you.
And consider too these words:
"The message of cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.... For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."
What God has chosen is a confounding thing. A thing which overturns the wisdom of the world. A thing which overturns all social expectation, all scientifically determined truths, all human strength and power - and establishes in its place the inexplicable.
Blessed are the poor in Spirit - Blessed are they that mourn - Blessed are the meek. Blessed are they who are persecuted because of righteousness. Blessed are you when people insult you and say all manner of evil against you falsely because of me...
That which God has chosen - that which God blesses - is not what the world would choose or what the world would bless - and God states that straight up front when he says: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
God has chosen you:
- you with your worries and anxieties about the future
- you with your secondary school education
- you with your bad back and your aching neck and feet
- you with your private thoughts - and your secret past
- you with your desperate needs and your hidden fears,
just as he chose so long ago Peter with his bull headed stubborn bravado - and Matthew with his unsavoury background as a tax-collector - Simon, with his reputation as a Zealot - and James and John, two fishermen with a strange ambition to somehow be first in the Kingdom they thought Jesus was going to establish somewhere in the middle of the Roman Empire.
The Lord chose nobodies to be the first to know his teaching, the first to witness his miracles, and the first to spread the good news - the good news concerning the message of the cross - the good news that God has acted to bring salvation to the world and that all we have to do is to believe and trust in him.
God chose nobodies to be the first to know and to spread the good news that eventually would change the world.
We all look my brother and sisters-in-Christ, for salvation - for wholeness.
But some look, not to God, but to other things, they look not to faith in Christ Jesus and in the message of the cross, but to programs and blueprints and clever items of organization, to doctors and lawyers and those wise in the ways of science and technology.
They look for better jobs, bigger pay cheques, more interesting hobbies, different marriage partners, and while all these things have an appearance of wisdom, while they all, in turn, may indeed be very good and even very necessary things they do not save anyone - often they do not even make us very happy...
In Corinth the church was divided in various factions and groups as the people there became captivated by one or another viewpoint concerning what was good and what was true and what was of saving benefit.
As we heard of how some boasted of how they followed Apollos, how he had the better way - and indeed Apollos was an eloquent and persuasive person, a person who planted many seeds of faith in the lives of others.
Others thought the way the message was preached by Peter was best that heeding him was the only thing to do - that because he was one of the twelve he should be heeded before all others - and so it went.
There was a group of people who insisted that all moral codes were irrelevant because the written law had been superceded by the spiritual law of freedom and of life, and others who were incredibly strict about what a person could or could not do - for the exactly same reason, and they argued back and forth incessantly about who was right and who was wrong and whether or not it affected one's status in the eyes of God, whether or not it affected one's salvation or the salvation of the entire community.
In our day and age and after over 2000 years of faith in Christ Jesus you might think that we are exempt from such disputes - from such misunderstandings about what is important and what is helpful to us before God - but sadly we are not.
There are still those who believe that all the problems that they have and all the problems that our church and our community and indeed Hong Kong has can be solved by following one political party instead of another; that they can be solved by challenging or blackmailing the Central Government of China by the unlawful act of occupying Central - or by promoting one kind of theology or promoting one particular way of doing things over another.
There are still those who believe that if they could only change the programs that are offered, if they could only do things in a modern manner - or if they could only do them in the old fashioned way - or if they could only do them in the way that they are personally comfortable with that everything would be fine in the church or in their lodge or club - or even in their families...
I do not know, my brothers and sisters-in-Christ, if the message of the cross is modern or old fashioned. But I do know that it isn't always comfortable.
It isn't always comfortable because it tells us that we are a people in desperate need - that we are a people who easily descend to acts of rejection - and ultimately to violence - to silence the voices we do not like to hear.
The message of the cross isn't always comfortable because it tells us not just that we are forgiven by God, but because it tells us well that we need forgiving in the first place.
And because it tells us that salvation is not something that we can win or earn, but rather that it is something free and gracious and ultimately only available to those who are humble enough and hungry enough to accept it.
Some people don't like that.
They think that they are pretty good, that they have good ideas, and that while they are not perfect, they still have a valuable contribution to make, one that will help set things straight - and well they might; but as long as you think that it is from you or from some other human agency or effort that the goodness comes - that healing power comes, you are missing the good news concerning the cross of Jesus Christ - you are missing all the marvellous freedom that comes when you embrace the truth concerning God's love.
Consider your calling my brothers and sisters.
Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are..."
These words do not mean that God does not use people of status and stature as well.
"He does - but only, remarkably enough, when they have learned that their usefulness does not derive from their position or their abilities, but rather from his presence in their lives."
It is God's presence that makes the difference. And it is to God that we should turn when we have a problem, or when we are looking to promote healing and wholeness in ourselves and in those around us.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who was for many years an outstanding pastor in London, England, says this:
"We Christians often quote 'not by might nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord,' and yet in practice we seem to rely upon the mighty dollar and the power of the press and advertising. We seem to think that our influence will depend on our technique and the program we can put forward and that it would be the numbers, the largeness, the bigness that would prove effective. We seem to have forgotten that God has done most of his deeds in the church throughout its history through remnants. We seem to have forgotten the great story of Gideon, for instance, and how God insisted on reducing the 32,000 men down to 300 before he would make use of them. We have become fascinated by the idea of bigness, and we are quite convinced that if we can only stage, yes, that's the word, stage something really big before the world, we will shake it and produce a mighty religious awakening. That seems to be the modern conception of authority."
There are many different things that we turn to for salvation - many different things that we seek out as a means of solving our problems - both those that are personal - and those that linked to our life together as a church or as a community.
"I find people everywhere who seem to think that it takes money to do God's work, that nothing can happen unless you get money first - "If we could only get so much money, then we could begin a great ministry." It seems to me that is a reversal of the whole position of scripture, for in scripture you do not begin with money, you begin with ministry. Anybody can be a minister of God. That is the glory of the Church, because God has put us all in the ministry. If you begin to do what God wants you to do, right where you are, and God begins to work through you, all the money that is ever necessary, will come.
God has chosen what seems foolishness and weak to save the world. He has chosen to use the way of faith and of trust to bless the world. And he calls us to rely upon him, and his Spirit, his presence in our lives, for everything.
He calls us to understand that
- no programs and devices,
- no surveys and samples
- no methods of government or organization
- no raw use of power
- or clever use of technology
- no fund raising nor system of taxation
- no single leader or person
can gain us what we need, what we all need.
What the Lord requires - what we require - is that we act justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
Believe my friends
- believe that God can help
- believe that only God can help
- and believe that God does help
and ask him to do so - ask him, and seek to follow the in the way of Christ - in the way of justice and mercy and salvation will come to you - and to your household - and indeed to the church and the world.
Blessed Be God, Day by Day, Amen
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Isaiah 9:1-4, Psalm 27; I Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23
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.
When Christ called the first disciples he set himself a task - the task of making them into fishermen.
"As he walked by the Sea of Galilee he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea - for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "follow me, I will make you fish for people."
That is what God wants us all to do. It is what Jesus did - in Galilee and in Samaria and in Jordan and Judea and Jerusalem, and it's what we are supposed to do - in Kowloon, in the Outlying Islands and on Hong Kong Island.
We are supposed to fish for people, to seek to bring them into that great net known as the Kingdom of God - into that creel known as salvation, as redemption, as everlasting peace.
But are we? Are we fishing that is? And if we are fishing - who are we fishing for? For God and God's glory? For the sake of those we talk to each day? Or for ourselves and for the sake of those people to whom we are loyal - albeit in a worldly way?
There is so much power that flows when you witness to the love of God - when you share with others what it does for you and what it can do for them - when you have a chance to engage someone who is troubled, or curious, or hungry, and bring them before the one who can sooth their pain, satisfy their yearnings, and feed their soul.
I was talking to someone some time ago whose father is an alcoholic. She was sharing with me how her family coped with the problem - and naturally Alcoholics Anonymous came up in the conversation. From that it was but a short step to the concept of the Higher Power which is at the heart of that program - and then to the concept of believing that the Higher Power can help you with your problem and that one should surrender to that Power - to "Let go and let God."
What a prescription for life that is - and how wonderful it was to be able to share it - as any believing person is able to share it - whether or not they have read through the AA program.
It was wonderful to be able to share with someone that God is ready and able to help them.
There is power in witnessing - in sharing one's faith - in being a person who fishes for people, because there is power in the message and power in the God the message is about.
But sometimes we don't experience that - most often - perhaps - we don't experience that.
We don't experience the power and we don't succeed at the task of fishing for people - indeed most often we don't even begin that task, because we are involved with and committed to the wrong things.
Although every one of us believes in God - our energy - our focus - is all too often fixed elsewhere.
It is as if we belonged to another - and indeed we often do. We often belong to other things - to other people - to other teams - and God gets the short end.
But my friends, when God gets the short end from us, so do the people around us, so do our families, so does our church, and so do we ourselves.
When Paul wrote his First Letter to the Corinthians there were a lot of problems in the congregation.
There was arrogance, there was pride, there was indifference. There was gluttony and laziness and intolerance, and there was depression, and anger, and despair. And it all tracked itself down to one simple fact - the people in the congregation at Corinth had fixed their focus on themselves and on one another instead of fixing it on Christ and on the power of his cross.
That's not to suggest that the Corinthians never paid attention to God - or that they totally ignored Jesus. Far from it. It's simply to say that most of their attention went elsewhere.
Instead of using the Gospel as a filter by which to see the world around them and of asking God at each moment of decision to direct their words and their actions - they fell into their old routines, routines that are programmed into us by our genes and by the expectations that others have of us and by our own reluctance to really trust God for everything.
They relied upon the teachings of others for their own understanding of the Gospel. They formed loyalties with those who first showed them the love of God and quite naturally they defended those teachers when questioned about them. And because there was a contrary spirit in Corinth, they soon began to quarrel about who was better and who was worse - some saying Paul, others Apollos, and still others Cephas, and even some entered the fray saying that they belong to the party Christ and that he was, and therefore they were, better.
In short the Corinthians missed the point of what the Gospel is all about and instead of knowing the joy and the peace that comes with the fellowship of the faithful - instead of being powerful in their witness and being able to catch people for God - their congregational life collapsed and their sense of well being evaporated.
People complained about each other and about their leadership, they became confused about what was right and wrong, and they bickered about issues that made no sense then and even less now.
The King James Version of the Bible says that problems at Corinth could be traced to the believers there having a party spirit.
When I was younger I used to joke around a bit and say that this meant that the Corinthians stayed up too late and drank and danced a bit too much - that they played even more than they worked - but really it is no joking matter.
The Corinthians placed their loyalty in things other than the things of God - in persons other than the person of Jesus Christ, and they suffered because of it - they suffered a loss of power - they suffered a loss of love - they suffered a loss of joy in believing and in sharing.
The Corinthians did this
- they misplaced their loyalty
- they missed the point of the Gospel
- they formed up into party, cliques, and factions, not because they were wicked or mean or stupid, but because they looked elsewhere and forgot what they were to be about, because, most of all, they forgot who they believed in and what who they believed in was, and is, about.
The effective Christian life is based on three simple facts - the fact that God loves us unconditionally - the fact that apart from God we can do nothing that is worthwhile - and the fact that God is pleased to work through us if we allow him to, and around us if we will not.
Sometimes we look out upon our families, upon our congregation, or upon our club or lodge, or upon our place of employment and we say to ourselves - "things would be better if only Joe would cut x and y out", or "if only Nancy would do this or that everything would be fine".
Who hasn't heard the old song that is sung by close to everyone:
if only my father hadn't been so stern,
if only my parents hadn't gotten divorced
if only my mother had been more affectionate,
if only my high school had a better program
if only my boss wasn't such a boob.
Who do we belong to? What holds onto us because we hold on to it?
Do you look out and assign blame for what problems exist upon some people - and apportion credit for what good is happening to still others instead of alternately - either asking God to work through you to make things better or thanking God for making things as fine as they are.
Too many judge things, too many judge people just as they always used to instead of judging them by the standard show them by Christ when he went to the cross for them.
We prefer our friends to our enemies quite naturally. We prefer our comfort to our discomfort quite naturally. We would rather fit in than stand out. We would rather be praised than be criticized, and we would rather be served than serve - all quite naturally.
But we are not meant to be natural people any longer - we are meant to be the children of God - to be a spiritual people who live by spiritual principles, to be a people who live by the power of the cross of Christ rather than a people who live by the ways of the world.
Do you recall what it is like to wake up in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar place?
Sometimes a night light in the hall, providing a small amount of light, of security, against the darkness of the night. Sometimes a light has been left on in the hallway and its steady glow allows you to navigate safely when you have rise to raid the fridge or do what is necessary. And that's great.
But what foolishness it would be if you got up, as you do when you are at home, and, ignoring the fact of whether there is any light on or not, you try to navigate your way to the kitchen or the bathroom by making all the usual twist and turns. It's a sure fire way to experience some form of pain - I mean think of what happens if someone simply moves something in your home without telling you about it, if for some reason they leave the seat up instead of down, or some other unexpected thing...
But we do this all the time - in a metaphorical sense at least.
We forget that we have been called to a new way of living, and that we are meant to navigate our way through our new life by the light that God provides rather than by our old channel markers.
Do you have a problem - don't worry about fixing blame - check out the possible solutions in the word of God. Do we have something that is hampering our life together
- let not accuse one another
- lets pray together and then let's work the works that God calls us to, both individually and collectively.
The church at Corinth was a weak church.
It was weak because the people there forgot that they were called to a new way of life. It was weak because they forgot that the true and only real source of transforming and healing power comes from the cross of Jesus Christ.
And it was weak because they forgot that their sole and only task as his followers was to show his love to others - that they were to live in such a manner and to speak in such a manner that others might be touched by God - that others might know the lure - the attraction - the wonder of God through us -and so be moved to claim Christ as their own.
I started this message today by saying we are supposed to fish for people, to seek to bring them into that great net known as the Kingdom of God, into that creel known as salvation, as redemption - as everlasting peace.
That is, my friends, the central calling of every disciple and every apostle, and every teacher, and every evangelist, and indeed of everyone who bears the name of Christ.
And it is a wonderful calling - a calling in which we have the privilege of witnessing God at work - a calling in which we are shown a portion of the love and the joy that exists in heaven.
Turn to Christ and place your allegiance in his person your focus on his cross, your energy on his work, and all that God has in mind for you will be yours in this life as well as in the next.
Blessed Be God, Day by Day, Amen
When Christ called the first disciples he set himself a task - the task of making them into fishermen.
"As he walked by the Sea of Galilee he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea - for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "follow me, I will make you fish for people."
That is what God wants us all to do. It is what Jesus did - in Galilee and in Samaria and in Jordan and Judea and Jerusalem, and it's what we are supposed to do - in Kowloon, in the Outlying Islands and on Hong Kong Island.
We are supposed to fish for people, to seek to bring them into that great net known as the Kingdom of God - into that creel known as salvation, as redemption, as everlasting peace.
But are we? Are we fishing that is? And if we are fishing - who are we fishing for? For God and God's glory? For the sake of those we talk to each day? Or for ourselves and for the sake of those people to whom we are loyal - albeit in a worldly way?
There is so much power that flows when you witness to the love of God - when you share with others what it does for you and what it can do for them - when you have a chance to engage someone who is troubled, or curious, or hungry, and bring them before the one who can sooth their pain, satisfy their yearnings, and feed their soul.
I was talking to someone some time ago whose father is an alcoholic. She was sharing with me how her family coped with the problem - and naturally Alcoholics Anonymous came up in the conversation. From that it was but a short step to the concept of the Higher Power which is at the heart of that program - and then to the concept of believing that the Higher Power can help you with your problem and that one should surrender to that Power - to "Let go and let God."
What a prescription for life that is - and how wonderful it was to be able to share it - as any believing person is able to share it - whether or not they have read through the AA program.
It was wonderful to be able to share with someone that God is ready and able to help them.
There is power in witnessing - in sharing one's faith - in being a person who fishes for people, because there is power in the message and power in the God the message is about.
But sometimes we don't experience that - most often - perhaps - we don't experience that.
We don't experience the power and we don't succeed at the task of fishing for people - indeed most often we don't even begin that task, because we are involved with and committed to the wrong things.
Although every one of us believes in God - our energy - our focus - is all too often fixed elsewhere.
It is as if we belonged to another - and indeed we often do. We often belong to other things - to other people - to other teams - and God gets the short end.
But my friends, when God gets the short end from us, so do the people around us, so do our families, so does our church, and so do we ourselves.
When Paul wrote his First Letter to the Corinthians there were a lot of problems in the congregation.
There was arrogance, there was pride, there was indifference. There was gluttony and laziness and intolerance, and there was depression, and anger, and despair. And it all tracked itself down to one simple fact - the people in the congregation at Corinth had fixed their focus on themselves and on one another instead of fixing it on Christ and on the power of his cross.
That's not to suggest that the Corinthians never paid attention to God - or that they totally ignored Jesus. Far from it. It's simply to say that most of their attention went elsewhere.
Instead of using the Gospel as a filter by which to see the world around them and of asking God at each moment of decision to direct their words and their actions - they fell into their old routines, routines that are programmed into us by our genes and by the expectations that others have of us and by our own reluctance to really trust God for everything.
They relied upon the teachings of others for their own understanding of the Gospel. They formed loyalties with those who first showed them the love of God and quite naturally they defended those teachers when questioned about them. And because there was a contrary spirit in Corinth, they soon began to quarrel about who was better and who was worse - some saying Paul, others Apollos, and still others Cephas, and even some entered the fray saying that they belong to the party Christ and that he was, and therefore they were, better.
In short the Corinthians missed the point of what the Gospel is all about and instead of knowing the joy and the peace that comes with the fellowship of the faithful - instead of being powerful in their witness and being able to catch people for God - their congregational life collapsed and their sense of well being evaporated.
People complained about each other and about their leadership, they became confused about what was right and wrong, and they bickered about issues that made no sense then and even less now.
The King James Version of the Bible says that problems at Corinth could be traced to the believers there having a party spirit.
When I was younger I used to joke around a bit and say that this meant that the Corinthians stayed up too late and drank and danced a bit too much - that they played even more than they worked - but really it is no joking matter.
The Corinthians placed their loyalty in things other than the things of God - in persons other than the person of Jesus Christ, and they suffered because of it - they suffered a loss of power - they suffered a loss of love - they suffered a loss of joy in believing and in sharing.
The Corinthians did this
- they misplaced their loyalty
- they missed the point of the Gospel
- they formed up into party, cliques, and factions, not because they were wicked or mean or stupid, but because they looked elsewhere and forgot what they were to be about, because, most of all, they forgot who they believed in and what who they believed in was, and is, about.
The effective Christian life is based on three simple facts - the fact that God loves us unconditionally - the fact that apart from God we can do nothing that is worthwhile - and the fact that God is pleased to work through us if we allow him to, and around us if we will not.
Sometimes we look out upon our families, upon our congregation, or upon our club or lodge, or upon our place of employment and we say to ourselves - "things would be better if only Joe would cut x and y out", or "if only Nancy would do this or that everything would be fine".
Who hasn't heard the old song that is sung by close to everyone:
if only my father hadn't been so stern,
if only my parents hadn't gotten divorced
if only my mother had been more affectionate,
if only my high school had a better program
if only my boss wasn't such a boob.
Who do we belong to? What holds onto us because we hold on to it?
Do you look out and assign blame for what problems exist upon some people - and apportion credit for what good is happening to still others instead of alternately - either asking God to work through you to make things better or thanking God for making things as fine as they are.
Too many judge things, too many judge people just as they always used to instead of judging them by the standard show them by Christ when he went to the cross for them.
We prefer our friends to our enemies quite naturally. We prefer our comfort to our discomfort quite naturally. We would rather fit in than stand out. We would rather be praised than be criticized, and we would rather be served than serve - all quite naturally.
But we are not meant to be natural people any longer - we are meant to be the children of God - to be a spiritual people who live by spiritual principles, to be a people who live by the power of the cross of Christ rather than a people who live by the ways of the world.
Do you recall what it is like to wake up in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar place?
Sometimes a night light in the hall, providing a small amount of light, of security, against the darkness of the night. Sometimes a light has been left on in the hallway and its steady glow allows you to navigate safely when you have rise to raid the fridge or do what is necessary. And that's great.
But what foolishness it would be if you got up, as you do when you are at home, and, ignoring the fact of whether there is any light on or not, you try to navigate your way to the kitchen or the bathroom by making all the usual twist and turns. It's a sure fire way to experience some form of pain - I mean think of what happens if someone simply moves something in your home without telling you about it, if for some reason they leave the seat up instead of down, or some other unexpected thing...
But we do this all the time - in a metaphorical sense at least.
We forget that we have been called to a new way of living, and that we are meant to navigate our way through our new life by the light that God provides rather than by our old channel markers.
Do you have a problem - don't worry about fixing blame - check out the possible solutions in the word of God. Do we have something that is hampering our life together
- let not accuse one another
- lets pray together and then let's work the works that God calls us to, both individually and collectively.
The church at Corinth was a weak church.
It was weak because the people there forgot that they were called to a new way of life. It was weak because they forgot that the true and only real source of transforming and healing power comes from the cross of Jesus Christ.
And it was weak because they forgot that their sole and only task as his followers was to show his love to others - that they were to live in such a manner and to speak in such a manner that others might be touched by God - that others might know the lure - the attraction - the wonder of God through us -and so be moved to claim Christ as their own.
I started this message today by saying we are supposed to fish for people, to seek to bring them into that great net known as the Kingdom of God, into that creel known as salvation, as redemption - as everlasting peace.
That is, my friends, the central calling of every disciple and every apostle, and every teacher, and every evangelist, and indeed of everyone who bears the name of Christ.
And it is a wonderful calling - a calling in which we have the privilege of witnessing God at work - a calling in which we are shown a portion of the love and the joy that exists in heaven.
Turn to Christ and place your allegiance in his person your focus on his cross, your energy on his work, and all that God has in mind for you will be yours in this life as well as in the next.
Blessed Be God, Day by Day, Amen
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Isaiah 42:1-9 and Matthew 3:13-17
Let us Pray: Bless O God, the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts that they be of profit to us and acceptable to thee, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
We started off the service with a call to worship in which we recalled the essential message of God to us - the story of Jesus and how forgiveness and salvation come through his name.
It is the message of the cross that we proclaim - of the cross and the resurrection; yet for many of us proclaiming the message is difficult.
We know what the message is - but we find it difficult to express it to others - to get others to really feel and sense the importance of it, sometimes, even to get others to listen to us.
It is about this last - about getting others to listen to us, that I want to speak of today and I want to do so by looking at one of the great riddles of Jesus' life - the riddle of his baptism.
Theologians, scholars, and just ordinary people like you and I are puzzled as to why Jesus was baptized.
Jesus himself tells us that he was baptized to "fulfil all righteousness", but that term is never explained by him, and there is nothing else in the passage to help us understand why Jesus, who was sinless, received, at John's hands, a baptism for the repentance of sins.
What theologians and bible scholars are all agreed on however, is the fact that the baptism of Jesus by John at the Jordan marked the beginning of his ministry - it was his debut as it were - his coming out ceremony - and that at the end of it he received the approval of God, who speaks from heaven, and says: "this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
There is no question that the baptism of Jesus was a significant event, a turning point in his life and through him - a turning point in our own lives.
So what does the baptism of Jesus show us? How does understanding it lead us to being more able to communicate the Gospel to others - to be able to get others to listen to us?
The answer is contained in the reason that Jesus gave for his baptism when John says to him - in verse 14 of today's reading:
"I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"
and Jesus responds
"let it be so, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness."
Righteousness is an interesting word.
It is found 232 times in the bible - and in close to half of these occurrences it refers to the righteousness of God - to his love and his justice, to his saving activities and purposes.
In other words, contrary to the popular understanding, the word "righteousness" does not primarily refer to someone who is living a good life, rather it refers to a state in which the way of redemption is actively offered or illustrated by someone.
To be righteous is not just to be good - it is to be in the right kind of relationship with God and with others - to be a relationship which brings salvation, which brings wholeness, which brings the good news of God's love, to others.
Righteousness is something active - not simply a description of one's moral state.
Proverbs 11:4 says - "Righteousness delivers from death."
and again in Proverbs 15:9 we read - "God loves the one who pursues righteousness"
and in Proverbs 21:3 we see these words - "To do righteousness and justice, is more acceptable to God than sacrifice."
So when Jesus says to John: "let it be so, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness"
what he is saying is - "do it, it is a good thing to do - because in this way we will go further towards saving others, we will deliver them from death, we will make God's loving purpose more evident, more accessible to others."
And indeed the baptism of Jesus does help bring the healing word of God to others; and it shows us, as well, how the saving message of Jesus is best delivered.
There are three points I would like make to today. Yes - I do occasionally give an old fashioned three point sermon.
First - the baptism of Jesus shows us that Jesus truly did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped - to be held on to. His baptism, there in the muddy old Jordan - shows that he identifies with us and with our sins - and not only with God and God's perfection.
Jesus did not need to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins - all agree about this - but he chose this path - he chose to be seen with us - as one of us - because in this way - so Jesus says - righteousness is fulfilled.
Pause for a moment and think about this with me.
Each one of us here has had pronounced upon us the forgiveness and acceptance of God, we need not have anything more to do with thinking about ourselves as sinners.
In fact, according to the Bible, we can think of ourselves as chosen by God, as being selected by him for glory. Yet, think some more with me - in our communication with others - with those who have not yet really listened to the word of God's love - would this be helpful?
Who gets the better hearing? The perfect person, the one who has never made a mistake? Or the one who can stand and say - I know where you have been, let me help you. I know how difficult it is.
In his baptism Jesus identifies with us. He shows us the way of righteousness, the way of saving others, is a way of empathy and understanding - of putting ourselves in someone else's shoes.
Jesus does not "lord" his superior knowledge or virtue over others.
Instead he sits with them in their homes, he eats their food, he answers their questions, he laughs with them in their joy, and he cries with them in their grief. And with them, and with us, he descends to the Jordan and is washed for the forgiveness of sins.
Do you want to proclaim the message and be heard in it as was Jesus?
Then you need to identify with the people you are speaking to. You need to remember how you have "been there" before, and if you have not actually been there - well, you still need to try to put yourself in the other persons shoes, and try to really understand what it going on in their hearts as well as in their heads.
True communication can't be done in an atmosphere of judgement, it requires understanding, acceptance, and the willingness to link hearts and minds together.
Second - Jesus shows us in his baptism that it is important to go beyond ourselves when seeking to do the work of God - he shows us that we should turn to God and seek God's help when we are trying to point the way to God to others.
Jesus seeks John out at the Jordan river - it is no accident that he is there.
Jesus deliberately goes to a place where God's power and love were being proclaimed and he asks for that power and that love to be poured out upon him in a special act - an act performed by a special man - a man who was filled with God's spirit.
It is then, and only then, after this has been done, that Jesus goes on to help others.
We often forget this in our attempt to communicate to others the love of God.
We want to tell the story of Jesus, we want to share the salvation of God, but we ignore, neglect, or just plain downgrade the resources of our faith.
We speak to others - but we do not prepare ourselves to speak: we do not pray for God's help - we do not pause to ask ourselves what Jesus would have said or done in this circumstance - we do not call upon God's power to assist us in touching their hearts.
Further, when we speak with others we all too often do not offer them anything special; we do not show them anything different than that which they already have. We do not offer anything that they have not already been offered.
Too often we offer common sense, pop psychology, and the wisdom we receive from self- help books - instead of the way of God that is found in the Bible and in our different traditions.
My friends, the gospel we seek to communicate, the saving message we want to share, the righteousness we are called to fulfil with Jesus, is not something that is based on a "self help" model.
Salvation is something that ultimately comes from beyond us. Righteousness is something that is given to us by God, given as gift through the very Jesus whose baptism we are looking at today.
When Jesus wanted to make a beginning, he turned to a spiritual resource.
When he wanted to fulfil all righteousness, he turned to a spiritual man speaking spiritual words. When he wanted to communicate a spiritual message he was first baptized in a spiritual river - the river Jordan through which Israel had passed to enter the Holy Land.
Jesus turned to these things, and he also pointed them out to others - which leads me to the last point.
Third - Jesus in his baptism reminds us that we need to set the example.
Jesus was, above all things, authentic in his communications.
When he spoke of being able to help us carry our burdens - he had already experienced the same trials and tribulations as we do. When he spoke of how trusting in God could help one overcome anxiety - he had already trusted in God for his daily bread, his physical safety, and his spiritual power.
People listened to Jesus - not just because he understood and identified with him - and not just because he pointed out the way to God but also because he lived his own message.
He didn't just tell others to turn to God - he himself sought out God blessings: at the Jordan and in lonely places away from others - and regularly in places of worship - the synagogues on the Sabbath each week and at the temple at Passover Time.
He didn't just tell others to pray for people - he himself prayed for them - as he did for the disciples before going out to the Garden of Gethesame.
He didn't just tell others to forgive each other - he himself forgave them - even from the cross when he was in the midst of his agony.
He didn't just tell others how important it was to heal others - he himself did healings. He spat on the clay and anointed a beggars eyes. He reached out and touched the lepers. He laid his hands upon the sick and anointed them with his prayers.
Jesus did everything he asked others to do, and he was respected for this, and he was heard by many because of it.
My friends - not everyone will listen to us.
No matter how good we are, how righteous we are, there will be some who will take offense at us - as they did at Jesus. But the message of Jesus to us is that we ought to be trying as he did.
And when we do, when we humble ourselves - like Jesus - and identify with others, when we tell others about the source of saving power and go to it and accept it for ourselves then God will be well pleased with us. And his Spirit will indeed be seen to rest upon us as it did upon Jesus.
Thanks be to God - for his living word - Jesus Christ our Saviour, and for his Spirit - which gives up power day by day. Amen.
We started off the service with a call to worship in which we recalled the essential message of God to us - the story of Jesus and how forgiveness and salvation come through his name.
It is the message of the cross that we proclaim - of the cross and the resurrection; yet for many of us proclaiming the message is difficult.
We know what the message is - but we find it difficult to express it to others - to get others to really feel and sense the importance of it, sometimes, even to get others to listen to us.
It is about this last - about getting others to listen to us, that I want to speak of today and I want to do so by looking at one of the great riddles of Jesus' life - the riddle of his baptism.
Theologians, scholars, and just ordinary people like you and I are puzzled as to why Jesus was baptized.
Jesus himself tells us that he was baptized to "fulfil all righteousness", but that term is never explained by him, and there is nothing else in the passage to help us understand why Jesus, who was sinless, received, at John's hands, a baptism for the repentance of sins.
What theologians and bible scholars are all agreed on however, is the fact that the baptism of Jesus by John at the Jordan marked the beginning of his ministry - it was his debut as it were - his coming out ceremony - and that at the end of it he received the approval of God, who speaks from heaven, and says: "this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
There is no question that the baptism of Jesus was a significant event, a turning point in his life and through him - a turning point in our own lives.
So what does the baptism of Jesus show us? How does understanding it lead us to being more able to communicate the Gospel to others - to be able to get others to listen to us?
The answer is contained in the reason that Jesus gave for his baptism when John says to him - in verse 14 of today's reading:
"I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"
and Jesus responds
"let it be so, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness."
Righteousness is an interesting word.
It is found 232 times in the bible - and in close to half of these occurrences it refers to the righteousness of God - to his love and his justice, to his saving activities and purposes.
In other words, contrary to the popular understanding, the word "righteousness" does not primarily refer to someone who is living a good life, rather it refers to a state in which the way of redemption is actively offered or illustrated by someone.
To be righteous is not just to be good - it is to be in the right kind of relationship with God and with others - to be a relationship which brings salvation, which brings wholeness, which brings the good news of God's love, to others.
Righteousness is something active - not simply a description of one's moral state.
Proverbs 11:4 says - "Righteousness delivers from death."
and again in Proverbs 15:9 we read - "God loves the one who pursues righteousness"
and in Proverbs 21:3 we see these words - "To do righteousness and justice, is more acceptable to God than sacrifice."
So when Jesus says to John: "let it be so, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness"
what he is saying is - "do it, it is a good thing to do - because in this way we will go further towards saving others, we will deliver them from death, we will make God's loving purpose more evident, more accessible to others."
And indeed the baptism of Jesus does help bring the healing word of God to others; and it shows us, as well, how the saving message of Jesus is best delivered.
There are three points I would like make to today. Yes - I do occasionally give an old fashioned three point sermon.
First - the baptism of Jesus shows us that Jesus truly did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped - to be held on to. His baptism, there in the muddy old Jordan - shows that he identifies with us and with our sins - and not only with God and God's perfection.
Jesus did not need to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins - all agree about this - but he chose this path - he chose to be seen with us - as one of us - because in this way - so Jesus says - righteousness is fulfilled.
Pause for a moment and think about this with me.
Each one of us here has had pronounced upon us the forgiveness and acceptance of God, we need not have anything more to do with thinking about ourselves as sinners.
In fact, according to the Bible, we can think of ourselves as chosen by God, as being selected by him for glory. Yet, think some more with me - in our communication with others - with those who have not yet really listened to the word of God's love - would this be helpful?
Who gets the better hearing? The perfect person, the one who has never made a mistake? Or the one who can stand and say - I know where you have been, let me help you. I know how difficult it is.
In his baptism Jesus identifies with us. He shows us the way of righteousness, the way of saving others, is a way of empathy and understanding - of putting ourselves in someone else's shoes.
Jesus does not "lord" his superior knowledge or virtue over others.
Instead he sits with them in their homes, he eats their food, he answers their questions, he laughs with them in their joy, and he cries with them in their grief. And with them, and with us, he descends to the Jordan and is washed for the forgiveness of sins.
Do you want to proclaim the message and be heard in it as was Jesus?
Then you need to identify with the people you are speaking to. You need to remember how you have "been there" before, and if you have not actually been there - well, you still need to try to put yourself in the other persons shoes, and try to really understand what it going on in their hearts as well as in their heads.
True communication can't be done in an atmosphere of judgement, it requires understanding, acceptance, and the willingness to link hearts and minds together.
Second - Jesus shows us in his baptism that it is important to go beyond ourselves when seeking to do the work of God - he shows us that we should turn to God and seek God's help when we are trying to point the way to God to others.
Jesus seeks John out at the Jordan river - it is no accident that he is there.
Jesus deliberately goes to a place where God's power and love were being proclaimed and he asks for that power and that love to be poured out upon him in a special act - an act performed by a special man - a man who was filled with God's spirit.
It is then, and only then, after this has been done, that Jesus goes on to help others.
We often forget this in our attempt to communicate to others the love of God.
We want to tell the story of Jesus, we want to share the salvation of God, but we ignore, neglect, or just plain downgrade the resources of our faith.
We speak to others - but we do not prepare ourselves to speak: we do not pray for God's help - we do not pause to ask ourselves what Jesus would have said or done in this circumstance - we do not call upon God's power to assist us in touching their hearts.
Further, when we speak with others we all too often do not offer them anything special; we do not show them anything different than that which they already have. We do not offer anything that they have not already been offered.
Too often we offer common sense, pop psychology, and the wisdom we receive from self- help books - instead of the way of God that is found in the Bible and in our different traditions.
My friends, the gospel we seek to communicate, the saving message we want to share, the righteousness we are called to fulfil with Jesus, is not something that is based on a "self help" model.
Salvation is something that ultimately comes from beyond us. Righteousness is something that is given to us by God, given as gift through the very Jesus whose baptism we are looking at today.
When Jesus wanted to make a beginning, he turned to a spiritual resource.
When he wanted to fulfil all righteousness, he turned to a spiritual man speaking spiritual words. When he wanted to communicate a spiritual message he was first baptized in a spiritual river - the river Jordan through which Israel had passed to enter the Holy Land.
Jesus turned to these things, and he also pointed them out to others - which leads me to the last point.
Third - Jesus in his baptism reminds us that we need to set the example.
Jesus was, above all things, authentic in his communications.
When he spoke of being able to help us carry our burdens - he had already experienced the same trials and tribulations as we do. When he spoke of how trusting in God could help one overcome anxiety - he had already trusted in God for his daily bread, his physical safety, and his spiritual power.
People listened to Jesus - not just because he understood and identified with him - and not just because he pointed out the way to God but also because he lived his own message.
He didn't just tell others to turn to God - he himself sought out God blessings: at the Jordan and in lonely places away from others - and regularly in places of worship - the synagogues on the Sabbath each week and at the temple at Passover Time.
He didn't just tell others to pray for people - he himself prayed for them - as he did for the disciples before going out to the Garden of Gethesame.
He didn't just tell others to forgive each other - he himself forgave them - even from the cross when he was in the midst of his agony.
He didn't just tell others how important it was to heal others - he himself did healings. He spat on the clay and anointed a beggars eyes. He reached out and touched the lepers. He laid his hands upon the sick and anointed them with his prayers.
Jesus did everything he asked others to do, and he was respected for this, and he was heard by many because of it.
My friends - not everyone will listen to us.
No matter how good we are, how righteous we are, there will be some who will take offense at us - as they did at Jesus. But the message of Jesus to us is that we ought to be trying as he did.
And when we do, when we humble ourselves - like Jesus - and identify with others, when we tell others about the source of saving power and go to it and accept it for ourselves then God will be well pleased with us. And his Spirit will indeed be seen to rest upon us as it did upon Jesus.
Thanks be to God - for his living word - Jesus Christ our Saviour, and for his Spirit - which gives up power day by day. Amen.
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