Author: admin

“Back to front land”

“Back to front land”

Luke 2:8-15

I remember once sitting in Church on Christmas Eve hearing the Gospel read and thinking I’ve heard this every year and I know what happens-there’s no new surprises coming. Then I finally “woke up” and realised that if I hear this same story every year to my death, I may still only hear it 60, 70 or maybe 80 times.

Tonight we’ve heard part of it again, and again yes we know where it all heads and thank God for that. It truly is an amazing story and we should hear it probably every day of our life because although we know it so well, the how and why’s are so back to front to how we would have wrote the coming of the greatest person and event in history, it should still jolt us and our lives to the very core of our existence.

The saying that fact is stranger than fiction is right on the money should we have been there to see and hear of the events that Holy night.

If you were the Pagan emperor or King you were born to a life of privilege. Maybe a spoilt brat from start to finish and never really knowing or caring of how the other half live from your golden crèche to your castle of splendour where you were feted with great public celebrations for brushing your teeth never mind being the supposed “Saviour and Lord” and never did the ancient tabloid reporters of the day use the word humble toward their emperor and “king” as in the day that would have been anything but a compliment.  So much for those guys who had their “Saviour.”

The Jewish were still waiting for their long promised saviour and messiah to arrive so that they would be rid of these Roman tyrants and their big brother tactics of strong arm force and coercion. The Saviour who would arrive and banish their detractors and put them back where they should be as the top dog’s, not just in God’s eyes but in the world’s realities and quite frankly if I was there so would have I considering how my God of unending power had created so precisely from minutest of things to the most amazing all of the earth and its inhabitants. How my God had shown His hand in Egypt and swept us to freedom from our captives with great miracles, provided us with trail blazing leaders to bring us home against the enormous odds of our enemies and indeed the enemies within ourselves, and so I wait-and still I wait to this day along-side a wall, walling and dreaming of the day when again we will have access to that piece of real estate and see the foundation of all what we are and re-build the Holy Temple that then, maybe then alongside God the Father will the great and powerful Messiah be with us.

Tonight I am in no way denigrating atheist, pagan nor any other faith including those of the Jewish because, we like them while having the free will to deny faith in Christ, have no power or desire to come to belief  other than in having received that gift from outside of ourselves through the Holy Spirit

To believe in Jesus Christ as your Saviour, who has brought you forgiveness and eternal life is a greater miracle and treasure than we could ever imagine or hope for and that is why though it be not natural for us, we pray for our enemies and those not yet in Christ that they too will be lifted up and given His peace.

His peace and Glory not brought about in the splendour of castles, the finest robes or even amongst the religious elite in the temple, but given to us as a baby born of a humble virgin in a stable in the less than fashionable town of Bethlehem.

There were no halos, no seen angels hovering over the stable, no choirs singing in the background and not even as was the common practice upon the birth of a baby boy where local musicians would congregate and greet him with simple music, and had we been passing by we may have even
commented to another something about how terrible it was that this couple had brought a baby into the world and they only place they could lay the child was in an animal feed trough.

And yet, the shepherds already reeling that they, the one’s despised by many of the religious elite because of their work keeping them from participating in the religious activities of their communities, that they are the ones to be visited by a great company of angels from heaven singing “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to all on whom his favour rests” and heralding the arrival of the Good News of great joy that will be for all people.  That “today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you,” (and) “He is Christ the Lord.”

To those of the time, and indeed those of our time it is all “back to front ” and no more perplexing than it is of God Himself. God’s only Son, that is that little boy in the stable. Perplexing because religion is generally about getting our act together to be able to go up, not as with Christianity where the God, Our God The Father does the unthinkable and comes down among the mess.

The is a story about a European monarch who worried other officials by disappearing and walking incognito among his people and when he was asked not to for securities sake he would answer that “I cannot rule my people unless I know how they live.”

Talk about upping the ante, because although he was fully and truly God from all eternity, the Son of God took on true humanity when he was conceived in Mary’s womb and born in Bethlehem.  He was not half-God and half-man, but fully God and fully man.  He did not cease to be God, but was at the same time fully human with the same emotions,
same temptations,
same physical needs,
same pain that we all experience.

We talk about the grace of God and here we see it up close and personal, our God who could have done anything he pleased limit’s himself to become one of us. Grace up close and personal in the coming Jesus who knows the life we lived, because He lived it too.

The island of Molokai is a part of Hawaii and it has an interesting history. Back in the late 1800’s there was no cure for the horrible disfiguring disease, leprosy. In order to keep it from spreading and creating an epidemic, lepers were sent to a colony on the island of Molokai.

In 1873, there was a young Belgian priest named Father Damien who volunteered to spend his life serving the people secluded on the island of Molokai.  When he arrived, he was shocked to see the condition of the people.  Not only were they physically sick but they were also disheartened.  There was drunkenness, crime and an overall sense of hopelessness.  They needed God’s presence in their lives.  And so, in 1873, Father Damien lived among the 700 lepers, knowing the dangers, realizing the inevitable results of so much personal contact with a highly contagious disease.  In fact, in 1885 at the age of 45 he himself contracted leprosy.

A story as uplifting as is the faith and trust of Abraham daunting to us when we consider his preparedness to take up his Son Isaac to the top of a mountain as a sacrifice to God.

We know God stopped him at the last minute and while I am not sure how Father Damian went with his leprosy, can we ever comprehend the love God the Father, immense in power yet so great in love that he gives His Son not just to this world to save it, but ultimately for this world to devour Him.

On Wednesday morning I awoke from a terrible dream and it took me a couple minutes to realise it was only a dream and then a couple more before forgetting what it was about.

If humans had written a plan to save ourselves we would be still living a nightmare.

Thankfully the creator and orator of our lives wakes us from that nightmare by coming to earth to bring about change in our lives –
to give us peace and hope in the face of difficulty,
to clear away guilt for our sinful actions,
to tear down old barriers and restore love and forgiveness between people and to say to you tonight that in Jesus Christ my Son, we too like the apostle Paul that having been dragged to faith, we too can say with absolute certainty and live with complete  confidence: “that we are convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Amen.

The gift of Christmas presents

“The gift of Christmas presence”

Luke 1:26-28

When I was young, on Christmas Eve we would open our presents from Father Christmas and on Christmas day all our families would gather together at a home of one of our relatives in the most central location. It was great fun playing back yard cricket against our cousins and their mum’s and dad’s. I enjoyed all of the day except when it was time for the communal opening of our presents from our mum’s and dad’s. I always wished we could have stopped at just getting the big fella’s presents the night before, not because I wouldn’t have minded a few more, but because in the communal session, I could always see how my mum and dad seemed not embarrassed, but more sought of as second class parents because of the inferior type of present that they could provide compared to the other’s given. I didn’t care, but they seemed to and I always felt sad for them and just wished we didn’t have that part of the day.

Those times in our early days often follow us around later in our lives where we try and compensate in the other way and if we look at it from the two ends of the scale: The children of a poor family who may grow up and try to shower their own kid’s with presents, and the children of a rich family who may grow up with the in-built longing to not so much shower their children with presents but to be present in their lives.  Or, we just mutate to another form of the same which I only know too well where instead of feeling sorry for my mum and dad in their thoughts of not having the ability to furnish me with great gifts like the others around them, to know feeling like them on a daily basis when I line up my pathetic and spiritually poor bank account of self and service towards our Lord and Saviour. Guilt and wallowing in self-regarding shame or guilt and wallowing in self-hiding pride.  Shame diffused through the bottom of a glass or shame diffused and hidden through the striving for wealth, respect and position.

 I’ve had a crack at most of them but each of us have our default position when the dark clouds of self-worth hit amongst the certainty of our desire to run from it in the way that is only known to each of us, only to find that when we get there-that there it still awaits bigger and stronger, asking for not less but for more of the same as we increase the self-medication of moving closer to the park bench and empty bottles or closer to the leather padded Lear jet seat traversing the world in might and prestige.

Ironically, neither of these book ends of society are either wrong or necessarily better or worse than the others. I’ve met CEO’s who truly understand that the position they hold is of great importance not to themselves, but to the thousands of families that rely on them doing their job well so that the company remains strong and that their employees remain secure. Just as I’ve met a man who didn’t drink, seemed clean and well-spoken and who chose the freedom of sleeping on a bus stop bench happy with either the balmy nights and storm clouds or the clear nights and sparkling stars as his blanket. Both were great people and because they “got what is was all about” neither ridiculed or judged other peoples place in the world.

Our upbringing and our experiences can shape our sense of who we are and how we see things and it is often enlightening to see that come out in the answers people give in one of my favourite shows “Family Feud” and this week, one contestant when asked what is made of straw and in replying “a bed” was rewarded with four points and laughter from the audience, at which hearing, the smiling compare of the show Grant replied “come on Australia, it’s one of the best stories ever told.”

Maybe it was a throw-away line or his statement of faith, but either way it struck me that on a show where to win you need high point scoring answers, we were given an answer of little point value and use towards the prize on offer.

Similar on New Year’s Eve 2000 in the back ground on the T.V. was the countdown to voting on the greatest Australian song in history and upon reaching number one, a well-known Aussie Band said “oh that’s easy because it doesn’t matter where we play in the world there will always some drunk Australian ask that we play Cold Chisel’s Khe Sahn.

I agree and it has great heartfelt and real lyrics about a soldier returning from Vietnam and his struggles to fit back into society and one verse summarises it well by saying:

“And I’ve travelled round the world from year to year
And each one found me aimless, one more year the worse for wear
And I’ve been back to South East Asia
But the answer sure ain’t there
But I’m drifting north, to check things out again.”

In writing this, I just noticed the word count and realized how long winded my introduction has been without any “God talk”. I’m sorry for that but so can be our searching for answers and contentment on this earth.

It is such a wonderful thing to see Jordana being baptised today into the arms of Jesus at the age of six weeks old and hearing His promise now imbedded into her very self that “Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved.” What a great promise to receive and though Jordana does not understand it now, just as I did not fully understand when I was baptised as a twenty nine year old, she to like myself will see that the Lord does not make that statement lightly and in fact is prepared to go into the lowest pit or above the highest mountain to show himself that we may come to believe in Him.

The same Saviour sent to earth to be born to a humble girl called Mary who through becoming pregnant out of wedlock would have been the target of ridicule, rumour and out right disgust, trusted the message from the angel Gabriel that she was chosen to be not the mother of grace, but the daughter of the grace given to her and the world through the long promised Messiah and Saviour that she carried in her womb.

The same Mary who over the next 30 years would see here baby boy grow into a man and then be brutally tortured before being hung from a cross amongst criminals. A moment where the Blessed Mary may not have felt so blessed.

A long time Pastor once asked me what it is like in the real world when the troubles come. The death of those close, the stuffing up and being stuffed up and at times feeling alone and helpless. My answer was the same as then as it is now-not a lot: because in my chasing and searching both outside of Christ and with Christ I’ve felt the wraths and the joys of what life in both worlds can bring. Times of being blessed by the unlikeliest of people and situation in the front bar of a hotel and times like that of the blessed Mary where we stand confused at the foot of suffering.

I bought a new CD this week where a song’s chorus goes “I don’t know where I’m running but I know how to run, cos running’s the thing I’ve always done” which reminded me of a little boy I knew used to know who would be woken in the middle of the night and told to run to safety through the paddocks to the neighbor’s house and today if you meet this man and look closely you will sometimes still see that little boy still trying to run from himself and though each step seems aimless and another the worse for wear, Jesus Christ run’s with him. Not to ridicule, lector or place demands. But to guide, lift up and ask that he know the truth that is Jesus Christ himself who has been with him the whole way asking and pleading over and over again that we head to His cry in Matthew chapter 11, verse 28 to “come unto me, all who that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

When my son was three years I went to him under the cloud of anguish and “asked that he forgive me for not being the Father I wished I could be”. To which he replied “what do you mean dad, you’re a great dad” and today just as we see a little child called Jordana before us, so do the three to be admired most, The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost see today your inner self and though to others and indeed to yourself you have hidden it away’, to them you need not because as you come before God the Father with Jesus Christ His Son and your Saviour by your side He sees not crimes of an enemy to be punished, but the anguish of a child needing to be covered cover with His love. His love that knows your journey. His love that has wept with you in the times of distress and cherished the moments with you when freed from them.

This Christmas we may or may not get the presents we would like but we can be assured that the greatest story ever told is not a fable or about some fictional scenario designed for bring out a false sought of hope in this world, but the story of truth arriving on this earth some 2,000 years ago given to little Jordana today and for her years ahead. A promise not from our actions but from His given to us on a cross in Israel 2,000 years ago where He gave up His earthly life that in ours we need not search or run no longer, but be still and rejoice that though the road may have been long and arduous, it has and will lead you home. Praise be to God. Amen.

Can’t wait ?

In today’s Gospel, we see this wild looking character John the Baptist announcing the arrival of the long-time promised Messiah as recorded right through scripture.

The Old Testament was a time of prophets and promise. It was a time of waiting, or anticipation-and then it happened. God sent “his one and only Son” and the New Testament is the time of celebrating the promise fulfilled.

The Advent season focuses on the coming of that Messiah as we are invited to enter into the Old Testament experience of yearning and hoping and waiting.

Just like our children wait in expectation before they are allowed to finally open the presents sitting under the Christmas tree, so are we invited during these weeks of Advent to enter that spirit of painful expectation spiritually and if we can sense the pain and frustration of the Old Testament people, we can better rejoice at the fulfilment when the angels finally announce that “today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you, He is Christ the Lord.”

To feel the pain of the wait and finally the Joy just as in our lives sometimes all we have is the promise as said in well-known form that “Faith is only faith when you have nothing else to hold onto to.”

Yet the Old Testament prophets did not know what to expect. They knew it would be a righteous Branch sprung from the stump of David’s house as recorded in Jeremiah where “The days are coming declares the Lord, when I will fulfil the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel.

But the Prophets did not know that the Messiah would be God himself.

They had no concept of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and so they couldn’t possibly anticipate that the Second person of the Trinity would be born as one of them with the Father sending his “One and only Son.”

We know from their writings that He would exercise kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, but how could they possibly know of the righteousness that Jesus would bring of forgiveness of sins won on a cross for they were anticipating that the Saviour would be for justice and righteousness for their nation rather than for all people and for all eternity.

Them and us, sometimes all we have in life is the promise, and we just wait. We wait and God surprises.

Problem is it’s hard to wait and we can feel it from the palmist and from ourselves as they and us cry: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord hear my voice. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his Word I put my hope (Ps. 130:1,5).

Sometimes all we have in life is the promise and it can hurt.

Times in our lives when all we had was the promise.

Times when you were in the depths and cried to the Lord, and all you could do was wait.

Painful times that you may remember as you recall the loneliness, the frustration, the anger, the doubt and maybe then the guilt of having such feelings. The how can God love me like this with my accusations and mistrust.

Maybe you are feeling that way today as we approach Christmas because while it is a time of celebrating Jesus arrival, it is also a season that can bring to the surface all the frustrations and losses and fears of life.

For many people, these weeks before Christmas are the most painful days of the year and can’t wait for it to be over.

Many people wear a mask of “good cheer”, but inside feel only pain and hurt and frustration. Outside it’s yes: Merry Christmas and Oh yes, the singing and the bells are wonderful. But inside it’s “I don’t have the perfect life like everybody else has.

I can act it, but I’ll never have it and as I don’t want to spoil it for you, I won’t tell you how I’m really feeling and this can go on for year after year. Will the pain ever end? Will Christmas ever pass?

Christmas is one of, if not the time of greatest depression, loneliness, and suicide in our society.

Sometimes all we have in life is promise and hope, and we wait. But the promise and hope that comes from God himself. And he is a God who fulfils his promises and that is what we celebrate at Christmas and daily in our lives that from Galatians, “When the time had fully come, God sent His son, born of a women.”

All this was happening in the fullness of God’s time just as there is the fullness of time in your life.

Think Back. Remember those times of pain and frustration and doubt?

Remember how your good Lord saw you through them. Most likely he didn’t lead you out as you anticipated, but he did lead you out-“in the fullness of time,” when it was right and when you were ready.

Our heavenly Father did it in Jesus and He did it to you in your life and he’s still doing it now. That’s the story of our life in God. It’s a life of Trust. It’s a turning over of our fears and worries and burdens. It’s a freedom of knowing he’s in charge, a confidence that he will act. Our whole Christian life is waiting on Him. Trusting him in His love, His will and His goodness.

In Christ you are saved and forgiven today because you know Him and He knows you. You are blessed.

Yet there are those around us that behind the mask if we looked, we would see the hurting.

The one’s we go to and hold their hand in God’s name and help to hang on and wait. To tell them the Christmas truth: That God kept his promise from the Old Testament and sent His Son.

Because to them and to you, God keeps his promises to all who wait on him and in the fullness of time, in the most unexpected ways, he stills sends his Son to us-to restore, to build and to lavish us with his love. Thanks be to God. Amen.

“No more or less about it”

“No more or less about it”

1st Corinthians 1:3-9

Mahammad Ali is well known as an American former professional boxer, generally considered among the greatest heavyweights in the sport’s history and a noted activist for racial justice. He was also dyslexic and had trouble reading long words and in 1975 before 2,000 Harvard graduates gave a speech referencing the advantages they had been given in education up and against the same that he had not been given and urged them to use that knowledge to change the world for the better.

Seemingly polar opposites in upbringing and opportunity and at the end someone from the crowd yelled, “give us a poem” to which he replied and gestured: “Me, we.”

Sometimes more is less, and less is more and in my first reading of today scripture from 1st Corinthians 1:3-9, I was not overwhelmed as to any great theological insight from the Apostle Paul.

How wrong I was.

Roots: The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley and tells the story of an 18th-centuryAfrican, captured as an adolescent and sold into Slavery in the United States of America and follows his life and the hardships and injustices he and others like him suffered and to which this book went onto be considered one of the most important U.S. works of the twentieth century.

That author, Alex Haley went onto say:

Never read a Jonah Lehrer book, peeped a James Frey lie, or knowingly bookmarked a Jayson Blair article. While fraud soaks the roots of some great literature, the truth is always better, even if or when it shakes our realities.

1st Corinthians 1:3-9: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge. God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Those words from Paul are placed directly before he addresses some serious issues within the congregation of the Corinthians such as divisions in the church, members exerting their foolish human wisdom over others together with the occurrence of sexual immorality, idolatry, pride, abuse of the Lord’s Supper and even doubts as to authenticity of the bodily resurrection of those in Christ.

Big ticket items and Paul seems to address these issues in what we would call the sandwich effect with something less important said both before and after the meat of the message. Like on a talent show where the judge would start with “Your hair looks nice”, then ultimately the meat “that the problem is you can’t sing” and then concluding with something positive to take away with such as: “have you tried juggling?”

Paul is doing no such thing in his address to the Corinthians and in those opening seemingly fluffy opening statements he is offering the meat of the truth in which only then, can anything else ever be addressed.

Less is more:

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Less is more:

Luke 23: 42-43: (Then the thief on the cross) said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. (and) Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

In the English language we have words like know and no that we can tell apart by how they are spelt and in their context: “I know what you mean” or “Cathy can I have some money, No to cannot.”

Less is more and so today, I am not intending to shake any realities but confirm them for you by simply letting Paul tell you of the truth that he was chosen by Christ to do. Verse by verse as it was given to him and in the unadulterated form, meaning and not subjective, but actual meaning with all its dots and dashes as written in the Greek language that would be translated no differently by an unbelieving scholar, to that of a believing one.

Verse 3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here is concise, sweet Gospel that sets up this text to in which every verse does Paul make mention to Jesus with each repetition bringing out another nuance of the pairing of both grace and peace together as one. Being the source of our salvation is always and only in the grace of God in Christ which then and only then do we have the peace of God in Christ. Paul here to you makes an implicit reference to Christ’s divine nature in that the grace you have received, is from the unmerited kindness of God which caused him to elect you in eternity, call you by the Gospel, redeem you and preserve you in the faith.

Verse 4 I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.

Paul lists grace as the first and essential gift, to which many gifts have been added. Over your life, this grace has been preached to you and by that grace, you have believed the message. By grace you have been kept in the faith and equipped for the life of faith, and Paul here, is giving you his upmost confidence that God will preserve you and this congregation in spite of your weaknesses.

Verse 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge.

Enriched in every way. Not enriched by yourself nor in your own right, but enriched in Christ. Not enriched as others who speak eloquently but without knowledge and therefore blessing. Not being blessed with the knowledge, but do not speak either because are not able to or do not care. But enriched in Christ, you are equipped with both the knowledge of Him and the will to speak of in your testimony.

Verse 6 God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you.

Your testimony of which Christ is both object and author, and in this word play gives imagery of Christ as a strong root or a secure anchor to which your testimony concerning Christ has taken firm hold.

Verse 7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

This statement and its contrast to charismatic teaching is striking and emphatically in the highest order, that no Christian congregation is lacking any spiritual gift, together with emphasizing, that one true mark of your Christian faith to you individually and our whole congregation collectively, is that of waiting expectantly and not dreading the Second coming and of been given the spiritual gift of equipping you for that wait.

Verse 8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You here today, just as you have come to faith in Christ, so too He will root and anchor you securely to the end, and having been given the gift of perseverance, you will stand before God the Father not sinless in this world, but blameless and not liable to either charge or accusation because of the grace you have given through the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ his Son for you.

Verse 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

In the original Greek, faithful is the first word in the sentence, making it especially emphatic and giving unending assurance that God keeps his promises and is faithful to the end as seem in the bond between Jesus Christ and you. A bond from eternity, brought to pass in our time that will forever last in eternity.

There you have it and if you believe that the word of God, the bible is his true and inspired word. you can have no debate as to truth of Christ and the riches he has showered on you.

And if not, your debate is not with me, Paul or a Greek language translation expert but with God himself.

I know that was more like a bible study and a bit long winded, but bear in mind that these are the first two text books I received when studying to understand the word of God when training to be a pastor. 869 pages of biblical commentary on the words alone in the 50 chapters in the book of Genesis, and as much as I would like to get that started, I think we’ve all had enough for today because though there are those that seek to fraudulently soak the root of the Gospel with false or fanciful misinterpretations or outright lies, the truth is always better.  And that truth is Christ who stands unseen before you today when you come to the alter in Holy Communion. Unseen by you, but not by His Father and ours-God the Father.

God the Father who promised us a Saviour, and delivered. God the Father who has promised to all those that believe in His Son to have eternal life, and delivered. Delivered not tomorrow, but today, because his promise is to you from eternity, brought to pass in your time, too forever last in eternity.

Today, not I, but the Lord has spoken and pray that we all have ears to hear, minds to remember and hearts to be uplifted that when we see our sins before us and the rocky road ahead, we hear His sweet voice come to us and see our path cleared and our soul restored and know truly that in these days before, that He is with us. Just as in that day to come, when truly, we will be with Him in paradise.” Amen.

Photos don’t lie

“Photos don’t lie”

Matthew 25:31-46

A brief read of today’s Gospel text brings so many questions to me, and mostly in would questions about my outward actions and I don’t like it. Doing good works for salvation, fair dinkum most of the time I can hardly stand upright never mind be upright and tick all the boxes that this text seems to require.

Thinking of when I feed the hungry, welcome all strangers, give out cloths to those in need and  visit all the sick and those in jail gives me nightmares of judgement day like being on family feud and the three big crosses and the “eeeng” sound appearing between me and the judge. Sought of like we’ve surveyed one hundred people about your life and none of them gave you those answers.

So what to do? Well if I’m lost I might as well live for today and as I’m too old to change occupations again, I’m thinking I might brush up on my scripture so that I can use it to suit myself, somehow start a following where everyone sells all their assets and gives them toward the cause, being me. Buy a property in the hills and have 10 to 15 wives and live it up until our secret services decide enough is enough and storm the compound.

As inviting as that sounds, I still wouldn’t mind catching up with all you guys in eternity so I might take the alternate option and get myself a stainless steel diary, seek out at least one person per day in each of the categories, engrave each’s name in the book and so when raised on the last day, I grab my unperishable book of good works so that when I get to the front on the line at the pearly gates and when asked by St. Peter or whoever’s on that day of my worthiness we can have a conversation like this.

Next.

Name.

Steve Hibbard.

Well Mr. Hibbard to enter you must acquire one hundred points.

I thought so and so I have prepared this extensive catalogue of everything good I’ve ever done.

After a brief perusal, the gate keeper says very well-that gets you one point, what else do you have to offer.

Well, ur, uh-I was a Pastor of the Church.

Oh, O.K. then, you now have a tally of two points.

Things are not going well but then I notice one of the people I visited on the streets queue jumping and walking straight past me into the Holy City.

Hang on I say, I know that guy and he walked straight past and he didn’t even have his diary with him.

In which St. Peter replies Oh he doesn’t play your silly humanistic games.

Maybe I should build that harem in the woods. Or maybe I just should through myself at the feet of Christ and beg for His mercy and hear Jesus say, finally you get it.

As with much that the inspired Word of God teaches us, it’s about getting the horse back in front of cart.

To not say when I get my earthly possessions in order then I’ll serve the Lord, but to serve the Lord amongst our daily work now.

To not say, when I get my sin in order then I’ll be able to serve you, but to serve the Lord now amongst all our shortcomings and failures of being that great shining Christian on the hill.

And most importantly, to realise that our good works don’t even equate to being worth one ounce in the cargo of a convey of a thousand road trains towards our salvation, and see that the only possible way of salvation is not because of us and our deeds, but rather because of us and our limitations it is through the saving actions of Jesus Christ on the cross who still says today as he did to those he acquainted on the dusty roads in Israel-to the Jewish elite, to the prostitutes and to an unwashed career criminal on a cross next to him, that to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, To believe He came to this earth to take our sins on himself and to have faith in His promise that in all this, you are forgiven in Him and in Him alone-your sins are forgiven and you will most surely as you sit here today-will enter the heavenly city not sneaking in through the back door, but ushered in by Christ himself amongst the euphoria of endless multitudes of angels singing and praising your arrival through your saviour, Jesus.

And that picture, which has already been taken and developed by God himself in his office in eternity is the freedom that allows us now to if not develop it here on earth, but to add some colour to our neighbours pictures and bringing a little sunshine to those in their cells of loneliness, addiction and grief.

Free to do so. What a great thing. To not have to worry about how you’ll pay off your heavenly  mortgage because it’s been paid out already. To not worry about the path of destruction behind us because we see that in our rear view mirror that even in that somehow God has used it for others and indeed for us to be here today and know the truth of His unending grace.

So together we through ourselves at our Lord’s feet and receive grace, forgiveness and salvation-and in that absolute fact, how could we do anything than help each other, our friends we know and those we don’t-because we are free to do so-thanks be to God. Amen.

Hang in – no matter what

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, Matthew 25:14-30

I’m not sure what I was thinking, but when I was younger I use to love pre-season football training. Alongside your team mates, pounding the pavement in 40 degree heat. Everyone struggling together. Sometimes cursing the strain and other times either encouraging or being encouraged by those alongside you to go a little further. People throwing up to a mix of laughter, congratulatory words of breaking through the pain barrier or just the sound of heaving bodies with nothing left to give but the desire to remain standing.

A year or so ago, one of those running alongside me lost his teenage daughter in a car accident. Lost his wife in divorce, his father in death and months later he himself was diagnosed with cancer and upon meeting up with him amongst such a time he remarked that it’s like those times in footy that when the bar is raised, you don’t really have a choice because you either rise to the challenge, or you go under.

In 1915 American physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon coined the phrase fight or flight to describe how we respond to perceived harmful events, attacks or a threat to survival. A situation felt by many during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and its allies and the United States and its allies. It was termed the Cold War because from the end of WWII until 1991 and though there were regional wars, the two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, they each did arm themselves heavily in preparation of a possible all-out nuclear world war. Each side had a nuclear deterrent that deterred an attack by the other side, on the basis that such an attack would lead to total destruction of the attacker: a doctrine of mutually assured destruction. And aside from the development of the two sides’ nuclear arsenals, and deployment of conventional military forces, the struggle for dominance was expressed via proxy wars around the globe, psychological warfare, propaganda and espionage, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.

They were troubling times where more than once, the inhabitants of this earth lived in the perception, and sometimes rightfully so, as in the Cuban missile crisis that at any moment life would cease as we know it. A time it would seem not unlike now where as I see on T.V. and read in the papers that once again people are building personal bomb shelters and preparing for the worst.  Or prepping as seems to be the phrase used these days.

Who knows maybe they might be right and as American singer Pat Boone said: “My guess is that there isn’t a thoughtful Christian alive who doesn’t believe we are living at the end of history. I don’t know how that makes you feel, but it gets me pretty excited. Just think about actually seeing, as the apostle Paul wrote it, the Lord Himself descending from heaven with a shout! Wow! And the signs that it’s about to happen are everywhere.”

Or there again they may be wrong because in Mark 14:32 we are told that “of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” And this is more in keeping with Paul’s message to the Thessalonians in today’s epistle where he in realization that they are falling into calculating end dates and a little too focused  about the shadows approaching and the later Glory, rather than living hopefully in the day to day.

Paul’s advice to the Thessalonians and indeed to us encourages us to live hopefully now knowing that though the day we know not, we do know that with faith in Christ; we have been given the birthright of people of the light.

Fight or Flight. I remember making a representative cricket team and coming in at number five we had lost three wickets for only two runs. I soon found out why because never prior or never since have I faced such a fast bowler. A bowler mind you that later I found out later was a loud out of a minimum security prison on the weekends to play and I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time because I didn’t need to add any more distractions to the fact that I did not see at all the first ball he bowled to me and playing in the time between cricket helmets being available but not used because to do so would be considered soft, I was recessing thoughts of such bravado because it was clear in my mind that should this man bowl me a well-directed bouncer at my head-I was a dead man.

I was punching way above my weight level but somehow scratched out about twenty runs while both not wanting to get out while preferably not being killed in the process and in doing so, my view on protective batting helmets was forever changed.

Fight or flight moments can forever change our views on people and situations and in our time of Cold War like concerns, Paul gives us some good advice

“But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness ……………………you children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.  So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep but let us be awake and sober.  For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.  But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.  For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up….”

People of the light that St. Peter declares in 1 Peter 2:9 to “be a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

Today’s Gospel talks of using our talents which each and every one of us have. To use them rather than to bury them away not to build our own kingdom, but to build his kingdom and help all and sundry along the way.

We saw that video clip of Elizabeth Boyle where at the end the judges are like where have you been and to which we find out later she had been performing, but only in her little village. She had not buried her talent but know it was put even more on show through her singing and particularly for me her first album which was basically full of hymns.  The voice of an angel that would ultimately see me driving my little black sports car with the roof off with her version of amazing grace blaring and Cathy making mention of the somewhat unusual combination the two together may seem to some.

We may not have the voice of an angel but we do have the voices of the angels and all the company of heaven who cheer us on in both times of doubt and worry and in times fulfilment and contentment that in putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet and secure in our Saviours arms we need not fight nor flee but be present in the lives and situations of those around that the Lord brings before us that let the fruits of your labours be in abundance and the fruit of the Spirit in you bring love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.

Some people’s talent is put on show for all to see and in the rough and tumble game of AFL none is greater than Gary Ablett Junior.  Some here may suggest that compared to league and union it maybe not that rough and tough but be that the case or not, it still is a highly aggressive and fierce body contact sport. Gary’s football talent is undeniably great but in a sport where every little thing can be used against you by the opposition it is with great admiration that I read in the Women’s weekly where in an interview he remarked openly “that he is a Christian, that Jesus is the most important thing to him and before every game he prays to God in Christ’s name including that he will not be badly hurt of injured.”

Great footballer and great confession. But no greater than yours that you take with you into your world that through having been given unfathomable fame and skill or just the right words in a seemingly chance encounter, all are alike before our Lord and Savior who sees those toiling amongst both the thorns and the good soil and looks in anticipation to “welcome home His good and trusted servants.” Amen.

If we could turn back time

 

“If we could turn back time”

Matthew 25: 1-13

If I could turn back time I would find a way to take back those words that hurt you and you’d stay

Too strong to tell you I was sorry
Too proud to tell you I was wrong
I know that I was blind.”

Words from Musicians Cher’s late 80’s song if I could turn back time that go well with the saying “If I had my time again…” and I’m sure there are many things we wish we could change from the past. But would we really want to go back and not just change a particular incident if had to start everything again. Personally even if I wanted too I wouldn’t and I couldn’t  because in being forewarned of what lies ahead I honestly don’t know if I could make it through a second time.

But those words from Cher could also apply to the five virgins from today’s Gospel who unprepared for the lord’s return beg to enter His kingdom with “Lord, lord, open (the door) to us only to hear the most harrowing words of  “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you” finishing with a warning to all through history “Watch therefore, for you know not the day nor the hour.” It is a parable that can unsettle us like the parable of the sheep and the goats from Matthew 25:31 where “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. (and) before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the earth.”

The separation of the sheep and the goats, the good and the bad does not always sit comfortably with me as I imagine when my eulogy is read at my funeral the things I’ve done  through life may be a lot different to one’s that that stick in my mind. Ironically, during the sorting of the sheep and the goats, both groups are just surprised as the other of their fate with the unsaved asking when did we do wrong and with the saved asking when did we actually do anything good.

A man was on death row awaiting execution the very next day for the life he took at a convenience store when at 17 years old and under the grip of drugs and needing a fix in a bungled hold up shot and killed an innocent man remarked that though that person I was twenty years ago I don’t even know now, I know what I’ve done and I’m sorry for it and so tomorrow I will get what I deserve and I are not angry because locked behind these bars I’ve found what I don’t deserve and that is forgiveness in Jesus.

When I was sixteen my friend and I were waiting for the last bus out of the city at the end of Hindley Street,  which is Adelaide’s equivalent of King’s cross  when about 12 youths of the same age attacked us. Three were punching and kicking me in the face with the others bashing my friends head against a brick wall and too this day I do not know how I somehow  managed to wrestle from my attackers and rip my friend from their grasp and escape. He was badly beaten and not thinking soundly and upon getting home to the house in North Adelaide about two kilometers away he started his Toyota tray top and loaded his 303 rifle. I tried to calm him down but he was going with or without me and so with the view to talk him down there I am driving down Hindley Street with my friend and his loaded 303 on his lap. I drove to every spot I thought they would not me and it still scares me of how life would be so different if we had come across them. The earthly outcomes in our life can be split by a hair. The attendant at the convenience store who didn’t come that day to be killed  like his attacker never intentionally came to kill.

Two boys attacked and responding in ways they never thought possible by twelve others that once ate ice cream and watched cartoons before somehow being turned to rage on the world.

At the end of the book of Genesis, Joseph looked back on the sinful decisions his brothers made towards him out of jealously of firstly conspiring to kill him before rather receiving money by selling him to slave traders. The same Joseph that went onto to hold great power in Egypt and yet despite his many bad memories when given the opportunity to pay back to his brothers the same for same saw how God has been at work and responds to them with “You meant evil against me but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive.”

If we could go back in time and fall in error again, or remain here and see how a gracious God did not unleash his wrath on us, but send his Son to walk with us through those moments.

To go back in time to fix our wrongs and be a better person or remain here knowing of both the good and the bad that has brought us to throw ourselves at the mercy of Christ and know His forgiveness.

When my brother died alone on a lonely bush track I wished I could have done one of two things. Firstly to try and talk him out of it, and if I couldn’t, to be with him so he would not have been alone in such a time.

God doesn’t need to bring pain to our lives because as we did in the Garden of Eden so does the human race do a good enough job of it itself and yet though that be the case, He still makes the 5 virgins prepared that though we don’t know the day nor the time when we will meet Him in the flesh, in all ways he has met us now and like the sheep given eternal life and ask how can that be? We see it can only be through faith in Christ alone. Jesus Christ who did not discard us when we discarded Him. But the Jesus Christ who was with us at our worst but treated us as His best.

A Hymn writer in the 16th century penned these words:

“I know my faith is founded

On Jesus Christ, my God and Lord;

And this my faith confessing,

Unmoved I stand on His sure Word.

Our reason cannot fathom

The truth of God profound;

Who trusts in human wisdom?

Relies on shifting ground.

God’s Word is all-sufficient,

It makes divinely sure,

And trusting in its wisdom,

My faith shall rest secure.”

When my brother died I was in my first term at the sem. And confused I prayed all night and after eventually falling asleep I awoke with the clearest of thoughts. A sure but not accusing “It did not have to end this way” and then “know my Word.”

Though we travel by faith in times of shifting ground and hardships we still are led to ask why? Not a why of disbelief in our Lord and Savior but a question asked through faith in our Lord and Savior and though that question might linger in reason we cannot fathom, unmoved we stand on the only sure ground we have which is the sure and all-sufficient inspired Words of The Father, the Son and Holy Spirit who tell us:

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed to us” so “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith” “whose Word does not return empty, but accomplishes what He desires and achieve the purpose for which He sent it.” To know “that the punishment that has brought us peace was upon Him, and by his wounds we are healed.” And your “Faith has come from hearing the message that is heard through the Word of Christ” and in His Word “Who shall separate you from the love of God. Shall trouble or hardship, or famine and weakness, or danger or sword. No in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” “For neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus your Lord.”

And to us as to the Roman jailor who in fear called to Paul and asked “what must I do to be saved” we hear his reply to both that man in the dungeons imprisoning innocent Christians and to us here in His Holy house: “To believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.”

All in faith and you here today:

The Lord has blessed you and kept you.

The Lord has made His face shine on you and been gracious to you

The Lord has looked upon you with His favor

And so in those gifts:

You have been given the right to be in peace and rejoice in all things knowing and never questioning that as you sit here today, in heaven together with the angels and the archangels, and all the company of heaven, there too you will stand. Praise be to Christ. Amen.

” Flat lining yet alive to live “

“Flat lining yet alive to live”

John 8:31-36

 

Mike Holmgren, who in 1997 led the American Grid Iron team the Green Bay Packers to four consecutive finals series play-offs and to their first Super Bowl victory in 30 years, grew up in a religious family in San Francisco.

He went to church every Sunday and at age 11 made a public confession of Jesus Christ as his Savior.But later, in pursuit of a football career in high school and college, he said, “I left God on my bedroom shelf, right next to my dust-covered Bible.” After playing for his college he was drafted to a professional team and then another but never made it.

In his pain of rejection, he went back to his bible and recommitted himself to the Lord and after marrying a committed Christian and coaching football in the high school and college grades he became coach of the Green Bay Packers and after realizing his victory in the Super Bowl he said that: “Win or lose, I now realize what really matters: It’s not winning the Super Bowl prize-it’s the crown of eternal life that Jesus Christ has won for us through His victory on the cross.”
A sentiment, a truth that displays the same knowledge that Martin Luther came to know when he said:

“A person may carry their money wrapped in paper, or they may transport them in an iron chest; yet the treasure is entirely the same. Though you or I have a stronger or weaker faith in Christ, Christ is, after all, the same, and we have everything in Him.”

Wikipedia describes Martin Luther as a “German friar and professor of theology who was a seminal figure of the 16th century movement in Christianity known later as the Protestant Reformation who strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God’s punishment for sin could be purchased with monetary values assigned to indulgences and taught that salvation and subsequently eternity in is not earned by good deeds but is received only as a free gift of God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin.” Finishing with “Those who identify with these and all of Luther’s wider teachings are called Lutherans even though Luther insisted on Christian as the only acceptable name for individuals who professed Christ.

Punching in Reformation in the online dictionary gave me the meaning of “the act of reforming, and/or state of being reformed”. I like Luther because he well and truly knew that outside of Christ he was certainly no saint which begs the question of why was he given the job by God to reform the Church because as he said himself that “if it wasn’t me and I just sat back drinking Wittenberg beer, God would have still got the job done through someone else”.

So why Martin Luther? I’m sure he had many attributes like courage, heart for the poor and communications skills and so forth, but for me one of the greatest “tools” he had was his knowledge of himself and in that knowledge, his absolute need and necessity to find the Gospel for himself.

God over time has seemingly worked through for want of a better word some “interesting people” and situations, and just as Jesus seemed to gravitate to the poor and outcasts, as my Vicar Father said God seems to not pick from the top of the shelf and if that be the case, we Christians come with some baggage. Baggage that God deals with and prunes over time, but baggage that the dark side knows of and how I heard put so well one time, that for us in Christ, it’s like we are surrounded by a picket fence to keep us in the world but not of the world, but like a lion the powers of darkness prowl around the edge looking for one of the railings becoming weakened, and that is where the attack will take place. The take this thorn from my flesh railings like pride, love of money, jealousy, weakness of the flesh to fight an addictive nature and so forth. The things we know are always nagging at us, and the things that we fall for again and again.

The things that get in the way as we try and follow in the words of Hebrews 12:1 and “Run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” The race that is marked out in Christ with the final destination of heaven as our eternal home and of life in Glory with Him.”

The problem is while we in Christ have already passed the finish line, in ourselves we find that we are still trying to get fit enough to make the journey and if you’re like me and unlike in the Melbourne Cup where they put the most weight on the strongest horse, it feels like the weights been put on the weakest, never mind coming from a bad barrier draw. Thankfully we’ve got the right Jockey whose knows his “horse”.

Hebrews 12:1 goes on, so “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.”

If only we could because it seems that as soon as we nail back in place the loose picket, another one starts to weaken and so, we like in the Church in Luther’s day are in a constant form of reform. The reform he brought to himself and back to the church which was to re-find the Gospel in unadulterated clarity.

Our personal reformations of seeing things clearly. Of seeing that all have sinned and that being the case, our personal sins are not too great to be forgiven and that is the truth that has set us free.

 The truth as experienced by these people:

 One of the criminals (on the cross next to Jesus) who was hanging there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? “And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

And “When Jesus had entered Capernaum; a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralysed, suffering terribly. Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”  The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.  For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”  When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

And when she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”  “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

A thief, a leader of the opposition allied forces and a lady in a crowd who did nothing much more than acknowledge who Jesus was and what He could do: and Jesus replies: your faith has healed you, I have not found a person in all of Israel with such great faith today you will be with me in Paradise.

Does that not seem overly gracious, it is but we shouldn’t be surprised because John 1:12 tells us:

But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name.

Martin Luther penned the famous quote of “sin boldly.” Not to tell us to purposely sin, but to say that when we do and the devil starts telling us of it, we know that he can never back up his allegations of being lost with the truth.

The truth that sets us free that is Christs never ending well of forgiveness.

Free as I once had so well said to me by a fellow student at the sem. who heard me singing and he said I should join the choir. He was probably tone deaf but that’s not the point. The point was I declined as I said I’m a bit shy about such things and he replied “what being saved in Christ not enough for you.”

He was right. Free in Christ why take myself so seriously and not put it out there. But also free in Christ to remain shy in such matters because all that matters to Christ is you.

The world judges us and we each other. Oh she is so successful and I’m only a grape picker.

A bank manager I knew quit his job to work on the production line at Holden’s in Elizabeth. I wonder what some people said behind his back not truly believing the truth of his statement when he said he had never been happier.

It wasn’t so long ago that to be in the Church was to try and look somewhat a devout sort of person and then sneaking into the bottle shop under the cover of darkness. Or of going to Church like butter wouldn’t melt in our mouth and then going home to be our selves again.

Colleagues and I were put through a leadership course where we were asked a series of question that would show the difference in our actions between work and private life. The gaps varied as they should. Except for one which flat lined. The instructor was somewhere between mystified and uncomplimentary and upon remarking that this shouldn’t be the case, I simply remarked-why?

Would I have manipulated my answers for a more pleasing result if I was going for the job instead of already having both the job and the runs on the board? Most probably.

Yet though flat lining, did I still try and be better at my job? Absolutely.

Do we as Christians try and live better lives turning from sin, helping others, being more welcoming and charitable? Absolutely, because we are free to do so because we already have the job and the runs on the board.

The Job Christ did for us on the cross and though you or I have a stronger or weaker faith in Christ, Christ is, after all, the same, and we have everything in Him.”

And should we carry around our faith in rags or a suit, as the CEO or the candle stick maker, believe boldly in who you are. And that is a child of God. A child of God so loved and special that he has given you to be alongside us and all the people he brings before you. So special that as he hung on the cross and was taunted to come down, he saw your face and felt your very being and remained steadfast in the Will of His Father knowing that “tomorrow”, He will greet you in paradise.

The surety of tomorrow that gives you the freedom to be the special person you are today-however that looks. Amen.

Exciting or Scary

Matthew 22:34-40

“Bodie the dapper Shiba Inu pulls in $15,000
a month as a dog model.”

That was a headline from a newspaper this week and considering that Elvis Presley’s dad once told to him there’s no money in playing music I wonder what Bodies’ Father said to him. I must admit Bodies ’a good looking fellow and good luck to him although I doubt he has any idea of what’s really going on.

We live in a changing world that’s exciting and sometimes beyond comprehension and I heard a scientist say that the only thing limiting us is ourselves because he is now to the belief that if we can think something up, it will only be a matter of time before we can make it happen and if that’s true, that is both unbelievably exciting and unbelievably scary because going on our track record our inventions are normally used for both the good and the bad. But above all, does this not sound like the tower of Babel ringing in our ears where the goal was to be as God. A goal that I would suggest that in our world of Babel is not something that we wake up in the morning with on our mind, but rather has crept in like the analogy of “When in Rome do as the Romans do.” Not a targeted attitude but a sub conscious “birds of a feather flock together situation” because there are some things we do that we know are not in line with being a Christian and in our own way we fight them as best we can, but there are other things that have crept up on us and become part of our makeup. Things not inheritingly bad and things that we are free to do, but things that fit the description as mentioned by Paul in 1st Corinthians 10:23: “I have the right to do anything,” but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”–but not everything is constructive.

How true that statement is because free in Christ we are free. Free to muck up and free to make mistakes. We know that because of Jesus love for us, His never ending forgiveness and the redemption He brought for us on the cross. Fall down, get up. Get up, fall down that’s life as a Christian just as it is for those that are not.

My point today is not about being forgiven of our sins in Christ because that’s the show stopper.  Because you are, as is every repentant person who turns back to God and asks forgiveness in the name of Jesus. A repentance that may not stop what we do, but more like the addicted that wakes every day to a desire to no longer follow that path but then in weakness of body and spirit falls of the wagon as the day goes on and the process starts again. The inner fight that God sees. The fight he fights with, alongside and for us and whatever the earthly outcome, a heavenly fight that has been won by Jesus Christ who turns to His Father and says, Father, I have walked those shores and I know what they are up against and for them to keep the faith in such times is enough and so I ask that you forgive them.  And forgiven you are. Just as you are free in that forgiveness.

Forgiveness in Christ is not my point because that’s a given to all who trust in Christ. My point today is about discernment. Not discernment leading to our salvation, but discernment because of our salvation.

The discernment of things that we cannot base on brief and changing portions of time, but discernment based on the only sure words in an unsure world which is that of scripture. Scripture, God’s Word that is not to be torn apart and used as the right to start wars or used for selfish or misconstrued beliefs and conquests. But the whole of scripture in its entirety. A statement that rolls easily off the tongue but to actually get a full grip on is somewhat impossible through the eyes of fallen human beings and so thankfully, Jesus in today’s Gospel helps out and when asked mischievously by the Pharisees who are trying to set him up of “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment of the law?” Jesus replies: “You shall love your Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and Prophets.”

And if loving your neighbour as yourself isn’t difficult enough, in John 13:34 Jesus goes further and adds:  “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

Jesus has somewhat upped the ante because this is not just some fuzzy feel good love, it is the love of action. Love of action as best shown in God the Fathers sacrificing his son Jesus Christ for you and me. And in that action, in Jesus walking this earth we see God the Father of love.  Our God who created this world so that His love might be shown. His love that is more than a motive for doing something good for someone; but is an actual activity or event. Our English word “love” is used in four different ways. Firstly, in the sense of strong preference for something, like “I love chocolate”; secondly, mutual desire, as in “I want you and you want me”; thirdly, in the sense of an emotion, i.e. the tone of a desire, being warm rather than cold; and fourthly, a love that puts the other person first, a love that’s full of goodwill, even to one’s enemy, critic or opponent.

No one demonstrated that fourth love better than Jesus Christ, who is Love Incarnate, love in visible human form. The kind of love Jesus showed in all situations was new and different. A love that Jesus did more than speak about, but the love he showed and did with no strings attached to those in greatest need, regardless of their past or present standing in the community. A love so intense yet given so freely that no wonder He was constantly attacked by those who felt He was playing down the need to keep the laws of Moses.

And so asked by these Pharisee’s, the master law keepers of what is the greatest commandment, Jesus first of all makes clear to them that there isn’t just one, but two greatest commandments that belong inseparably together and yet again we see Jesus constantly resisted every attempt to drive a wedge between love for God and love of neighbour, insisting on their vital interconnectedness. These two commandments stand or fall together. Take away these two commandments, and the Old Testament falls in a heap. Nothing in Scripture coheres unless these two are observed. Jesus reminds His audience that the Old Testament consists of the writings of the prophets as well as the laws of Moses. The prophets constantly sought to bring God’s people back to what’s central: God’s covenant with us, a covenant that involves showing the same mercy to others as God has shown to us and we cannot turn a neighbour away without turning God away because Christ’s love for you gives depth, richness and joy to life. His love is a liberating love, liberating you from fear, doubt and disappointment. Nothing can separate you from His life-changing love. “We are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us (Romans 8:37).” Our Lord therefore invites us to love our neighbours as He has loved us. He opposed any narrow definition of who our neighbour is. In His parable of the Good Samaritan, He changed the lawyer’s question from “Who is my neighbour?” to “Whom am I going to be a neighbour to?” Our neighbour isn’t simply someone who is in need, but someone who is an indispensable, inseparable part of our lives – they are an extension of us in our daily interactions.

Our neighbour is a moving target. It may be someone who’s crying on a bus to whom we offer a tissue, or someone who falls over at the supermarket whom we help lift up. We don’t need to waste time wondering if we love the other person before your eyes. We can act as if you do, and consequently we will grow in love for him or her. To love our neighbour is evidence that our love for God is real and genuine. Love of God endears our neighbour to ourselves as we thank God for all the people who have shown love to us. To love our neighbour is not a chore, but a gift given to us from God.

It’s so easy to say “I love everyone” and yet fail to practice love to someone who’s a part of your life every week. A Russian novelist wrote about an evangelist who travelled Russia telling about God’s love. Yet that same man couldn’t stand to be in the same room with anybody else. One man slurped his soup; a woman cackled when she laughed, another person snored when asleep. And so the author concluded, “Although he loved God in general, he couldn’t stand people in particular.”

In contrast in the story, “The Great Hunger”, an anti-social newcomer moves into a rural community. He put up a fence with “No Trespassing” signs. To keep out trespassers, he put a fierce dog behind the fence. One day his next door neighbour’s little girl crawled under the fence to pet the dog. The dog killed her. The rest of the community ostracised him. No one sold him grain to plant his crops, and he became destitute.

One day he looked out to see a man sowing grain in his field. He discovered it was the father of the little girl.

“Why are you doing this, you of all people?”

“I am doing it”, her father replied, “To keep God alive in me.”

That father knew of the inseparable link between love for God and love for neighbour, and he knew to put it into practice. That is the love we strive for.

A love we may never achieve this side of heaven, but in knowing of His love for us, there is reward in the striving, the reward that we’ve heard God and come to understand that even the smallest fraction of His love worked through us can ease the pain of others, increase their happiness and even can change lives.

A love like that doesn’t travel the world like a tourist on his or her own and return with only things to talk to people about, but love that travels with companions who share getting lost and being found, share the joys and hardships of situations and don’t think to leave the other behind, but slow down so they can catch up or even better, go back and ask if they would like to rest for a while.

“Witlessly Witnessing”

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

 

It may or may not surprise you that the other day, Josh and I were talking about Aussie Rules Football and in particular-coaching where we ending up matching up a current AFL coach doing very well to a legendary Rugby league coach and excluding tactics and just focussing of what would in this modern day be called “people management”, it appeared to us (and as both coaches have mentioned from time to time) the basis is honesty out without thoughts of manipulation. Honesty out that is then replicated by the players both back to coach, to their team mates, to supporters and indeed in their work results-being there efforts in training and playing. This is not unlike what we see at work in the second reading for today, from Thessalonians.

The Apostle Paul has been the founding pastor of this congregation at Thessalonica and has lived and worked with the people there for some time – certainly some months, perhaps even for a year or more.

The church began in this Greek city of Thessalonica through Paul’s missionary preaching, and through the baptism of converts who came to believe as a result of this preaching.

But Paul has done much more than preach. He has lived his faith. He has been living the Word and this is what has made the biggest impact and over time the people in this little congregation at Thessalonica have come to pick up what his attitudes and priorities were and adopted them for themselves and ultimately, imitate them.

This is what has happened and Paul makes mention in his letter to them – written after his time with them – of two particular special qualities they have. In verses 5 and 6, he mentions their conviction and their joy as Christians. Somehow they have learned these things and are putting them into practice.

And that somehow is through Paul himself because when Paul looks at the church in Thessalonica, he is looking in the mirror! During his time at Thessalonica, Paul shaped this church with his own values – so much so that after Paul left, they carried on in the way he had shown them. Paul’s great faith and conviction about Jesus Christ and his love for all people had rubbed off. They watched and they noticed and they imitated. In same way they had made Paul’s joy in the good news of salvation their own.

So much so in fact, that this little church had become famous not only in their own area but in surrounding territories and even beyond and so he makes note that the word of the Lord has “sounded forth” from them and made a huge impact on people near and far, so that now others were being inspired by them and had begun imitating them. Paul’s great passion and enthusiasm for telling the world about Jesus Christ had powerfully shaped them and they were now shaping the faith of others.

There’s a chain reaction here: Paul imitates Christ. The Thessalonians imitate Paul. And other Christians then imitate the Thessalonians. It is like throwing a rock into a pool – the ripple effect goes out further than we ever imagine and affects others in ways we never dreamed of.

As I look at the life of this congregation (through the eyes of Christ) I see the same thing at work. Not through me because you were like this when I arrived, but through your previous Pastors, your parents and family and others that have help shape your faith life and many people have grown and learned how to live out God’s love as they see others doing it.

We learn Christ through seeing and meeting Christ in each other. There are small acts of service in response to peoples’ needs, there is understanding and gentleness given to those with problems in life, there’s care and encouragement. And others watch as this happens and then imitate. It is beautiful and we help one another grow in this way.

But it’s not just inside the church that this happens. The ripples go out. As I look at families in our church, I see the powerful witness some of you parents give your kids by your own worship and service, especially the young kids who are still at home. When they see you worship and watch you sing and pray and see how this is part of your life, they are being formed in their faith.

But it is also the same with you parents of older kids that have grown up and left home and possibly left the church. Don’t under-estimate the power of your example of faith and worship and love. Never think that it is not being noticed and having an impact. It definitely is, even though you may see no visible response to it now and can be said towards your friends and work colleagues.

Of course there is of course an important role for teaching and instructing people in the Scriptures and the doctrines of the faith (Paul certainly did that at Thessalonica too); however the most powerful teaching was his example. What people see us do, what attitudes we display, what values we show. As Paul says, when this is happening, when the Holy Spirit is using us to lead and shape one another in God’s love, we often have no need to say a lot about it because our lives speak louder than words.

One thing lots of people in the church do not understand is that this is the mission of the church at work. The church works not through programs or buildings or spectacular attractional events or dynamic pastors – but through you, through us –imperfect us and sometimes struggling us, because though that is the case, we are by God’s grace, Christ’s children and his disciples.

As we live in this relationship with Christ each day, as a mother, a father, a child, an employer, an employee, a friend, a marriage partner and in all our roles, relationships and vocations in life, Christ is holding up our life before others so that in us, they may see him:

Does that worry you? It sometimes worries myself-especially if the focus is wrong and thinking of the dynamic: Don’t let it worry you because believe me, on a level playing field you are showing others Christ in the way that:

you might practice forgiveness;

  • In the way you might show compassion and understanding;
  • In the way you act and treat others with integrity instead of self-interest;
  • In the way perhaps that you do not judge others in their problems but listen to them.

Things that you might not even be aware of doing yourself, but things you do because they are just part of who you are in Christ, and it comes out of you.

Some of you might know the story of Malcolm Muggeridge – a journalist and sceptic, who rejected the Christian faith. He was full of cynicism and ridicule about the Church and criticised it at every opportunity. As part of an article he was researching he visited one of the Hospices in India run by Mother Theresa (long before she became famous). He met her and interviewed her, and a lifelong friendship began.

When he, a couple of years later was converted and became a Christian, he said that meeting Mother Theresa was the great turning point in his life. Why? Because of her example of Christian love and compassion. It was what she lived more than what she said. He had no arguments against that. He had no way of attacking it. He saw God’s power quietly at work in this woman. As he put it, in her eyes, he met Jesus Christ for the first time.

In turn, Malcolm Muggeridge has influenced an enormous number of people towards Christ through his repentance and faith in Christ, and the way he has shared this in his writing and his books over the years. It’s that ripple effect again.

When we live in daily relationship with God the Father, through Jesus Christ, others see, and are powerfully impacted.

Perfect, no. People of some great skill, not an issue either way. Of great outer physical beauty-that’s in the eye of the beholder. In people believing that in Jesus Christ they are released to be able to get over themselves for the benefit of others-I think yes and that and the small things that surround that attitude is very a powerful and quietly dynamic way that God brings his Kingdom in the world.

In a court of law a witness says of what they have heard or seen to be true and through fallen sinners lifted up and having been saved in Christ we have no need to embrace the silly sideshows of life like holding grudges and carrying jealousies and so forth, but lifted up in Christ see that we are free of such petty and destructive activities and just get on getting on-and in this day and age-that’s  witnessing. Amen.

(With thanks for reference to work from Pastor Stephen Pietsch)