Author: admin

 

 Waiting for Christ’s return.

 

Text: 1 Thessalonians 5:2b,3b,6,8b,9
The Day of the Lord will come as a thief comes at night. … It will come as suddenly as the pains that come upon a woman in labour, and people will not escape… So then, we should not be sleeping like the others; we should be awake and sober. … We must wear faith and love as a breastplate, and our hope of salvation as a helmet. God did not choose us to suffer his anger, but to possess salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

 

Edgar Whisenant, a NASA engineer, used his mathematical skills to set a date for the return of Jesus. He wrote a book called ‘88 reasons why Jesus will return in 1988’. The book caused a real buzz amongst some Christians, especially in the US. He was so certain that Jesus would return on Sept 10 1988 that he said, “If I’m wrong then the scripture is mistaken”. And since the Bible is never wrong he said that he knew for certain that Jesus would be here on that day.
It is amazing that someone could be so confident in knowing when Jesus will return. Jesus himself said, “No one knows, however, when that day and hour will come—neither the angels in heaven nor the Son; the Father alone knows.” (Matt 24:36).

The angels didn’t know, and Jesus didn’t know, but amazingly enough, Edgar did. Well, you can guess what happened. The day came and passed and Edgar didn’t know half as much as he thought he did. The old saying held true, “If at first you don’t succeed, fail and fail again.” Edgar wrote a second book the next year claiming that he forgot that the calendar didn’t start with 1 but year 0, so he said he was a year off. Failed again.

The apostle Paul was confident that Jesus would return and he wrote to the Thessalonians, “You yourselves know very well that the Day of the Lord will come as a thief comes at night. When people say, ‘Everything is quiet and safe,’ then suddenly destruction will hit them! It will come as suddenly as the pains that come upon a woman in labour” (1 Thess 5:2,3).

To describe Jesus as a thief seems just a bit strange. But Paul isn’t the only person to describe Jesus’ return in this way. Jesus himself uses the picture of a thief coming at night and catching many people off guard. (Luke 12:39,40).

Twice in the Book of Revelation we read, “I will come like a thief” (Rev. 3:3; 16:15).

Some of you may have experienced what it’s like to come home to find that someone has broken into your home and rifled through your belongings, looking for something valuable to steal. A word that is often used to describe how people feel after such an event is ‘violated’. That safe, secure, sanctuary called home, never feels quite so safe again. Your special and sacred place has been invaded by an unwelcome visitor. An intruder has had the gall to finger your most intimate possessions. There are some people who never feel comfortable in their own homes again after a thief has violated their private space.

Now to speak of Jesus as a thief seems so contrary to what we believe about him. There are much more flattering images of Jesus.
A shepherd who lovingly cares for his sheep.
A loving parent who is always ready to welcome back his straying child.
A compassionate healer;
someone who is always ready to forgive;
one who is able to calm storms and bring peace to troubled lives;
the one who stands at the door and knocks.
But a thief! That’s not the usual way we portray Jesus. How many stained glass windows or painting have you seen with Jesus climbing through an open window on a dark night looking over his shoulder to make sure no one notices what he’s up to? A thief is a criminal – hardly the right way to think of Jesus.

And that’s exactly why Jesus himself and the apostles use this picture.
To catch our attention. This is so important!
Jesus is coming back; there can be no doubt about that.
Be ready for his return. Don’t be caught out. If we know that our property is in danger from a thief, we do something to be ready for the time this happens. Put on security screens, closed circuit TV, alarms, maybe even stand guard and wait for the thief to arrive. Not to do anything would be crazy and would be an open invitation for the thief to do his worst.

The message that the New Testament gives is quite consistent. Jesus said, “Watch out, then, because you do not know what day your Lord will come” (Matt 24:42). It’s like a thief – you never know when he will strike so be ready for when he does.

But why is the Bible so keen for us to be ready for the Last Day when the events of that day hardly seem like something to look forward to. In Zephaniah (today’s Old Testament reading) we read, “The Lord says, “I will bring such disasters on the human race …. (because) they have sinned against me.”
“On the day when the Lord shows his fury. The whole earth will be destroyed by the fire of his anger. He will put an end—a sudden end—to everyone who lives on earth” (1:17a,18).

This is rather terrifying. If being ready is so important then what do we need to do in order to be prepared for Jesus’ return? St Paul tells the Thessalonians that God doesn’t want any of us to suffer God’s judgment, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He is saying first of all that it’s not what we can do to make us ready but what Christ has done for us.

He has made it possible for sinners to survive God’s judgement. Jesus himself has made us ready for his return! We could never prepare ourselves, because we could not pay for our own sins, so Jesus paid the price for us dying on the cross for us—in our place. The Bible word for this is grace—it means that Jesus gave us a gift we don’t deserve.

Nelson Mandela taught the world a lesson in grace when, after emerging from prison after twenty-seven years and being elected president of South Africa, he appointed Archbishop Desmond Tutu to head an official government panel called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The rules were simple: if a white policeman or army officer voluntarily faced his accusers, confessed his crime, and fully acknowledged his guilt, he could not be tried and punished for that crime. Hard-liners grumbled about the obvious injustice of letting criminals go free, but Mandela insisted that the country needed healing even more than it needed justice.

At one hearing, a policeman named van de Broek recounted an incident when he and other officers shot an eighteen-year-old boy and burned the body. Eight years later van de Broek returned to the same house and seized the boy’s father. The wife was forced to watch as the policemen did the same to her husband.

The courtroom grew hushed as the elderly woman who had lost first her son and then her husband was given a chance to respond.
“What do you want from Mr van de Broek?” the judge asked. She said she wanted van de Broek to go to the place where they burned her husband’s body and gather up the dust so she could give him a decent burial. His head down, the policeman nodded in agreement.

And I would like Mr van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too. I would like to embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real.”

Spontaneously, some in the courtroom began singing “Amazing Grace” as the elderly woman made her way to the witness stand, but van de Broek did not hear the hymn. He had fainted, overwhelmed.(From Philip Yancey’s “Rumors of Another World”.)

Justice was not done in South Africa that day. Something beyond justice took place. The name for it is grace—rather than seeking justice for sin, an old woman absorbed the hurt and instead returned forgiveness.

Jesus absorbed the hurt for us. He offers us forgiveness and love. He holds out to us the hope of salvation. He invites us to trust in him and his sacrifice for our sin. The Holy Spirit prods us to respond to the faith that has been given to us and believe that Jesus truly is the Way to eternal life. Without any of this the Day of Judgement would be a terrifying day. Only because of Jesus and his righteousness the Day of judgement becomes a Day of Salvation.

But the apostle doesn’t stop there when talking about readiness for the day when Christ will come again. When Christ comes again he should find us living as children of the light. This is how Peter talks about being ready for the Day of Judgement.
“The end of all things is near. You must be self-controlled and alert, to be able to pray. Above everything, love one another earnestly, because love covers over many sins.  Open your homes to each other without complaining. Each one, as a good manager of God’s different gifts, must use for the good of others the special gift he has received from God. Those who preach must preach God’s messages; those who serve must serve with the strength that God gives them, so that in all things praise may be given to God through Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory and power forever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 4:7-11).

What Peter is saying here is that waiting for the end is not simply a matter of sitting around and waiting for things to happen.
Nor is it a time for self indulgence – filling each day with looking after our wants and desires.
Nor is it a time for greed and being so focussed on ourselves that we fail to see that others need us and our help.
As we wait for Jesus to return, Paul points out that we should be praying, loving, caring without complaining, using our gifts for the good of others, telling others about salvation in Christ, serving and giving to others to the point that we are drained. It follows that faith in Christ leads to an active life of love and serve.

Laziness,
lack of involvement,
a life so crowded that there is no time for growing in our faith and acts of service,
ignoring the Spirit’s call to grow in your Christian life through God’s Word, Holy Communion and worship with your fellow Christians
is not the way to wait for Jesus’ return.

In these days before Jesus returns,
every time we speak a word of forgiveness,
every time we show some care,
every time we teach or counsel or comfort someone,
every day we remain loyal and committed to following Christ,
every time we reject sin or bounce back from disappointment,
every time we hang in there with someone struggling or in a situation of pain and loss
—all of these and more give us the opportunity to make Jesus’ presence real and lead them to be better prepared for the Christ returns. What better way to prepare for Jesus to come.

I know in the end that sin will always be a part of our lives. In the end it is only Christ who can truly make us ready through his own death and resurrection. But that doesn’t give us permission to sidestep the question, “What am I doing as I wait for Jesus to return?”

 

 

There is Hope.

Text: 1 Thessalonians 4:13,14
Our friends, we want you to know the truth about those who have died, so that you will not be sad, as are those who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will take back with Jesus those who have died believing in him.

 

One of the lessons that we learn early in life is that things in this world do not last forever. Often we learn this lesson with a good deal of sadness and along with that sadness a good deal of confusion.
As our children were growing up we always had pets – cats, dogs, budgies, bantams, chickens, guinea pigs, even a horse. These were pets that they loved to hold, cuddle, wrap in blankets, push around in their prams, pretend they were babies. Our eldest daughter was often found out in the chook yard nursing a bantam. Another daughter loved her guinea pigs. When one of our dogs was suffering from a back injury and it was clear that he wasn’t going to get any better, our son carried the dog into his room and took special care of him. When the dog died each child disappeared to their own rooms and we found them on their beds with tears running down their faces. They were old enough to know (primary school age) that when something dies it doesn’t come back again. Their grief was enough for Miriam and me to agree that we would not have any more dogs. (We did give into our youngest daughter’s plea for another dog who had his 15^th birthday this week).

Those who are keen gardeners know that the most beautiful bed of flowers doesn’t last forever. Eventually they droop, drop their petals, and we pull them up and throw them into the bin.

We are approaching the end of the church year. At this time of the year we begin to look at the end of things. We look toward the end of time when Christ will come again and the world as we know it will come to an end.
We look to the end of our own lives when we will pass through ‘the valley of the shadow of death’. We can’t be certain when this will happen but we can be certain that it will happen.

The church father St. Augustine once said, “On the first day of our lives, someone might look into our cribs and mutter, ‘I’m afraid, you are in a bad way. You won’t get out of this alive.’” We, you and I, are terminal. And the older we get the more we realise that life is short. 

On the morning of my 40^th birthday my son greeted me with all the sensitivity that a young teen can muster, “Happy Birthday, Pops. What’s it like knowing that half your life is over?” We laughed but I didn’t really need to me reminded of that fact at that very moment. But as much as we might deny it, life does pass by quickly and our bodies start to slow down and show signs of wearing out. We might even go into a panic as we realise that the psalmist was right, ‘We are like weeds that sprout in the morning, that grow and burst into bloom, then dry up and die in the evening… Seventy years is all we have – eighty if we are strong … life is soon over and we are gone (Psalm 90 5,6,10).

A writer once said, Looking at death is like looking at the sun. A man can look directly at it for a moment, but must then turn away.

That’s how so many people live with death. They cannot bear the thought of either a last day for the world, or of their own last day. So many people these days have grabbed on to the idea of reincarnation – they will come back again in another life. That idea is plainly not true. Some simply go into denial; they shut their eyes to it and try to pretend that it won’t happen to them. Others adopt a more fatalistic approach. It’s going to happen and there’s nothing anyone can do change that.

All this talk about how short life is and our inevitable death can be rather depressing. It hurts all the more when we recall those special people who have left this life. Maybe the death of someone who was near and dear to you is still fresh in your mind. You recall with sadness what these people meant to you, how they impacted on your lives, the fun times you had with them. But now they are gone. Their memory is firmly fixed in our mind, but their presence in our lives is missed.

Will we hope ever to see their faces again?
Is it only wishful thinking, pure fantasy to believe that there is something beyond death?
As we say farewell to love ones, or look ahead to the day when we will gasp our last, is there any hope that will ease our grief and help us to be more relaxed about our own day of dying?

St Paul often tackled this very difficult subject in his letters. For instance, when he wrote to the Thessalonians he was speaking to a church in grief. The little congregation had risked so much; they had gone against their culture and the local authorities and stood firm in their faith in Jesus. They firmly believed that Christ would return soon. But where was Jesus? They had been waiting for years now. And while they were waiting some of their most beloved leaders and saints had died. Since they had died before Christ’s return are they lost forever? Will they be part of that great day when the dead will rise again? 

Paul tells his readers not to grieve as if there was no hope; as if there was nothing more to look forward to once we reached the end of our life on earth. And what hope do we have? He says, “We believe that Jesus died and rose again …. Those who have died believing in Christ will rise to life …. We will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess 4:14,16,17). In his letters Paul encouraged those Christians who were anxious about what will happen when time will stop and the world will end as well as comforting those who were concerned about what will happen when time will stop for each of us and our life will come to an end.

Like the Christians in Paul’s time, we too are sad when someone leaves this life. But this sadness does not lead us to despair or lose all hope. Because of Jesus we know there is life beyond death. There is no need for hopeless despair. There is no need to fear what will happen to us beyond this life.

Of course we will still have our moments of panic as we face our own mortality. As we wait for surgery, or realise how fast life is flying by, or stand by the grave of a loved one, we will still have those pangs of fear shoot through us.
We may wonder what will death be like;
how will we die;
what will happen to the family we leave behind;
and how we will miss seeing our children or grandchildren grow up and having their own families?
But these moments of panic are replaced with the confidence that Jesus has everything under control. And that includes death. Because of Jesus ‘death has been swallowed up in victory’.

Jesus has prepared the way. He has died to cleanse us from our sin and make us ready to enter into God’s presence in heaven. There is no reason to fear the outcome of our last day at all. Christ has died for us. We trust in him as our Saviour to rescue us from everything that would stand in our way to enjoying eternal life. There can be no doubt about our resurrection to eternal life. Paul talks about what will happen when Christ comes again, when he says,
“When the trumpet sounds, the dead will be raised, never to die again, and we shall all be changed. For what is mortal must be changed into what is immortal; what will die must be changed into what cannot die. So when this takes place, and the mortal has been changed into the immortal, then the scripture will come true: “Death is destroyed; victory is complete!” (1 Cor 15:52-54).

The witness of the Scriptures is clear. Death is not the end because our Saviour Jesus has changed everything to the point that death is no longer the penalty that it was. Jesus took care of death’s power over is through his own death and resurrection. He has made death the doorway to eternal life with God in heaven. Death is no longer a terrifying and frightening thing for those who trust in Jesus, but is the stepping off point to eternal life.

Last week we celebrated All Saints Day and we heard about that wonderful vision of heaven that John gives us in the Book of Revelation. He sees all these people from all around the world dressed in white robes standing before the throne of the Lamb. He asks, “Who are these people?”
This is the answer he receives, “They are the people … who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. That is why they stand before God’s throne” (Revelation 7:14,15)

We are certain of eternal life because our sins have been washed away in the blood of the Lamb. Jesus has made us holy, clean, pure and perfect through the giving of his own life for us and thus making us fit to enter God’s presence in heaven. God offers this to everyone and invites everyone to trust in the love and forgiveness that Jesus offers.

As the end of the church year gets nearer our eyes are focused beyond this life to the eternal joy that we will experience when we pass from this life. And we know that heaven will be a wonderful place. We read, “God himself will be with his people, and he will be their God. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more grief or crying or pain” (Rev 21:3,4).

Nick, a ten year old, had been diagnosed with leukemia 3 years ago but all attempts by doctors had failed to hold back its devastating course. His parents sat by his bed helplessly as the colour drained from his cheeks. Nick was buried on the Tuesday of Holy Week. Easter Day dawned unusually warm and bright. Late that day, Nick’s parents sat on their verandah watching the sunset. Their six-year-old daughter, Hannah, played beside them. Nick’s dad said to Hannah, “Look at that beautiful sunset. Do you see all those beautiful colours – the pink and blue and gold colours in the clouds?”
Hannah thoughtfully replied, “Do you think Nick can see all those beautiful colours?”

Her dad replied, “He sees an even more beautiful sunset than we can see, Hannah. He’s in heaven with Jesus the most beautiful place that anyone can imagine”.

 

Text: Matthew 22:36-39
The Pharisees … tried to trap him with a question. “Teacher,” he asked, “which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and the most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself.’”

Loving God and one another.

A production that I have seen performed by professionals as well as secondary school teens is Fiddler on the Roof. The play is set in an impoverished Russian village, Anatevka, populated largely by Jewish families, at a time when Russia was ruled by the Tsar. The people of the village had a simple faith. They heard little news of the outside world and their lives were governed strictly by their age-old traditions.

As the curtain opens for the first act, the attention of the audience is drawn to the roof of a house on the stage. A violin begins a haunting tune and the shadow of a fiddler, violin tucked under his chin, is seen playing and dancing gaily on the roof.

The lights come on the stage and the first person we meet is Tevye the dairy farmer. His opening words go something like this. “A fiddler on the roof? Sounds crazy no?… You might say that every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant simple tune without breaking his neck … It isn’t easy! … How can we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word. Tradition! Because of our tradition we have kept our balance for years … Because of our tradition everyone knows who he is and what God expects of him…. Tradition! Tradition! Without our tradition, our life would be as shaky as… as … as a fiddler on the roof!”

Like Tevye, the Pharisees knew that without Israel’s traditions life would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof. Like Tevye, they knew the importance of knowing who we are and what God expects of us and so they ask Jesus, “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus answered by giving the traditional answer from the Old Testament, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’ and ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself.’

There is nothing new in Jesus’ answer. This is not something original. In Jewish writings long before Jesus’ time, these two commandments summarised the whole of the law. A Jewish lawyer asked Jesus what he must do to receive eternal life (Luke 10:27). So Jesus asked him, “What do the Scriptures say? The lawyer gives the answer that every child was taught form an early age, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’ and ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself.”

Every Pharisee, every Jew – even Tevye the dairy farmer in the village of Anatevka – knew those words. These words are the essence, the beginning and the ending of the Jewish piety. In Deuteronomy we read, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” These words were to be recalled in the morning and in the evening. They were to be taught to the children. And they were recited just before the moment of death.

“And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself,” Jesus continued. Jesus went to the heart of the Pharisees’ tradition. He quoted the Law in Leviticus dealing with right conduct toward the neighbour. He went on, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The Pharisees wanted to find out where Jesus stood in regard to the traditional faith, the faith of the fathers. And in his reply, we find that Jesus had a great respect for tradition. He goes to the very heart of the Jewish faith and quotes passages of the Old Testament. Earlier in Matthew’s Gospel we hear that Jesus hasn’t come to do away with Israel’s faith. We hear him say, “Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets … but to make their teachings come true. Remember that as long as heaven and earth last, not the least point nor smallest detail of the Law will be done away with – not until the end of all things” (Matt 5:17). Jesus has great respect for the traditional faith, but not necessarily the traditional interpretation of the Pharisees.

The Jewish idea of responsibility when it came to which people were to be loved went like this. Everyone was to love God – that was compulsory. But everyone else was given a rating as to how much love they were to receive. There were those people to whom it was a responsibility to show love. Those on the outer circles of the community, like lepers, sinners, tax collectors, Gentiles, Samaritans etc, some were to be loved less, or others were owed no love whatsoever. The Pharisees had established a multitude of laws to help people in their observance of this command. These laws told people whom they were to love, and whom they could ignore.

By saying that the greatest commandment is to love God and to love your neighbour, gives a new slant to the traditional interpretation. To love God that was clear enough but to also say to love one another in the same breath puts both of these commands on an equal footing. One is not more important than the other. Both are compulsory. To love God is to love my neighbour and to truly love my neighbour is to love God. The command to love our enemies might seem to be crazy and impossible but it fits right in here with God’s love for us and our love for God. The Bible says, “If we say we love God, but hate others, we are liars. … The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love others also” (I John 4:20-21).

It’s quite clear that loving God and loving our neighbour are inseparable. You cannot claim to love God if you don’t love your neighbour. Essentially the entire law of God can be boiled down to two simple commandments: Love God with your whole being; and love whomever God puts next to you as you love yourself.

The late Henry Hamann said in his book on Matthew’s Gospel: “Jesus does not separate love for God from love for man, since the latter flows from the former, and since without the latter the former is impossible”.*

Before we go any further we need to understand what Jesus means here when he uses the word love. That little four letter word “love” in English is used in many contexts. We talk about loving our dog, loving strawberries and ice-cream, or loving our latest heart throb. When we use the word love like that we are expressing our affection and the warm feelings we have for whatever it is that we are loving. Because we associate the word “love” with affection it’s no wonder that we have difficulty loving those people who annoy us, those who have hurt us, and those who don’t deserve to be loved. When someone is really annoying us and we lose that warm feeling, we give up “loving” that person.

When the Bible talks about love it is really talks about a love that keeps on loving, it involves commitment. We may have warm feelings of gratitude to God when we consider all that he has done for us, but it is not warm feelings that Jesus is demanding of us. It is stubborn, unwavering commitment. It follows then that to love one another, including our enemies, doesn’t mean we must feel affection for them, rather it means a commitment on our part to take their needs seriously, just as God committed himself to taking our needs seriously by sending his Son into this world.

You see this in marriages where the aging process leaves one partner physically incapacitated, difficult to live with, very demanding, and yet the other partner keeps on caring, showing patience, extremely forgiving and dealing with all the difficulties. That’s coming close to the biblical idea of love. It’s that commitment even though it’s really hard. It’s that stubborn, unwavering commitment to the other person’s needs often at a great sacrifice to him/herself.

Whether we are talking about a marriage, involvement with a church or friendships – everything is fine while we have those warm feelings but when those warm feelings fade so does the relationship. You see, warm feelings without any commitment are very temporary.

The kind of love that Jesus is talking about in his answer to the Pharisees doesn’t come naturally. Putting it into practice is something we have to work on. Love – commitment – is a deliberate action of the will. To love means deliberately to turn toward another person and their needs, to give away something of ourselves to someone else without thinking of what we will get in return.

In Luke’s Gospel Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 15:25-37) we see an example of a man loving his enemy, committing his money, time and energy to seeing to the needs of the man lying in the gutter. He stopped to help and to hang with the consequences. All he could see was someone in need. This kind of love/commitment is self-sacrificing. It is putting the other person first, whether it is God or our neighbour.

In all honesty, it doesn’t take much imagination to realise that this kind of love has been in short supply in our lives. In fact, if we could love perfectly then there would be no more sin in our world. If we could love perfectly, if we could be able to be truly committed to other people, then there would be no more violence, or war; what we say and do would only be gentle, kind and caring.

Because this is not the case Jesus came to pay for our lovelessness. He showed us what true love is.
His love touched the dumb, the deaf, the diseased, and the disabled.
His love warned, wept, and washed dirty feet.
His love willingly took him to Jerusalem and terrible suffering.
His love carried a cross – and died upon it!
His love welcomed each of us into God’s family, forgiving our sin in the water of baptism. Because of Jesus you are perfect saints in the eyes of God. Eternal life is yours in Christ. Forgiveness of sins is yours. The perfect love of God is yours.

We don’t love in order to get to heaven; we love because heaven is already ours in Christ.
We don’t love in order to win God’s favour; we love because we already have God’s favour in Christ.
We don’t love so that God will love us; we love because God has loved us in Christ with the greatest love we will ever know, the crucified love of Jesus.

In ‘Fiddler on the roof’, there is a confusion between faith and tradition in Tevye’s thinking when he says that without tradition our life would be as shaky as a fiddler trying to play on the roof!”

Maybe we would be more inclined to say, “Without the love of Christ controlling us, our life would be as shaky as… as … as a fiddler on the roof!”

 

Imitators of God

Sermon: 22nd Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

 The other day I had the experience that many fathers have with their kids: I watched one of my kids imitate me. Right down to the gestures and the tone of voice. It reminded me that the most powerful way to teach anybody anything is to do it yourself. This is what you see at work in the second reading for today, from Thessalonians.

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 – a familiar phrase in the Ringwood congregation! And this is what has made the biggest impact.

Interestingly, like parents with their kids, pastors often leave their imprint on a congregation – particularly pastors who stay a while. Over time, the people see and watch and pick up what the pastor’s attitudes and priorities are, and they adopt and imitate them.

This is what happened with this little congregation at Thessalonica. 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.

Now, where, how and by whom do you think they saw those two qualities being lived out? Who showed them joy and conviction?

Paul of course! They are imitating him. When he 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 – in Achaia and Macedonia and even beyond. Paul observes 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 effects 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. 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. 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. What they see in your life is worth more than anything you say to your kids.

This is fundamentally what “Child in Our Hands” is about – it’s what your kids see in you.

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 things 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 – yes you, imperfect you, sometimes struggling you – because you are, by God’s grace, Christ’s child, his disciple.

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 your roles, relationships and vocations in life, Christ is holding up your life before others so that in you, they may see him:

• In the way 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 are 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 life long 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. This powerful though very quiet dynamic is God’s way of bringing his Kingdom in the world, through you. Amen

“A big Heap of Bull”

Exodus 32: 1-14 

A Christian fellow, who had previously been a devout Hindu inIndia, reflects on his former religion at a time when he decided his Hinduism would lead him to worship his cow. Cows are sacred inIndia. They are gods allowed to roam the streets, enter houses, and to eat them would be a crime of sacrilege.

The Hindu honoured his cow; however, he began to question his faith when this god of his charged him. The consecrated cow, became a beast of burden, thinking nothing of the honour the Hindu had given him.

I’d suspect it would make you wonder, what you’d done wrong, after giving much homage to the cow. Yet all you get in return is wild-eyed rampage coming at you to gore you for your trouble.

Perhaps one should have fell prostrate seeking mercy from the cantankerous cow, but I must admit I’ve never witnessed too many farming folk from around these placed bowing low in the dust and filth of a cattle yard to earn the favour of a snotty animal that’s just been seared with a branding iron. No. The wise thing to do is let the adrenaline take over in super-human style and leap the impossible fence in a single bound.

So the blessed bovine became a beast of burden. The Hindu knew his god of wrath was no god at all and after some time circumstances brought him before the God of creation and his Son, Jesus Christ. In time he believed and he became a Christian.

This might seem like nonsense — worshipping a cow, not being able to eat them, believing they have divine powers. One might say it’s foolish or just a big heap of bull!

But humans have been burying themselves in it from ancient times up until the present. The Israelites having been led out ofEgyptwith much power and supremacy by God himself, now sit in wait for Moses who had disappeared upMount Sinai.

While Moses is before God, hearing what was to be put in place so God could have a personal relationship with the Israelites through the giving of the ten commandments and instructions for building a tabernacle — a footstool for God on earth, the Israelites put there own building plan into action. They built themselves an image and declare it to be God’s representative. What was taking time and preparation between God and Moses on the mountain was contrasted by the immediate rush down below for Aaron to dream up a golden image to take the place of an infinite God.

For us this too might seem like a load of bull. They built an image of a calf, and covered with their gold. It was a personal creation of the people, but it was impersonal — unable to speak, see, or act. It could do nothing unlike the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who had done everything for them in the past.

However, the people had waited quite a while for Moses. They must have wondered if he was returning. The Israelite failed to see it was not Moses who brought them up out ofEgypt, but rather it was God using Moses as his mouthpiece and mediator.

But why a golden calf? What has a cow got to do with God? Why did they make an image of a young bull as God’s representative on earth?

The Egyptians and Canaanites saw the bull as an object of fertility and power and worshipped it as a representative of the sky or storm gods. The Israelites had just recently leftGoshenwhere they would have been accustomed to this style of worship.

Bulls in ancient times were seen as the kings of domesticated animals, just as eagles were the kings of the birds, lions were kings of the wild animals, and the cedars of Lebanon were the kings of the trees.

So God seemed to have become even more distant, now that there leader, Moses, had not been seen for some time. He had disappeared in the glory cloud of thunder and lightning on the mountain. Therefore a bull would have seemed a fitting image of God who was hidden in the Sinai storm of fire and smoke with such power and might.

But we know that the whole exercise was a load of bull. The glory of God and his personal relationship with the people ofIsraelwas exchanged for an impersonal idol. In fact they acted disobediently before God, who had commanded them not to make graven images out of gold or silver. They turned from the person of God Almighty to their own personal thoughts and created a god. They sinned against the Creator and became creators themselves and after they made their impotent god of gold, their self-glory sat them down in revelry against God.

Worshipping living cows or golden calves might seem to us like a big load of bull. However, you and I too struggle with self-glorification. All of us create sacred cows in our lives and bow down to them. We do it wittingly and unwittingly, making gods of the created, and placing them above the Creator.

The problem is that when we create these gods for ourselves, it’s just not they that are the gods. We worship them before God, placing our faith in them, because they have come from our own power. In fact, it is you and I who make ourselves god, when we place other things before God Almighty. In reality, we distant ourselves from the One True God with a pantheon of pseudo gods. We busy ourselves in service to them, so we don’t have to face the reality of our sinful nature before God Almighty.

These gods in our lives are very impersonal. They take away our identity, further destroying the image of God which was originally intended for you and for me. Like the Hindu’s cow god, the gods we create end up charging us, becoming beasts of burden. They kill rather than give life. Like the golden calf our impersonal gods serve us by being a dead weight around our necks, dragging us down into darkness.

Before we exchange the glory of God for our ideas about God we do well to remember the idolatry of the Israelites and the Hindu cow worshipper, was, and still is, a big heap of bull. Before we seek to implement our own ideas of what worship is all about, perhaps we need to hear and study the word of God, and hear what God has put in place for us.

The glory of God is the God who saves us. The glory of God is he who names our sin, calls it to account so he might forgive it, so we might live in peace with him. The glory of God is he who feeds us with his Holy Word and embodies that word of peace and forgiveness in us through the bread and the wine, so we might bear the glory of God before the world showing that our own created false gods and idols are a big heap of bull. The Glory of God is Jesus Christ alone; who served us by bearing our sin on the cross; and continues to serve us in his resurrected glory.

And that’s no bull! Amen.

Text: Matthew 21:33-39
Jesus said, “There was once a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a hole for the wine press, and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to tenants and left home on a trip. When the time came to gather the grapes, he sent his slaves to the tenants to receive his share of the harvest. The tenants grabbed his slaves, beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again the man sent other slaves, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all he sent his son to them. “Surely they will respect my son,’ he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the owner’s son. Come on, let’s kill him, and we will get his property!’ So they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

Lord, what do you want us to do?

 

Even though the parable in today’s Gospel is story about judgement, it begins with a note of grace and generosity. A landowner planted a vineyard, improved it with a fence and watchtower. He set up everything nicely and now the property would start making money. He employed tenants to take care of his investment. They simply had to tend the plants, keep the weeds down, harvest the fruit, and make sure everything ran smoothly. The tenants had it made. They had a good job, security, steady income, job satisfaction, a roof over their heads, food on the table. Simply – this job was a gift.

As time went on the workers started to think of the vineyard as theirs. They started to use words like “our vineyard, our crop, our tools, our money”. They resented the idea that the landowner should expect to get anything from their hard work. They shamefully bashed, and even killed, anyone whom the landowner sent to get what was his.

The owner finally sends his own son. You might well ask, “What kind of father is this?” He knows how ruthless and violent these people are. He should call in the police to deal with these guys once and for all. But the landowner is always optimistic – always hoping that the tenants will change.

It doesn’t surprise us to hear that the tenants kill the son too. The conclusion to Jesus’ story – the landowner has no rent, no honour, no servants and now no son and no vineyard.

Jesus asked his listeners what they thought the landowner should do now.

A bit of a silly question really! Kill those violent and wicked tenants. After all the landowner had been ever so patient and gracious, giving them chance after chance to realise that they weren’t the owners but tenants.

We know that Jesus was talking about the people of Israel in this parable and how they had rejected God by beating and killing the prophets, and soon will beat and kill his Son. This parable had a special application to the church of Jesus’ day but we would be blind if that is all we could see in this story. God is the owner but how often do we act as if we are the owners.

When you stop and think about it, we are tenants, not owners. In the broadest sense, everything we have is on loan from God. We sometimes imagine that we are owners.
“It’s my money and I can spend it as I please.”
“It’s my body and I have a right to do what I want with it.”
“It’s my life and I don’t need anyone to tell me how to live it.”

It’s clear from the very first pages of the Bible when God gave Adam and Eve the Garden of Eden, that they didn’t own it, they were tenants.

You are made and owned by God. Your life is not yours to own like you own a Holden or a Ford or a wide screen surround sound digital TV system and so you can do whatever you please with it. You’re God’s property. Life is a gift, just as the Holden or the Ford and wide screen surround sound digital TV system are gifts, to be used with God the Creator in mind.

We have a responsibility to use his gifts wisely and faithfully. And God gives his gifts in the hope of finding a harvest of fruit – fruit like honouring, loving and trusting God above anything else, and in our dealings with others – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control.

Jesus was talking to the church of his day through this parable and so I want to focus on that special gift that God has given to us – the church. Like the landowner he has generously and graciously given us the church to care for and to reap a rich harvest.

But we are often guilty of acting as if we own the church. I don’t think it matters if we are talking about the church catholic – meaning the church throughout the world – or St Paul’s here on the local scene –
the church is the people of God, saved by Jesus’ death and resurrection,
the church is the fellowship of believers who are loved by our heavenly Father who speaks to us through the Scriptures and shows us his love through the water of baptism, the body and blood of Jesus in Holy Communion.
As God’s people we are given the Holy Spirit to encourage and support us every moment of every day. He keeps us together in Christ through forgiveness and reconciliation.
The church consists of people who have been chosen by God – as Peter says, “You are the chosen race, the king’s priests, the holy nation, God’s own people”. The church is a gift and our place in the church is a gift from God.

Since the church is God’s gift to us shouldn’t we be asking, “What does the owner want us to do? What does the Lord of the Church want us to do? As those who belong to the church through the gracious invitation of our Lord, what does he want us to do?” (Let’s not just think of the church as an organisation – like St Paul’s) but also of what does the Lord want us– the people of the church – you and me – to do).

Last week I emphasised the response of the individual to God’s love and concluded by asking, “Jesus, what do you want me to do?” But today our parable is leading us to ask a further question, “What do you want us, the people whom you have saved with the blood of your own Son, to do?” This is the question that we as church must ask. “Lord, what do you want us, your church, to do?”

When we ask questions like,
What does God want to do for this community through us, his church?
What does God wants us to do to help and encourage those who are facing tough times – whether they are the result of their own making or just happen because they are part of fallen humanity.
What does God want us to do to make worship meaningful across all generations?
What does God wants us to do so that all children are taught about the love Jesus has for them?
What does God wants us to do in order to make the best use of the properties and facilities that he has given us to further his work in this community?

Whatever other important questions arise, we always need to remind ourselves that this is not our church, this is God’s Church. The one who created the church, paid for it with the death of his Son. And so the first and vital question that needs to be asked is this, “What does the Lord of the church, the owner of the church, want us to do.” “How can we be the best tenants possible and serve our Master faithfully.”

And I, like you, want to know what the answers are to these questions. As individuals we come with all kinds of ideas and answers to the question, “What does God want to do through St Paul’s?” Each of us understands the mission and ministry of the church in different ways but in the end together as the fellowship of believers
we wrestle with what God wants us to do,
we argue with God about it,
we argue amongst ourselves (in a friendly way),
we are challenged to be church in our community,
and as individuals you and I may have to change our ideas and that means not always getting our own way.
If we, as church, still don’t know what God wants us to do we need to listen to him care fully again with open minds and pray all the more earnestly about it.

The church is God’s. We can take heart. Being the church is not all left up to us. We are God’s church, God’s people filled with the Holy Spirit to struggle with us and guide us as we seek ways to actively be the church in the world.

I said in the beginning that this parable of Jesus is a parable of judgement. Jesus concludes by saying, “And so I tell you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce the proper fruits.” Was Jesus only talking about the church of his time? Could he also be saying this to us today? Is it possible that the church, the gospel, this gift may be taken from us and given to others?

As a family drove into town town, they passed by a large, impressive church.
“We’ll go to that church on Sunday,” the man said to his family.
On Sunday they got up, got dressed, and walked to this very impressive church building. When the family entered they saw a small group of people scattered around the empty pews mumbling their way through the service.

It was obvious from the magnificent church building that this had once been a thriving, lively congregation. What they once had, they no longer had. The church had stopped asking, “What does God want us to do?”

On the other hand there was a congregation made up of mostly elderly people and their numbers were slowly but surely diminishing. One elderly man said, “God put this church here for a reason a hundred years ago, what does God want us, his church, to do today. It’s clear that the reasons why this church was formed in the first place have changed. Does that mean God is finished with us as a congregation? If that sis the case then we should sell this valuable piece of real estate and worship elsewhere.”

This small group of older people wrestled and prayed about this. The church was located near a primary school. One elderly lady said, “Let’s have an after school activities time for kids. Lots of them go home to empty houses – let’s give them something to eat, crank up the sound system with some of their kind of music, and get some activities going”. They prayed about it. They knew it would be hard work. They didn’t like the music, but they were determined. They started with a small group of children, then some mothers came to help, then the Sunday School was restarted and a support group was formed to help families facing tough times.” That church was once again the church for that community. It all started with the simple question, “Lord, what do you want us to do?”

Jesus told this parable about the wicked tenants to bring the church of his day to repentance. It has the same effect on us today. When we read this we realise how often we forget to ask, “What would the owner want us to do”? We realise that so often we have wanted our own way and not sought what was the will of Lord of the Church.

We are here this morning because we have a Saviour who has died and risen for us. We have a Master who has given his life for us so that we can have forgiveness and eternal life. May God through his Holy Spirit continue to bless his church and give us an ever-greater vision of what he wants for the church and what it means for us to be the church, people bringing a rich and fruitful harvest for God. As great as the temptation always is to be a cosy and comfortable and to simply look after ourselves, let’s be open to the prompting and guiding of the Spirit to be a witnessing and serving church. May God richly bless and guide us as we ask, “Lord, what do you want us, your church, to do?”

 

Text: Matthew 21:28-30
There was once a man who had two sons. He went to the older one and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” “I don’t want to,” he answered, but later changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. “Yes sir,” he answered, but he did not go.

When yes means yes.

A father tells this story. “When my oldest son was about three years old, I was outside doing some work in the garden one afternoon. I took Kevin outside to play while I trimmed the hedges. Holding his hand, I knelt down beside him so that we could look at each other face to face. Slowly and carefully
I said, “Now, Kevin, you can play here in our front yard. You can go next door and play in your friend’s front yard. You can ride your bike up and down the driveway. You can go in the backyard and play with the dog or play on your swing. You can go back inside and watch television. You can stay here and watch me trim the hedges. You can do all those things but you are not go out into the street. It is very dangerous there. You cannot play in the street. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
And Kevin solemnly nodded his head. “Yes, Daddy,” he said. I let go of his hand and he ran straight to the curb, put one foot on the street, and then turned his head toward me and smiled, as if to say, “Silly daddy!”

Today’s gospel reading has a similar story. Jesus tells about a father who has two sons. The father asked them to go out and work in the field. One of the sons impudently answers, “No! I won’t go!”

A little later, the father looks up from what he is doing and notices that the boy has changed his mind and is now working out in the field.

His other son, when asked to work, politely said, “Yes, of course, father. Nothing would please me more than to work in the field for you.” Two hours later, the polite, seemingly obedient son is still lying on the sofa watching TV.

Now think hard, says Jesus, which son do you think pleased the father more? The one who said no, but then went into action or the one who politely said yes but then did nothing?

Those with children can identify with this scene immediately. It seems children come with the word “no” pre-programmed in them. You know how it goes.
Clean your room. No.
Do your homework. No.
Comb your hair. No.
Where does this come from? It comes from Adam and Eve, the ones who first said “no” to God and “yes” to themselves and the devil who lied to them. That “no” is passed on like a genetic disease from parent to child, from one generation to the next.

As children get older, the “no” turns into “Do I have to?” usually spoken in a whining tone that makes it doubly irritating.
“Help your mother with the dishes.” “Do I have to?”
This can turn into a more defiant “Why should I?”
“Be home at 11:00.” “Why should I?”

We are also familiar with the seemingly obedient child.
“Clean your room”. “Okay, Mum.” And when mum comes back nothing has changed. We also know that this kind of behaviour is not restricted to children. We say “yes”, perhaps with a good deal of enthusiasm but never get around to doing anything about it.

The Bible is full of stories about people who said “yes” but when it came to carrying out what they had said “yes” to that ended with a loud “no”.

A couple of examples. At the foot of Mt Sinai the people of Israel said, “Yes, we will do all the things the Lord has commanded us.” Not long after they said “no” to God in the loudest and most defiant way possible. They made a golden calf, and worshipped it.

The disciple Peter promised “Yes Lord, you can count on me, I will never deny you even if it costs me my life.” Not long after, he said “no” three times as he denied any connection with Jesus.

The church leaders of Jesus’ time said “yes” to God but “no” to the one whom God had sent.

In all honesty we have to confess that we get out yeses and nos all mixed up. We have sinned against God our Father by what we have done and by what we have left undone, by our rebellious “no” and by our religious “yes.”

We say “yes” to following Jesus, but when discipleship involves putting God and others first, being committed to joining in mission and ministry with my fellow disciples, the people of our church, putting aside everything else as less important to doing the work that Jesus has given us to do, we end up saying “No, this is just too hard”.

We have said “yes” to the love of God, we enjoy God’s grace as we see it in Jesus; we like knowing that God’s love for us is so certain and unchangeable but we have said a firm “no” to offering a hand of friendship to the person who really gets us angry; we have said a firm “no” to forgiving a person who seems to delight in saying things that really gets us stirred up.

We have said a firm “yes” to the new life that we received from God’s Spirit at our baptism, but the way we live our lives declares a loud “no” as we say “yes” to jealousy, anger, impatience, unkindness, sexual immorality, being nasty and uncaring.

We have said “yes” to the whole idea of spreading the good news about Jesus and God’s love for people in every kind of situation, but when we look at how little we have done and what little enthusiasm we have for getting involved we realise that our “yes” has been nothing but a pious good intention. We have reserved the right to say “no” if too much is asked from us.

We have shouted, “Yes, God is so good. Look at what he has done for us; how he gave his Son’s life because of his extreme love for us. Look at how he cares for us and our loved ones every day. Yes, I will give God praise and worship.” But after that initial wave of excitement we end up saying “no” to committing time to gather with our fellow Christians in worship; we say “no” to joining with others to thank and praise God.

In Jesus’ parable the second son is an example of religious hypocrisy. Did you know that the word “hypocrite” comes from the Greek word for “actor”? Actors hid behind masks; they appeared to be something they were not. The second son appeared to be the good, obedient, perfect son. He pretended to be someone he wasn’t. He was an actor, a hypocrite.

Jesus saw the empty, hypocritical “yes” of the religious people of Israel. “They preach but they do not practice what they preach,” Jesus said. They say the right things but they do the opposite.

Those who were listening to Jesus as he told this parable got it right when he asked them, “Which one of the two sons did what his father wanted?” Not the son who said, “yes, yes, yes” and did nothing, not the son who heard exactly what his father wanted him to do, but instead had his own agenda listing what he would and would not do.
How many times have our good and noble “yes” to Christ in our lives, and our “yes” to doing something because of our faith turned out to be fizzers?
How many times have we heard a stirring sermon, heard an exciting talk and presentation, been to an inspiring seminar and enthusiastically said “yes” and went home and did nothing about it?

Notice that I haven’t excluded myself from any of this and it upsets me to see this kind of thing happening in me – saying “yes” like the second son in the parable and doing nothing. It upsets me when I see this in a congregation – full of good intentions, enthusiastically passing resolutions at meetings and then waiting for someone else to carry them out. “Yes what a good idea, but no, I don’t want to get involved”. Seeing this side of ourselves is not a pleasant experience. We cringe, we deny it, we repent of it.

We are thankful that the “yes” of Jesus’ love for us was more than words or a pious feeling. We are ever so grateful that Jesus’ “yes” for us meant action. We are great sinners, this is true. But Jesus is an even greater Saviour from sin. We have a Saviour whose “yes” for us led to his cruel suffering and death on a cross.

His “yes” for us at our baptism meant that each of us, personally and individually through the water that was splashed on us, was graciously given freedom from all of our sin, and the love of God who has promised to go with us through all the ups and downs of this life. And then finally when our journey here is over to welcome us into eternal glory in heaven.

As we come forward to receive Holy Communion we again hear God’s “yes” for us as we eat and drink the body blood of our Saviour.
Yes, in spite of our sin we are loved.
Yes, in spite of our hypocritical ways when we say “yes” but we really mean “no” there is forgiveness.
Yes, even though we have so many good intentions to carry out God’s will in and through our lives, the perfect life, suffering, death and burial, resurrection and ascension of Jesus has given us a fresh start and a fresh opportunity to say “yes” and to mean “yes”.

Through the power of God’s Spirit working in our lives may it happen that when we say “yes” to the love God shows us and exclaim “yes” to Jesus’ call to be disciples we will also say
“yes” to God making some big changes in our lives,
“yes” to following the guiding of the Spirit more closely,
“yes” to greater involvement in worship, prayer and the work of God’s church.

By the grace and power of God may our “yes” to Jesus be a “yes” to a new life inspired by the Spirit and enthused to do God’s work. Amen

Text: Jonah 3:10 – 4:3
God saw that the people of Nineveh had given up their wicked behaviour. So he changed his mind and did not punish them as he had said he would.
Jonah was very unhappy about this and became angry. So he prayed, “Lord, didn’t I say before I left home that this is just what you would do? That’s why I did my best to run away to Spain! I knew that you are a loving and merciful God, always patient, always kind, and always ready to change your mind and not punish. Now then, Lord, let me die. I am better off dead than alive.”

God of Grace.

Most of us have a highly developed sense of justice. When someone does something that is outside of what we think is acceptable there are consequences.

A farmer noticed a carload of people who had climbed his orchard fence and were not only eating his apples without asking permission but were putting some in a shopping bag to take with them.

He climbed over the fence and walked up to them. One of them smiled sheepishly and, thinking that a little flattery would win the farmer over, said, “We hope you don’t mind but we have enjoyed eating some of your most excellent apples.”

“No, not at all,” said the farmer, “and I hope you don’t mind that I just let the air out of your most excellent tyres.”

From a very early age we learn that when someone does something to hurt us in any way, the right response is to give back equally what was given. In some cases, maybe we give back just a little more to make sure they don’t do it again.

If a terrorist who had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people is captured and brought to trial I dare say most of us would like to see him get “what he deserves”. Just as he showed no mercy to his victims he doesn’t deserve any mercy now. He’s a monster whose life should be ended or locked up and the key thrown away.

In today’s Old Testament reading we hear about Jonah who is having real difficulty with this whole matter of what is right and fair. In fact, Jonah is seriously cheesed off. You see, he thinks these Ninevites should be wiped off the face of the earth. They are God’s enemies; they are the enemies of God’s chosen people; they are notoriously wicked and deserve the worst that God could dish out to them.

From the moment that God told him to go to Nineveh and warn the people that their wickedness would bring down God’s judgement on them, Jonah thought that this was all wrong.
Why even give them a warning? They are wicked so why doesn’t God just let them have it. Jonah is even suspicious that God will them off the hook. Later on he says, “I knew from the very beginning that you wouldn’t destroy Nineveh. I knew that you would only show love and not punish your enemies”. And he might have added, “I knew that you would have compassion on them and they don’t deserve it.”

As far as Jonah is concerned, the Ninevites don’t deserve a second chance or any kind of mercy or even a warning that God’s judgement is near so he gets on a boat and sets sail in the opposite direction.

His attempt to get away from God is futile. We know the story well. Jonah is swallowed by a big fish and in the belly of the fish he throws himself on the grace of God and experiences God’s love and mercy as he is given a second chance. The fish spits him up on the beach and once again God tells him to call the people of Nineveh to turn away from their sin, turn to God, receive God’s forgiveness and mercy, and live.

So when we encounter Jonah in today’s first reading he is not a happy. He is not happy about the Ninevites getting another chance, about God allowing them to live, when they are such wicked and evil people. Jonah wants justice not mercy. This makes Jonah so angry.

Why is he so upset?

First of all Jonah thought he had God all worked out. The rules were straight forward. He had learnt them as a child. He said it every day, “Israel, remember this! The Lord – and the Lord alone – is our God. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut 6:4). In other words, if you worship false gods, do not obey the one true God, live immorally and violently like the Ninevites, you will be punished by God. How simple is that? But now it seems that God is changing the rules and the wicked are going to get away scot free.

Secondly, Jonah was a Jew – one of God’s chosen people. But these Ninevites were nothing – godless, barbaric, wicked heathens involved in all kinds of deviant behaviour. They don’t deserve mercy; they deserve nothing less than God’s worst punishment. Besides what’s the point of being one of God’s chosen people if God was going to be gracious and forgiving to anyone and everyone, especially those whose lives and religion were so perverted and depraved.

And thirdly, (and this annoyed Jonah more than anything and made him really angry), he firmly believed that God was unfair. Jonah thought the people of Nineveh were so wicked that they were beyond mercy and grace. For Jonah things were simple. People should get what they deserve. If they have been faithful and good then they should be blessed. If they have been wicked and perverted then they deserve to be damned.
After Jonah had tried to run away from God Jonah was happy to receive God’s mercy but he resented God dealing with the Ninevites in a similar way. In Jonah’s mind the Ninevites were so wicked that there was only one way God should deal with them. No mercy; only punishment.

It’s clear that Jonah was telling God how he should treat the people of Nineveh and thought he knew better than God what they deserved.

What is more, he missed the point that God was free to do as he liked even if it seemed unfair and didn’t make any sense to anyone else.

The Book of Jonah is well described as a book about mission – God’s mission to a Jonah himself. God is reaching out and teaching Jonah about grace and undeserved mercy.
And so as you read this Old Testament story you begin to see that God’s real mission in the story is not to Nineveh at all! God could have sent anyone to deliver his message to them – probably a person more enthusiastic about mission work would have done a far better job and certainly someone who understood God’s grace a little better would have been a far more effective witness. God’s mission is to help Jonah understand that his grace is not selective (i.e. some people deserve it more that others) or limited (i.e. that God can love only certain people).

Jesus teaches this same lesson in his parable about the labourers in the vineyard. Remember how workers are hired at different times of the day to bring in the harvest. When the end of the day came and each worker was paid the person who worked all day received the same as the person who worked for only one hour. The point being made here is that this doesn’t seem fair at all. In our way thinking, people should only get what they deserve and no more.

Jesus makes it clear that this is not the way God operates. If God operated that way then no one would receive anything from God. God’s love extends to one and all regardless of their situation in life, how good or bad, how faithful or unfaithful they have been, or how long they have been members of the church. The questions the owner of the vineyard asked could well have been questions that God could have asked Jonah. “Don’t I have the right to be generous if I want to? Are you angry because I have been generous?”

What God was trying to get through to Jonah and what Jesus was trying to tell his listeners was that God doesn’t operate by what is fair or unfair. God doesn’t use accounting methods to decide what we deserve. In fact, the word deserve doesn’t apply to the way God thinks of us because if God gave us what we deserve then we would all end up in hell.

If God dealt with Jonah the way Jonah expected God to deal with the Ninevites then neither Jonah or the Ninevites would have been saved. Jonah would be judged in the same way he expected the people of Nineveh to be judged. The story of Jonah and the parable of the labourers in the vineyard tell us that God is generous, full of grace, and forgiving. He is ready to give second chances and in the case of Jonah third and fourth chances.

We can add that God’s grace is persistent. It doesn’t give up.
God rescues rebellious Jonah from the briny deep.
He is patient with Jonah’s half-hearted effort in delivering his message,
and to top it all off he hangs in there when Jonah smoulders with anger and self righteous pity because all he can see is injustice and unfairness.

The story about Jonah finishes with a question from God. Remember Jonah is seething that God had shown mercy on the people of Nineveh. God had caused a plant to grow and shelter Jonah from the hot sun and then it died. That made Jonah even more upset. God comes to him with this concluding sentence. “You are concerned about a mere bush that grew one day and died the next. Don’t you think that I should be concerned about the 120,000 people in that city?”

We don’t know how Jonah responded.
Was God’s mission to Jonah successful?
Did Jonah finally understand God’s mercy and grace?
Was this a turning point in his life and he repented of his hard-heartedness toward the people of Nineveh and let God’s mercy and grace control his life?

I believe that this ending is deliberate. It’s good storytelling because instead of ending with “and he lived happily ever after” we are left to ponder the question, “How did the grace of God affect Jonah? How has the grace of God affected us and the way we live today?”

Do we reflect the grace God has shown toward us in the way that we show love to the people in our lives?
Do we reflect the grace of God when others have offended us? Do we reach out and seek forgiveness and reconciliation or do we pass off the rift that has happened with “It’s not my fault; he/she needs to apologise to me”.
Do we reflect the grace of God in the way we treat those who are in some kind of need? Are we hard-headed and ignore their need, make excuses for our lack of empathy and action or do we strive to understand, be compassionate, and help in what ever way we can?
Do we reflect the grace of God as we deal with difficult people – those who are hard to like, argumentative, opinionated, self-focussed or do we find it easier to brush them aside and declare that they require too much effort and emotional energy?
Do we reflect the grace of God as members of the church when others lose their faith, adopt a way of life that is clearly wrong in God’s eyes, drop out of the fellowship of the church? Do we offer them our love, our help and support?
Are we like Jonah – ready to accept God’s grace and to be cared for, comforted and helped by a loving God but refuse to pass this on the same care, comfort and love to others?

We all struggle to reflect the grace of God in our lives and we often fail. The great thing about God’s grace is that it never gives up, it is always ready to forgive, restore and make new. May God’s grace truly make a real difference in our lives every day.Amen.

Text: Matthew 18:21-22
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times? “No, not seven times,” answered Jesus, “but seventy times seven.”

To be forgiven and to forgive

The poet Heinrich Heine once said, “My nature is the most peaceful in the world. All I ask is a simple cottage, a decent bed, good food, some flowers in front of my window, and a few trees beside my door. Then, if God wanted to make me completely happy, he would let me enjoy the spectacle of six or seven of my enemies dangling from those trees. I would forgive them all the wrongs they have done me – forgive them from the bottom of my heart, for we must forgive our enemies. But not until they are hanged!”

There can be little disagreement with the statement, “Forgiveness is not natural; it is not a universal human virtue. Vengeance, retribution, violence are more natural human qualities. It is natural for humans to defend themselves, to snarl and crouch into a defensive position when attacked, to howl when hurt, to bite back when bitten.” (W.H. Willimon)

We have heard people say, and we have said it ourselves,
“I can’t bring myself to forgive him”, or
“How many times do I have to forgive her, she keeps on hurting me over and over again,” or
“Why should I forgive, he’s not sorry for what he’s done to me.”

For a moment think of the worst thing that someone has done to you. Think of the hurt that this person has caused in your life. Feel the bitterness, the coldness, and the pain that this person has caused you. Now picture yourself extending the hand of forgiveness to the person, embracing that person warmly like the father does in Jesus’ story about the return of the runaway son who had hurt his father so much. Picture yourself saying meaningfully and gladly, “I forgive you.”

I think you will agree with me that forgiveness may be one of the toughest things we as Christians are asked to do.

And so we have Peter come to Jesus with a perfectly natural question. “Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times?” This is a very important question. How many times have I been asked, “Do I have to keep on forgiving, if the other person keeps on hurting me? Wouldn’t you agree that there has to be a limit.” And that’s exactly what Peter is asking. He would have thought that his suggestion of seven times was very generous. We agree. We forgive a person, once, twice, three times, but four times – I don’t think we would still be friends after four times.

The Jewish Rabbis said that to forgive three times was enough. Peter was doubling that and adding one for good measure. But Jesus surprises Peter with his answer. “No, not seven times,” answered Jesus, “but seventy times seven.” That’s a lot! And that’s exactly what Jesus was getting at. He’s not stating that after 490 times of forgiving someone we stop, but that there is no limit to the forgiveness we should be offering to those who sin against us.

In effect Jesus is saying, “Throw away the calculator. Stop counting on your fingers. In God’s Kingdom there is unlimited forgiveness – seventy times seven times seven times seven and so on.”

Jesus then goes on to tell this unusual story. A king wanted to settle accounts and close the books on some outstanding loans with his servants. He had one servant who owed him millions of dollars. The debt was so big the man would never hope to see the outside of a gaol cell ever again.

Does that seem a bit harsh? Well, before you are too tough on the king remember the servant had been entrusted with millions of dollars. The king is exceptionally generous! What happened to all that money? To blow that much money the servant must have really lived it up. He wasted it all. No wonder the king is angry.

The servant begged for mercy. I don’t know what plan he had in mind. There was no way that a servant could have rounded up that kind of money, no matter how much time he had. But the king in an amazing display of undeserved kindness simply forgave the debt, tore up the note, wrote “paid in full” on the books, and sent the servant on his way a free man.

The servant got up from his knees, dusted himself off, and went out and found a fellow servant who owed him a few dollars, loose change compared with the debt the king had just written off. We might have expected a bit of kindness on the part of one who has just received his life back, a token piece of generosity in the direction of a fellow servant. Instead, the servant grabbed his fellow servant by the throat and demanded payment in full. And when he begged for the same kind of mercy and patience as the first servant had, he found himself thrown into debtor’s prison.

Now when the king got word of this he was outraged and called back the servant. “I forgave you the whole amount you owed me, just because you asked me to. You should have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you.” In his anger, the king had the servant thrown into jail until he paid off all the debt.

Jesus concludes, “That is how my Father in heaven will treat every one of you unless you forgive other people from your heart.” Harsh words, you say. Startling words. How do those words make you feel, especially if you are harbouring a grudge against someone and withholding forgiveness. These are convicting and killing words. These words of Jesus remind us just how hard-hearted we can be. These words crush our hardened, unforgiving hearts so that his forgiveness might freely flow first to us and then through us to our neighbour.

This parable is like a mirror. It points out the vast amount that we have been forgiven. We are the servants who have a debt that is so vast that it is impossible for us to do anything about it. Like the servant who owed so much that it was impossible for him to get out of the consequences of his foolish squandering of all that money, our sin has put us in an impossible position. Our rebellions, our selfish acts and thoughts, our bad choices, our lovelessness toward one another, and the hurt we have caused others, our pride, our anger, our lusts, our bitterness, our hates, and our lies; all these add up to a staggering debt we owe to God. A debt we cannot pay.

Our only hope rests in the compassion of the king. He was stripped, beaten, punished even though he was completely innocent. He died on a cross for us. He forgave the huge debt we owe. “Your sins are forgiven”, he says. “Go in peace.”

Then we rise from the pew, leave the communion table, walk outside the church humming “What a Friend we have in Jesus”. And before we get to our car we see someone who has done us wrong and we want to grab him by the throat and say, “Pay me right now!”

This parable reflects our miserly notions of forgiveness compared with the extravagant and generous forgiveness that God gives to us. We have been forgiven so much but look at how miserable we are when it comes to generously forgiving those who have hurt us. In the long run our inability to forgive hurts us more than it hurts the one who has hurt us.

A woman in her eighties told me that, fifty years before, her aunt had said something insulting to her, and this woman had never forgiven her. Fifty years later she could recount the event to the precise detail, and she felt all the same bitterness, anger, and resentment welling up within her as when it originally occurred. It was no wonder to me that, by this time, she had become a bitter, crotchety, quarrelsome, unhappy woman who could find no happiness in life whatsoever. Her inability to forgive had tortured her for fifty years.

Forgiveness begins when we stop saying, “Look how much you have hurt me,” and start saying,
“What can I do to relieve the hurt that you are feeling?”
“What can I do to renew our relationship?”
When we are no longer concerned about ourselves and how hurt we are, but are concerned about what our unforgiving heart and our need to get back is doing to someone else – that’s when forgiveness starts.

The thing that makes forgiveness of others who have hurt us possible is the newness in our relationship with God, the refreshed attitude toward others and their weaknesses, the forgiveness and reconciliation that Jesus’ death on the cross has given to us. Paul says, “You are the people of God, he loved you and chose you for his own. So then, … forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you” (Colossians 3:12a, 13).

Can we not forgive a few dollars’ worth of injury, when we have been forgiven millions by God?

On Christmas Day, 1974, 10-year-old Chris Carrier was kidnapped. When the boy was finally found, he had been burned with cigarettes, stabbed with an ice pick, shot in the head and left for dead. Miraculously, young Chris survived, the only permanent physical damage, blindness in his left eye. He went on to become a youth pastor in the Presbyterian Church. No one was ever arrested for this crime.

Twenty-two years later, David McAllister – 77-years old, blind and dying in a nursing home confessed to the crime. Chris began visiting the man who had tortured him and left him for dead. Chris prayed with and for him, read the Bible with him and did everything he could to help David make peace with God in the time he had left in this life.

Chris says, “While many people can’t understand how I could forgive David McAllister, from my point of view I couldn’t not forgive him. If I’d chosen to hate him all these years, or spent my life looking for revenge, then I wouldn’t be the man I am today, the man my wife and children love, the man God has helped me to be.” He went on to say, “I became a Christian when I was 13. That night was the first night I was able to sleep through the night, without waking up from my nightmares.” He says, “It would be selfish not to share that same peace with David McAllister.”

For the Christian, forgiveness is always the last word. The forgiver always has the last word. We sin and Jesus forgives us. We sin again and Jesus forgives us. We sin and sin and sin and Jesus forgives, forgives, forgives.

Forgiveness doesn’t come easy. It is hard work. It’s easy to make excuses, blame the other person, and justify our actions and attitudes. It’s easy to say it’s all his/her fault. I’ll just avoid him until he comes and apologises to me. It’s much harder to take the first step toward reconciliation, especially when you feel that you are in the right.

Because forgiveness can be so hard, we need to enlist God’s help to overcome our sinful attitudes and to be more like Christ.
We need to pray that we would have a greater concern for the welfare of others.
We need God’s forgiveness for the many times when we let our sinful nature take control and we let the pain and the hurt continue. God grant that we forgive one another just as God has generously forgiven us.Amen