Category: After Easter

John 20: 19-31

Living in our times of self, it seems that via the media, many people say we do not need traditional churches, and in a sense
O.K. it is true that going to church is not a requirement of salvation. But the one’s I hear on talk back radio saying to “get rid of the church because it’s not relevant” are mainly non-Christians.

Non-Christians who see no need for organised church and yet I would imagine still see the need for the Christian schools and the Christian hospitals because make no mistake if they were closed, whatever our current billion or so deficit is now, without these church run facilities, that deficit would look like chicken feed.

I think that’s something the church knockers miss. Never mind that it’s the churches that run many op shops for the short of cash. The churches that many people knock on the door for a hand for money to buy food and petrol.  And the churches that run many hostels that provide food and shelter to the homeless and needy.

I would hope that even the harshest critic could see some benefit of the churches still being in our society.

Real benefits, but real benefits that are the offshoot of a greater reality of which John emphases in his Gospel writings, and today’s closing Gospel verses Verses of 30 & 31 for all intensive purposes could be titled “The purpose of this book.”

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name”.

People commonly and mistakenly think that biblical books were written mainly to provide rules for godly living.

But here John, the author of this Gospel, clearly states its purpose and summarises its central message, and God Speaking through John, announces that the core message is the Good News that Jesus is His Son and that by His name; we have life and salvation, and we can imagine John writing the Gospel with the words on his lips and the desire in his mind and the prayer in his heart that he  “Gladly share this Good News, O God, that others may believe and live.”

And if we look at those closing verses of 30 & 31, in being the conclusion of the previous paragraphs, we see that John, and all followers of Jesus are sent out upon their task in the power of the Holy Spirit, and equipped with their own story in relation to being saved in Christ as a confession of their faith, says all that need to be said.

Jesus is our life, and in Jesus Christians although different in many or all ways, we stand united around Jesus in His church and when we think of all these different buildings this morning housing Christians of other denominations, we see not bricks and mortar, but see and receive in the mission of Jesus himself, which through the Spirit, is perpetuated in the mission of the church; and then the amazing reality that the church by its faith is related to Christ as Christ is to God.

And if that’s not amazing enough, another reality is that In when Jesus when he walked this earth-those people were not confronted by just a Jewish rabbi, but by God himself, and so then following, like to the apostles, the commission, the gift of the spirit and the authority are given to the apostolic church.

The Christian churches, our church that then follow in the apostolic mission of the church, where the world is not confronted merely by a human institution, but by Jesus the Son of God, and when we think of that, we see why it is so important to follow God’s scripture and not that of our own  making because as Jesus in his ministry was entirely dependent upon and obedient to God the Father, who sealed and sanctified him, so are the churches the apostolic church by virtue of being commissioned by Christ, and sanctified because  Jesus breathed the Spirit into it.

Now I would think that if I rang up a radio station and said all this on behalf of our gathering I would reckon the rest of the show would be taken up with all soughts of accusations with the old favourite sure to be there of “what a bunch of hypocrites. “

And that would be true if we thought we were the church and not Christ’s.

And it would be true if we thought we were perfect and like not that of Christ.

Hypocrites-no. Sinners- yes. Forgiven in Christ alone and from no part of our own-absolutely.

Yes the Church is still a big deal, because Christ is the deal and though we as individuals may not glow like the risen Christ before the apostles, we glow in the fact that those physical scars that his risen body still carried from His time of the cross were established for us. The scars He endured in death and still carried after His resurrection that we with our own scare tissue can in our work places and homes not be judgmental and intolerant, but rather like Jesus who when confronted by doubting Thomas, did not tell him of or ridicule him, but remained with him, taught and nurtured him and in doing so, talked of you: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.”

That’s some high praise of you “guys”. It may not seem like when God said that King David was a man after his own heart, but it’s up there.

Blessed are you because you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who died for your sins that you are forgiven and have eternal life.

And forgiven you are, forgiven so that you need not dwell on past sins. Forgiven so you not doubt the word of God, but forgiven that you here, no matter the scars you carry or the burdens you bear, blessed are you for you now have seen the Lord. Seen the Lord come to you when at your worst. Seen the Lord carry you when you could not carry yourself, and seen the holy and powerful Lord reduce Himself to be treated like a criminal and hung from the cross that sinners like you and me, that forgiven sinners like you and me not dwell in our own mortality, but dwell in the Lord’s immortality, raise our heads and cry “He is risen”, Yes he has risen indeed as too will you and those who put their faith in Him.

Not the words of insincere hypocrites, but the genuine and sincere witness of the church, of you and of me that we are blessed to take to the world. Amen.

“Speaking words of wisdom, let it be”

Acts 1:6-14, 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11, John 17:1-11

A rather shy man with hidden insecurities and self- loathing was talking to a lady that had become a friend through day to day encounters and though he can’t quite remember what they were talking about that night, he remembers to this day ten words from that conversation that he had never heard before or even contemplated, “You can be anything in your life that you want.”

Ten words he had never heard that had impact, but more so was the impact that she seemed to mean it.

Cathy, my wife of 21 years said that remark to me when we first started getting to know each other 24 years ago and though I didn’t hang onto those words as if they were the “gospel of Cathy”, and though it didn’t change my life and what or how I was doing things, and even though I don’t think I actually believed her it didn’t matter, it was more so the shock and astonishment that anyone could believe that of me.

The book of Kings tells us that “God gave Solomon very great wisdom, discernment, and breadth of understanding as vast as the sand on the seashore”  we hear of that wisdom as he states in Proverbs 12:18 that “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

King Solomon’s wisdom was shown through his ruling of Israel and through his words round about 950 years before Christ and now some near on 3,000 years later those who study such things have come to the following assessments:

“Negative words can have long-lasting results that spread far beyond the person to whom they were hurled. Those kind of painful hurts replay themselves for decades to come.”

Children, who are brought up in an atmosphere where harsh criticism, taunts, and mocking are their daily fare, can and will easily internalize the sentiments behind the words. They learn that they aren’t worth very much, and that if those around them think that of them, who are they to refuse the judgment?

Then when they see how their friends do not act like they feel it just emphasizes all the more that there must be something wrong with them and cements it in their mind that the things his parents or other adults say to him must be true. In his childish heart, he firmly believes the message these authority figures have said: that they are worthless and if that’s all a child knows, it is long lasting and far reaching as then, often they will do to others as they’ve had done to them, and that can have devastating effects on people who never knew the victim as a child, but who may meet him in a dark alley as an adult!”

Who knows how we have become to what we are? Some say it’s through those experiences learnt, some say simply through our born in genes and some a mixture of both. In reality we are what we are and at opposite ends of the spectrum some have grown that now as adults not even the harshest criticism seems to faze them just as for some, not even the kindest compliment uplift them.

Worldly words from outside can shape our inside to where we like Pontius Pilate may ask of ourselves like he asked of Christ, of “what is truth?”

King Solomon’s remark that “A word spoken in due season, how good it is” could be directed to any of us here today who still carry chains from the past, be from a sharp tongue or through the willy ways of the devil in his desire that we abandon the truth of Christ amongst the haze of our sin, the climate of hurt and the teachings of not the Gospel, but of the law through salvation by goodness and works.

“A word spoken in due season, how good it is”, has been heard by us today in the Words we have heard from Jesus himself and no matter what you think of yourself, these are no throw away words and unlike some that may or may not, His Words today are as life changing as they are hard to comprehend.

Pilate asked Jesus ”what is truth?” and though Jesus did not reply, in that in him then going out to the Jews again and telling them, “I don’t find this man guilty of anything”, we can see in him a vague coming to understand of who Jesus was.

If Pilate asked the same of us, we could with authority answer, that Jesus is The Son of Son who on the cross has taken our Sins on himself, that we are given forgiveness and eternal life not of our own going, but of a free gift from God.

Not vague words, but Words we can stake our lives on. Yet though we know them so clearly: from within ourselves, our sins, our hurts and the tricks of he who looks to deceive, like the disciples hearing today’s words from the Gospel just prior to Jesus arrest, we too can miss the full ramification of them on our lives.

So for a moment, let’s cast aside all pre-understandings from where ever we have got them and simply hear and understand God’s Word for ourselves given to us from Christ himself in today’s Gospel and the inspired Word of God in the Old and New Testament readings.

That as we did not attach ourselves to Jesus of our own will because we liked Him or of our virtues or lack thereof, but because of His love for us, Jesus about to be glorified on the cross now shifts His emphasis to the Father about the welfare of those that are His and prays to the Father that we may not feel abandoned, but know that God protects us by the power of his name. That the Holy Spirit counsels us as to the truth of Christ and how we can interact with God’s kind of love toward people around us.

That we cast our anxieties on Christ and though weak, in Him we are strong, firm and steadfast. Authorised to live with confidence and empowered by God to live differently.

All these words are truth and I hope they are uplifting to many. Unfortunately if I stopped there for me I would still be like that child seeing all his friends happy, but not knowing it for himself may see some of this as further proof and confirmation of just self-loathing and being on the outer.

That is until for me and maybe even for you, we are given the game changer which is this:

The gift God gives, by his grace is eternal life and while eternal life continues in heaven, we do not have to die before receiving it, because for those who trust and believe in Christ it is a present reality here today, and here today exactly as we are.

Solomon, given great wisdom from God said “A word spoken in due season, how good it is”.

Christ here today asks that we hear and trust not in our earthly wisdom of what’s seen and felt. But trust in His wisdom that tells us that no matter what the past or what to come, that be our lives be cloaked in the cold of winter or the sunshine of summer, that we not wait for in hesitation or anxiousness of heart, but accept His gift of eternal life today and live now as we know we will in the new heaven and earth and see the Glory of Christ with and before us in all situations and know that in Him we have received the fullness of a life freed from what we once were, to a life of freedom to let us be, what He wills us to be.  Amen.

An ambulance officer was talking about his most unusual emergency experience. He chose to tell about a call received from an usher at a Lutheran church. The usher said, “A man has slumped over in the pew during the sermon, and we think he’s dead.” He relates, “When we got to the church, the pastor was still preaching so we carried the man out as quietly as we could.” “What’s so unusual about that?” he was asked. He replied, “Because we had carried out four men before we found the one that was dead.”

Sometimes “doing” church, like life may seem a little tedious from doing the same old same old. Same bloke up the front, same old hymns etc. Etc. Then off to work to do the same thing as last week and the same we’ll do next week.

I once read a book the challenged the readers that if they thought outside the box and brought a part of themselves and life that they enjoyed into the work place they could do the same duties and enjoy them no matter how tedious the job was.  Food for thought.

Similar John Newton, the “Amazing Grace” guy said that church can be done however we like as long as it stays true to God’s Word and teachings.  I agree because the guts of worship is receiving God’s gifts in confession and absolution, in prayer and knowing God hears it, in Holy Communion and God’s promise of forgiveness and faith and amongst sing a few hymns and songs not about what we’ll do for God, but about what He has done and is doing for us.

Oops. I think I just described a traditional Lutheran worship. Except I forgot to say that amongst all this is Christ with us, the angels singing in song with us and when we hear the Word of God the Holy Spirit goes to work.

I’m not so worried as people falling asleep during my sermon as maybe even when the angels take a break, but in the rest of what goes on hear it’s hard to believe. Hard to believe but true.

As I said, this can be done under a tree, with a guitar, keyboard or banging some tins together if we want.

The problem comes when we fall into the trap like those standing at the base of Jesus cross who jeered Him and tempted him with “if you come down we will believe you are the messiah, the Son of God.”

There’s good reason he didn’t because of course He had to die as the sacrificial lamb and take our sins on himself.

And though that’s the reason He didn’t, He also knew that the gratuitous displaying of miracles was no any sure fire way of bringing people to faith anyway.

Look at the facts. The apostles seen it all and were still confused until the resurrection and some of those cured in Jesus travels never came back to thank Him never mind worship Him. (As far as we’re told anyway.)

Jesus did do miracles on His travels and for many it pointed to His power but not as in His destinies purpose without first dying on the cross that in Him we may find forgiveness in faith.

I’m sure miracles still happen to this day, but the real miracle is faith.

Where am I heading with this?

It is not directed to anyone or anything here because I’d hope by now you know that I’m not particularly taken aback by carpet colour, service times or any of that stuff and I’m open for any suggestions as long as they fit the John Newton model.

Where I’m heading is toward two points in today’s readings. Jesus saying He will give us another helper in the Holy Spirit and Peter telling us we may suffer even though we are off the faith.

I was once asked by a Christian if I can speak in tongues and after I said “no”, the asker was all but dumbfounded.

I wonder if those standing at the base of Jesus cross who jeered Him and tempted him with “if you come down we will believe you are the messiah, the Son of God” and those expecting the messiah to be a warrior king and destroy the Romans are that far removed from that response to my answer.

Do not get me wrong, I will never limit any of the trinity for what they can do. Because they can do anything they please whenever they want and I have no problem with people talking in tongues even though I don’t understand it-theologically or literally.

The same with churches that practice healings and so forth. Good on them.

The slippery slope comes as to when the healing is due to any part of ours such as if not healed or suffering, the problem is from our lack of faith or our poor relationship with Christ.

I’m sorry but when it gets to that point it starting to sound like the Pharisees mark II.

Miracles happen. I heard of them straight from the horse’s mouth but terms such as faith healers is very, very dangerous because by association , not healed means not good enough faith, which by association leads to doubts of salvation never mind the crap of a class system within the church.

Jesus promised a helper, the Holy Spirit and he’s good to His Word. Because here today without seen fanfare the Holy Spirit is amongst doing what Jesus promised to always be the case, and that is that through the remembrance of our baptisms, through Holy Communion and through the Word of God you are being brought to faith, or being kept and strengthened in faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Messiah who died on the cross that if you trust in Him for salvation and eternal life, than salvation and eternal life are yours. Believe and trust in Jesus and your home.

You can wake up NOW. Amen.

“Livin’ in the hood”

Acts 7: 55-60, 1^st Peter 2:2-10, John 14:1-14

1^st Peter, chapter 2, verse 9: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

“A chosen race and a royal priesthood”-Goodness me, this reminds me of the parents who after hearing of much positive feedback during their parent teacher interview asked “are you sure we’re talking about the same child.”

I wonder what the responses to me would be after a night at the pub and walking down the street in my dirty gardening cloths carrying my fully imported light sabre and “evangelising” with the words of look at me “the chosen one” might be.

I think the outcome may be similar to that as noted by a friend when after the Adelaide Crows had badly beaten Port Power and seeing a crows fan shoving it into the powers fans faces remarked “he won’t make it to the end of the street.” And he didn’t.

The thing is though, as Christians we are of those as described in that verse from 1^st Peter. Martin Luther puts it like this: “Each and all are…equally spiritual priests before God…(because)…Faith alone is the true priestly office…Therefore all Christian men are priests, all women are priestesses, be they young or old, master or servant, mistress or maid, learned or unlearned.”

Haven’t Luther and I said the same thing? Well sought of.

Ten or so years ago, after an Essendon player had been labelled by the media as selfish, doesn’t do the hard things and worst of all, soft. His legendary coach Kevin Sheedy answered that if he continued how he was going, he just might send him to South Australia to play for the Port Adelaide magpies to learn what real football is about (in the real world).

In team sport while the difference between the words “I” or “we” seems subtle, the outcome is enormous. So too does the difference sound subtle, but is enormous in outcome between Luther’s and my expression of existing in the royal priesthood by way of my introduction of “look at me” verses his “Faith alone is”. There’s no I in team, but most surely there is Christ in Christian.

As a playing coach of an adult football team my mantra was “one for all and all for one” and by extension, in-order to support your team mate against the opposition and indeed against their own frailties, no one was to show weakness of mind in dropping the head or figure pointing, like nor should anyone be so self-indulgent as to display to either opposition or team mate any physical weakness or hurt.

In one game after seeing of one our players stay down after a hit, foaming at the mouth I approached to let him know in the most clear terms to get up or get off. Fortunately for me the trainers arrived and had put him and his broken leg on the stretcher before I had arrived.

Imagine his any others feedback to my insensitivity: never mind the hurt and irreparable outcomes to the team and that player had I so foolishly carried through with my callous and unthinking judgements of the person and situation.  The same hurt and anger, and I would say appropriate hurt and anger that may result if I walked down Macquarie Street pronouncing myself to be “the chosen one” and of the royal priesthood. Appropriate because those titles that Peter gives to Christians of being “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” are not designed as a right to proudly lord it over others in power and tyranny-but quite the opposite: because for one, being in that group of people had nothing to do with us anyway. More so, we were the broken one lying on the field and instead of Him coming to us to say get our act together, He came to help us. To lift us up while we were still broken and as unable to walk ourselves, He carried us with Him and then, and only then did we truly see the answer to the question that Christ placed before His disciples in Matthew 16:15: of “But who do you say I am” and say like Peter “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

It is not I or we, it’s He and should it have been any other way we would still be standing in the crowd cheering Jesus to the cross instead of kneeling at its base in repentance and forgiveness.

It’s He and should it have not been so, we would not have been like the martyred Stephen seeing and trusting in Christ while under persecution, but be the one’s either throwing the rocks or standing by like that of Saul authorising such actions.

To be a Christian is too know who we are, and that is saved in Christ alone. But it’s also to know what we were and where we came from, and in that we then see through the same eyes as Paul who after being rescued by Christ and speaking of his own ministry states in 2^nd Corinthians 10:17 that “He who boasts, is to boast in the Lord. For it is not he who commends himself that is approved, but he whom the Lord commends.

There’s a worldwide group of people that communicate and meet that are united in that they have all been sole survivors of tragedies such as plane crashes where hundreds have died. The members of this group don’t meet to buy lottery tickets because of their luck; they meet because of their struggle to understand why them? Why they survived and why others didn’t and try and make sense of it.

We of the royal priesthood of believers don’t use our ticket of faith for tyranny and lording ourselves over others because we had no more control over coming to faith than that of a sole survivor of a plane crash to that of the corpse next to him.

We are saved in faith in Christ alone, not from good works or being better or less sinful than the next person, but only in faith in Christ alone. Faith that before having coming to know we did not want nor desire.

To be of the royal priesthood and saved in Christ is of as much humbling as it is as of joy and the only thing that makes any sense is that it shows the unjudging and unparalleled love of God the Father, the obedience and love of our Saviour Jesus Christ and the love and tireless efforts of the Holy Spirit towards all who walk this earth no matter how great or small.

The unjudging and unparalleled love and works of the Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit that we are more to get out the way of, rather than develop for ourselves and others.

To get out of the way for ourselves and hear the message of Jesus without second guessing it. To just believe it and know it to be true for ourselves and though through our human logic and tarnished souls we are tempted to be led and think otherwise, to be led only by Him and simply accept and place our lives upon His Words and the inspired Word of God.

“That I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life (and) no one comes to the Father except through me.” For “There is no one who is righteous, for all have turned away from God, all have gone wrong.”  Yet “in belief and baptism we are saved because Christ suffered, died and rose from death for us, and in belief and trust in Him alone through faith, God has forgiven our sins and declared us not guilty and has accepted us into his eternal heavenly kingdom.”

Scripture repeats these Words and themes over and over again and far from questioning them of ourselves, we need just get out of the way and trust and believe in them for ourselves and for others.  While we are still a work in progress, the contract is not-the ink has dried and it is written with Christ’s blood and the deal is done.

So what of the commandments and good works when we are told that the “law has been fulfilled in Christ”, as too that of “our Salvation is in Christ and not of good works.” And what of “the Law kills but the Gospel saves” up against yet Jesus still telling us “that  the law is good.” Are these not Words to both get us out of the way of our own salvation in Christ as they are of getting us out the way of His salvation for others?

To have no other Gods and trust in God above all things. To not use the Lord’s name in vain but call upon Him, pray to Him, praise Him and give thanks. To keep the Sabbath Holy and gladly hear and learn His Word. To honour our father and mother and honour, obey, love and esteem them. To not kill but help and befriend. To not commit adultery but love and honour one’s partner. To not steal but help, improve and protect others income and property. To not bear false witness against our neighbour but apologise for them, speak well of them and interpret charitably all they do.

Do not these Words of God lead us to get out the way of His love and desire for others to know His love and salvation for themselves?

Words not of judgement and death for those in Christ, but Words of life that would see us get our judgements, ridicules and human made rules out the way and let God be God and shower His love upon to those that  we may find hard to love and understand.

“A few years ago a Baptist minister was in Haiti checking on missionary work he supports. He went to the little Holiday Inn where he always stays the day before he boards the plane to come home. As he stepped out of the taxi to head for the entrance of the Holiday Inn, he was intercepted by three girls with the oldest being no older than 15. The first said ‘Mister, for $10 I’ll do anything you want me to do all night long.’ He then turned to the next girl and said, ‘What about you, could I have you for $10?’ She said yes as did the third girl and though her smile did not hide her contempt for him she had no option given her desperation and hunger. He said, ‘I’m in room 210, be up there in 10 minutes. I have $30 and I’m going to pay for all three of you to be with me all night long.’

He rushed up to the room, called down to the front desk and said he wanted every Walt Disney video that they had. He called the restaurant and said, ‘Do you have banana splits?’ ‘I want banana splits with extra ice cream, extra everything. I want huge ones, and I want four of them!’

The little girls came and the ice cream and videos came and they sat up watching the videos and laughing until about one in the morning when the last girl fell asleep. As he looked at the three young girls stretched out asleep, he thought to himself, nothing has really changed. Tomorrow they will be back on the streets selling themselves to dirty, filthy men destroying their lives.

Though he wished he could, he was pained because he did not know enough of their language to tell them about Christ, and while so God’s Spirit came and said to him: ‘For one night, for this night, let them be little girls again.’”

John Lennon once said that “Life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans.”

So too did we come to faith and Salvation in Christ when we were busy making other plans. So too can the love of God be shown to others when we meet not the lifeless and ungodly, but meet the injured and afflicted and see that we are they, and they are we and bow before them that they too may stand with us before the Father.

Through the grace of God there we once went, that now we know of what we had not, and there but through the grace of God we would have remained had He not come to us and taken us with Him.

We do not lead the lifeless and ungodly to Christ, He leads injured and afflicted to us that we may be to them and He is to us, that He himself may heed His own Words that “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”

And so we ask: God, our Father in heaven, in the name of your Son and our Saviour Jesus Christ that though “we do not what we want, but do what we want not” we beg your forgiveness and ask that our Words and actions be not ours but yours, that many will join us in our worship and in your kingdom, that not we be glorified, but your name be exalted and your love, peace and salvation be lifted up on high for all to see and know that their earthly walk need not be lonely and adrift, but see you near,  your favour with them, and accept your peace. Amen.

1st Peter 2:19-25, John 10:1-10

“Chillaxing in the Word of God”

Several years ago and working in a business where every second seemed to be a knife edge moment with every one running around as though if we didn’t meet that deadline, the deadline after the one before and the one before the one to come after, then the walls would fall down.

It was often a “pressure cooker” environment and a volatile work place that would see good friends end in harsh verbal combat, see strong men and women broken and in tears in full public view and trusted work colleagues knifing each other in the blame game and/or for  promotional gain.

It was not an enjoyable way to spend eight to twelve or more hours a day and the only thing I enjoyed about it was standing shoulder to shoulder with my team of thirty amongst the sea of 2,000 in that building.

One Monday morning, my trusted colleague and good friend Kevin after telling me that a forty year old man from his team had died suddenly from a heart attack while at the pub went on to say, “at least he died doing something he liked and not in this place” and then finished with “life is serious, but nothings this serious”.

His point was well made and like in that building when taking a step back and viewing from afar we often see that life is serious, but nothing as serious as what we make it to be.

His words have always stuck with me until Wednesday this week when looking through my office window and seeing a young boy walking to school on his own looking lonely, dejected and nervous, in even a sinner like me I felt a desire to run to him with the only real comfort that can be offered in an uncomfortable world and that is the hope in Jesus Christ. I didn’t run to him, I didn’t have enough courage, but I prayed for him-because that’s all I had.

And again amid a heavy heart, I had that overwhelming sense that if a person like me can feel even a little compassion, what must be the endless compassion of God the Father and Jesus Christ His Son, and the workings of the Holy towards that boy, towards atheists, boat people, criminals, the beggars on the street, the power driven CEO, the corrupt politician, the mother, the husband, their children, and to me, and to you.

A heavy heart that brought clear the seriousness of their and our eternal lives and of the seriousness of their pain felt and their hope needed, and a heavy heart, that brought meaning to the words of John 9, verse 4; That “we must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work.”

Words of urgency and of truth born of our Lord and Saviour in His quest that they that know him not and have their eyes opened to the blessed hope that is he.

Yet words of them, that for myself saw me convicted in my inability, powerlessness and failure towards God and His people.

In the reading from 1^St Peter and in much of scripture we are told clearly that just as Christ suffered, so too are those that follow Him not immune to suffering and just as Jesus, our sinless Saviour, faced unjust suffering and death, so may we be called to take up our cross to follow Him.

We all here have crosses to bear born of hurt, of innocence lost from our and others sin and of that daily fight within us against what we do that we wish we not. They are heavy crosses that we bear as best we can. But none so heavy that comes from knowing the underserved grace of Christ for ourselves while seeing the hurt and suffering and the aimless and unfulfilled quest for hope of those that know Him not, and the unjudging words of Heath Ledgers friend after hearing of his death from a drug overdose come to mind when he remarked “that this world was too much for Heath to live in while carrying a soul tortured from seeing the hurt and suffering of others.

Walt Whitman, a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War and poet wrote this:

“I sit and look out.

I sit and look out upon the sorrow of the world, and upon all oppression and shame,

I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done,

I see in low life the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt and desperate,

I see the wife misused by her husband; I see the treacherous seducer of young women,

I mark the rankling’s of jealousy and unrequited love attempted to be hid, I see theses sights on the earth,

I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny. I see martyrs and prisoners,

I observe a famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be killed to preserve the lives of the rest,

I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor and upon slaves, and the like;

All these-all the meanness and agony without end I sitting look out upon,

See, hear, and am silent.”

There’s a saying that bad things happen when good people do nothing and as Christians we may feel that the lost feel no hope when we in hope remain still.

John 9, verse 4; “We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work.”

A piece of scripture known well by evangelist Billy Graham who most certainly did not remain still. A tireless worker of the Lord given the ability to travel the globe standing before thousands pronouncing the Word of God, a man consulted by Presidents of America and the rich and the powerful. Yet a man that wrote this of himself:

“I will hear him call my name not because I have preached for more than seventy years. Not because I have done anything good…The Lord Jesus has heard my confession of sin, my acknowledgement of need, and he reached down and saved me. He purchased my soul with his blood….I know he is coming back soon. This is my hope. And yours.”

“Carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work.” Like Billy Graham I am certain there are people here or reading this that will do great things for the Lord.

Great things like you did yesterday in your work place or walking down the street. How you fixed someone’s car so that they could continue to work and feed their family. The smile you gave to the intimidating stranger or the prayers you made for the person that passed you by that you had not the courage to talk to.

There’s a time to live and a time to die. A time to work and a time to play. Calm times and chaotic times. Yet whether we be of modern speak and in chillax ,or of times past and just telling it how it is and chilling and relaxing,  Jesus Christ walks with us with the promise that He will give us the strength to bear the crosses we bear in following Him.

Shakespeare said “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so” and interestingly as I went to get a coffee a moment ago  I heard a song that I thought started with the words “My life is useless”, but on replay the musician actually started with “My life is brilliant” followed with “My love is pure. (And on the subway) I saw an angel of that I’m sure. So to can be the confusing in our own abilities or short comings because just like people might like the width of the tyres on my wanting to be restored 1999 MR2, yet not so much the extra width of the owner, so too do we sometimes have to “fly blind” and just have wing it as we are.

Jesus said that “the sheep hear his voice; he calls them out, and when he has brought them out, he goes ahead and the sheep follow.”

Jesus is real and so are you, and as He is in you as you are, so too can you be Him to others as they are, that as we have heard His voice, so may they.

Catholic Priest Henri Nouwen wrote: “I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.”

Christ made Himself vulnerable that we hear His voice of truth and having been redeemed and called, our lives are to be redemptive: that all the sheep may be turned toward the shepherd and Guardian of their souls: that all the world, through us may hear his voice, see His great love, and be found in Him.

So too let us be vulnerable in the truth that we have nothing if not in Christ, and that we be of flesh and blood, of ability and inability, and capable of both strength and weakness here His Words from 2^nd Corinthians 12:9, that “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”,

In His grace we walk this earth where we are and as we are and need not despair of our failures, but revel in the truth that not we, but He, beats our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks.

Our sin and His goodness and our Christian lives don’t adhere to a work/life balance format. They are all mixed together and we need only carry the tools in the vessel that He has provided.

You are that vessel and as you carry His forgiveness, Hope and Salvation with you, so too He will carry people before you, that in you as you are, they may see Him in them as they are-and know His  peace. Amen.

Acts 2: 36-47, 1 Peter 1:17-23, Luke 24:13-35

“Escaping from the shadows”

 
In our reading this morning from the book of Acts our reading climaxes with (and) “So those who received his word were baptised, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

Today we celebrate with Heath and his family and friends his baptism and like for those 3,000, today Heath receives the words from the book of Romans for himself: “We were buried therefore with him by baptism in to death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Newness of life in salvation and heavenly life eternal, and newness of life in this world.

Knowing’s it Heath Birthday today and pondering of what a great gift to receive on his birthday I continued to read the continuation of the turn of events for those 3,000.

Verse 43 onwards: “And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. ^ And all who believed were together and had all things in common. ^ And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. ^ And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,^ praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

“Selling possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to others and spending our days going from house to house and eating together.” I’m not sure Heath, never mind Laurie and Sharna saw that one coming.

That picture of those early Christians and their sense of community is marvellous if not humbling. Thing is that if I tried to imitate those 3,000 people back then, I think I might be getting a visit from one of my superiors seeing if I needed a change of scenery or some time off because really, it is a very impractical thing to do.

Still it is important we remember those early days in the Church like it is important to remember our birthdays and anniversaries. To have those days were we look back at ourselves in baby photos and see that innocence and untarnished naiveté, or look at our wedding pictures and remember the joy of the day. Snapshots of history of a by-gone time to remind us who we are and where we are from. Moments and memories to reflect on to bring joy to our hearts. Yet moments that as we look in the mirror can convict as we wonder just what happened to that innocence and wonder of life to that person in the photo, who now seems like a stranger.

In the movie “The legend of Bagger Vance” Actor Matt Damon plays the character of Junuh, who as a teenager was a golfing prodigy. But after his World War I tour of duty, returns to his home town psychologically marred and broken and lives as a recluse with the only moments that can quell the sounds of warfare within him being when at a gambling table and through the bottom of a glass.

Ironically there is a charity golf tournament coming up in his home town involving golfing legends of the time, and that the town needs a local to participate they track down Junuh  and after the arrival of the strange yet wise golfing mentor Bagger Vance, the character played by Will Smith who later we find out is an angel, Junuh eventually gives into their requests.

Throughout the movie while Junuh is seeking to find purpose and some sense in his life, he is fearful of just what they might be. To cut a long story short he is going very well in the tournament until on the second to last hole where he slices his tee shot deep in the woods. As he enters the dark forest to find his ball, panic overtakes him and the steam from the ground triggers memories of smoking battlefields, his hands tremble and he resigns to depart and seek solitude again in his self-medicating ways.

As he turns to leave, his golfing mentor Bagger Vance tells Junuh that the problem is not with his golfing grip, but with the grip the past holds on him and that “Their aint a soul on this entire earth who aint got a burden to carry he can’t understand. You aint alone in that. But you’ve been carrying this one long enough. It’s time to lay it down.”

Junuh replies, I know, but I can’t.

To which Bagger answers “Yes you can, you’re not alone. I’m right here with you. I’ve been with you all along. Now play the game. Your game. The only one you were meant to play. The one that was given to you when you came into this world. Now is the time”

A movie about a mythical game in the past. Our past and our experiences are real and can have enormous impact on where we are at now. Ending up with earthly success or hiding in the shadows through the bottom of a glass can be determined from very finite times and situations. Ironically, neither are guaranteed to give more or less happiness than the other should we be carrying a burden that we can’t understand or shake.

Sometimes knowing that our past has a hold on us we yearn for and know that it’s time to lay it down, and for just a moment we see a glimpse of light, only to realise in the next moment that the shadows still beckon and though we know there is a better way, we know the way that has been our “safe harbour” so far, and there we return. .

Jesus Christ gave His life to bring us forgiveness and eternal life because we could not bring it for ourselves.

Likewise, in this life when we cannot escape the shadows, He asks that we “Come to Him, all you who are weary and burdened, and He will give us rest.” (Matt. 11.28).

Though often we see Him not, Jesus walks with us and though He sees our stumbles mistakes and errors of our ways, he doesn’t walk with us to judge, but to guide and to offer us His peace as we travel our short journey on this earth. Our journey in which from beginning to end, from cradle to hearse there are so many variables that we can be left wondering where we are in scheme of things. The what if’s of life? The what ifs, that lead to the why’s and sooner or later, fear of what lies ahead-even if that be only the fear of the unknown felt on our last day.

 

Our God, God the Father of Jesus Christ is not a God of fear, but a God of love. His love so great that He gave us His Son Jesus Christ, who in turn gave His life that anyone who believes that He is the messiah, the Saviour sent to the world and that in trust in Him and in Him alone their sins are forgiven, they like Christ are given the promise that they too will be raised in the second life to reside forever with those who have gone before and who will go after in that same belief. That is the summary of Christian faith. No actually that’s the entirety of Christian faith.

 

A simple truth. Yet a truth so simple and unworldly that it is an easy target for the powers of darkness to attack and place before us the logical thoughts of our need to work our way to heaven, or alternatively tell us the truth of our sins to lead us to doubt that we could be saved. It’s a good trick because ultimately one part of it is true. We are sinners and if we look into the inner core of our soul where we hide the things we choose not to remember or at least would rather not, we see that yes, we have fallen short many, many times over our journey. But like our God, God the Father is not a God of fear, but of love, so is our Saviour Jesus Christ and in His love that we need not live our lives wondering and in despair of where we stand in regards to our heavenly status He gave us the gift of Baptism. The gift of baptism that closes the door on the wolf at the door as he tries to upset with human logic the sure truth of forgiveness and salvation in trust, and in faith in Christ alone.

 

Our Lord and Saviour walked this earth and knows the difficulties we face and the doubts that come to us and so He gave us Baptism. The gift of Baptism He will give today to this young boy so that should he doubt his goodness or his place before God, that he not listen to those human thoughts from inside, but listen to His Words from outside. His Words, His promise, that if you are baptised and believe that I am your Saviour-then nothing in all creation can ever break or take away from you your gift of eternal life.

 

Baptism is a gift of the sureness of what awaits, and a gift that allows us to live in the here and now and though in our lives we will still share happiness with sadness and comfort with hardship, we never need share the doubt of ourselves with the surety that He walks with us, guiding us and upholding us in love, and nor need we should we share the inner doubts of our worthiness with our salvation, for our salvation is from the worthiness and surety of our Lord and Saviour. Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Acts 2:14a:22-32, 1 Peter 1:39, John 20:19-31

“There is a garden”

“Gallipoli has become a symbol of Australia’s national identity, achievement and existence,” according to Australian War Memorial principal historian Dr Peter Stanley.
He goes on to say “”In the event, the landing was a military disaster – it failed to meet its objectives. But merely hanging on in the face of determined Turkish attacks was triumph enough. Charles Bean, the Australian official correspondent, declared that with the landing on Gallipoli a sense of Australian nationhood was born. The idea took root.
Bean’s The Anzac Book defined what came to be called the Anzac legend. It encompassed bravery, ingenuity, endurance and the comradeship that Australians call mateship.
The Anzac legend has become elastic enough to span very different emotions. Fervent nationalists can exult; pilgrims can mourn. All can ponder what made that group of Australians able to endure one of the greatest tests their nation has ever faced.”
At the Anzac march on Friday, a speaker from the air force described Gallipoli for our country as a “Baptism of fire” and that though the fight was lost; it shaped and gave Australians an identity. Interestingly when writing this message my (15 year old.) son entered my office and read what I had before me on the P.C., which was only the whole nine first words I’ve already written, being “Gallipoli has become a symbol of Australia’s national identity”
and without discussion left the room singing in his finest ABBA voice one of their songs lyrics “Waterloo, sometimes I feel like I win when I lose.”
Gallipoli, a countries baptism of fire and that though the battle was lost at the time, has become a foundation that sporting teams and others called to our forces since have drawn on, and a presentation of our culture of “she’ll be right, mateship at any cost and the front bar wisdom of seeing what’s real and important from what’s not.
Our culture is not something that can be bought or sold-the freshness and fair go attitude of our country is a birthright born through those sent to a penal colony from the other side of the world, those who chose by free will to immigrate here, settlers in a harsh land of droughts and floods and those called back to the other side of the world to ensure our freedom remains.
It is not something we become, but somehow just are and something that we should hold dear to our hearts and inner being like Simon Peter writes and urges to his audience of converted listeners that now in faith, to not only remain steadfast in that faith,  but to increase through all kinds of suffering and good works.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade–kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
“Though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
Life can be a baptism of fire, but baptised into Christ, though darkness may surround, we live in the sure hope of what awaits us and these lyrics penned and sang by Archie Roach and given to me by a friend brought the light of Christ amongst the darkness:
“When all the trees have gone, and all the rivers dry. Don’t despair when all the flowers have died. For I have heard that there’s a garden somewhere. When you hear the children cry, when you see them die and a mother can’t sing a lullaby. (Yet) I can still smell the blessed warm spring rain.
When everything is gone, and you’ve lost all hope and you have come to the end of your rope, well I believe that the flowers will bloom again. We are young, we are old (and what we have) can’t be bought or sold. And we are paying for our crimes, but every day in every way, we get better all the time.”
Using Aussie vernacular, an Australian soldier once said to me that “when the bullets start firing and you’re stuck in a trench, you’re not thinking of mother England, you’re fighting for the bloke next to you on your left, and the bloke next to you on the right”.
The author of the book of Acts Luke gives us that same awareness telling us “I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live in hope, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.
” At the close of the Anzac day services three words are always said. Lest We Forget – three words renown across most countries to show our remembrance of those who have fought, and those who have died fighting for freedom.
Anzac day is a day of recognition, those three words Lest We Forget speak what this day is truly meant to symbolize, and that is that we will never forget our history.
Let us never forget our inheritance that we have been brought through Jesus Christ. Our inheritance bought at the cost of His life and though now we still live live temporary lives enduring many things. We do so knowing that in the battles, be we on our knees in fear or standing firm in faith, that He is on our left and our right travelling with us and carrying us in need that as He has gone before us and now sits at the right hand of God, for as He had paid for our crimes, so too will He take us home that we too will stand before Him with those who have gone before us: in a place where the flowers have bloomed again, all the rivers flow and again a mother can be heard singing a lullaby and see that in every way and on everyday that we will be with Him, as He is for us today. Amen.

“The Monkey on our Back”

Based on John 14:23-29

In 2009 a group of researchers in Hungary found that the saying “it’s a fine line between genius and madness” is genetically accurate and identified this as an explanation of why people such as Vincent van Gogh displayed such destructive behavior.

Yet when you hear a moving and emotional song or maybe sometimes a piece of advice or a viewpoint- you know that the author has lived it, both through it and with it.

The genes we are born with verses the environment and experiences we bear as the determining factor of who we become has long been debated, and while one person’s view I read that “genetics provides the clay, but the environment shapes” seems a reasonable and logical conclusion, it was of little practical use for a women I knew who was intelligent, very successful and happily married with great kids, but who up till she could no longer-stated that she fought her madness every day.

Yet for many, the studies of who we are and why, then research into appropriate medicines for both physical and mental ailments has been life altering if not life-saving, and while I personally believe some of our modern day advancements have been far from beneficial, after having walked through old cemeteries and seen the amount of head stones for both mother and baby lost during child birth, I thank God for those that he has given the passion, determination and intelligence to make our world a better place.

God provides and in today’s Gospel Jesus tells his disciples, tells us that “he has given us his peace, but not as the world gives us peace”. The peace of the Lord “that releases us from distress and fear”. The peace of the Lord that sets us free.

Oh to know that peace for but a moment.

On the way home after the funeral of the lady I have spoken of, I heard this song- a conversation between a troubled soul and our Savior.

“You ask me where to begin

Am I so lost in my sin

You ask me where did I fall

I’ll say I can’t tell you when

But if my spirit is lost

How will I find what is near

Don’t question I’m not alone

Somehow I’ll find my way home

My sun shall rise in the east

So shall my heart be at peace

And if you’re asking me when

I’ll say it starts at the end

You know your will to be free

Is matched with love secretly

And talk will alter your prayer

Somehow you’ll find you are there.

Your friend is close by your side

Just hold my hand and we’re there

Somehow we’re going somewhere”

For some, peace can only be seen at the end, but oh to only know that peace now, even if but for a moment. But for a moment to be able to accept ourselves unconditionally like our Saviour does. But for a moment to accept ourselves as he accepts us and live in peace knowing of his covenant and the unbreakable agreement that he has brought to us from the Father.

An unconditional covenant taken like that between David and King Saul’s son Jonathon, that should one of them perish, the other would care for the others offspring.

A covenant realised after both Saul and Jonathan had been slain by the Philistines and what little remained of the House of Saul went into hiding with David being made King of Israel. After a few years had passed, David learns that Jonathan had a son, Mephibosheth, a crippled youth surviving in the squalor of an outcast camp. Because of his covenant with Jonathan, David has the young crippled boy bought to him, and not only restores his land but invites him to always dine with him amid the splendour of the king’s table.

Mephibosheth does so, but then shortly vanishes to return to the outcast camp. Many more years pass, and suddenly one day Mephibosheth, in rags, shows up once again at King David’s palace. When David asks him why he left, Methibosheth in essence replies, that “My people told me you were not to be trusted, and I believed them. I thought it was too good to be true. But after watching you from afar I have come to realise, even though I do not deserve it, that your charity, your love and covenant is for real.”

And so it was that the poor, lame boy, now a man returned to the splendour of the royal table.

We too, sometimes to accept what is there, must walk in the wilderness carrying the burdens of both our genetic and earthly formations. The monkey on our back that won’t be dislodged as it whispers to us words of destruction and ruin, and at best with the only remaining strength we have left, hang on with feeble scar tissued hands to endure it and hope to one day know of that peace that the Lord speaks off, to again be that innocent child who knew not of what has come to be.

Sometimes, only after the journey through the wilderness do the words from the book of Romans let us understand “that endurance produces character, and character produces hope”.

The unseen hope that was there before we were born, the unseen hope in the depths of our despairs, yet the small ray of hope searched for and clung to in our times of endurance. Endurance to be suffered like that of Methibosheth, and like Methibosheth amongst it we see the truth of what was there from the start.

American born poet T.S. Eliot wrote:

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time”.

We too, after having travelled through the journey of our lives, the ups and the downs, the joyous and the desolate-after our exploration of this world and ourselves come to know the place from where we started from for the first time.

That He has told us that “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you”, and during our path “The LORD will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring” until that day when our peace will be complete.

The Lord has told us that he “is our refuge and strength and a very present help in trouble”, and though we suffer experiences and pain that we carry with us through our earthly time that may or may not bring us peace, and though on our journey we may not gain peace as the world knows it, we have the peace that he offers, the peace brought to us from the pain suffered by our Saviour Jesus on the Cross. The pain he bore for us “that if the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed”.

His endurance that gave us character, and his character that brought us the sure hope of salvation. The pain he endured for us, that until we meet again on the last day allows us to be free amidst a turbulent world-and free amidst the turbulence of the struggles which we carry.

Oh to know the peace of which William W. Purkey wrote:

“You’ve gotta’ dance like there’s nobody watching,

Love like you’ll never be hurt,

Sing like there’s nobody listening,

And live like it’s heaven on earth.

And speak from the heart to be heard.”

To know that regardless of what we know of ourselves, to know that Christ died for us is to bring the sureness of salvation and eternal life.

To know that regardless of what we have become, that in faith in him alone he has accepted us unconditionally give us freedom and peace today, and while we may not be able to dance like nobodies watching, we can still dance. While we may not be able to love like we’ll never be hurt, we can still love, and while we may not be able to sing like nobody’s listening, we can still sing-because we have heard him speak from his heart and ask that we lay our heavy burdens on him.

So live today and rest in his peace – knowing of the sure freedom, that to you he has bought with his life, and to you he has brought with his love.

 

“Lead us Lord. Lead us”

Based on Acts 11:1-18, Revelation 21:1-6 and John 13:31-35

Jesus said “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”.

Last week, a presenter from the Australian Lutheran World Service talked of their work in those parts of our earthly home in great need. Earthquakes, floods, tsunamis and all manner of tragedies including the recent East African drought crisis.

Affecting 13 million people across the Horn of Africa, the drought forced quarter a million people to seek food and other assistance in refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia.

At the camp in Ethiopia, a tent city of 155,000 people to which each day another 1500 would be added to after having travelled weeks and months. At the entrance to this camp, in a country that has felt the suffering and stench of death from its own famines in the past, a country that could “legitimately” turn away those in need for fear of exhausting its own resources there is a sign that greats the daily flood of refugees:

“You are in a different country. We welcome you. Here you have peace and security. This is your home.”

The camp in Kenya is the largest refugee camp in the world housing 470,000 people and “in charge” and while living in a tent like the rest is an local elderly women who deals the United nations, the organisations like Lutheran World Service and the government in managing the resources to try and meet the needs of those before her. The displaced, those who have seen family beaten, tortured and killed before their eyes, those who have seen their villages decimated by warlords and famine. Those who have nothing and when she was asked how she can daily wake to a tragedy that seems to have no answer she said everyday she starts with the same prayer:

“Lead us on Lord. Lead us where we dare not go. Lead us Lord. Lead us each new day”.

Elvis Presley, aware of his own shortfalls was often led by a heavy conscious to ask the Lord, “Why me Lord, why did you give me the gift of this my voice, why me” and daily we ask ourselves or at least remind ourselves the same. Why us Lord. Why have we been given the gift of a free and plentiful country? Yes we have suffered and walked the wrong way, but why is it true that the words “there but the grace of God I go” are so true for us? And why have sinners such as us come to know and accept your forgiveness and grace, and yet others not?

Before his wedding, Bill Gates mother gave his wife to be a word of advice “We have always given to the needy, that’s who we are as people” and when asked what’s the greatest challenge of being rich, Bill answered “the responsibility it brings” and at the end of 2012, Bill, his family and his wife Melinda’s foundation had totalled 36 billion dollars of monies for charity.

Our gracious Lord, both in his earthly providences and his spiritual gifts when we knew him not took us in. When broken by hurt, fear and the pain brought from others and ourselves, the Lord lifted us up and as others walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he brings them to us that they too will see his love and fear no evil as they see his goodness and mercy, and see that he is with them.

We all have been on and are on a journey. We have all felt hurt and felt lost. Felt vulnerable. Felt that no one understands nor knows our pain. Maybe you lived on the street. It’s cold and you’re hungry. You are scared, but you are angry. As people pass you by, you can see disgust in their eyes, their fear of you, there pity. But you are alone. You think how did it come to this? You cannot even clearly remember how, it seems so long ago and yet like only yesterday, when you knew hope. But you still have a little hope and think, tomorrow, tomorrow it will be different. But it isn’t, maybe they are right, maybe I am worthless. If only someone understood.

You are sitting in a cell in the detention centre. You see your children-and you know you are responsible, but you had no choice. You only wanted to give them safety; you had to do it for they would have surely died where you came from.

They are playing soccer in the courtyard surrounded by razor wire and you know, at least for now they are safe. But you see the fear and confusion in their eyes. You just want to hug them and say, it will be O.K., but you can’t. If only someone understood.

Yesterday, the day before, or in the days to come-you have heard the back stabbing and the rumours. You have felt others judgement and betrayal just as you have felt your own self-condemning judgement and despair. You have wronged others and been wronged. You just want to start again and know hope in your life that one more time.

But then a person, a group of people or a nation say to you: “We have seen your misery; we have heard you cry out in your suffering. So come to our land, a land that abounds with nature’s gifts. Because “The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey”.

We will not judge you, for we “Do not judge, or we too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of dust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” but we will watch over you like “The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow”, you have been oppressed but now you are safe and we will never turn our back on you again. We give you a shelter from the storm and shade from the heat for “The lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble”. For we too were in need, so now we accept you as our own and give you food, clothing and love “for the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who knows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens.”

No longer will you be oppressed, no longer do you need to fear of persecution for you are now free to live as you choose because we have been told that “If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand him over to his master. Let him live among you wherever he likes and in whatever town he chooses. Do not oppress him”

No longer will you live in fear because we do not fear you, but we will love you because we have felt the compassionate hand of love, so “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete”.

So do not be afraid. No longer have any concern for your life or your body and what you will eat or drink or what you will wear. But come and reside in us and you will receive these things as you hear the words we have heard as “Jesus said to his disciples: Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more important than food, and the body more than cloths”, “And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well”

Should you fall in despair, affliction, are beaten and wronged, we will no longer pass you by, but will tend to your wounds and take care of you like the “man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his cloths, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to the inn and took care of him”.

Remember your misery no more. For when you need defending we will defend you and when you cannot speak we will speak for you that “you forget your poverty and remember your misery no more. (For the Lord has told us to) speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; and defend the rights of the poor and needy”.

No longer will you need to sleep on a park bench or the riverbank because our doors are open to you, because as the Lord to us, so we to you, that“ no stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open to the traveller”, whether you are poor, crippled, lame or blind in body or spirit we invite you to our banquet, because like his banquet to us, he has told us “when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous”. For we have been blessed with many riches which we now share with you as the Lord’s “desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality”

For no longer are you foreigners or aliens, but fellow citizens. We are all one people and members of the one household of our Lord “Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision. Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ”. “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household”

Today we celebrate and rejoice, because like us, you too were dead and like us we you too were lost, and like the words that were said to those that took offence when we were welcomed home as the prodigal sons and daughters, we now hear said to us upon your coming home “My son, the father said, you are always with me, and everything thing I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found”

In the verse that follows todays Gospel passage, before his death Jesus told Peter “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward”

Christ loved you so much that he gave his life for you, that you too, with the apostles and all those in Christ that have gone before, our loved ones, our husbands, wives, daughters, sons, brothers and sisters will sit at his feet without tear, death, crying, pain or mourning.

“Love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”.

“Through many dangers, toils and snares we have already come; Tis grace that has brought us safe thus far, and grace that we lead us home. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. We once were lost, but now are found; Was blind but now we see.”

Lead us on Lord. Lead us where we dare not go. Lead us Lord. Lead us each new day.

 

 The Voice

John 10:22-30

 

Over the last few weeks the earth has been rocked by several earthquakes, including one at Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and one in China, we’ve  had the volcano doing its best to ground all international flights. As you would expect there have been several claims by people that the end of the world is nigh. There was even a claim by someone that the earthquakes were being caused by the revealing clothes that western women are wearing! One commentator on the internet coined a new term that I quite liked, he called these people ‘Psycho-Ceramics’ in other words, they are crackpots.

These people seem to use selected parts of Mark 13;

When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.

When you think about it that way they are right, there are wars and rumors of wars, there are earthquakes happening in various places, there are famines and floods and all sorts of things happening. But whose voice are they listening to? They are taking selected parts of the reading without looking at whole thing.

Here is the actual reading: “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. They are missing some very important statements in Jesus’ words to them, do not be alarmed, the end is still to come, this is just the beginning. These things have been going on for centuries haven’t they and Jesus says that there is no need for alarm.

Jesus also said, “My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me.”

Whose voice do you listen to, do you hear the noises that false prophets make, or do you listen for the voice of God through scripture and test it with scripture?

It’s pretty easy to get led astray these days isn’t it? We have talk back radio, more radio stations than ever before broadcasting there own propaganda. We have public affairs TV shows that seem to run with their own agendas. Newspapers bombard us with opinion and report on the stories that they think will sell their papers in a society that now relies far more heavily on the internet for its information. Then there is the internet, where you can search instantly for the answer to any question you may have and usually find answers that support you own theory if you look hard enough.

Whose voice do you listen to? The voice of reason, your own voice, the voice of a stranger? Or do you listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd, the one who was willing to lay down his life for his sheep? He won’t let anyone snatch you out of his hand. I read a good analogy of this during the week. Imagine a yo-yo, a toy that has had many rises and falls in popularity over the years. To use one you attach the string to your finger, you can then fling it up or down, in or out and if you have just a little bit of skill you can usually make it return to the palm of your hand. That’s what it is like with Jesus. He lets us have a little space to go and do our own thing, to spin freely at the end of the string, but then he gives a gentle tug and we return to the palm of his hand. Protected and safe from the evil one.

What the Father has given him is far greater than all else. He has given him the power to make us his children, members of his flock, he has given us eternal life through him and he will not let anything or anyone snatch us from his hand.

Yes the time will eventually come when we are called to leave this earthly life, but as we heard in our reading from Revelation this morning, “The one who is seated on the throne will shelter them, they will hunger no more, and thirst no more, the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd and will guide them to springs of the water of life and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Even though our current life might be difficult and there might be many things we are dealing with, we live in the knowledge and the assurance of eternal life. The Good Shepherd guides us through this life and protects us as we wait for the coming of our eternal life with him, as we walk through the valley he guides us in all that we do and prepares a place for us to be with him at the end of time as we know it.

I think it is appropriate as Australia and New Zealand today commemorate ANZAC day that we hear these readings. War is a terrible thing brought about largely by human greed and a lust for power. Millions of innocent people around the world have lost their lives in war. Today the people of Australia and New Zealand pause to remember those who have given their lives in battle. We thank their families for their service and for the price that they paid. During dawn services around the two countries and at other events as well the following words are spoken:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

I’ve been hearing those words since I was about eight years old, many of you have heard them for a lot longer. They too remind me of our Revelation reading, they will hunger no more, and thirst no more.

Not one of us knows the day nor the hour when we will leave this earth, we don’t know how it will take place. It could even be as a result of an earthquake or war, what we do know is that the Good Shepherd who has laid down his life, for us his sheep has called your name; he wants you to follow him, so that you will dwell with him and he can protect you in the palm of his hand. Listen for his voice, testing the call of false prophets against his word, so that you may dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Amen

Pr Tim Stringer