tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86275722641293387132024-02-22T04:47:17.388+11:00The Rector's PageUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger94125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-70398430618615424422015-01-18T17:27:00.000+11:002015-01-18T17:27:07.717+11:00Can you hear what I hear? Second Sunday after Epiphany 2015<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The story of
the young Samuel being called by the Lord is an absolute classic. How wonderful
it would be if God spoke to us by name and gave us clear instructions. When I
think about my own calling I remember praying that God would speak to me
clearly in words I could understand. At the time I had not yet learned how to
hear God’s voice or how to listen and understand. I understand, now, that
although the Lord called to Samuel in the middle of the night, this is not the
only way God communicates. The readings we have today are about how God shows
himself to each one of us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The psalmist
is full of wonder that God knows each person so intimately. For the writer of
psalm 139, God is one who knows everything about everyone, their thoughts,
their words, even when they intend to stand up or lie down. God has watched the
formation of every human being – God has been involved with the making of each
human being. It is as if God has carefully formed them in their mother’s womb,
weaving their minds and bodies together in a wonderful and wise manner. The
psalmist sees that all the future of the unborn child is in God’s hands. There
are plans for each child’s growth that are known only to God. These plans are
secret even from the person for whom those plans exist.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The psalmist
is frightened by the thought, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, so high
that I cannot endure it. How weighty are your thoughts O God! How vast is the
sum of them.” Humans can never fully understand God. Humans can never fully
understand themselves. It is a puzzle and a mystery. All the psalmist can say
is that when the puzzling and searching has come to an end, God is still there
with us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Samuel’s
experience was much more simple. Samuel was a young boy, serving in the Lord in
the sanctuary. The story tells us that the word of the Lord was rare in those
days and visions were not widespread. Even Eli, the old priest, was going blind
and had no vision for the present or the future, and Eli’s sons, Hophni and
Phineas, were not faithful.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">At this point
Samuel is called. He actually hears God calling him by name. At first Samuel
did not believe it, but eventually old Eli realised that God was calling the
boy. So Eli advised Samuel to lie down again and listen carefully to what God
would say. And Samuel did listen, and became a great prophet – the more he
listened to God, the better he was able to put God’s will into words until the
whole nation trusted Samuel as a true speaker of the word of God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">In the
gospel, we hear of another meeting between God and humankind. Nathanael was a
good man, a sincere and honest worshipper of God. He studied the Scriptures,
gave to the poor, paid his temple tax and behaved as honestly as he knew how. Jesus
knew this, for he had seen him under the fig tree where people often gathered
in the cool shade to talk and to pray together. John the gospel writer gives
Nathanael as an example of a sincere person of faith and wants us to understand
that God knew this. God could see into the heart of Nathanael just as he could
see into the heart of the psalmist or the boy Samuel, and just as God can see
into our hearts as well. Our hearts are open to God, God knows our desires and
all our secrets are obvious to God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">So God comes
to us in ways that are right for us. To the child God comes as a voice in the
night; to the poet, the psalmist, God comes with knowledge cloaked in mystery;
to those of simple faith God comes simply, as Jesus met with Nathanael in the
streets of Jerusalem.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">For me, God
came with a man carrying a box of prayer books in Port Moresby, and as an English priest from
Wymondham Abbey. God comes to me as the faithful people of the parishes where I
have worshipped and served; or as the people who knock on my door in the night
time. God speaks to me through the voices of my family and friends, and through
the stories of the Bible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Everyone who
listens can hear the voice of God. Sometimes it comes as a shock. St Paul, who writes letters with such power and zeal to
the churches, first heard the true voice of God on the road to Damascus, when a blinding flash of insight
knocked him to the ground. I guess that many people feel disappointed when God
does not do the same for them, or does not call them as clearly as he called
Samuel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">They
shouldn’t be, because God speaks in many ways and through many different
situations and people. God knows each one of us through and through and knows
what lies in our heart of hearts. Maybe St
Paul needed shouting at. Perhaps we should thank God
that the voice of God for us is more like the still small voice that Elijah
heard, or the voice that calls in the night that Samuel heard, or the voice
that speaks in the mouths of friends and strangers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Let us pray
that we may have the ears to hear and the wisdom to listen; the heart to catch
the true word of God and the determination to respond. God made of Samuel a
great prophet. The psalmist was inspired to put the word of God to music. St Paul, although
stubborn and rebellious at first became the greatest of the early missionaries.
God alone knows what is planned for each of us. Nathanael was promised a vision
of the Kingdom of
Heaven and told that he
would see great things through faith. Let us therefore be faithful, ready to
hear and respond to the call of God and able to look ahead for the great things
God has for us in our lives.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-30862236945389556932014-06-09T06:05:00.003+10:002014-06-09T06:05:58.955+10:00Nec Tamen Consumebatur - How to be on fire without burning up? Pentecost 2014<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The reading from the
book of the Acts of the Apostles begins, “When the day of Pentecost had come,
they were all together in one place.” And we’re ready to ask, “What happens
next?” We know when. It is the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the Jewish Passover.
It is also called the Feast of Weeks, because it is seven weeks, a week of
weeks, forty-nine days after the Passover. Jewish tradition holds that the Law
had been given through Moses on this day. And in the Jewish Law it says, “You
shall count until the day after the seventh Sabbath, fifty days; then you shall
present an offering of new grain to the Lord, two loaves of bread, made with
the best flour and with yeast.” Not only that, the Law calls for a holy
convocation, a calling together of the people of God and everyone should drop
what they are doing and do not work that day. So the disciples did exactly
that, they were all together in one place, gathered in the name of God, in a
holy assembly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">So, what happened next?
The Holy Spirit came upon them, like a rushing wind which shook the house. And
a blazing fire appeared among them, running from one to another like flames in
a grass paddock, tongues of fire, licking up the dry kindling, until looked as
if the flames had set the disciples on fire.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Were they really on
fire? Were the flames real? Wrong question. We might just as well as if those
people wearing red today are on fire. We’re not talking about ordinary wind and
ordinary fire; we’re talking about the Holy Spirit, which is the breath and the
energy of God appearing among us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The writer wants us to
focus on the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is the first harvest of spring, in Israel,
when the new bread of the new season is presented to God, and the disciples are
the first harvest of Jesus Christ, the first harvest of the Resurrection, the
new bread of the church. And, if you like word pictures, the Holy Spirit is the
yeast which makes the bread rise. You remember that Jesus said that the kingdom
of heaven is like yeast which a woman hid in three measures of flour <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8627572264129338713#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a>
and it didn’t stop working until all the dough was leavened. So the Holy Spirit
will not stop working until all the world is renewed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And, as we hear next,
the Spirit inspires the disciples to tell the world the good news, “speaking
about God’s deeds of power” in the languages of all the foreigners gathered in
Jerusalem; each person hearing in their own native language. The disciples were
not speaking in tongues, they were not using the ecstatic speech which gives
glory to God but needs an interpreter to understand. They were speaking in
clear human languages which needed no interpreter.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We are to understand
that the good news is for all people; language and culture and background is no
barrier to the good news of Jesus Christ; in the same way, here at St Luke’s we
believe that there is no barrier to God’s love and acceptance.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Our difficulty is that
we are finding it hard to tell the people around us the good news they need to
hear. How can we speak in languages that the people around us can hear and
understand? Do we all have to learn Thai, or Hindi, or Arabic, Greek and
Portugese?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">One answer that has
been suggested is the Take Love Action Plan, which is a youth initiative of
Anglicare. The Holy Spirit led Mac to discover this while he was planning the
Parish Camp, which is next week! Instead of teaching us to speak in foreign
languages, it provides simple actions which anyone can do, each of which shares
the love of God. These are “God’s deeds of power” which the disciples were
talking about. There are seven suggestions, one for every day of the week. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">On day one, we are
asked to encourage somebody. Think of someone who might need a word of support.
We could speak to them face to face or send them a letter. On day two we are
asked to give a gift. Nothing big or expensive, but something which says, “I
think you’re worth it, and God does, too.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">On day three it is
suggested that we bless one of our neighbours with practical help. Day four is
devoted to prayer, praying like crazy is the phrase used in the booklet.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">A phone message,
recorded or text, a facebook message or an email is suggested for day five
while day six is a time to donate some clothes to Anglicare or St Luke’s Op
Shop, nothing dirty or torn or faded, but something that someone would be glad
to receive at a bargain price. And finally, on the last day of the week,
perhaps we can take courage and tell our own faith story in words, to someone
who is ready to hear it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Some folk might think
you’re mad, but as Peter said to the crowd, “Indeed, these people are not mad
or drunk, they are doing what the Holy Spirit gives them power to do. It is as
the prophet Joel has said, In the last days it will be, God declares, that I
will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, and your youngsters shall see visions and your old folk shall dream
dreams.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“God’s love has been
poured into our hearts, through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8627572264129338713#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a>
Now is the time to show that it is true.</span></div>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8627572264129338713#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a>
Matthew 13:33</div>
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<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8627572264129338713#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a>
Romans 5:5</div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-12991255490146375022014-05-27T16:49:00.002+10:002014-05-27T16:49:32.418+10:00What I might have said. Sunday 25th May - Thanksgiving for the Church and Celebrating St Augustine<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Today we are celebrating St Austine and
giving thanks for the life of the church. If I can fit in a Confirmation class
before we start our barbecue, the lesson will be about the church. I suppose
the first thing I would like to say is that the church is a work in progress.
Behind me is an illustration of that. In 1882 when the church was new, it
stopped where the big arch is. The sanctuary was not added until about 14 years
later. The walls used to be a creamy colour with a deep red border around the
windows, following the outline of the bricks. Later on the wall was painted
blue and now it is cream again. We are renewing the paint and staining the wood
panelling to make it match the rest of the woodwork. And the furniture, the
pews, the organ and the altar have been moved around many times. St Luke’s
church not a museum, it is a work in progress, a church building which is used,
lived in and loved.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The church which I will describe to the
Confirmation class is not really about buildings, it is about people. The
church is about people brought together and inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the disciples spoke in many different languages so
that many people could hear, in their own language, the wonderful saving power
of God. From the very beginning of the church on the day of Pentecost, the
church has been a living, growing, changing community of faith.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">One word picture of the church is of a
grape vine. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Without the vine, the
branches wither and die. Even the branches that are attached to the vine need
pruning and cutting back if they are to bear fruit. God is the vine dresser,
the one who makes sure the vine is healthy and productive. People and parishes
are constantly being pruned to make sure they grow. The people who are the
movers and shakers in the church move on, giving others the opportunity to make
the church bear new, rich and abundant fruit, luscious grapes for a new
vintage.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The church grows and spreads by planting
new vines in new places. The apostle Paul was one church planter. In our
reading from the Acts of the Apostles we find him in Athens, in the market
place, called the Areopagus, and he is telling the people of Athens the good
news of Jesus Christ. He points out all the altars and all the Gods but stops
at the altar to an un-named God, a God whom nobody in Athens has heard about.
This is the one I proclaim, says Paul, this is the One true God who created all
that is and who sent his son for the salvation of the world. Paul also quotes
Greek philosophers because he knows that the church grows best if it is planted
in the good soil which is already there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">St Augustine had the same wisdom. When
he first arrived in England and began gathering people together to the form the
Church in England, he advised them not to knock down the old pagan temples, but
to convert them into churches, so that people would find new truth in the
familiar traditions of their land.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This is the way the church has grown;
Jesus Christ is planted in the hearts and lives of people throughout the world,
of every nation and language, of every time and place, vines which, as God
prunes them and trains them, bear all sorts of wonderful fruit.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Maybe our congregation here at St Luke’s
is not a big vine, but I see a strong and vigorous plant with good fruit
growing here. As people come and go we see God’s pruning and God’s Holy Spirit
at work. Over the years parish priests have come and gone, each bearing fruit
according to their ability. This is a natural and necessary part of the life of
the church. As God prunes, so the new growth comes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As you know, I am going to be pruned in
January 2015, which is seven months away. And before that I will take three
months long service leave, during which time there will be other priests
leading our worship and caring for our community. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Let us give thanks for the life of our
church and the worshipping community of St Luke’s. Let us remember that the
church is a living organism, and each one of us is part of that organism, each
of us is a branch which can bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And let us all
take the opportunities which pruning gives us. It is a time of pain, perhaps,
but it is also a time for new growth, new ideas and a new harvest. It is a time
to remember that the church is work in progress and the work is God’s work.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-24662635097589877772014-05-20T17:05:00.002+10:002014-05-20T17:05:23.174+10:00Sacraments (Adult Version) Sunday 18th May<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What
is a sacrament? Basic etymology might suggest a sacred thing, a holy thing,
which isn’t a bad guess at all. The catechism defines a sacrament as “an
outward and visible sign of an inward an spiritual grace”, again a simple
enough definition – something which is physical, tangible, but which is more
than that, which is a means of grace. That’s important, it’s not a symbol, a
representation, a figurative thing, but an actual means of receiving grace. So
in a sacrament, we receive the outward sign, but in some way the sign is
changed to become different, powerful, transformative – it is changed by the
presence of God and the consecration of the Church.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
catechism talks to us of seven sacraments – two dominical sacraments,
sacraments of the gospel, sacraments instituted at the command of Christ,
baptism and the eucharist, and five sacramental ministries of grace, sacraments
of the church – confirmation, marriage, anointing, confession and ordination.
The two gospel or dominical sacraments are described as “generally necessary
for salvation”, in other words they are necessary for all people without
exception. Baptism is the sacrament by which we become a member of the Church,
a child of our heavenly father, an inheritor of the kingdom of God. The
Eucharist is the sacrament in which we feed on Christ, being nourished by his
very presence in us. The other five are not generally necessary in the sense
that they are appropriate to various people and various contexts, and at
various times in life – not everyone needs to be married, not everyone needs to
be ordained, and so on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As
many of our young people prepare for confirmation next month, it does us all
well to reflect on some of the things we believe and teach, so this morning I
want to think a little about these two dominical sacraments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Baptism
is the beginning of a journey, the Prayer Book tells us. It is the first step
on our journey of faith, and our entry into the church as a member of the
church. The outward and visible sign is the water, which signifies cleansing,
washing, purification – we are literally washed of or sins. It is more than
just a symbol, it is a sacrament, a means of grace, and so the inward and
spiritual grace we receive at the font is that cleansing from sin and
incorporation into the body of Christ. Some churches view baptism as a
covenant, an agreement, between the parents and God or the church, to bring the
child up in the Christian faith. That is part of what we believe, but not the
fullness of it at all. Yes parents do make those vows and promises – and
sometimes they have no intention of keeping them. If they did, this church
would be packed with children every Sunday. A sacrament is much more than a
covenant, it is a way God touches a life, and it is never dependent either on
the priest who administers it, or the person receiving it, but on the grace and
the power of God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
Eucharist is our great thanksgiving, and the only other action commanded of his
followers by Jesus. Only twice in the gospels do we read a direct command from
Jesus to do something – at the end of Matthew’s gospel he commands us to “go
therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit”, and in the upper room he
commands them to “do this in remembrance of me”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In
this sacrament we take the outward and visible sign, the bread and the wine,
and we consecrate them that they may be to us Christ’s body and Christ’s blood.
After their consecration, they are no longer bread and wine, they are Christ,
and when we receive them, we receive Christ. That is why at the end of the
service we don’t just pour the wine back into the bottle, and throw the bread
to the birds – either we reserve them to bring them to the sick and housebound,
or they are reverently consumed. They have changed, and through the working of
God in the sacrament become holy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In
1<sup>st</sup> Corinthians St Paul talks to us about Communion, and he is very
challenging. He talks of the problems in Corinth, and about coming unworthily
to communion and eating and drinking damnation. As with every scripture, we
need to read the context of the passage, and not just cherry-pick at verses.
Paul is writing to a church where communion is part of a wider fellowship meal,
an agape, if you like. There were those who were rich, and who had plenty of
food, and there were those who were poor, and who had nothing. Paul is
concerned not about the “communion” part of what they were doing, but about
their unwillingness to share what they had with those less fortunate – by their
selfishness they were eating and drinking damnation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">If
we were only to come to communion when we were worthy to receive, then we would
never celebrate communion at all. What we are doing is not a reward for the
righteous, it is food for the journey. Jesus commanded us to share in communion
not to prove to the world that we are good enough, but to nourish and sustain
us in our Christian life. The act of physically sharing in one bread and
drinking of one cup is more than just symbolic, it unites us all as Christ’s
followers. There is no greater privilege, no greater joy, than to unite
ourselves with Christ, to be in him and he in us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">All
the way through the New Testament, and right up to the medieval period, it was
the Eucharist which distinguished Christ’s followers on Christ’s day – the
Lord’s meal in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s day. It is saddening to think
that so much superstition built up around it that people became afraid to come
to communion, and it became such a rare event that it actually served to
heighten the superstition. If we are to take Christ’s words seriously,
communion should be at the heart of our worship every Sunday. Christ chose
bread and wine – the ordinary, normal, everyday food – no fatted calf or young
lamb, no exotic champagne – this was “bread and butter” stuff, the regular, the
normal, the ordinary, emphasising to us that we need it regularly, normally,
and ordinarily. In the last half century or so we have begun to re-discover
this great truth, and to celebrate it – but we still have a long way to go. Too
often in Church we do what we have always done, because we have always done it,
rather than looking to scripture to hear what God has to say to us. The words
on the east wall / altar say it all, “This do in remembrance of me”. We don’t
do it because I say so, or because someone thinks it’s a nice thing to do, or a
good thing to do. We do it because Jesus commands us to, and we want to be
faithful to his command. When we obey his command, we find the fullness of joy,
and the peace of God. When we intentionally separate ourselves from him, we
find only coldness and hardness of heart.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As
we celebrate each Eucharist, we not only remember, and enter again into the
upper room with Christ, but we proclaim afresh both his death and his
resurrection, and we look forward to his coming in glory – in a sense time and
eternity collide, we enter into the past, re-present it in the present, and
face the future. What greater act of worship is possible?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sermon sourced from http://revpetert.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/sermon-the-sacraments/ </span></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-79583763550794753672014-05-13T11:45:00.001+10:002014-05-13T11:45:05.117+10:00Why come to Church? Sermon for Sunday May 4th.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Next week I will begin
Confirmation Classes and I intend, God willing, to make the subjects of the
classes the subjects of my sermons week by week. I am doing this because we all
need a refresher course in our faith from time to time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Actually, that’s not really
accurate. I’ll say it again. We need to be reminded, every moment of every day,
what our Christian faith is, and what it means in our lives. This is what
church is about and why we come to church. When anyone asks you why you go to
church you can say, “I go to church to be reminded what it means to be a
Christian and to help me make my faith real in my life.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And if they ask for
more, you could say, “The grace of God, given to me in word, sacrament and the
community of the church, gives me the strength and power to love God with all
my heart and soul and mind and strength and to love my neighbours as I love
myself.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">St Luke wrote his
gospel so that his friend Theophilus would understand the Christian faith. It
is a teaching gospel and today’s passage, the Road to Emmaus, was recorded to
show us how to learn to be Christians. This absolutely Biblical approach is the
foundation of our Anglican tradition.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">First of all, faith is
a journey, just like salvation. In this life we will never know and understand
everything, but we are going from Jerusalem, the place of Jesus’ crucifixion
and resurrection, to Emmaus, an ordinary village like any other place in the
world, such as Enmore.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">There were two of them
travelling, for from the beginning of time, God said, “It is not good for
humans to be alone.” There’s no such thing as a solitary Christian, you can’t
love your neighbours if you never speak to them. Jesus is always with us, of
course, but we must have companions like ourselves. The two on the road were
talking and discussing the things that had happened in Jerusalem. We must have
someone to talk to about our faith and to discuss with what our faith means.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Now those two needed a
teacher, someone to help them understand, someone to begin with Moses and all
the prophets, to interpret to them the things about Jesus in all the
scriptures.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The two disciples knew
their Scriptures, which would have meant Moses and the prophets. The gospels
had not yet been written and St Paul had not yet started on his journey of faith
to Damascus and beyond. The point is that those two knew the traditions of
their faith very well. They were expecting a Messiah, they had hoped that Jesus
was the one to redeem Israel. They knew the events of the crucifixion and
resurrection, but they needed someone to interpret those events. They needed
someone to open the scriptures.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">One their journey they
came to the village to which they were going and they begged the mysterious
stranger to stay with them for the night. Why? Well, hospitality is a sacred
duty. Jesus himself taught that when we welcome strangers we welcome Christ
himself. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because the people wanted to abuse
and humiliate their guests. To accept and welcome strangers is a good way to
make new friends and to build community. Simple.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And they shared a meal.
Everyone needs to eat and drink, even if it’s a crust of bread and a cup of
water. Jesus said that a cup of water, given in love, will bring a blessing on
the giver. Indeed, it will bless the receiver as well.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Now we come to the
point of the story. “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed
and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they
recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">They knew him in the
breaking of the bread. “To break bread together” is another way of saying,
“they shared a meal.” There are few things as comfortable or pleasant as
sharing a meal with guests. When we eating and drink together we are equal. We
are all simply human. Good or bad, rich or poor, Jew or Greek, male or female,
all are equal in their need to eat and drink. Whatever our sexuality or marital
status, our beliefs or the colour of our skin or the language we speak, sharing
food and drink brings us together. Abuse of hospitality, by the guest or by the
host is the most fearsome of sins.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When we are sharing a
meal, we are at our most human, we are vulnerable, we are relaxed and open to
each other.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And this is the point
of the story when the two disciples recognised Jesus. He vanished from their
sight. This was not to abandon them, but to say, yes, you’ve got it right, my
work here is done.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And that same hour, in
the dark, they got up and returned to Jerusalem to share the good news. The
others knew about Christ’s resurrection and his appearance to Simon, but the
disciples from Emmaus told them how to live as companions of the living Christ.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And this is what the
church teaches us. We are companions on our journey. We break bread together.
In the bread of communion we know the risen Lord, we are given a foretaste of
the joys of heaven and we are taught to share all our food with glad and
generous hearts, here and at home and in the homes of friends and strangers.
This is how we make Christ known.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-17532575480407619732014-02-18T16:10:00.003+11:002014-02-18T16:13:12.165+11:00Murder, adultery, divorce and swearing! 16th February 2014<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The gospel we have
before us today is part of the Sermon on the Mount, which my commentary* calls
“The Messiah’s Inaugural Address”. It presents Jesus as Israel’s ultimate,
God-authorised teacher and sternly warns the readers that believing in Jesus
means doing what he says. Matthew’s gospel finishes with the Great Commandment,
“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, and teaching them to
obey everything that I have commanded you.” Disciples means ‘students’ or
‘learners’ and in this sentence the word ‘obey’ means ‘let your lives be shaped
by’ everything I have commanded you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">So, let us consider
this part of Jesus’ teaching and see what we may learn and how our lives may be
shaped. There are four sections. They deal with murder, adultery, divorce and
lies. There are two more sections which we’ve not read today, dealing with
non-violent resistance and love for enemies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">These six sections have
the same shape. Jesus says, “You have heard it said that, but I say this.” He
takes six pieces of the Law of Moses and shows how those six sections of the
Law are to be fulfilled. Remember we read last week that Jesus told the people
that he came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfil it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We begin with the one
of the Ten Commandments, “You shall do no murder”. Some people say, “Aha, no
murder. That means we can support the death penalty, or we can go to war,
because that’s not murder, it’s lawful killing.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Jesus takes the
opposite view. The spirit of the commandment is respect for others. If you are
angry with someone, if you insult them, if you call them a fool, these are not
respectful or kind or merciful. A man came to see me on Friday asking for $350
to pay his removal expenses. I lost my temper and shouted at him – Sue heard me
from the Rectory. I should not have done that. I apologised, but Jesus says
that such behaviour makes us liable to judgement. The lesson that disciples
learn is to practise kindness and respect, kindness and mercy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Jesus adds that respect
is a two way street. He says that if your brother or sister has something
against you, drop everything and go and make every effort to be reconciled. And
reconciliation is the coming together of two people with mutual respect and
forgiveness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The next section is
also from the Ten Commandments. You shall not commit adultery. You will notice
that Jesus is talking to men only. Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has
already committed adultery with her in his heart. This is important to note
because adultery, as it was understood when the book of Exodus was written,
refers to a special kind of theft; the adulterer was guilty of depriving a
married man of his exclusive rights concerning his wife. She became “damaged
goods.” In those days, a wife was one of her husband’s possessions. In the
Tenth Commandment, against covetousness, the wife is listed among the slaves,
oxen, asses and anything else that a man owns.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Now Jesus moves the
goal posts. Women are no longer to be regarded as mere possessions to be
coveted or lusted after. There is nothing wrong with looking at a man or a
woman and finding them sexually attractive. What is wrong is the desire to
steal them from their partner or to want to control or exploit them. In Jesus’
teaching and in the early church women and men were ‘subject to one another’ as
brothers and sisters in Christ, in whom there is neither male nor female, slave
nor free.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As for tearing out your
eye or cutting off your hand, this is not an instruction or a demand for
punishment, Jesus is simply emphasising the importance of treating all people
with respect and honour, loving-kindness and mercy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Now we come to the
question of divorce. This has been the subject of many a sermon, good and bad.
Matthew treats it very seriously and records Jesus’ teaching more fully in
chapter 19, verses 3 to 12. I will try and be brief, clear and honest. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Firstly we remember
that wives used to belong to their husbands, which is why the Law is addressed
to men only. The Law as quoted by Jesus affirms the rights of women. Divorce,
as it was in those days, meant that a woman no longer had any legal place in
the man’s household and removes her right to be supported by the man. A
certificate of divorce meant that the woman was free to marry again and that
the man marrying her was not stealing her from another man. The Law, as it
stood, was good, and Jesus was not abolishing it, but fulfilling it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Jesus objects to the
idea of divorce being used to expel a woman from her place in a household. She
may have a certificate of divorce, but that only makes any future marriages
legal, it doesn’t guarantee her a place in any household.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Jesus also objects to
the idea of divorce being used to transfer a faithful woman from one household
to another. It is wrong to use the law of divorce in this way. An innocent
woman would be treated as a possession. The man who divorces her sins against
her by causing her to commit adultery because she is expelled from her rightful
place, and the man who takes possession also commits adultery because he has
stolen her from her rightful place. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Remember always that
Jesus was teaching the people of the world as it was 2000 years ago. He was not
laying down a new Biblical Law to stand for all time. In fulfilling the Law of
Moses he was establishing the principles lying behind the Law, principles of
justice, mercy, humility, kindness, gentleness and self-control. I thank God
that in Australia at least; our laws of divorce are based on those principles.
The marriage relationship is not one of possession and a man’s rights over the
woman who belongs to him. Marriage in Australia in the twenty-first century is
ideally based on the relationship between two equal partners, inspired by
mutual love and respect, subject to one another out of reverence for Christ and
for the building up and strengthening of both partners.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When two people marry,
they make promises to each other; promises of mutual love and respect. They
make promises in the presence of God and they ask for Godly and human help to
keep their promises. Jesus’ command to those who make promises is that they
should be sincere, honest and straightforward, Yes or No, anything else, he
says, comes from the evil one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">God knows that our
promises can fail and that there are many cases where a marriage is no longer
real and that the best thing to be done is to recognise our failure, to set
aside the marriage vows, to ask for forgiveness, to seek reconciliation and to
pray to God our great redeemer that we may be strengthened by our experiences.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">* My commentary. For some material used in this sermon I am indebted to Douglas R. A. Hare, author of "Matthew" in the Interpretation series published by John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky, USA, 1993 </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-69849487268894330702014-02-06T10:16:00.001+11:002014-02-06T10:20:36.575+11:00According to the Law of Moses Sunday 2nd February, Candlemass<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In the
book of Leviticus it is written, The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: If a woman
conceives and bears a male child, she shall be ceremonially unclean for seven
days. On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Her
time of blood purification shall be thirty-three days; she shall not touch any
holy thing, or come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purification are
completed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This
is the Law of Moses referred to in the gospel. Mary was unclean from the day of
Jesus’ birth seven days and then thirty three days, making forty. And yesterday
was forty days after Christmas, so we find Mary obeying the Law of Moses in
which it is written, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When
the days of her purification are completed, she shall bring to the priest at
the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb in its first year for a
burnt-offering, and a pigeon or a turtle-dove for a sin-offering. He shall
offer it before the Lord, and make atonement on her behalf; then she shall be
clean from her flow of blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, male
or female. If she cannot afford a sheep, she shall take two turtle-doves or two
pigeons, one for a burnt-offering and the other for a sin-offering; and the
priest shall make atonement on her behalf, and she shall be clean.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">For
this reason, the second of February used to be called The Purification of the
Virgin Mary.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But it
has another name. The second of February is also called The Presentation of
Christ in the Temple.
This is because, in the law of Moses it is written, The <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span> said to Moses: Consecrate to me all the firstborn;
whatever is the first to open the womb among the Israelites, of human beings
and animals, is mine.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This
means that Jesus, Mary’s first-born son, belonged to God according to the Law
of Moses. But the Law also required the child’s father to redeem the child,
that is, buy it back from God with a sheep or turtle doves or pigeons. So, our
Gospel reading today, Jesus was presented at the temple in Jerusalem so that his parents could redeem
him with the sacrifice of two turtle doves or two pigeons.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">So far,
Luke has described what happened in every Jewish family after a first-born son
arrived. Birth, then circumcision on the eighth day and sometime later,
presentation in the Temple
to be redeemed. Families often combined the ceremonies of the Presentation of
the child with the Purification of the mother because it saved time; you only
had to go up to the temple in Jerusalem
once.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But
Luke wants us to understand that Jesus is no ordinary Jewish boy. The story
goes on, Now, listen very carefully, says Luke, there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon. Luke
mentions the Holy Spirit three times to emphasise the truth of Simeon’s words.
Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit rested on Simeon; the Holy Spirit revealed
to him that he would see the Lord’s Messiah; and the Holy Spirit guided Simeon
into the Temple,
over to Mary, Joseph and Jesus and put these words into his mouth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Master,
now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my
eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all
peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This
passage gives us the third name for February 2<sup>nd</sup>, Candlemas. Simeon
says, Jesus is a light for revelation to the Gentiles. The light of Christ
reveals God to us. The whole of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is like a
mighty flash of lightning, which not only shows God to the whole world, but
whose dazzling light pierces the darkest holes and corners of creation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Almighty
God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets
are hidden is shown in all God’s saving power and glory in the person of Jesus
Christ.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In the
church, candles were needed to light up the altar so the priest could see what
they were doing. Candles also remind us of the light of Christ and the tongues
of fire of the Holy Spirit. In years gone by, at Candlemas, the priest would
bless the candles which were to be used in the church as well as smaller
beeswax candles which people would take home. Some would put the candles in
their windows during storms because they thought the light of Christ would
protect them from danger.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Candles
are no longer the best way to light up a church; and candles are not the best
way to protect ourselves from natural disaster. But even now, candles are a
powerful, mysterious and fascinating symbol of the light of Christ. We use them
in church, we use them to symbolise prayer, and we use them as a sign to point
to Christ’s saving presence in our homes and workplaces.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">On the
other hand, there are many millions of people, Christians included, who see in
the soft light of candles an atmosphere of luxury and romance. Candles are seen
at weddings, at dinner parties and in restaurants, so for many they lose their
power to show the light of Christ.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">How
then are we to reveal to the gentiles the salvation of God? How can we show
other people the wonder of God’s kingdom? How do we go start to share God’s
unconditional love and acceptance of all people, regardless of age, gender,
race, marital or family status, sexual orientation, disability or wealth?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
suggest that the answer is found in the Gospel reading. Simeon and Anna, by the
inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, saw that Jesus was the Messiah. In Jesus they
saw the fullness of God’s character – the maker of all things, the eternal and
gracious wisdom, the undying love and forgiveness, the help in time of trouble,
the giver of life, the gentleness, the strength, the awesome power and
astounding self-control, and above all, the perfect goodness and
loving-kindness, always desiring the well-being of all people.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">For
people in today’s world, the first glimpse they may have of God is in who we
are and what we do. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Candlemas,
the Purification, the Presentation, call it what you will; is the last great
feast after Christmas and before Lent. And Lent is a time when all we
Christians need to look at ourselves very carefully to make sure that others
may see in us the salvation of God, the light of Christ and the glory of the
Holy Spirit.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-66462923655156061632014-01-28T14:03:00.000+11:002014-01-28T14:03:16.641+11:00Australia Day, St Paul, Li Tim-Oi - stroke of genius or dreadful mistake? 26th January 2014<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Today
many people, particularly in New
South Wales, are remembering the anniversary of the
landing of the First Fleet in 1788. Some people this day as a day for the whole
nation to celebrate the good things our country has achieved, the freedoms we
enjoy and 226 years of white settlement. Other people are not so enthusiastic
and they might remember the day as the European invasion of the land. Some
might think of the destruction of the indigenous people and their way of life
while others look at the darker side of our history and the damage done to the
rivers, soil and seas, the plants and animals over the last two centuries. And
there are some people who use the day to shout slogans, to behave badly and to
drink too much without any real insight into the significance of the day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Whichever
view you take, January 26<sup>th</sup>, 1788 changed the course of Australian
history for ever.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Today
we are also commemorating two other events which changed the course of history,
particularly the history of the Christian church. The first event is the
conversion of Paul which is described twice in the bible, once by St Luke and
once by Paul himself, standing on trial in front of King Agrippa. We know the
story. Paul was on his way to Damascus,
breathing threats and murder against the Christians. His aim was to stamp out the
followers of Jesus of Nazareth, who, in his mind, were blaspheming against God
and the Jewish faith. He had full authority from the chief priests to do this
because they saw this movement as a threat to their authority, their religion
and the political stability of Jerusalem.
The misguided followers of Jesus had to be silenced, either by death or by
renouncing their faith. However, Paul had a vision, a blinding light from
heaven, and he heard a voice which convinced him to proclaim the Jesus as Lord
and Messiah, the salvation of Jews and Gentiles alike. It was under his
influence that the followers of Jesus came to be called Christians, first in Antioch and then in other
places. Even King Agrippa knew the term and said to Paul, “You’ve almost
persuaded me to become a Christian!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">For
twenty centuries the church has seen Paul’s conversion as a most positive
event. Paul might have been able to kill off Christianity. Without Paul’s
missionary journeys the churches in Rome, Galatia, Macedonia,
Syria and Lebanon might
not have been founded. Without Paul’s letters we would not have insights into
the life of the early church. We would not have Paul’s deep understanding and
reflection on the person and work of Christ, and, as the collect today put it,
his holy teaching.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">However,
in the past 200 years, scholars and theologians, devout Christian women and
men, have wondered if Paul’s conversion was not a mixed blessing. Was it a good
thing that a Jewish Pharisee should be the greatest exponent of Jesus, the way,
the truth and the life? Has Paul been too ready to lay down the law and to give
specific instructions about things which are now not seen as important? And
have some people been too ready to make Paul’s pastoral letters into a new
religious law? For example, is it important for women to wear hats in church?
Are women to keep silence in church? Are Paul’s letters answers to pastoral
concerns of the first century or are they rules to be obeyed for all time?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">These
questions bring us to our third world and church shaking event. Seventy years
ago the world was in the grip of the Second World War. The Japanese occupation
of Hong Kong and of parts of China
had made it impossible for Anglican priests to get to neutral <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macau" title="Macau"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Macau</span></a>, where there were a
number of refugee Anglicans with no priest. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Tim-Oi" title="Li Tim-Oi"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Li Tim-Oi</span></a>
had already been made a deaconess in Macau by
Bishop Ronald Hall and had been authorised by him to take the sacraments to the
Anglicans in these difficult times. In January 1944, Li travelled through
Japanese-occupied territory to meet with Hall in the small town of Xing Xing, as yet
unoccupied by the Japanese, where he ordained her as a priest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the Bishop’s point of view and Li
Tim-Oi’s point of view the ordination was necessary to preserve the life of the
church and to support Christians in distress. William Temple, the Archbishop of
Canterbury understood the need, but he was not able to give his official
support. Li Tim-Oi served the church faithfully as a priest until the end of
the war when she resigned her licence. She was still an ordained priest in the church of God,
but she did not take a licence again until 1971, when two other women were
ordained in Hong Kong.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When
Li Tim-Oi was first ordained there were many people who rejoiced. The Anglicans
who had fled to Macau for example, and Bishop
Ronald Hall, who was always a fighter for social justice. There were men and
women, in the church and outside who felt that this was the right thing to do.
Other women who had felt God’s call to ordained ministry but whose call had
been denied by the church, felt that there was some hope ahead.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Of
course there were those who were not pleased. Some felt it was a betrayal of
1900 years of tradition in the church; some felt it was disobedience to the
plain words of scripture, while others, without much reflection, simply felt
that it was wrong. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Since
Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus,
the church has seen and dealt with many changes. It is learning how to deal
with differences of opinion and faith. It is learning how to deal with child
abuse and exploitation. It is learning to be compassionate and inclusive, loving
and accepting. I believe that the church is learning to trust God. We have
learned that Jewish Pharisees can be Christian; we are learning that women can
be priests and there are some places where openly gay people are trusted
ministers of the gospel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
finish with the words of Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder, Paul’s instructor in the
Jewish faith. In the book of Acts he is recorded as saying, “if this plan or
this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you
will not be able to overthrow them — in that case you may even be found
fighting against God!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We
may have our misgivings about the future of the church and how our ideas of
church may be challenged, but Gamaliel reminds us that if it is God’s church,
then God will care for it, and, as Jesus said last week, the gates of Hell will
not prevail against it.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-71882923180604568862013-12-08T19:03:00.002+11:002013-12-08T19:03:26.457+11:00Here come de judge - Advent 2 December 8th, 2013<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In the Catholic tradition of the church, that is, in
the Roman tradition and the Anglican tradition, preachers often used the four
Sunday s of Advent to explore what are called The Four Last Things; that is
Death, Judgement, Hell and Heaven. There are several reasons for doing this.
One reason is that every person alive knows that one day they will die. Death
is very hard to understand. We want to know what happens to us when we stop
breathing and our body is buried or otherwise returned to the elements from
which it is made, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Over the centuries the teachers in the church have
used the scriptures, the traditions of the church and their own intelligence to
try and find an explanation which is simple, truthful and comforting. St Paul
wrote that “whatever was written in former days was written for our
instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the
scriptures we might have hope.” In the letters he wrote Paul took his own
advice; whenever he spoke of death, judgement, hell and heaven he encouraged
the people of God to trust God, to follow Christ and to live lives giving glory
to God and gaining the respect of other people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Today, as we think about judgment, we’ll begin with
the Old Testament. From the very beginning we read that God is a God of
judgement, punishing wickedness and rewarding faithfulness. When Adam and Eve
ate the forbidden fruit, God shut them out of the Garden of Eden. When Abraham
was prepared to sacrifice his only son Isaac as a burnt offering, God rewarded
his obedience by making him the father of many nations. Every day God watched
his people, judging all their actions, testing their obedience and giving
curses or blessings as they deserved it. It sounds as if God was some sort of
policeman, judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This is not true of course, because God has a future
and a hope for his people. The prophets spoke of the Day of the Lord when all
wickedness and horror would be swept away and God would replace the human
rulers of the world with a kingdom of peace and justice. In our reading from
Isaiah today, the prophet says that God will take one of King David’s
descendants and “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom
and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and
the fear of the Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His delight shall
be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide
by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and
decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with
the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the
wicked.” Isaiah was talking about a human king in a real city, Jerusalem and a
real earthly kingdom. Other nations, who did not have the Lord as their God,
could only look on with amazement and wonder. Israel would be the perfect
kingdom and other nations would have to learn from them. This was the end of
God’s judgement; this was the future for God’s people. God establishes his
perfect kingdom and the Nations would compare themselves to this perfection and
pass judgement on themselves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Between the Old Testament and the New Testament big
changes took place. Alexander the Great came sweeping through from Macedonia to
India, establishing an empire which gave Israel a new language, Greek, and new
ideas from the Greek philosophers and teachers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Into this exciting new period of history came John
the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth. John surprised people by saying, “the kingdom
of heaven has come near.” God’s kingdom was breaking in to the world of the
living and the dead. God was starting to turn the whole world into his perfect
kingdom. In the letter of St Paul to the Romans, Paul states quite clearly that
the Gentiles are to be as much a part of God’s kingdom as the children of
Israel. In fact, John the Baptist warns the children of Israel that it is
useless to say, “We have Abraham as our father.” because God can turn stones
into his children.” Anybody can be a child of God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And, says John, they can choose to be part of God’s
kingdom. “Repent!” says John, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Get ready for the
coming kingdom because it is already here! The kingdom of God is not a worldly
kingdom, but a kingdom of the Spirit of God, a kingdom of the heart and of the
mind, a kingdom of the soul. If you like, it is a kingdom of the conscience.
And more surprisingly, if the kingdom of heaven is breaking into the world,
then judgement has already begun. The axe is lying at the root of the trees,
fruitful trees are spared and barren trees are burned.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">When we realise the hope and promise of God’s
kingdom and compare that to our own lives we are called to judge between God’s
kingdom and our own behaviour. God judges us simply by being God. When we look
at someone like Nelson Mandela and how they have lived we find ourselves
thinking, “What have I done in my life? Have I done anything to match such a
man?” We might even find ourselves asking, “How can I change my life to make it
better; how can I make an impact of the world?” If we did that, then we would
be judging ourselves by the standards of Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela’s life
stands in judgement over the lives of other national leaders. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">John the Baptist was proclaiming the arrival of
something far greater than Nelson Mandela, someone so powerful that I am not
worthy to carry his sandals. To see him is to be filled with a desire to follow
him, to catch the fire of his love and live according to the Holy Spirit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">He will shake up our lives like a farmer tosses the
wheat into the air. All that is good and worthy within us will survive like the
grain, but the chaff, the husks of the wheat, will be blown away and burned in
the fire, destroyed as if it had never existed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This is the judgement which John the Baptist is
proclaiming, a judgement which, if we choose, leads to everlasting life, but if
we reject it, will lead to an eternity of grief and regret. It is a judgement,
a choice which we have until we die and come face to face with Christ. St Paul
told the Corinthians, “At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then
face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am
fully known.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 145%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 145%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And what will that final judgement be like? Paul is
saying that we cannot see beyond our own death, except that we will be in the
arms of God, our God of justice and holiness, our God of mercy and steadfast
love. We know that in Jesus, God was reconciling the world to himself and
through his death we are saved. We know that Christ’s resurrection is the
promise of our own. And, because of that, I am prepared to trust God, because
in Christ all fear of death is taken away.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-3497998927855750352013-11-19T16:32:00.002+11:002013-11-19T16:32:59.766+11:0017th November - It's the End of the World - Some time!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">There
are 64 books in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Some of them are poetry,
like the psalms, some are history, like the books of Samuel, Kings and
Chronicles; there are books of Prophecy, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, while in the
New Testament there are four Gospels and the Letters of Paul, Peter and John.
There are also two books, Daniel and Revelation which are described by scholars
as apocalyptic writings. I must add that we find poetry and history and gospel
and letters and apocalyptic in many books of the Bible. It’s not all neatly
divided. The Bible is the word of God in human words, not a nice neat, properly
catalogued library.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">“Apocalyptic”
comes from the Greek word “apocalypse” which means “revelation”. In particular
the revelation we are talking about means the revelation of the supernatural
world beyond the world of historical events. In other words, we are looking at
what’s going on in our world and comparing it with the purposes, promises and
acts of God. Apocalyptic writing focuses on the end of the world as we now
experience it and the beginning of a new world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">Today
we have the apocalyptic discourse of Jesus from the gospel according to Luke. Put
simply, Jesus is talking about the end of the world and Luke has written his
version of events. In the first gospel we will find Matthew’s version and in
the second Gospel we find Mark’s version. The versions are different, but the
message is the same.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">Let’s
hear it, then. Some people were admiring the Temple, which, in Jesus’ day, was
only just finished, all clean and shiny. Beautiful stonework, some of which
still exists today. And there were places where people could leave gifts
dedicated to God, gold, silver and jewels. We do the same today with gifts
dedicated to the glory of God and in memory of a person we love and admire.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">And
Jesus frightens them all by saying, “The whole thing will be destroyed!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">Jesus
is absolutely right. Forty years after Jesus death and resurrection, the Roman
army did just that, leaving only the ruins and broken stones we can still see
in Jerusalem. Here is a real, historical event which bears witness to Jesus’
words. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">At
the time, the people were stunned. Imagine the shocked silence. Then someone
asks, “Please, teacher, when will this happen? What signs will there be?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">Jesus
answers with a warning. “Do not be misled. Many people will come and tell you
all sorts of lies!” He was right to warn them. We should be warned as well. How
many versions of the end of the world do you want? When I googled, “End of the
world,” I got 3,360 million results in 43 seconds.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">Jesus
continues, “There will be wars and insurrections, nation will rise against
nation and kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes, famines and plagues.” He might
have added tsunamis, bushfires, cyclones and typhoons. He did speak of dreadful
portents and great signs from heaven. It is only now, with our advanced
technology that we know how much danger we are in from wandering asteroids,
comets and meteors. Fortune-tellers made a very good living from interpreting
the stars, and now we know the danger is real.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">But
right in the middle of all this disaster, Jesus says something which is very
important. Matthew, Mark and Luke all quote Jesus as saying, “The end will not
follow immediately.” No one knows and no one can tell when the end will come,
neither humans nor angels nor Jesus Christ himself. The time and manner of the
end is known to God the Father Almighty, the Creator and Sustainer of all that
is. No one else knows or can know. So, when you hear a prediction of the end of
the world you can say, with all the authority of Christ, “You know neither the
scriptures, nor the power of God; you are quite wrong.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">Now
we come to the important bit. Like all good preachers and teachers, Jesus and
Luke put the most important part at the end, so that people will remember it.
The most important teaching today is not the false prophets of doom, or the
destruction of the temple or the wars and insurrections. It is not the
persecutions, or the betrayal by relatives and friends, or even the hatred of
the name of Jesus. These things, says Jesus, will give you the opportunity to
testify. Jesus is speaking of a law court, where witnesses give their
testimony. If you are arrested for being a Christian, says Jesus, do not panic,
for “I will give you (inspired) words and (holy) wisdom which none of your
accusers will be able to withstand or contradict.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">In
our lives and in our country it is not illegal to be a Christian, so we are not
likely to be arrested for that. However, in Australia now is not an easy time
to be a Christian. The Christian church and faith is under attack from outside
and inside. When there are disasters like bushfires and typhoons, people demand
answers, saying, why does God permit these tragedies? Has God forgotten how to
calm the raging of the storm? Does God no longer rescue his people when they
call? These are not new questions, Peter, in his letter quotes a scoffer who
asks, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers have
fallen asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of
creation.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">And
again, people quite rightly criticise the hypocrisy when people say they are
followers of Christ and then behave badly. The Royal Commission of Enquiry into
the Abuse of Children is not only exposing the terrible actions of some people,
but we find that all Christians are criticised as if they were responsible for
covering up the crimes. All sorts of nonsense is spoken by people who claim to
be inspired by God or filled with the Spirit of Christ. No wonder people are
not interested.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">But
Jesus tells us that there is a hope; that behind all these dreadful things,
God’s eternal purpose carries on. We may be battered and cursed, but God’s
promise is sure. Our task is to be faithful and to be true to our faith in our
lives, no matter what. Paul says, “Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in
doing good.” Good words and good works testify to our faithfulness and our
hope. The hope we have is good news, even as our homes are burning or being
swept away by flood. Our hope is good news even when we come face to face with
agonising illness and painful death. Our hope is good news even when those we
love and respect commit terrible crimes. Beneath the troubles of this world,
God remains faithful to those who are faithful.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 140%;">Jesus
says, “Not a hair of your head will perish.” This is not a mistake or a false
promise. It is the assurance of salvation. “By your endurance you will gain
your souls.” This is how our reading today finishes. This world, including our
bodies, will come to an end, but “whoever endures to the end will be saved.”</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-60152071997730158822013-10-25T16:49:00.000+11:002013-10-25T16:55:13.032+11:00Sermon by The Rev'd Canon Dr Colleen O'Reilly - 20th October 2013<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">
Congratulations on of being St Luke’s for fifty years now. It seems that when
the parish changed its name, it also developed its theology and embraced being
an Anglican in the catholic tradition. <br />
Now, developing one’s theology can prove tricky, unpopular as Jesus found, and
even potentially very dangerous. <br />
When Jesus went home to Nazareth,
his reputation went before him. <br />
Word about him had spread throughout Galilee.
Luke says he had ‘a great reputation’. Expectations of this local boy made good must have been high in Nazareth. This
was still early days in Jesus’ ministry. Luke will call the day in Nazareth Jesus’ inauguration of his ministry and the sermon his manifesto.<br /> <br />
Jesus had been baptized, tried and tested by time in the harsh wilderness down
in Judea, and now he was coming home. What
were the pious men of Nazareth
expecting that day when Jesus was handed the scroll from Isaiah and stood up to
read? <br /><br />
Nazareth isn’t
mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures. It’s not particularly notable, or
important. It’s just that it is the village where Mary lived, and where Jesus
grew up. Apparently it wasn’t settled until the second century before Jesus’
birth. Later it was enough of an ‘all Jewish’ town for rabbis to come there
after the Jerusalem
Temple was destroyed.
They would have been looking for nationalistic, conservative, fiercely Jewish
communities to relocate to once they could no longer live in the city where God
had dwelt on the now destroyed Temple mount By 70 AD, they found all that in
Nazareth. Sounds like the Nazarenes hardened their hearts against Jesus, well
and truly!<br /> <br />
Nazareth was a village full of devout Jews,
descendants of settlers who had come from the south a century before to
re-Judaize the gentile regions of the Galilee.
So, did Jesus grow up among a people keen to stick to traditional ways? Keen to
keep themselves ‘clean’ in the midst of a mixed community of </span><br /><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Gentiles
and Jews in the towns and cities around them? They might have been poor and
there might not have been many of them - perhaps a hundred people lived in
Nazareth — but they knew the scriptures, prayed in their own synagogue (that is
itself remarkable in a village of 100) and longed to see the decisive, if
necessary even violent, triumph of God over the godless around them. <br />
Into this potent cradle of messianic expectations comes Jesus, nurtured by
these devout people but about to shock them with his re-reading of Isaiah and
his inclusive good news. <br />
Luke is so sure that this is the day that Jesus ‘comes out’ as the messiah God
is calling him to be, (and not the one most expected) that he puts this
direction- setting day at the start of Jesus’ adult ministry. Reader, know this
Luke is saying: know that this is what Jesus is about.<br /> <br />
Of course, it was not just what Jesus said that got him into strife that day.
It was what he <b><i>failed</i></b> to say that caused the problem. <br />
When Jesus read from Isaiah, he was editing on his feet. That was an acceptable
practice with the scrolls of prophetic writings. Only the Torah, the first five
books had to be read as written. Isaiah’s original prophecy begins: <br />
The Lord has anointed me.... and concludes with these words: to proclaim the
year of the Lord’s favor <i>and the day of vengeance of our God. </i>It’s these
words that Jesus left out. <br />
It’s this omission that angered the synagogue that Sabbath day. <br /><br />
<i>The day of vengeance of our God </i>was a day, a time, an event these pious,
nationalistic Jews were looking forward to. It was going to be the day God
vindicated them and punished those not like them, the Gentiles living around them.
Good news for them was having the Gentiles become their servants and Gentile
wealth coming into their possession. <br />
It’s what they imagined would occur; what they believed God intended. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Now,
Jesus whom these pious men have taught and nurtured in his faith comes home and
repudiates their long awaited fulfillment of an exclusive show of God’s favour.
Perhaps they had not counted on his mother’s earlier formative spirituality,
nor her song of praise, we call the Magnificat with its reversal of human
injustice with God’s ultimate redemption. <br /><br />
There is no mistaking in his sermon that Jesus believes God is hospitable
towards outsiders. He reminds his hearers of God doing just that in Israel’s past.
He says, there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when there
was a drought and people starved. But God sent Elijah to a widow in Zarephath,
a Canaanite town on the sea coast She fed him with the last of her meager food
and miraculously the food supply did not run out for her or Elijah. When Naaman
the Syrian soldier had leprosy he alone was healed by God when Elisha told him
to bathe in the river Jordan,
Israel’s
main source of water. It took some courage on Naaman’s part; he was used to the
clear waters of Damascus, not the muddy Jordan! <br /><br />
The murderous fury unleashed by Jesus’ speaking the truth focuses around this:
the young man who had grown up among them has spent time with that fiery
ascetic John whose father was a Temple priest (you think the son would know
better) down at the Jordan near Jerusalem and been baptised; gone off into the
wilderness for God knows what purpose (except that God does, of course) and
come back to try and <i>teach his elders! </i>They would rather kill Jesus than
think about what he said! <br /><br />
Jesus proclaims that the new age, the longed for time of God’s anointed, is
beginning in him and it will not be a time of exclusion and vengeance but a
time of inclusion. God’s hospitable love for all, those of Israel and
those beyond will be seen. It will be a time of great blessing. <br /><br />
How do we know when this new age arrives, still arrives today? When the poor,
those who tremble at the thought of God, hear the good news that God is love,
that God says ‘come as you are’ and I will love you in to being who you can
become. When those imprisoned are freed from whatever holds them captive. When
those who do not yet see or understand have their eyes opened to the God whose
gaze of loving regard has never shifted from them. <br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And
when the wounded discover that wounds embraced are the most honest language of
prayer, the ever present pathway and gate to transformed, risen life. <br />
In all these ways God favours those ready to open themselves to God — not only
Jews, but all the rest of us; anyone, everyone, everywhere, in any and every
time. <br /><br />
If only those poor limited Nazarenes had been able to join in God’s great
old/new project. ‘Old’ because God had always loved the outsider and longed for
their wellbeing, new because now God’s project was not just words spoken
through prophets but the Word become flesh. Now God spoke God’s old love for
all the whole creation in a new voice, then, the voice of the One who stood up
to read that day. Now, God’s speaks this inclusive love in the myriad voices of
the Body of Christ. <br /><br />
You who bear the name of Luke have here, in today’s gospel reading, your
charter for living in the light, the hope, the direction Jesus set that day in
the synagogue. <br /><br />
You, we, Christians, are to proclaim by our actions backed up by our words that
God excludes no one. We are to show in our relationships that the just
treatment of all people is the only worthwhile way to behave. Remember;
humanity that is not co-humanity is inhumanity as Karl Barth so aptly put it. <br />
And we are to have compassion one for another, for when we are compassionate we
imitate the fierce, loyal mother love of God which will, yes, correct and allow
us to experience consequences in life, but never, never withdraw love from us. <br /><br />We humans call facing the consequences ‘God’s judgment’ and in a way that’s
right, because when we see ourselves as God sees we know what is amiss, wounded
or broken, destructive or violent with in us and our world. But we need to
recall that God does not enable us to see that without also giving us a new
start, a clean slate, forgiveness and the redeeming of our lives from the sin
of the world.<br />In
every age some religious people want to corral God into loving only those like
them. Don’t fall for it! I don’t think you do actually. But be on the look out
for it, ready to repudiate the error Jesus himself so courageously and
powerfully confronted in his home town. <br />
Proclamation, the seeking of justice and the practice of compassion — keep
these three in dynamic interaction in your parish’s mission and ministry and
you will truly be fulfilling your call to be Christians in the Lukan way,
Anglicans in the catholic way of the whole gospel for the whole world, and open
and inclusive in the radical way that Jesus became and remaineddespite
opponents who would murder him rather than ‘give it a go’. <br />
God bless you in your calling in a world and sometimes even a church that hopes
for vengeance, not healing and not salvation. <br />
What God offers the heart that turns to God is generous, life transforming
favour, spiritual health and healing such as no earthly physician, as Dr Luke
understood, can ever accomplish. <br />
May that be your blessing to share around, in this your jubilee year. </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-43064391166240360522013-10-08T05:59:00.000+11:002013-10-08T05:59:47.326+11:00Sunday 6th October 2013 - What is a saint?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Someone
once asked me what is a saint, and why do we make a fuss about them on special
days. This was a long time ago before they invented Wikipedia, or I would have
answered, “A saint is one who has been recognized for having an exceptional
degree of <span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">holiness</span>,
sanctity, and <span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">virtue</span>.”
Instead I answered that some Christians have a clearer understanding of God
than others. Saints are people whose lives give us a better understanding of
what God is like. The lives of the saints are close to the life of Christ. They
are holy people because they see clearly the holiness of God. They are called
holy ones or saints because their ordinary lives have been changed into
extraordinary lives by the love of God, which we call God’s grace.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">St
Francis of Assisi is a saint because his life was completely changed by God.
Francis was changed from a wealthy and privileged young man to a wonderful
example of the Christian life, a great and influential teacher of the faith; a
person of inspiring faith and prayer, one whose life put God’s love first and a
person who showed others the power of God at work in the world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
am not an expert on St Francis. The brief account of his life which you can
read in the Pew Bulletin is straight out of Wikipedia. If you want to know more
about St Francis, I suggest that you ask the Franciscan Brothers or the Poor
Clare Sisters. I am sure they can help you to understand this amazing man.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What
I can tell you is the effect Francis has had on me, and how I personally
understand his life. First of all, Francis took his Christian faith seriously. Francis
was the son of a wealthy and influential Italian silk merchant and he lived a
life of privilege and ease.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But
then he heard the gospel which told him to leave everything and follow Christ.
He did exactly that, and lived among the poor and the beggars. Francis
developed the ability to see God in all people and all things living and not
living, seen and unseen. Sometimes, when we have a blessing of pets on St
Francis’ day, we are tempted to think of Francis as a rather soppy and
sentimental saint, the friend of fluffy creatures with feathers and fur. I
think that Francis was very tough and determined. He saw God in the poor, the
violent, the stupid and the fierce. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">There
is a story told of a village which was attacked by a fierce wolf, which killed
and ate the sheep and lambs, and even small children. The villagers wanted to
hunt and kill the wolf, but Francis wouldn’t let them. Instead he left the
village, found the wolf came back to the village with the wolf following him
quietly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“This
wolf is not evil.” He told the villagers, “He is one of God’s creatures and he
kills because he is hungry. If you promise to feed the wolf, then he will
promise not to attack your village.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Francis
also persuaded the village dogs not to attack the wolf when he came to be fed.
And then Francis solemnly blessed the wolf to show that this fierce animal was
also under God’s care and protection.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">What
I have learned from St Francis is that God is present in all things and cares
for all things. Without the presence of God, nothing can exist.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
try to live my life, seeing God in all. Those whom the world condemns, the beggars,
the drug addicts, the criminals, these are all humans made in the image of God,
in whom the Spirit of God lives and for whom Christ died. I try, not always
successfully to treat them as God’s beloved children.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
am saddened when people treat these people as outcasts, as if they were less
valuable than any other part of God’s creation. I am distressed when
Australians call people wanting to come to Australia, “illegals” or “queue
jumpers” as if they were not men, women and children. I am saddened when these
children of God are locked away in concentration camps. I have even met people
who say they are glad when these people die in unseaworthy boats.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
think of St Francis’ story of the villagers and the wolf. In that story, the
wolf, the villagers and the sheep and children were all saved. Perhaps if we
could see the boat people through St Francis’ eyes, we might find a way of
saving us all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Perhaps
the people of the Italian island of Lampedusa could provide a clue for us;
after all, they are St Francis fellow country men and women.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Lampedusa
is a little island in the Mediterranean sea. It is the part of Italy closest to
Africa, where boat people come from, seeking a better life. Last week I read of
the sinking of a boat carrying 500 people (they call them migrants in Italy).
The people of Lampedusa were horrified by the loss of life as they gathered the
corpses from the sea. They mourned for their lost brothers and sisters and held
candle-lit prayer vigils in the streets. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
give thanks to God that the spirit of St Francis is still alive in the world.
May it spread until all the earth is full of God’s compassion and mercy. Let us
not forget that strangers are God’s children, too.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-69568287388714668672013-09-16T06:56:00.000+10:002013-09-16T06:56:16.843+10:0015th September - Looking for things we've never lost.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Last
Wednesday was the twelfth anniversary of destruction of the World Trade Centre
in New York, but since that time there have been many more scenes of horror.
Many Australians still grieve for relatives and friends killed in the Bali
bombings eleven years ago. After that there was the invasion of Iraq, the war
in Afghanistan, revolutions in Libya and Egypt, and now there are more families
in mourning. Even people with no direct involvement are affected.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Sue’s
nephew has been in Palestine and this is what he put on Facebook. <i>Had an eye
opening day in Palestine today seeing first-hand what Israel is doing to the
people. It's shocking! Free Palestine! Amazing place amazing people. In amongst
the conflict they still manage to smile and joke. We are so lucky to have the
life we have others are not so fortunate.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">How
can we respond? What will we do, here and now?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">For
me, as a Christian, the first thing is to see how wrong these things are.
Killing and murder are not the way to solve the problems of the world. The third
of the Ten Commandments is <u><b>“Do not commit murder.”</b></u> It is one of the shortest of
the Commandments and its meaning is very plain, no one can fail to understand
it. When we see it happen we are horrified. And yet how often the response by
the leaders of the nations is violence, so that there is more killing, more
murder and more terror.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">When
I read the words of the prophet Jeremiah I thought, how appropriate! <span style="color: red;">“My people
are foolish,”</span> says the Lord, <span style="color: red;">“they do not know me; they are stupid children,
they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how
to do good.”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">And
what does Jeremiah see as the result of this foolishness? This is what Jeremiah
saw, <span style="color: red;">“The fruitful land has become a desert and all its cities were laid in
ruins.”</span> Jeremiah sees the hand of God in this, but the destruction is caused
not by the Lord, but by human foolishness, stupidity and disobedience.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The
psalm takes up the same theme. The foolish people turn their back on God,
ignoring God’s wisdom and following their own corrupt ways. <span style="color: red;">“They have all
become vile and abominable in their doings,” says the Lord, “there is not one
that does any good.”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">How
wonderful it is that God answers human stupidity with love.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">In
the two parables we heard for the Gospel, Jesus is telling the Scribes and
Pharisees how God loves sinners. The Pharisees and Scribes were quite ready to
abandon the sinners completely. God abandons no one. God is like a shepherd
with a hundred sheep. When one is lost, God leaves the others and searches for
the lost sheep. We would say, “Well, we’ve still got 99 sheep; let’s look after
these and keep them safe.” God is prepared to risk everything to find the
stupid sheep that got itself lost.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">And
God is like the woman who lost a silver coin. Her whole life came to a
standstill while she searched. For her, nothing was as important as finding
that coin. Jesus wants us to understand that nothing is as important to God as
finding God’s lost people. John the Evangelist put it this way, he said,<span style="color: red;"> “God
so loved the world, that he gave his only son, so that every one who believes
in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">St Paul</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">, in his
letter to Timothy, gives this testimony, <span style="color: red;">“The saying is sure and worthy of full
acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I
was the foremost.”</span> Now Paul, on his own admission was an anti-Christian
terrorist – a blasphemer, a persecutor and a man of violence. But God came
looking for him, not to kill him or to condemn him to hell, but to offer
reconciliation and a new life.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The
vicious acts of terrorism we have seen, and the violent response made to them,
show how we, as humans, have failed. In the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ, we see how God offers success for failure and life for death, and
we, who claim to be Christians, have been entrusted with the gift of God’s Holy
Spirit and God’s message of reconciliation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">And
it is here, in these gifts of God, that we find our response. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">These
are wonderful gifts God has given us, gifts not only for us and our own
salvation, but for the salvation of the whole world. St Paul, in his second letter to Timothy,
reminded him to <span style="color: red;">“stir up the gift of God that is within you… for God has not
given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-discipline.”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">For
the very same reason I would like to see us stir up the gifts God has given us
in this parish. The message of this sermon is much the same as last week’s
sermon. Last week we were asked, “Are we prepared to pay the cost of being a
follower of the gospel?” Today the question is “Are we really prepared to drop
everything, or anything, to look for those who are lost?” </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-36727778765436519082013-09-05T17:42:00.001+10:002013-09-05T17:42:12.649+10:00September 1st - "You can't invite people like that to dinner!"<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Jesus
was not an easy person to have at a dinner party and today we hear of a sabbath
meal at the house of a leader of the Pharisees. Jesus was respected by the
Pharisees, other wise they would not have invited him, but you never knew what
might happen. Strange women might come in to anoint his feet, someone might
even come in through the roof to ask for healing. At the very least, Jesus was
likely to tell awkward parable, embarrassing and challenging to host and guests
alike. It is no wonder that our gospel begins with a note that “they were
watching him closely”. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And today the drama
begins before the entrees have been served. Even before Jesus entered the house
he cured a man of dropsy. The six verses are omitted from the gospel as printed;
but they are there. No wonder the Pharisees were anxious about what he might do
once inside.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And, sure enough, Jesus
begins with a parable addressed to the guests. What Jesus saw was normal
behaviour at a feast – the important guests claimed the best seats, and the
lowly guests knew that they would be seated less advantageously. There was
nothing vainglorious or discriminatory about it – people knew their place in
society and this was reflected in the seating at meals. But Jesus uses this
social custom to describe the Kingdom
of Heaven. In the Kingdom of Heaven, honour is not something we take
for ourselves, but is something given as a gift from God. We might remember
that James and John wanted the places of honour when Jesus was glorified, and
Jesus replied, “T</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">o
sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those
for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” In the Kingdom of Heaven,
we are to set aside thoughts of self-advantage, to behave rightly and to accept
the honour God gives us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Jesus’
parable is a warning about self serving pride among the guests, and that’s a
good lesson to learn, but it also has a lesson for hosts. In Jewish society, as
in ours, shared meals are a way of building community, strengthening
relationships, and finding and recognising the places we have in our community.
Then, as now, we invite those who are important to us as family, friends and
people with influence in our lives. In this way we set up a network of mutual
obligation and we can expect to be invited in return, or given some other
special treatment in private life or in business. This is the way the world has
worked for thousands of years – you have only to look at the guest lists to
corporate functions to see how it works.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The Kingdom of Heaven
does not work that way. Certainly it builds community, strengthens
relationships and shows us our place among humanity. The difference is that the
world works through self interest, and the kingdom of heaven works through
love. If self interest says, “Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”, then
love says, “Do you want your back scratched?” Love is the reason that Jesus
invites the poor, the crippled, the lame and blind to his feast – the ones who
can never repay. These are the guests who would never be invited to the feasts
of the proud and the great – you never see the unemployed at a corporate lunch
– and why? Because the Macquarie Bank or BHP-Billiton <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>will gain nothing from them. But Jesus says
these are the very guests to be welcomed and honoured. The host gains no honour
or advantage by inviting them except in the kingdom of heaven.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The writer to the
Hebrews makes the same point. “Let mutual love continue”, not let mutual
obligation flourish. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by
doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Angels, perhaps,
but more often just refugees in search of a homeland, prisoners searching for
freedom, the tortured in search of release from pain and anguish. And we
welcome these guests not out of high-minded desire to do good, but out of
solidarity with them, as if we shared their homelessness, their captivity,
their torture. The hospitality talked about here has nothing to do with sharing
our plenty with those who have little, but everything to do with meeting on
equal terms at the table – letting mutual love continue – taking the lowest
place at the feast.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Jesus’ parable might
have troubled the Pharisees, but it is even more troubling for us. Jesus and
the Pharisees lived two thousand years ago, on the other side of the world –
and it’s easy to say that things have changed and we don’t have to invite the
unemployed home with us today. I wonder. I find this parable, along with the
Good Samaritan, one of the most challenging in the Gospels. I know that I could
not invite anyone with whom I did not feel comfortable into my house, or to my
table. I’m not sure that the poor would be comfortable at my table or in my
house anyway – but there must be a way of being obedient to Christ’s call to
radical table fellowship. I want to offer hospitality to strangers in a way
that will respect everyone – I don’t want to make the guests feel patronised,
and I don’t want the hosts to feel fearful. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I guess that you share
my fears, so perhaps we can start practising, until we feel more confident to
be as radical as Jesus. My first decision has been to declare that all people
are welcome at the Lord’s Table. I will never refuse to give communion to
anyone who asks. There are no conditions, neither baptism nor confirmation nor
age no gender nor anything else in all the world can separate us from the love
God in Christ Jesus.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I have noticed, too, in
this parish, after the service in the Hall, no one is excluded from our
fellowship. Anyone can have a cup of tea or coffee, and anyone can eat from our
table. Obviously, those who abuse our hospitality will be asked to leave, but I
am proud of the way we welcome strangers and include them. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">But can we be as
radical as Jesus and invite strangers into our homes? Perhaps our Dinners for
Six can help us here. Maybe if we invited a stranger from the congregation –
how about the lady who always sits three pews in front of us, or the man who
always sits by himself. If we start with these familiar strangers we may feel
confident enough to welcome newcomers to our table; and if newcomers, why not
complete strangers?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">There is no way of
knowing how people would respond. They might be grateful, or angry, or they
might be angels in disguise. But it has been done, and it is being done; it’s
been done here, through Our Place and The Friendship Group, so we can be
encouraged by these examples.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">And we would have to do
this out of commitment to the Kingdom of God, for those who cannot repay. This
can be our only motivation. It would have to be done knowing that the only
reward we may receive will be at the resurrection of the righteous in the
fulfilment of the Kingdom
of God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 16.0pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">I wonder, do we dare?</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-86963654377126153182013-08-28T18:45:00.002+10:002013-09-05T17:44:11.559+10:0025th August - Setting women free.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">There
appeared, before Jesus, a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for
eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight.
When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from
your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight
and began praising God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
love this story for many reasons. Firstly because it tells me that God, through
Jesus, cares about those who struggle and those who are afflicted. And when I
think of struggle and affliction, I think first of all of those who are
crippled or disabled, those who are treated by the rest of the human race as
somewhat less than human because they are in a wheelchair, or because they talk
differently, or because their behaviour is disturbing to us. From this story I
hear that Jesus treated each person he encountered as special, an individual
loved by God as unique and lovely as any part of God’s creation. Those who are
different from us are loved by God as much as we are, and just as Jesus
respected their own unique story and circumstances, then so should we. I could
talk about the labels with which we bind each other, the way in which we put
people into neat categories which bind them and cripple them. Drug addicts or
criminals or single parents or delinquents or paraplegics - it is the labels
that bind more cruelly than the addiction or the crime or the injury. I rejoice
that Jesus called this woman “a daughter of Abraham” and not “a cripple”. When
Jesus said to her, “Woman, you are free from your ailment” she was set free
from the physical condition and from the stigma attached to being crippled.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 21.25pt; margin-right: 19.55pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And
this is the second reason for which I love this story - it is the freedom which
Jesus brings. This woman had been “bound by Satan for eighteen long years” - a
terrible prison sentence, condemning her to be bent over, physically, mentally
and spiritually bound by a spirit of infirmity - and Jesus said, “You are free
from your ailment.” He did not say, “Your faith has healed you” for there is no
mention of the faith of the woman in the story. Jesus simply said, “You are
free.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The whole language of the story
is about releasing people from the things which bind them. It is set on the
Sabbath day, when Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and the response
by the leader of the synagogue is to accuse Jesus of breaking the rules. “There
are six days on which work ought to be done, come on those days and be cured,
and not on the Sabbath day.” Jesus came to declare freedom to the people, and
the leader of the synagogue wanted to bind them tight again. In fact, Jesus
rebukes the leader from his own behaviour - if an ox or an ass was able to be
set free to drink on the Sabbath, then why not a woman. I think that the people
of the world today could learn a great deal if they rediscovered freedom. I
don’t mean the freedom that allows any person to any thing they like - that is
licence - what I do mean is the freedom for people to discover who they are in
relationship with God. Our world places many expectations on people - we are
expected to conform to more than just the road rules - fashion, behaviour, the
way we look and the way we think - even the way we see ourselves - we are all
under tremendous pressure to fit in to the mould shaped for us by our
neighbours, by our friends, by our selves, by our churches and by our
television sets. Jesus sets us free from all these to be who we really are with
God. Some years ago the Anglican Primate of the USA wanted to rediscover the
freedom of being himself with God, so he dressed in ordinary clothes and
attended mass at a nearby Roman Catholic Church. But Satan was busy at work. He
was recognised and the story got into the papers and reached the leaders of the
church - so that the bishop as well as the Roman Catholic priest were soon in
trouble for breaking their particular bonds - bonds as hypocritical as those
which the synagogue leader tried to apply to Jesus and the woman.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 21.25pt; margin-right: 19.55pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Which
brings me to the third reason why I love this story. It is a story which
affirms women. It is striking that Jesus referred to this woman as a daughter
of Abraham - elsewhere we hear about the sons of Abraham or the children of
Abraham, only in this story do we hear that women are descendants of Abraham in
their own right - they are not defined by their husbands or their fathers but
by themselves and their own relationship to Abraham and to God. Jesus is
affirming that all relationships begin with God, and that if our relationship
with God is right, then our relationship with each other will be right, too.
Our righteousness is not defined by who our husbands or wives, mothers or
fathers are, our righteousness is defined by the way we relate to God. And this
is particularly important for women, who for so long have been defined in terms
of others. Jesus is not trying to make men and women the same or denying the
woman her gender - he does call her “Woman” and “Daughter” - but he is
affirming her freedom to stand upright, as herself, in the sight of God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 21.25pt; margin-right: 19.55pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This
story is only one story out of many in the bible told about Jesus and about
God. The reading from Jeremiah that we heard today is another which takes up
the same themes. One theme is of God’s particular care for each person -
Jeremiah, the psalmist, St Paul
(or whoever it was who wrote the letter to the Hebrews), as well as Jesus, the
woman who was set free. They were all loved by God, uniquely and individually,
and each had their own unique, authentic and precious experience of the love of
God. Neither age, nor employment, nor gender, nor ancestry is any barrier to
God’s love, and if, as we claim, God’s love dwells in us, then there should be
no barriers to our love.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 21.25pt; margin-right: 19.55pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
next theme is freedom. God set Jeremiah free from his anxieties about being too
young to speak God’s word, God set St Paul free from his spiritual blindness as
well as from the physical blindness which cam so dramatically to him on the
Damascus Road, God set the woman free from the spirit of infirmity which had
plagued her for eighteen years - and we are the heirs of that freedom, free to
love God and our neighbour and free to set others free as well. We are warned
not to bind others in bonds of our own devising, but to set them free to
discover their life in God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 21.25pt; margin-right: 19.55pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And
the last theme I identify is that God affirms each one of us in our humanity,
in who we are as a person and as an individual. God did not require Jeremiah to
be anybody else but Jeremiah. Paul remained Paul the woman was affirmed as
herself and Jesus remained Jesus - indeed, Jesus remains, to this day, Jesus.
In the same way God wants us to be ourselves and affirms us as ourselves. It is
important to realise what is our true self and what is part of the bindings
with which we are bound - and that is not always easy to do - it may take
eighteen years, or even longer, but in the end Jesus can set us free.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 21.25pt; margin-right: 19.55pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And
when this happens, if I may paraphrase the last verse of today’s gospel, “all
our opponents will be put to shame; and the entire creation will rejoice at all
the wonderful things that God has done.”</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-64155081979777601512013-08-24T16:11:00.000+10:002013-08-24T16:11:44.839+10:00Love isn't love, 'til you give it away ...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Draft of the sermon for Sunday 18th August.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When Kathy was
practising the hymns for today, she said to me, “It sounds like Advent. These
are hymns for Advent.” And, of course, they are. I chose them because today we
are thinking about the judgement of God and the coming of God’s kingdom.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The prophet Isaiah is
comparing the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
He does so because Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of the wickedness
of their inhabitants. He wants Israel and Judah to know that unless they show
themselves to be more righteous than Sodom and Gomorrah, they will perish
miserably and their cities will be laid waste.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In Jerusalem and
Samariah the priests and people are worshipping God just as Moses told them to.
The sacrifices and celebrations, the harvest festivals and new moon services
are being carefully observed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But God does not want
ceremony and ritual, because, without right behaviour, the smoke of the
sacrifices stinks of death, and the processions of the worshippers trample
underfoot the poor and needy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">God wants His people to
cease to do evil and learn to do good; to seek justice, to rescue the
oppressed, to defend the orphan and plead for the widow. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">No religion ever
followed by human beings is worth anything unless those who profess the faith
also live the life. Those who claim the Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and
Saviour must live lives of justice and mercy worthy of their saviour, or their
faith is a lie. Those who share the bread and wine at the Lord ’s Table with no
intention of sharing Christ’s life, eat and drink their own destruction, as St
Paul says.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Now let us turn to the
words of Jesus himself, in the gospel according to Luke. Jesus says, "Do
not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you
the kingdom.” What a relief! Isaiah threatened Israel and Judah with the rain
of fire that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; and St Paul warns us that our own
unworthiness will lead to our destruction. And now Jesus comes with a word of
reassurance. “Do not be a afraid, little flock,” he says. “Do not be anxious.”
How many times he says this! In chapter 6 of Matthew’s gospel Jesus says, “Do
not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about
your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more
than clothing?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We are not to worry
because God our Father has already promised to give us the Kingdom. Jesus tells
us not to be anxious about getting into the Kingdom of God or going to Heaven
or living in the presence of God. God has promised this to us and will not be
unfaithful. We are to be thankful for this free gift, this grace. That is all
that God asks of us, thankfulness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We are not to worry
about the coming of the Lord, the day of judgement, it will come when God
decides, like a thief in the night, and like the householder Jesus describes,
it is pointless to sit up all night every night worrying about the burglar who
might come. It’s going to be a surprise, just as Kathy was surprised by the
advent hymns.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Jesus says, sell your possessions
and give alms. In other words, don’t worry about your possessions, just be
generous to those in need. Hang on to what you need, not what you want or what
you think you need. Love is a treasure which only exists if you give it to
someone else. There’s a song from my youth which goes, “Love isn’t love ‘til
you give it away.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-48621460257706429392013-07-31T13:25:00.000+10:002013-07-31T13:25:40.081+10:0028th July 2013 - Papa bilong mipela<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I
love the Lord’s Prayer. I love the old 1662 version which begins, “Our Father,
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” And I love to explore the prayer in
other languages. In Latin it begins, “Pater noster, qui es in caelis:
sanctificetur Nomen Tuum” while in New Guinea Pidgin it starts with, “Papa
bilong mipela, yu stap long heven, Mekim nem bilong yu i kamap holi.” I’ve
stumbled through it in French, but I was stopped dead in my tracks when I tried
the Welsh version, which begins, “Ein Tad.” Our Dad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
simplest version of the Lord’s Prayer is in Luke’s Gospel which we have just
heard. It is part of a commandment which has been kept more faithfully that any
other command given by Jesus, more than loving enemies or washing each other’s
feet. One of Jesus’ disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John
taught his disciples.” Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say this.” And we
call what follows The Lord’s Prayer. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And
Jesus’ disciples listened and obeyed, and this prayer has been repeated by uncountable
numbers of people for two thousand years, in more languages than any other form
of words. The churches of the world are divided by organisation and belief, but
every one of them uses the Lord’s Prayer. On <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Sunday" title="Easter Sunday"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Easter Sunday</span></a>
2007, it was estimated that two billion <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church" title="Catholic Church"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Catholic</span></a>,
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicanism" title="Anglicanism"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Anglican</span></a>,
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism" title="Protestantism"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Protestant</span></a>
and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Church" title="Orthodox Church"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Eastern Orthodox</span></a> Christians who were sharing in
the celebration of Easter would read, recite, or sing the prayer in hundreds of
languages. All Christians around the globe are praying together and these words
always unite us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
Lord’s Prayer is not Jesus’ personal prayer, it is Jesus’ command and gift to
the church. One disciple asked but Jesus spoke to all of them. When we use the
prayer we say, “Our Father” which means God is the originator and lifegiver of
all of us, the one who brings us to birth and breathes life into our bodies.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We
say, “Our Father in heaven” because God is beyond our understanding and beyond
any words we could use. Then we say, “hallowed be your name.” Former <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archbishop_of_Canterbury" title="Archbishop of Canterbury"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Archbishop of Canterbury</span></a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_Williams" title="Rowan Williams"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Rowan
Williams</span></a> explains this a prayer that people may look upon God's name
(which is his word, his presence) as holy, as something that inspires awe and
reverence, and that they may not trivialize it by making God a tool for their
purposes, to put others down or make themselves feel safe. He sums up the
meaning of the phrase by saying: "Understand what you're talking about
when you're talking about God, this is serious, this is the most wonderful and
frightening reality that we could imagine, more wonderful and frightening than
we can imagine." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Your
kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.” There are many people
who think that the reason for being a Christian is so that you can get to
heaven at the end of your life. That’s not what the Lord’s Prayer says. It
says, “We want God’s kingdom here on earth. We want our world to be perfect,
just like the heavenly kingdom if perfect.” And when we pray, “your will be
done” it means “tell us how we can help to bring this about.” We are Christians
for the here and now, in this life as well as the next.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Give
us this day our daily bread.” This is the most complicated sentence in Greek
and people have argued about the words for centuries. But it is really very
simple. We are praying that God will give us the food we need for daily life.
As simple as that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
next section is about the forgiveness of sins. This means the removal of all
barriers which stand between us and God and our neighbours. This is a two way
process, we ask God to break down the barriers and we commit ourselves to do
our own fair share of barrier breaking. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive
those who sin against us.” We cannot expect God to tear down the wall between
us and God if we are not prepared to break down the walls between us and those
who have offended us. God’s forgiveness is given to us in the same way we give
our forgiveness to others.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Save
us from the time of trial” is a new translation of the Lord’s Prayer as it is
recorded by Matthew. We used to say, “Lead us not into temptation.” But in the
letter of James (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passage=James%201%3A12%E2%80%9315;&version=NIV;"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">James 1:12–15</span></a>)
we read that God tempts nobody. So now we pray that when we are faced by the
temptations of the world and our own desires, the trial will not be too hard
for us. We ask to be delivered from evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.” is a plea to
be saved from all that is evil, within ourselves and in other people.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And
finally, we turn back to God, as we began, in awe and wonder. We have to use
words to worship God, but our words are never enough. “The kingdom, the power
and the glory are yours, for ever and ever.” In the Latin version the words are
“in saecula saeculorum” which means “in the world of worlds”. The psalmist
says, “Through time and eternity, you are God.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Jesus
never meant us to rattle off the prayer from memory, without thought. Like all
prayers, we speak in the presence of God, and we can sense that God is with us,
if we open the eyes of our hearts. Each phrase is there to be spoken lovingly,
worshipfully, knowing that all creation echoes the words.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Jesus
never meant us to use the same words all the time. The Lord’s Prayer is a
pattern for all prayers. We acknowledge the presence and wonder of God and ask
for the fulfilment of God’s plan for us. We ask for what we need. Our earthly
needs are as important as our spiritual needs. We confess our sins and forgive
the sins of others. We ask for God’s guidance on our journey of life and faith
and we stop; lost in amazement that the glory of all creation and time without
end could be ready to listen to us, we who are like grains of sand on the shore
when compared with such majesty.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-9951106711223884682013-07-22T09:10:00.003+10:002013-07-22T09:11:11.735+10:00July 21st - Has anyone been listening to the Word of God?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">1.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today we have a drama in three episodes.
The first takes place in the kingdom of Israel and the main character is the
prophet Amos. The second takes place eight hundred years later in Rome where
the apostle Paul is writing a letter to the people of Colossae. The third
episode is a flashback to Bethany, a town near Jerusalem, and the main
characters are Mary, Martha and Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We
first met Amos last week, when he was criticising King Jeroboam and the High
Priest Amaziah and warning them that their unjust treatment of the poor and
their favouritism to the rich would lead to the destruction of the kingdom of
Israel and its capital, Samaria. God was measuring the kingdom with a plumb
line as if it was a mud-brick wall; warning that it would fall over because it
was crooked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Today,
Amos’ vision is a wide woven basket of beautiful summer fruit, ripe and
luscious, ready to be eaten, fit for the feast of a king. But the Hebrew word
for summer fruit is nearly the same as the word for the end. Amos vision of
summer fruit means the end for the kingdom of Israel. Again the reason for this
is the lying and cheating among the merchants and shop keepers. ‘When will the
new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may
offer wheat for sale? We will make the quantity small and the prices great, and
practise deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy
for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.’ It is rather
like selling bread baked in Ireland as fresh bread in Australia, or making the
chocolate bars smaller and selling them for a higher price.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Amos
rages against these corrupt practices and promises death and destruction to a
society which allows such cheating. He is furious because the people are being
cheated, but what really fills him with bitter anger is the fact that the
rulers and the leaders, the bakers, merchants, the kings and the priests have
forgotten their duty to God. Selling a basket of fruit past its use-by date is
an insult to God. The Department of Consumer Affairs may fine each dishonest
dealer, but because they have dealt wickedly in the sight of God, their whole
society will collapse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">2.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our second episode takes place in St Paul’s
study. Paul is pacing the room, dictating a letter to Tertius, his secretary.
Every so often he pauses to collect his thoughts, looking out of the window at
the farms on the seven hills of Rome, the land which God has so generously and
beautifully made. Paul is angry with the Colossians because they have misunderstood
Jesus Christ. To them, Jesus was just another example of God’s presence in the
world, just like the elemental spirits or the so-called gods of the nations,
someone you didn’t have to take too seriously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Paul
is like Amos, telling the Colossians exactly who Jesus is. Paul writes, “Jesus
is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him
all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible,
all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all
things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the
church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come
to have first place in everything. In him all the fullness of God was pleased to
dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things,
whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">If
you Colossians claim to worship Christ and to believe in him,” says St Paul,
“then you must respect him as the Lord in whom all things have their being. It
is fatal to your hopes if you say I believe in God on Sundays and behave as if
you had never heard of him the rest of the week. If you want eternal life in
Christ Jesus then you must respect him and behave respectfully towards him in
absolutely everything that you do, in every thought and word and deed.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Just
as Amos warned King Jeroboam and Amaziah the Priest, so St Paul warns the
Colossians. If you want to be the beloved children of God, then you must live
like God’s children. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">3.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And
finally, there is a flashback to the life of Jesus narrated by Luke in his
gospel. Martha and Lazarus (you can see him on the front of the pew bulletin,
carrying a bunch of bananas) represent those who are consumed by the busyness
of the world.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mary is the one who understands that in
order to survive in a busy world, you need faith, hope and love. These are the
words of everlasting life, and you get the word of life from Jesus life,
teaching, death and resurrection.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Of
course the meals have to be cooked and the animals fed and the house kept
clean, but the true importance of these things is only seen as the way to
respect and honour God. Amos wanted King Jeroboam and Amaziah the priest and
the bakers and traders of the Kingdom of Israel to respect and honour God in
their business dealings and in the way they respected and honoured the poor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Paul
wanted the Colossians to understand that Jesus Christ was the true revelation
of the one true God and all things exist in and through him. To respect and
honour God means to respect and honour all things.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">And
the story of Martha and Mary shows that if we honour and respect Jesus and try
to make our lives his own, then every task, from being Prime Minister to doing
the washing up will also honour and respect God.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This
is where my sermon originally ended, but I wonder how our own country or the
USA would measure up to this standard. Both countries say that they value their
Christian heritage. But have our leaders, for mere political reasons, ignored
the promises made when Australia signed the International Convention on
Refugees, have they ignored the rights of refugees and transfer their problems to Papua
New Guinea, which is a country unable to manage its own problems, let alone
Australia’s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In
the USA, the recent murder of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his murderer
shows that fear, racism and injustice flourish in a country which once declared,
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that <span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">all men are created equal</span>, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It
is 2700 years since Amos wrote, 2013 since Jesus was born and 1950 years since
Paul wrote to the Colossians. I sincerely wonder, has the human race been
paying <u><i>any</i></u> attention to what God has been saying?</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-41010427960149792112013-07-09T15:44:00.002+10:002013-07-09T15:45:11.718+10:00July 7th - Not really good harvesting weather!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Gospel for today begins, "After
this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs
to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, ‘The
harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the
harvest to send out labourers into his harvest."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Look
around you in the church today and count the people present. My guess is
seventy, more or less. Apart from the apostles, Jesus appointed seventy others,
and here we are.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The
harvest is plentiful. A recent census found that a quarter of Sydney’s
population, about a million people, have no religious affiliation; they attend
neither church, nor mosque, nor synagogue nor temple. The harvest sounds pretty
plentiful to me. But, said Jesus, “The labourers are few.” I have included a
picture of Hugh McKay’s Sunshine Harvester in the pew sheet to show what we
need for so great a harvest. Incidentally, this harvester was made three years
after this church was built.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Jesus
did not have a Sunshine Harvester, nor was he gathering grain. Jesus told Peter
to go and fish for people, but he didn’t mean catch them in a net. Jesus told
the seventy to go out in pairs, and some take that instruction literally, like
the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. But Jesus never asked people to join an
organisation, he never said, “Go and make Anglicans of all people.” He didn’t
even say, “Go and make people come to church.” Jesus’ real mission is to open
the Kingdom of God to all people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In
our gospel today the message carried by those seventy people is very simple,
“The kingdom of God has come near to you.” Some people may accept this with
joy; others will reject the good news, and some will be hostile. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Jesus
says quite plainly, “I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.”
There will be people who prefer the kingdom of greed, or the kingdom of hatred
or the kingdom of indifference to the Kingdom of God. They may make the choice
to reject the kingdom of God and they will suffer the consequences. Jesus says
to the seventy, “It will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This
is not a threat, it is a warning. The kingdom of God is open to anyone,
absolutely everyone. It is a kingdom without boundaries, a kingdom of God’s
giving and our thankfulness, as I said last week. Those who accept the kingdom
of God take on a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those who reject the kingdom of
God, reject God’s gifts as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But
we cannot say that some people are saved and some people are damned. First of
all, we do not know the full glory of God’s plans for ourselves, let alone
other people. Secondly, no human being is perfect, so these gifts are not fully
developed in anyone. We cannot say that the Kingdom of God has fully and
completely arrived; but we can say, “The kingdom of God has come very near.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We
hear that the seventy returned. Obviously their task has been completed, so now
we have a sneak preview of the future, when the kingdom of God has fully and
completely arrived. The seventy are filled with joy because the demons
submitted to them and Jesus declares that he saw Satan fall from heaven like a
flash of lightning. The battle is won and the forces of evil are destroyed. But
Jesus reminds them that the destruction of demons is not the point. The whole
mission and purpose of Christ is to include all creation in the kingdom of God.
“Do not rejoice because the spirits submit to you,” says Jesus, “but rejoice
that your names are written in heaven.” The kingdom of God will only be
fulfilled and Jesus’ mission will only be completed when the names of all
creation are written in heaven.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When
we think about where we fit into this picture, we see first that the purpose of
God’s people, which we call the church, is to be part of Jesus’ mission to the
world. The church exists to be Christ’s hands and eyes, ears, mouth, feet and
heart in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">To
be effective, the church needs to be a growing, committed community. Our reason
for coming together is to encourage and support each other. Our Sunday worship
is a time of building commitment and growing in understanding of Christ’s
mission. Matthew reports Jesus saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All nations? We’ll need more
than seventy to reach even our own little corner of the world. Our worshipping
community must grow to be effective.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Jesus
told the seventy to be part of the community of the towns they visited, taking
part in the activities of that community, building bridges of trust and
acceptance. Only then will people understand what it means when we show, by our
words and actions, that “The kingdom of God has come near.” </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-4895025697949956262013-07-03T09:13:00.005+10:002013-07-03T09:15:26.612+10:00In everything give thanks... Everything? Yep, that's right, Everything!Sunday 30th June - A day of Thanksgiving for the Life of the Church<br />
<br />
Every Wednesday, when we gather to say Morning Prayer, we begin with the words, “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.” St Paul wrote this near the end of his first letter to the Thessalonians. To give thanks “in everything” means that St Paul wants the Christians in Thessalonica to give thanks even when things are going wrong. The whole letter is written to encourage the Christians to a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are the self-same fruits of the Spirit which St Paul describes to the Galatians in the reading we heard today. Here, St Paul gives a list of destructive actions (he calls them, “the works of the flesh”) and goes on to say “those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Then he describes the characteristics of those who will inherit the kingdom. These things are not human actions, but they are gifts from God. Love is a gift from God. Peace is a gift from God. Generosity, faithfulness, self-control and all the rest are gifts given by God so that human beings can live in the kingdom of God.<br />
<br />
<br />
I have watched many programs on the television which describe the evolution of life on earth, starting with a primordial protoplasmic globule floating in the sea to all the wonders of the animal kingdom on dry land. When we think about human beings, we have been given lungs so that we can live in the animal kingdom on dry land. In the same way we have been given gifts of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control so that we can live in the kingdom of God.<br />
<br />
Those people who despise God’s gifts and don’t use them simply can’t live in the kingdom of God. Instead they choose “the works of the flesh”, choices and actions which may end in their destruction. Or they may be like the good people whom Jesus asked to follow him. They turned away because they couldn’t see beyond their own worldly concerns to the gracious and astonishing gift Jesus was offering.<br />
<br />
Jesus was offering them nothing less than a free citizenship of the kingdom of God. Well, I’d like to be a citizen of that kingdom. So I’d better start stirring up the gifts God has given me. God has given me these wonderful gifts so I want to use them; I want to breathe the air of God’s freedom into which God has called us all. <br />
<br />
Remember how St Paul told the Thessalonians to “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing, give thanks no matter what is happening around you.” (My paraphrase) So here’s good advice. We activate our God given gifts by being thankful. Let me quote from the internet, a page called “How to be thankful.” <br />
<br />
‘People with a strong sense of gratitude, love and appreciation don't necessarily have more than others; they aren't "luckier". They simply recognize and see more beauty in their lives. A 2003 study suggests that people who count their blessings are generally happier and healthier than people who don't. If you ever feel as if anything in your life isn't "enough", try practising an attitude of thankfulness. You might realize how good you have it after all.’<br />
<br />
Now I doubt if the person who wrote that was a Christian. Maybe so, they did say, “count your blessing”. Maybe not, because in the whole of the rest of the article – a very good article, by the way – faith was not mentioned. St Paul told the Galatians, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”<br />
<br />
Paul might have been thinking about the old Jewish Law as the slavemaster, but I think he also meant the terrible feeling of loneliness and fear that can strike the human heart when we think we are alone. It is the terrible fear when we have no one to say “thank you” to. Christ’s death on the cross and rising again makes a connection which no one can break. We call our celebration today, the Eucharist, which is Greek for Thanksgiving. We give thanks because we know that God declares God’s presence among us. A bond which neither death, nor hell, nor anything else in all creation can break. We know now where the gifts of the spirit come from and we can give thanks.<br />
<br />
Let’s take a few examples. Love. Let us thank God that we are loved; given as precious gifts from God to this world. Let us thank God that we can love others; we thank God for those we like and those we don’t like. With practice we can even love our enemies and do good to those who hate us.<br />
<br />
Patience. Let us thank God for the gift of time. We have time to consider and plan; time to take action and to wait. There is a time for every purpose under heaven. Let us thank God for the patience God shows to us when we misbehave; may we be patient with those who we find frustrating and annoying. We give thanks for patience in suffering and patience in waiting for plans to mature.<br />
<br />
Generosity. When we look around at God’s staggering generosity to us, let us be generous ourselves; great-hearted and inclusive; and if people thank us, may we remember who gave the gift first and thank God.<br />
<br />
Faithfulness; God has created the laws of physics so that the universe will be faithful. Let us be faithful in our relationship with others; faithful in our work and in our play; faithful in worship and support for our church community. <br />
<br />
I’ll leave the rest to you; peace, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. God’s peace, kindness, gentleness and self-control. These are free gifts God has given you, to use whatever way you want to. Let us give thanks for these gifts, too, and let us give thanks for the ways in which we can use the gifts for our own salvation and the salvation of the whole world. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-75162868319010985542013-03-12T10:24:00.001+11:002013-03-12T10:24:36.779+11:00The Prodigal God - Lent 4 2013Chapter 15 of Luke’s gospel begins with three parables; the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin and the prodigal son, which we heard today. Jesus didn’t give his parables names; we have invented names for Jesus’ parables. We have come to know these names and everyone knows what you mean when you say, “the lost sheep”, “the lost coin” or “the prodigal son”.<br />
<br />
<br />
But many people think these names are a mistake. Fred Craddock is one of America’s best loved preachers and teacher of preachers. He has been a great influence on me through his books and writings. Anyway, Fred and I agree that it would be better to call these three parables, the sheep which was found, the coin that was found and the son who was found. In each parable, the person, animal or thing which was dead is now alive, that which was lost is now found. The parables are not about losing, but about finding, and all of them end with a celebration. <br />
<br />
Even then, the names are misleading because the focus of each parable is on the one who does the searching and the finding. The shepherd who searched and searched until he found the sheep; the woman who cleared out her house and swept the floor until she found the coin; the man who ran out to meet his returning son.<br />
<br />
These parables are about the way God behaves. Jesus has been seen sharing meals with Tax Collectors and Sinners, and the Pharisees and scribes are upset. In their eyes God has cursed and rejected the Tax Collectors; they are rubbish people, lost for ever; and good and righteous people should stay away from them.<br />
<br />
Jesus tells the parable to show them how God really works. The father who owns the farm stands for God. God gives every person a share in God’s Kingdom; you might say God gives each person the promise of a place in heaven. The younger son takes God’s promise and treats it lightly, living a life which brings dishonour to his father, to God and to himself. He is like the tax collectors and sinners who through greed or misfortune have become separated from the community of God’s promise to Abraham.<br />
<br />
Let’s say then, that the older son stands for the Pharisees and scribes. They are good, hard working and honest and they have kept the Law of Moses in the tradition of their father Abraham. They have loyally remained part of the community of God’s promise, just like the elder son remained loyal to his father.<br />
<br />
Now the younger son falls on bad times. He has run out of money, there is a famine, and he is down in the dirt with the pigs. According to the Law of Moses, pigs are unclean animals, so the young man is totally unclean, totally unable to take part in the community of God’s promise, just like those tax collectors and sinners so looked down on by the Pharisees.<br />
<br />
Next the younger son “comes to himself”. All of a sudden he knows who he is and where he belongs. He knows that he is the son of his father. He knows that he belongs in his father’s household, even if he has to be a slave to get in. The tax collectors and sinners had given up any hope of being part of the community of God’s promise – it was Jesus who shared meals with them and reminded them who they were.<br />
<br />
In fact Jesus is very like the shepherd, the woman or the father in the parable, he didn’t wait until the tax collectors and sinners repented, he went out to find them. God the father had been looking out for his younger son every day, watching the road for any sign of him. And when he did see him he cast aside his dignity and ran, and before the son could say anything he embraced him and kissed him. Do you notice that the father never ever criticises his wayward son? The father asks no questions, but welcomes the son home with love and joy.<br />
<br />
The elder son is the one who makes accusations and asks questions. “He’s wasted all your money; he’s been with prostitutes, why are you wasting your time with him? I’m the one who deserves a feast because I’ve been good and obedient. It’s not fair!” You can almost hear the Pharisees saying the same thing. “Why didn’t Jesus come to my house? He went to that dreadful tax cheat Zacchaeus’ house. And he let that dreadful woman pour perfume on his feet. I’m the one who’s been good and obedient to the Law. It’s not fair!”<br />
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There are so many people who think like the Pharisees and the elder son. They expect rewards for good behaviour and punishment for bad. They think the world is like a prison, where you get privileges for good behaviour and solitary confinement if you misbehave.<br />
<br />
The kingdom of God is quite different. It is a kingdom of joyful hearts and peace of mind. And God is like the father in the parable, always on the watch for his children, so that he can run out and meet them and bring them home where they belong.<br />
<br />
The moment anyone remembers that they are God’s beloved child and that they belong in God’s kingdom, then God will come running, without stopping to ask whether we deserve it or not. Once we are back in the community of the promise of God, then the Holy Spirit starts the work of transformation. After Jesus had shared a meal with him, Zacchaeus the tax collector was so overjoyed to be decided, of his own free will, to give back the money he had defrauded. The woman who wept over Jesus’ feet and dried them with her hair was already in the kingdom of God, without a word being said. God’s love, God’s Holy Spirit was at work in her and her life was changed.<br />
<br />
St Paul pointed out quite rightly that “nothing can separate us from the love of God.” The Pharisees and scribes, for all their complaining and blaming, are secure in God’s kingdom. “Son, you are with me always, and all I have is yours,” said the father. And as for the others, the gate of heaven is wide open, God turns no one away. <br />
<br />
So it is for each open of us. We have stepped inside the gate, we have come home, God meets us with ring, sandals and coat. We are, even now, children of God. We do not know what we will be like, for God is still at work within us. The prodigal son, after he came home, had a lot to learn about self control, and the older brother, he, too, needed to be more loving and accepting.<br />
<br />
God welcomes us with love, no matter who we are or what we’ve done, and we also have a lot to learn. Let us therefore rejoice in God’s love and allow it to renew, strengthen and change us. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-77866596767346316582013-02-10T15:23:00.001+11:002013-02-10T15:23:20.807+11:00Shine, Jesus, Shine!
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">I
am always impressed by people who come to Australia from another country and
another culture, particularly if English is not the spoken language of the
country. In our own congregation I think of our Thai brothers and sisters. Thai
and English are very different; they don’t even use the same alphabet. I do
admire those who make the effort to read, write and speak the language of the
place where they are living.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Of
course there are some migrants who do not learn English and only to speak their
own language. They may want to learn, but they have no one to teach them, or
they may stay at home all day and have no opportunity to learn English. These
people find living in Australia hard and stressful. They cannot understand what
is going on around them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can’t read
notices or instructions and they can’t talk to and understand most Australians.
In other words they can’t find their place in our community and our society and
they soon feel lonely, rejected and depressed. Worse still is the situation for
those who have been persecuted in the land of their birth and who have come to
Australia only to be locked in detention camps with no chance to find their
place. It is no wonder that so many cases of mental illness and suicide are
reported among the detainees.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">The
bible tells us that the children of Israel, wandering in the desert, having
lost their homes in Egypt, were also angry, grumbling and depressed. Our
reading from Exodus tells how Moses began to teach the Children of Israel the
Ten Commandments and all the Law of God. Somehow they had to learn that they
were not escaped slaves running from Pharaoh’s chariots, but they were God’s
chosen people, with the Law of God to regulate their lives and the glorious
hope of the Promised Land ahead of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Moses
face shone with the glory of God so they were frightened; and he was giving
them new and strange instructions – Laws they had never had before – it really
was like learning a new language and a new way of thinking. It was hard work,
and not all of them were able to change their lives. A depressed and desperate
people had to learn to be strong in the strength of God No wonder so many of
them perished in the desert and never made it to the Promised Land. St Paul
says that their minds were hardened and it was as if they had a veil over their
faces and couldn’t see. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">But
those who were able to live the Law of God, who kept God’s teachings and the
Law that God gave them, these people survived the desert and the long years of
history, and their descendants the Jews are among us still.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">When
we turn to the Gospel, we find that Peter and James and John come face to face
with a similar revelation of the glory of God. This time, God is not revealed
in the words of the Law carved on stone tablets or written on scrolls. This time
God is revealed in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ in person. Moses and
Elijah are there with Jesus, but they are the supporting figures only. Moses,
representing the Law and Elijah representing the prophets, stand aside while
God is revealed in Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">And
Peter and James and John are excited and frightened. They want to build tents
to keep the wonderful revelation of the Word made Flesh with them always, but
when the cloud of the glory of God overshadowed them, they were terrified. They
were so full of awe and amazement, wonder and terror, that even when the glory
vanished they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they
had seen. Like travellers arriving in a strange land, they did not have the
language or the skills to understand or explain this new place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">And
now we find ourselves in the same situation as Moses and the children of Israel
and Peter and James and John. We have come together, as followers of Christ who
long to see and share his glory; we have come together to learn the language of
God’s kingdom and to become permanent residents and citizens of that kingdom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Here
in this place we learn God’s language as we read the scriptures and teach
ourselves to pray. We use the familiar words from our books to give shape to
our thoughts of God, and as we receive in our hands the bread and the wine we
receive that Word made Flesh whom Peter and James and John saw when Jesus was
transfigured before them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">And
by the words we read, sing and say, by the food we eat and drink we become more
like Christ. It was St Augustine of Hippo who said, “We come to believe what we
pray.” And it is well known that what we say and how we say it reveals who we
are. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Today
I am saying that we change and become like the people around us. If we speak
Dutch and live long enough in the Netherlands, then we will become Dutch. If we
live in Australia we will slowly but surely become Australians, thinking and
talking and living like the people around us. And if we gather and read and
pray and sing and eat and drink in honour of Jesus Christ, then we will
eventually become Christians<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Christians
are people who gather together to learn how turn the words that we pray into
the thoughts of our hearts and the thoughts of our hearts into the actions of
our bodies. Our aim is to take the Word of God made flesh in Jesus Christ and
make it ours so that the Living Word may live in us and bear much fruit to the
glory of God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-13252428862258435792013-02-03T15:29:00.002+11:002013-02-03T15:29:50.224+11:00Let's get all lit up!
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">In
the book of Leviticus it is written, The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: If a
woman conceives and bears a male child, she shall be ceremonially unclean for
seven days. On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
Her time of blood purification shall be thirty-three days; she shall not touch
any holy thing, or come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purification
are completed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">This
the Law of Moses referred to in the gospel. Mary was unclean from the day of
Jesus’ birth seven days and then thirty three days, making forty. And yesterday
was forty days after Christmas, so we find Mary obeying the Law of Moses in
which it is written, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">When
the days of her purification are completed, she shall bring to the priest at
the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb in its first year for a
burnt-offering, and a pigeon or a turtle-dove for a sin-offering. He shall
offer it before the Lord, and make atonement on her behalf; then she shall be
clean from her flow of blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, male
or female. If she cannot afford a sheep, she shall take two turtle-doves or two
pigeons, one for a burnt-offering and the other for a sin-offering; and the
priest shall make atonement on her behalf, and she shall be clean.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">For
this reason, the second of February used to be called The Purification of the
Virgin Mary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">But
it has another name. The second of February is also called The Presentation of
Christ in the Temple. This is because, in the law of Moses it is written, The <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span> said to Moses: Consecrate to me all
the firstborn; whatever is the first to open the womb among the Israelites, of
human beings and animals, is mine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">This
means that Jesus, Mary’s first-born son, belonged to God according to the Law
of Moses. But the Law also required the child’s father to redeem the child,
that is, buy it back from God with a sheep or turtle doves or pigeons. So, our
Gospel reading today, Jesus was presented at the temple in Jerusalem so that
his parents could redeem him with the sacrifice of two turtle doves or two
pigeons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">So
far, Luke has described what happened in every Jewish family after a first-born
son arrived. Birth, then circumcision on the eighth day and sometime later,
presentation in the Temple to be redeemed. Families often combined the
ceremonies of the Presentation of the child with the Purification of the mother
because it saved time; you only had to go up to the temple in Jerusalem once.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">But
Luke wants us to understand that Jesus is no ordinary Jewish boy. The story
goes on, Now, listen very carefully, says Luke, there was a man in Jerusalem
called Simeon. Luke mentions the Holy Spirit three times to emphasise the truth
of Simeon’s words. Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit rested on Simeon; the
Holy Spirit revealed to him that he would see the Lord’s Messiah; and the Holy
Spirit guided Simeon into the Temple, over to Mary, Joseph and Jesus and put these
words into his mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Master,
now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my
eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all
peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people
Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">This
passage gives us the third name for February 2<sup>nd</sup>, Candlemas. Simeon
says, Jesus is a light for revelation to the Gentiles. The light of Christ
reveals God to us. The whole of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is like a
mighty flash of lightning, which not only shows God to the whole world, but
whose dazzling light pierces the darkest holes and corners of creation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Almighty
God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets
are hidden is shown in all God’s saving power and glory in the person of Jesus
Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">In
the church, candles were needed to light up the altar so the priest could see
what they were doing. Candles also remind us of the light of Christ and the
tongues of fire of the Holy Spirit. In years gone by, at Candlemas, the priest
would bless the candles which were to be used in the church as well as smaller
beeswax candles which people would take home. Some would put the candles in
their windows during storms because they thought the light of Christ would
protect them from danger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Candles
are no longer the best way to light up a church; and candles are not the best
way to protect ourselves from natural disaster. But even now, candles are a
powerful, mysterious and fascinating symbol of the light of Christ. We use them
in church, we use them to symbolise prayer, and we use them as a sign to point
to Christ’s saving presence in our homes and workplaces.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">On
the other hand, there are many millions of people, Christians included, who see
in the soft light of candles an atmosphere of luxury and romance. Candles are
seen at weddings, at dinner parties and in restaurants, so for many they lose
their power to show the light of Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">How
then are we to reveal to the gentiles the salvation of God? How can we show
other people the wonder of God’s kingdom? How do we go start to share God’s
unconditional love and acceptance of all people, regardless of age, gender,
race, marital or family status, sexual orientation, disability or wealth?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">I
suggest that the answer is found in the Gospel reading. Simeon and Anna, by the
inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, saw that Jesus was the Messiah. In Jesus they
saw the fullness of God’s character – the maker of all things, the eternal and
gracious wisdom, the undying love and forgiveness, the help in time of trouble,
the giver of life, the gentleness, the strength, the awesome power and
astounding self-control, and above all, the perfect goodness and
loving-kindness, always desiring the well-being of all people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">For
people in today’s world, the first glimpse they may have of God is in who we
are and what we do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Candlemas,
the Purification, the Presentation, call it what you will; is the last great
feast after Christmas and before Lent. And Lent is a time when all we
Christians need to look at ourselves very carefully to make sure that others
may see in us the salvation of God, the light of Christ and the glory of the
Holy Spirit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-84375150732137604372012-10-28T22:18:00.003+11:002012-10-28T22:18:57.036+11:00Jude the Obscure? That letter of his.
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Jude,
in his letter, has given us two of the most inspiring passages of scripture. At
the beginning of his letter Jude wrote “I find it necessary to write and appeal
to you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.”
And at the end he wrote “Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and
to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing,
to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty,
power, and authority, before all time and now and for ever. Amen.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">In
these two sentences, Jude sums up his whole letter and the gospel he proclaims.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Even
before Jude wrote his letter the people of the church were discussing what it
means to be a Christian and what exactly the Christian faith is. St Paul, in
his letters, is horrified to discover that there are dissensions among the
Corinthian Christians. The book of Acts describes a conflict between the Jewish
Christians and the Gentile Christians. So it was in Paul’s day, so it was for
Jude and so it is for us today. Jude asks all Christians to contend for the
faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">First
of all, that word which we have as “contend” is actually a much stronger word.
The Greek word is epagonizomai, which is related to our word agonise. It means
to struggle vigorously, like a wrestler against a strong opponent or like a
swimmer in rough seas. It is a dangerous word because it can so easily be used
to encourage violence. People have been burned at the stake in the struggle for
the faith. I prefer to think of Christ’s struggle in the garden of Gethsemane –
which we call the “agony in the garden”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">So
the faithful Christians in Jude’s day, 1900 years ago, were being urged to struggle
against distortions of the true faith. Jude is thinking about the faith that
was once for all entrusted to the saints. Let’s try and work out what he means.
The word “faith” is a word which can mean the faith and trust we have in Jesus
Christ and it can also mean the whole of the Christian Faith, which includes
the way in which we live out that faith. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Jude
says that this faith, the Christian faith, has been once for all entrusted to
the saints. Some of the books I have consulted say that this means that the
true Christian faith has been given to, or delivered to or entrusted to the
Apostles, those whom Jesus chose to be apostles. And, we do, after all, believe
in one, holy catholic and apostolic Church. The teaching of the apostles is one
of the foundations of the Christian faith. Jesus himself sent them out to
baptise and teach. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">And,
what is more, says Jude, the faith was given to the Apostles once for all. Jude
wants us to understand that the faith of the Apostles is the true faith,
utterly reliable and totally complete. It is not to be changed in any way,
shape or form.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">He
says this because, and here I quote from verse 4 which was left out of our
reading, Jude says, “For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who
long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the
grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus
Christ.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">These
intruders, whom Jude describes in detail in verses 5 to 16, have taken the free
pardon won for us by Christ on the cross, as permission to do all sorts of
appalling things. Their attitude is, “It doesn’t matter what I do, God will
forgive me, so let’s party!” That’s how they pervert the Gospel. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">And
they deny their Master and Lord by denying that Christ has a claim on them.
Christ gave his life for them and in return they must give their lives to
Christ. They belong to Christ now and must do as Christ inspires them. St Paul
put it a different way. He told the Colossians, “You have died, and your life
is hidden with Christ in God. Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is
earthly. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the
Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">To
put it in its simplest form, “Christ has died for you, so now you must live for
Christ.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Now
we know that the church today is like the church in Jude’s day. There are
always intruders who want to twist the Gospel and deny the Christ. Sometimes they
want to make the faith too easy, making grace cheap and the faith permissive.
Sometimes they want to demand and enforce obedience to human rules and
regulations. Sometimes those intruders are priests and bishops as well as false
evangelists. Sometimes the intruders get into own our hearts and minds and try
to destroy us and our Christian faith.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Jude
warns us that life as a Christian or as a Christian community is always going
to be a struggle. Our task is to contend for the faith once for all entrusted
to the saints. To believe in Jesus the Christ and to follow him truly is to be
alive; the Lord is our health and our salvation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Jesus
Christ gives us the strength through his Holy Spirit and the fellowship of the
church, which is his body to hold back from evil and to take hold of all that
is good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Hear
how Jude ends his letter. “Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and
to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing,
to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty,
power, and authority, before all time and now and for ever. Amen.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8627572264129338713.post-23257155938565666502012-10-19T13:02:00.003+11:002012-10-19T13:02:54.516+11:00Lambeth Conference, Gays and Sydney SynodThis is an article about the recent Sydney Synod discussions and is not intended to be a criticism of any particular point of view. <br />
<br />
The Bishop of Gippsland, The Right Reverend John McIntyre, has appointed an openly gay man as rector of a parish and he, with his partner, live in the rectory.<br />
The Sydney Synod passed a motion noting this with grave concern<br />
The full motion may be found here<br />
<a href="http://www.sds.asn.au/assets/Documents/synod/Synod2012/bp1.081012.revised.pdf">http://www.sds.asn.au/assets/Documents/synod/Synod2012/bp1.081012.revised.pdf</a><br />
on page 9 of the document, item 17.15<br />
<br />
In particular the Lambeth Resolution 1.10 of 1998 on Human Sexuality was quoted in part.<br />
This interesting document may be found here<br />
<a href="http://www.anglicancommunion.org/windsor2004/appendix/p3.6.cfm">http://www.anglicancommunion.org/windsor2004/appendix/p3.6.cfm</a> <br />
It is commonly called "The Windsor Report" and has, as its third point, this...<br />
3. (This Conference) recognises that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God's transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships. We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ.<br />
<br />
This is included in St Luke's Mission Statement, "We <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-font-width: 93%;">seek to share God's unconditional love and acceptance of all people, regardless of age gender, race, marital or family status, sexual orientation, disability or wealth."</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-font-width: 93%;">This section was omitted from the Sydney Synod Motion, and The Reverend Chris Albany from South Hurstville moved an amendment to have it included. This was rejected by Synod.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-font-width: 93%;">Subsequently it was moved as a separate motion like this...</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-font-width: 93%;">6.7 Listening to the experience of homosexual persons</span><br />
<br />
<br />
Synod commits itself to listen to the experience of homosexual persons as called for in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10. In particular to listen to their experience in and of the church, and encourages the Social Issues Executive of Standing Committee to develop strategies to enable the Diocese to do this in meaningful ways.<br />
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(The Rev Chris Albany)<br />
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This was amended by deleting all the matter after “Synod” and inserting instead the following –<br />
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“encourages members to carefully read the Bible’s teaching on godly sexual expression and in that light to listen to the experience of people with same-gender attraction (as called for in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10), especially those who are seeking to lead godly and chaste lives with a view to our churches being better able to care for and encourage all people to submit to the Lordship of Christ.”<br />
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The heading was also amended to read “Listening to Scripture and the experience of homosexual persons”.<br />
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Many would say that this reverses the sense of the motion and is really a new motion rather than an amendment. Be that as it may, there was a further amendment as follows...<br />
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“encourages members to carefully read the Bible’s teaching on godly sexual expression and in that light to listen to the experience of <strong><u><span style="color: red;">all</span></u></strong> people with same-gender attraction (as called for in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10), <strike>especially</strike> <span style="color: red;"><strong><u>including</u></strong> </span>those who are seeking to lead godly and chaste lives with a view to our churches being better able to care for and encourage all people to submit to the Lordship of Christ.”<br />
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and in this form it was accepted by Chris Albany and passed by the Synod.<br />
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At least one person who spoke to the amendment was from Liberty Christian Ministries Inc. <a href="http://www.libertychristianministries.org.au/">http://www.libertychristianministries.org.au/</a> whose aim is to stand by and support people who are struggling with their sexual orientation. LCMI exists to help "those who are seeking to lead godly and chaste lives."<br />
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LCMI does <span style="color: red;"><u><strong>not</strong></u></span> try to "liberate" people from the "sin" or "disease" of homosexuality. The idea that "gay" people can be "turned" straight is widely discredited as may be seen from the following article.<br />
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<span lang="EN-AU"></span><a href="http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=33393"><u><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue;"><span lang="EN-AU">http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=33393</span></span></span></u></a> which is called "The Dangers of Gay Conversion"
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