Following in Faithfulness

We only hear of the Virgin Mary at points throughout the Gospels. But they are at critical points in the life of Jesus. She is there in the birth narratives of Jesus of course and in the story of Elizabeth and her son, John. Mary is there when Jesus finally begins to reveal himself to the world around him who he truly is through turning water into wine at a wedding. She comes to claim her son when people start calling him a crazy man for some of the things he claims, including that he is the Son of God, only to watch him heal a man and raise him from his mat. And she is there at the Cross and the grave to witness the yawn door that has been opened to bring out life from the grave.


So why do we take the time to consider her today? What is there about her that we should take notice of? The Gospels show her to be one of the first to really believe in God and in the coming salvation that he would work through his Son. She holds on to the memories of who her Son is and holds out the hope that God is going to do something marvellous through him that we cannot see. She is the one who allowed the Word to become flesh in her life so that the Word could become flesh for all life. She was and remains the prototypical Christian for others to imitate. Mary is portrayed as being ready to hear, prepared to receive and willing to serve as the Lord has led.

And more than that, we should be prepared our own selves to do as she has counseled others, “Listen to him. Do whatever he tells you to do.” We are expected to listen. That means we need to not only talk when we pray but also take time to listen. In this way God can speak into the quiet of our hearts the things that he wants to say. Listen in turn helps us to receive the word that God wants to speak into us, to help us growing in the formation of our Christian character and to mature as believers in his Son. We need to be filled to the brim like those jars of old that we might have the water of life but also be filled with the new wine of the Spirit. We would also do well to consider that nowhere in Scripture is Mary called perfect. Mary has her fears and struggles. She doesn’t always get it right. We know that because she thought that she had to bring Jesus home at one point because, from her point of view, things were getting more than slightly out of hand. Nonetheless, she is open to what God desires for. She treasures up in her heart things that are going to be important not only for her but for those who will follow in the years to come. Mary reminds us that we are not called to be perfect or to be even good. She reminds us that we are to be faithful in whatever we say and do. Faithfulness is not so much about the rules we keep or the journey we walk, as it is about the people we are becoming. Who do we love and keep as a neighbour? Who do we put our trust in? Whose glory do we seek, God’s or our own?

We can be like Mary and put our trust in God and say, “Let it be to me as you have said.” We can choose to hear the voice of the Master and trust him in the ways that we should go. After all, as someone once pointed out, the Church was born out of wind and fire, not to sweep us up heavenward like a tall tower but to send us down the dusty roads of this world so that we may lift up the downcast, heal the broken, reconcile that which is lost and bring peace amongst the unrest.

Let us take up the challenge to hear Christ this week and to be prepared and ready to go where we are sent and to do what we are asked to do and in the process make Christ known to those around us.

Food, you want to talk about food?

Here we are in the wild and wide and Jesus wants to talk about food. How can he want to talk about food at a time like this? We are here in the open and exposed to the elements. We are in a place of sorrow and tears and he wants to talk about bread. What’s up with that?

It’s quite simple actually: he wants you to remember where your bread and thus your life comes from. It doesn't come from the kitchen and it doesn’t come from a store. It doesn’t come from the clergy and it doesn't even come from a spiritual great like Moses. It comes from God and God alone. God caused the wheat to grow, the water to flow, the salt to supply in the earth. We ground the wheat to flour and carried the water and dug the salt from the earth and we add the yeast to make it rise but we received these things from God’s hands. Our hands were empty and God filled them. We are reminded that our bread and therefore our life, comes from God. Such a reminder is important in a place like this; where we remember, where we are exposed and know that we are in a place of sorrow.

And we are prompted to recall that without our bread, our Christ, we cannot be sustained. There may be a solitary existence but there will not be life – not full life as God intended it to be. And certainly new life in the new creation remains impossibility without our living Bread. Only in Christ is the hungry heart satisfied and the restless soul finally at peace. We are reminded in this particular place (at this particular table) that bread must be broken before it can be offered. In this place we realize what it is we proclaim – that there is bread that leads to eternal life. That the Bread of God was broken and offered for us that we might eat and live. We come to this table to recall that there is hope in the life that God offers and we need to take hold of it. That we are called to that great table together with those who have gone before us to feast in the presence of God and truly live. We have a choice and the lives of our loved ones ought to remind us that we need to make it; to live every day and to do so for the hope and the life that is within us because his life, his grace, his hope is within us. He is within us.

We ought not to forget that – we are what we eat! Christ is within us and he will raise us up at the Last Day. We need to recall that he is the resurrection and the Life. We need to be drawn into the life that is offered – even if it means that we are drawn in haltingly and with resistance. Surrender is never very easy for us. Nonetheless, lets us remember that even here at this table, in this exposed place, where our life comes from and where our lives as Christian people are going. And let’s eat and live! 

Stuff about stuff

Have you ever noticed that money has no real value in your bank account or in your wallet until it leaves your hand and goes to another? Many when they read the story of the rich framer will think that it could be wrong to have money. Many will think that it is unfair for this man to work hard most of his life only to discover that he has hours left before his life comes to an end. Then his things, his land, his crops and his current barns will become someone else’s property; someone else’s stuff.  And there will be people surprised to learn that there are 500 verses in the Bible about prayer, less than 500 verses about faith and more than 2000 verses about possessions and “stuff”. From time to time over the nineteen years plus I have spent in full time ministry I have had people counsel me that it is a bad idea to talk about money and stuff. It makes people upset and they might stop giving the money they do give to the Church. I remember in my last parish being told not to tell people that I should not tell people to honour God by coming in from their cabins for public worship. That it was their duty and responsibility to be present for worship of God almighty in the summertime. My predecessors had done it and caused a lot of pain for the people and in turn for themselves – it was better not to do it.

The story of the rich farmer tells not of a man who work hard all his life and didn’t get to enjoy it. Rather it speaks of our foolishness in forgetting God in the midst of life. We work in the mistake belief that things can insulate us from the harsh and cruel life around us and if we work hard we can have just a little more of the plenty that is out there to be had. The farmer was foolish for put his trust in his wealth and in himself because he had earned so many things. It was only in the last hours of his life that he realized that he had valued the wrong things – things that won’t make him rich before God. Money will buy a bed but not a good night’s sleep. Money will buy books but not brains or the use of common sense. Money will buy food but it can never satisfy the appetite. Money will buy the fine things but it cannot beautify or enrich the soul. Money can purchase a house but it cannot make it a home. Money can buy medicine but not improve our health. Money can buy luxuries but those comforts are fleeting at best. Money can buy a time of amusement but it cannot hold on to happiness. It can buy wood from which a cross can be fashioned but it cannot get a Saviour or salvation. Money can get the use of a church pew but it cannot draw someone to new life and to the new creation which is coming in God. And at the same time let us be clear and be aware that money is not the root of evil – it is the love of money which is the root of all kinds of evils.   

     

So if when you woke up this morning with a roof over your head, clothes to put on to come to church and had a meal from your own kitchen, you are richer than 80% of the rest of the world in this moment. the question is how will you use your giftedness is week?  Every time I celebrate the Eucharist I say to you “The gifts of God for the people of God”. This little bit of liturgy reminds us of who is giving and what is being given. God offers all of the good things that Christ has won for us through his death, resurrection and all other benefits of his passion. And not only does this bit of liturgy tell us who gives and what is being given, it also tells us who such things are being given to. All of these good things are offered to you and I that we might make God and his coming creation known to all the people of the earth. The Eucharist is not just what we get week by week – it is about what we can offer week by week to those who are around us. To think that receiving the Eucharist is just about us is self centered which is the opposite of what the Eucharist is about. If we refuse to be generous with what God has given us then it negates the powerful proclamation of the Gospel and it robs us of both our sincerity and our security.  The Christian life isn’t about what we can get out of it for ourselves; it is about what we can offer to those around us from the abundant riches of God’s grace. A gift can be given and it can be received but it can be gotten. The price of a gift is paid for by another.

So let us remind ourselves this week that time is short and we are free to live for Christ. And let us go and give and find life in Jesus name.  

Choose the better dish

Jesus boldly told a harried Martha, “Mary has chosen the better “dish” and it will not be removed from her.” It makes one stop and think – or at least it should. Last Sunday we were told to go and love and serve our neighbour. This Sunday we are told to sit down and listen. So which should we do? Should we be like Martha and get busy doing likewise or should we sit down beside Mary and listen for a while. In fact would submit that we need to do some of both.  We need to stop and to listen to the voice of the Master and then we need to apply ourselves to serving God and our neighbour and the working out of our faith.  

We need to consider first that Mary was sitting at the feet of the master and being taught by him and he did not reject her. Women were not in this kind of position is culture. That is to say they were not considered to be disciples because they were not men. So Mary finds herself in an unusual place. Martha is exasperated by the lack of help that she is getting from her sister who is an unusual place. She complains openly to Jesus about this. Jesus points out to Martha that she is worried about a great many things when she only needs to concern herself with one thing. Jesus wants her to come and join her sister at his feet so that she can hear him clearly for her own self – there will be time for serving and hospitality later but now he needs his word to be heard.  Mary has chosen the dish that needs to be eaten now and it will not be taken from her.

So how does this apply to us? When did you last stop to listen to the voice? When were you last still to know that God is God? How come you have been too busy to enter into the presence of God fully in the last while?  Oh, yes we take holidays or vacations and we get away from it all for a time and fill our time with other things. After all isn’t said that, “a change as good as a rest?” How does one have conversation with someone who will not sit still? It is important to take time to be with God because in those moments we can hear him speak to us and to comfort and renew us for the tasks that are ahead. We need to hear his word and the voice of the Spirit speaking to us. Otherwise how do we know what to do and where to go as individuals and as a church? Failing to listen to the voice that calls us forward makes us as individuals, and as community, absurd. We not only end up doing things our way, our community degrades and suffers. If one is going to push the edges of the envelope then it is necessary to stop and to listen to what it is that God is saying to us. And in doing so we will find that we are not alone: that God will draw others to us and to the places and spaces where he wants and needs his church so that the kingdom can be signed by our actions and proclaimed by our obedience to the voice of the Master.

Come, sit and eat – the dish is hot and the Master is calling you to come to sit and to be with him for awhile. Come and dine!     

Go and do likewise ... and find life

We like our hot topic debates in the Church, this much we can agree on. It is almost like we need some sort of controversy to drive the Church forward these days. There are lots of topics to pick from though let me be clear, I don’t think that the colours of the church building would be one them! Jesus is confronted by a lawyer, someone who is well trained in the Scriptures (the Torah) and is used to having such debates amongst his peers. This unnamed lawyer asks Jesus a question that we might well ask in this day and age – what can I do to live forever like God?

Jesus answers his question with another question, “What did you learn in the Scriptures?” The lawyer smiles and replies, “Oh, that’s easy, love God with your heart soul mind and strength and your neighbour as yourself!”    “Great,” confirms Jesus, “You have the right answer. If you know what to do, go and do it. In the doing of it you will find that you have eternal life; a life like God’s life.  “Surprised that he is on the short end of this conversation, the lawyer asks another question, “Teacher, can you tell me, who precisely is my neighbour?” and this is really the heart of the parable – whom is it that we serve? The lawyer presumes that there are people in the world that don’t need or deserve his help and that these people can be safely ignored without being judged by others including God. And isn’t it interesting that we as human being find that the simplest things to do are also the hardest things in life to do.

So Jesus tells the lawyer a parabolic story. “There once was a man who traveled from Jerusalem down the road to Jericho. Along the way he was attacked by robbers. And because he had very little, all he had for the trip home were his own clothes. These were taken from him. The traveler was beaten savagely with his own walking stick and left for dead in the ditch along the edge of the road by the thieves. A priest on his way home from doing his duty at the Temple saw the man half alive and heard his cries for aid but the priest did not stop to lend assistance, choosing instead to think of him as already dead. Then a lawyer came along, saw this man in his awful state and chose not to see or to hear anything because he had pressing business to attend to in Jericho.   

But then came along a Samaritan, a foreigner. Someone who no self respecting, religious person would dare go near. He came to the spot in the road where the badly injured man lay in the ditch. The Samaritan saw the injured man, heard the plea for help, had compassion for him, and when into action. He got the injured man out of the ditch, cleaned and bandaged his wounds, using wine to disinfect and oil to protect the wounds. He put him on his own animal and led the animal to the nearest in where the ill-treated sojourner could recover from his experience and hurts. Then when he could delay no more he passed the care over to the inn keeper telling him that the convalescing traveler was to be cared for and any expense that the innkeeper incurred would be paid for upon the Samaritan’s return.

“Now then who was the neighbour?” asked Jesus of the now sheepish lawyer. “The one who showed mercy on the injured man,” answered the scribe, refusing to name the Samaritan. “Right, so go and do the same,” commanded Jesus.   

What’s the hot topic this week? Who can we not serve and get away with it? There must be people in the world that we can ignore and forget about, people that we don’t have to tend on… isn’t there?  Maybe we should consider the nature of the mission of God, and therefore of the Church. What unique characteristics are there that we discover about the mission of God from this parable? First of all, no one calls the Samaritan “good”. No one recognizes the possibility that this could be how God acts or even that this could be God himself acting. This “do gooder” is an outsider, a foreigner, the enemy. He is considered to be a reprobate and a heretic by so called the respectable, holy people. And yet the religious people fail to see the true nature of God and his mission to the world.

They are shocked to learn that such low life type person would even be capable of such an act. God is capable of having mercy on those who need to be shown mercy. God is able to show compassion to very person, not just to the good and the nice, but also to those of us who find ourselves, half dressed, half dead, and totally in the ditch and absolutely in need of help.

Being a help to another human being at the side of the road and in the ditch is what faith and ministry is all about. We as a community should and must be committed to drawing people to us and we should be ready to care for them regardless of who they are or what they have done. Faith and ministry are also as much about the attitudes we carry about other people as it is about the things we do for other people. Attitudes determine how will pray for people and what we will do and not do for others.  We need to bring hope to those who need faith. We need to bring joy to those who mourn. We need to feed the hungry and give drink to those who are thirsty. We need to set free those who are captive and in prisons. We must proclaim the moment of freedom to move into God’s reign for that moment is now.

We know what Jesus would do. If God goes to those who are fallen, beaten and injured, th question then becomes what will we do? How will we respond to finding others on the side of the road? Will we treat them as neighbours or pretend that they are dead? Go and do like God does - be merciful. Be a neighbour and a friend. Go and find that you have eternal life in Jesus’ name.    

No more prints in the sand!

Imagine that you are one of the seventy apostles that Jesus send out ahead of him, as he is making his way to Jerusalem, to preach and proclaim the coming of the kingdom. What would be the biggest challenge that you and your partner would face? Would it be the lack of a credit card and money? Might it be the lack of food between where you start and where you might end up tonight? Could be that you aren’t dressed just right for the journey or to preach? Are you afraid that you might be unsuccessful? What is it that stops you from making that first step?   Recently I came across another poem that speaks to the struggles we experience as Church when we think about our walk with Christ:

One night I had a wondrous dream. One set of foot prints there were seen.  The foot prints of my precious Lord but mine were not along the shore.  But then some stranger prints appeared.  I asked the Lord, “What have we here?”  These prints are large and round and neat but Lord, they are too big for feet.   My child he said in somber tones.  For miles I carried you alone.  I challenged you to walk in faith but you refused and made me wait.  You disobeyed, you would not grow; the walk of faith you would not know.  So I got tired, I got fed up and there I dropped you on your butt.  Because in life there comes a time when one must fight and one must climb; when one must rise and take a stand…or leave your butt prints in the sand.                 - Unknown

Those of us who follow Christ often worry about the implications and the complications of following Christ in the everyday world: will this place be a good place? Will I be well received? Will this be good for me and my family. That is the difference between religion and discipleship. Being religious means that you can stay right where you are and be religious and to be religious on your own terms. Being a disciple means that we are under the discipline of another and that means we are not in charge. And the more that we take charge of our own lives and situations the harder it becomes for us both personally and corporately to live in moments when we must yield and when we must surrender to the call and to the will of the Master. What gets in the way of your discipleship, of your obedience to the Master? Obedience requires that we be near to the Master to hear him so that we know how he wants us to serve him. After all it is in Christ that we live and move and have our being, is it not? We need to stop, to be still and to listen so that we can in turn, move and serve in his power and in his name. To do otherwise means that we fail to hear and thus are not where we ought to be. Such failure makes us an absurd (the opposite of obedient) community who lives to itself and therefore slowly dies to itself. There is no health and there is no salvation within such a community because it is away from God.

God calls his people in to mission with him so that they might not only have life but all that his life has to offer us. It is in living such a life that we are able to draw others into relationship with us and with God. The Church is not called to turn the world upside down but rather turn itself inside out. Being this kind of inside out community is never going to be easy – there are going to be struggles in being community before we can reaching out to draw others in. Other people need to see in us a glimpse of us as community at table with Jesus. The world needs to observe the love that overflows and abounds through the hospitality that we give one another. People need to see that relationships are transformed not just people; that the old is being made young,  the broken are being made whole and that all things are being brought to perfection in Christ.

Take a risk this week and make the kingdom known through your life and ministry and let’s make castles at play lest we find our own butt prints in the sand.

Moving with Jesus

There once was a little boy named Johnny who was seven when he and his three year old sister Sarah were brought to church and baptized by the local clergy. On the way home, little Johnny was all teary –eyed, and his lower lip was all trembly. His parents asked him what was wrong. Johnny would not answer. His parents asked him a second time but again he would not answer.  As they pulled in the driveway of their family home, Johnny broke into huge sobs. The father asked Johnny asked again sternly, “what is wrong?” Brushing back the tears and hold off a sob, Johnny blurts out “The minister said that he wants me and Sarah to grow up in a Christian family but I want to stay with you guys!”

We begin the “stony-faced” journey with Christ. For some they will think, “Oh, yes we had to be good and do our duty and be good. We need to follow and do as we are told so that everything is alright while others will concentrate on their salvation and watch for the rapture so that they can declare, “We’re out of here!” But have you ever consider that there is something more to religion than that? Like Martin Luther once said “A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing and suffers nothing isn’t worth anything”? 

So let consider carefully some of what follows and see how it might fit into your life:

·         Have you ever been rendered powerless? The Church is actually meant to be a reflector. Something that shows something else – but it has no power of its own. It can only reflect what it is given to reflect. So in the case of God, the Church can reflect God to show who God is to the world. We can be the first images that people see of God and how they might relate to God. So what is it that we are telling the world about God? It is important for each of us, and equally important for all of us as a community to consider what it is that we are showing the world in terms of who God is. And at the same time we can reflect the praises of the Church of and the world to God which is a part of the priestly function of the Church. We are not meant to just gather in the people, we are expected to gather up the praises of God in the world and offer that praise before God in worship of him. Would that make Church more interesting on Sundays? One thing is clear though: it is not about us – it is about God and his mission to the world and we are called to play our part and not use our own strength to make it happen.

·         Why would you choose to use your freedom to do something that will make you a slave again? Christ died to set us free that we might live lives given to service to God so that we might remain free. We are beings who are made for worship and we will worship. The question is who or what will we worship? There is urgency in going and in proclaiming the Gospel. Some want to wait on blessings or signs or in natural courses of life. The good news that we have been set free needs to be proclaimed in the here and now so that others can be set free. The things that we bind ourselves to are the things that we place worth in and therefore will worship. The Church is called to bind itself the to things of God and to the love of Christ that we might remain free and serve and worship God in our generation.  

·         Aren’t you going to slaughter the oxen? Jesus tells us that if we start to walk with him and keep turning around to see what we have left behind that we have not really left and that we are of no use the kingdom of God. Elisha understood that. He slaughtered the oxen that he had used so that there was nothing to come back to. He had to leave them behind. He understood that there had been a change in his life and that his life was going to be very different from now on. Within the church today there is a call to “radical discipleship”. In reality there should be a call to commitment; a move toward being obedient and to being the people in Christ that we have been called to be by God. Then the radical life to which so many think we are called will be far more possible. There is a need to be totally focused on where it is we are going. And in being single minded this does not mean that we have a single track mind, quite the opposite! In being focused our lives become directed to share with all those we encounter, who God is and where it is that we are going. Through that we will invite others to come with us and for them to focus on the journey.  

We’ve decided to follow Jesus so let us move forward in his strength and in his name to the glory of the coming kingdom.