a BIG Christmas

Christmas Day, 2010.

                                                        Ocean Forest

A BIG Christmas

John 1:1-14 (Message)

Christmas has become quite small in our culture.



Nowdays Christmas seems to be very focussed on people re-connecting, families re-connecting, sharing possessions, and of course, giving gifts. These are not bad things. It is a good thing to have a reason for an effort to be made to re-connect with family and friends in some way – sharing a meal, sending a card, giving a gift, receiving a gift, making a call.


And even in our ever-secularising culture in the West, we still seem to have a little bit of a grander vision of Christmas as we belt out songs and words about “peace on earth, goodwill to all people” at carols by candlelight events all around the country and the world, and as we stroll through the aisles of the shops doing that Christmas shopping!


Of course, for most people, this hope of peace for all people is devoid of any connection with the God of the bible. Some still see the strong link between our hopes for peace and God’s plan and power in the world, but most gave that up somewhere along the line.


So, we are left with a strange celebration indeed these days – lots of lights and gifts and effort to reconnect with each other and a hint of a global but pretty human perspective “world peace” and that is about it. God is not really in the Christmas picture for most these days – not the God who has spoken in the Bible and his one and only Son in that manger anyway.


So, Christmas is small in our culture.


Enter the vast cosmic vision of John of Patmos proclaiming a massive grandiose nature of that baby in the cattle shed!


John 1:1-14 (The Message)


The Life-Light


The Word was first, the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one.
Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.


This human baby is God presence in a new way for human beings. He is the ultimate present to us! This human baby in small town Israel is the Word of the God of all things and was somehow also present when God brought into being all that we know and see from nothing.


Before Christmas became Christmas, and we became ourselves, this God-man is. This baby pre-dates us and post dates us all at once and he covers our existence from our cot to our grave and beyond. Now that is BIG!


What’s even better is that his very nature is creative – he creates; he creates good from bad, something from nothing, light from darkness…..


What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn't put it out.


Yes, light to live by: Light that does not need electricity but shines brighter in the human heart; the light that only God’s voice can bring to our life.


Light not temporary and even dazzling to the human eye like our Christmas lights, but light in our darkest fears and worries and sin; light even for our dying and death: Christmas light that will still be on when the new dawn comes….


We need some convincing on this truth these days. For a million reasons we love the darkness and don’t mind the sin – if we will even acknowledge it exists in us. We seem to want to be masters of own destiny and creators of our own light to live our life and we seem to refuse this baby’s gift of a light that does not come from within us but from within God.


God obviously knows us very well. He sent us a messenger to get us ready for this baby….


There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.


Friends, you have been given the heads up on the magnitude of this baby – this Word made human flesh being. John called out in our darkness and wilderness, “Repent. Turn beck to God. God is coming to you in a new and very BIG way”.


The Life-Light was the real thing:
Every person entering Life he brings into Light.
He was in the world, the world was there through him,
and yet the world didn't even notice.
He came to his own people, but they didn't want him.


Friend, do you want to keep settling for a small Christmas devoid of this BIG Light that is hope and real peace?


Will you let yourself notice this divine and yet human light this time around? What will it take for you to actually want all of him and not just a surface level, childhood vision of him?


I don’t want to settle for a small Christmas ever. I know I need God’s Christmas – God’s word, God’s truth, God’s grace, God’s light in my darkness. I need the baby. I need his life, his teaching, his death and his resurrection for humanity and for me and all my relationships, work, health and peace.


Only these gifts from Jesus will raise me above my sin and my dying and death. I will only settle for this kind of Christmas these days.


But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves,
their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not sex-begotten, not flesh-begotten.


Be born from above today. Let the baby carry you to his grace and truth and re-set you down with a new vision of who you are in your baptism and who you are in your life now.


By faith in this baby – the Son of God, Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, the God of the universe with us, you are born from above – born of the Holy Spirit, born of this baby and you are filled with grace and truth for your life now.


That’s Christmas. That’s what a billion people on planet earth get fired up about today.


The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.


Go there to God’s presence today and let him come home with you into your family and your decisions, your dreams, your directions. He will transform you and them into something you don’t know about yet. But everything he does will have that gift of grace and truth about is and it will be good.


See the glory of the God of all things in the baby. Bask in the BIG light of a BIG Christmas – a God-Christmas. Be born from above and take in the grand grace and truth of it all.


Don’t settle for the usual SMALL Christmas. Let Christmas expand today.


Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of humanity,
for the LORD has comforted his people, he has bought you back with a price.
The LORD has shown his power for all to see,
and all the ends of the earth can see the salvation, hope and love of our God.


Amen

Walk on.....

Walk on….



Primary School End of Year Address, 2010




1 John 4:18




Friends, I guess it is no secret that we at Ocean Forest highly value the primary community in which all of us enter the world, grow up in the world, and find our vocation and purpose for life – our family. We highly value family.


The English novelist and author Jane Howard says, “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, and call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one”. (Jane Howard)


“To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time”. Clara Ortega

Of course, families are made up of different people and parents are central to how families live and what the next generation becomes.


Parents teach without trying. They shape character without holding a class. They influence in helpful and maybe not so helpful ways whether they want to or not. We pass on wonderful characteristics of love, kindness, compassion, ambition, resourcefulness at the same time as we pass on all our foibles – and that is just the way it is.


In the end we are a product of our family and our parents for better or worse. As Jimmy Buffet once said, ...


"We are the people our parents warned us about." Jimmy Buffett

We as educators, carers, some of us parents ourselves, and all of us children of parents, would like to affirm you as families tonight.

We would like to affirm in the strongest possible terms those of you here who are walking the long road of parenting children, whatever stage of the journey you are on; whether you are doing it solo or in partnership – what you do to care for and shape your children with virtue, character and vision for their future is absolutely critical in your children’s life and for our community and indeed, our country.


As Pope John Paul said, “As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live” Pope John Paul II

We take our hat off to you for continuing to walk the journey of family and parenting and including our college in your family journey.


Parenting is a struggle. I think what the American journalist; Ellen Goodman said is true…


“The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears”. Ellen Goodman


We see our role as educators, carers and administrators as one of partnering with you in your foundational place in your children’s lives. We want to let our hopes for our students and for you as parents far outweigh any fears we may have. In everything that happens at Ocean Forest, we want to help children, young people and parents and grandparents find hope that drives out fear, because fear makes a lesser people, and hope gives us a future.


Jesus Christ pointed to a new hope and a new future. He showed a love beyond us and yet for us in his life and death and living now. He inspired a renewed man named Paul to proclaim that there is something we human beings can experience that helps us rise above fear and live with real hope for our and our children’s future. He said “perfect love casts out fear”


That love has been poured out into millions of hearts for two millennia and that love of God exists in this college community. We pray that at this Christmas time you might ponder the deep and overflowing love of God for people and parents just like you and me as that little Christ-child lays in the arms of his mother tended by his father in that cow shed.


As U2 sung, “Walk on”. Walk on as you travel the long road of parenting. Walk on into next year children and young people, as you are supported and cared for by parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, brothers, sisters. We walk together letting the perfect love that casts out all fear bring a hope to our journey ahead

They still need us.



Secondary College Closing Service address, 2010


Friends, as I look at the Yr 12’s, I naturally reflect on how they have finished their schooling and ponder what got them through it in such good shape – with a bright future… I know a lot of it had to do with their parents. Can I speak about that tonight….


Being a parent of kids from the ages of 0 to 12 is different than parenting young people living in the teen years. Everyone knows that younger children need their mum and dad. Little kids need some loving person to wipe their nose and other bits and they need their hand held as they cross the scary street.


Everyone knows that the whole notion of “quality time” is a myth. The truth is that “quality time” actually is “quantity time”, as far as kids are concerned. Just being with kids as much as possible without even doing anything much for a lot of that time is the single ,most important thing parents can contribute to their kids’ lives when they are young.


But then something happens – the most extreme and tricky change a human being ever experiences occurs; ‘teenageship’! Everything is changing. Everything is changing in every way and very quickly.


Kids feel weird. Parents feel lost. Little Suzie who used to be so easy to get on with is now in your face; she is intelligent, she is able to match you in sarcasm, she is becoming a mature woman right in front of your eyes!


Little Johnny, who was so cute is now breaking out with pimples, attitude, height, strength and everything else. The room is a war zone. The couch in front of the TV is the second bedroom – the teen thinks! And so it goes….


Then something happens to adults. Somehow they pick up the vibe that their little kids, who are now much more complex and challenging to relate to, don’t want them around anymore.


On one level this is true! Often teens would rather be dead than be seen with their parents in certain public places – like – the movies, the school ball, the friend’s party… then the main street of Bunbury, any street, even on the front porch of the house on their own street! – Just in case some random person actually makes the link that the teenager actually has you as their parent!


But, let me tell you a little story that I see being acted out in our modern western culture – right here in sunny Dalyellup…


Because we all have to make ends meet, and because we are all a little unsure of what to do with our teenage kids, and because we have a negative view of “teenageship” anyway (which comes from a very lop-sided, ‘bad news sells’ media spin…), and because we adults feel awkward and unable to control our kids anymore (as if “control” was what teens are needing most), and for lots of other reasons to do with who we are and what we believe, we start to believe the vibe – our teens don’t want us around – OR, “our teens don’t need us around”.


I am here to tell you that teens might not want you around sometimes, but they need you around.


Here’s the story…


Young teen, George gets leaves the house at 7.30am. Mum and Dad have already left for work or are leaving for work in the mornings. George walks or rides to school alone. He sits outside one of the school buildings alone because he arrives at 7.45am. There is no one around – maybe the groundsman and the padre and the odd teacher might be walking around when he is – but not usually.


George eventually gets to get inside the school buildings with his friends and he goes through the school day and all is well. He does his work. He gets on with people, even his teachers. George is learning and relating (he is not on drugs. He is not out of control. He is a great young kid who has been raided with love and respect and it shows).


The school day finishes and George has to face the prospect of being alone for the next 2 1/2 hours because mum and dad won’t be home until at least 6.00pm.


So he walks home alone, enters the house alone, watches TV alone, plays on his Playstation or Wii or iPhone alone, does a few chores alone, makes sure his little sister is ok…… until mum and dad turn up, usually pretty tired but trying their best to get everything done.


They are tired, but not too cranky. Sometimes they are very tired and very cranky.


George knows they are doing all of this hard work for him. They tell him that a lot.


Sometimes George wishes that his mum and dad did not do all of this hard work for him. It makes him feel bad. It makes him feel like he is putting them through all this. It makes him have this sense of guilt just for being who he is.


The truth is that George would rather have them around a lot more. Yes, George often gives off the vibe that he does not want mum or dad around at the moment. Yes, George has his moods and weaknesses and he can also be cranky. But on a deeper level, George would like to know that all is OK and that mum or dad, or just one of them are around and that they are interested in his day and that they were not so tired all the time.


What’s the point? Don’t leave them when they hit 13, folks. They still need you. Yes, they might give you curry from time to time and give off the vibe that you need to disappear for a decade, but that is only temporary stuff – and not deep stuff.


Teens need time like they did when they were little. The same amount of interest and time and commitment but given differently. Yes, it is tricky because this little girl and boy are growing up and testing it all out. Parents have to become Jason Bourne kind of people who know how to sneak in to their teen’s life, stay there a while, get out again and then pick the time to do it all over again. Timing is everything.


I am A Christian because I have a Heavenly Father who sneaks into my life, stays there and times everything very well. He says in his Word, the bible, he loves me, is committed to me and will accept and help me when I am guilty, nasty, ugly and broken.


He will never fall asleep or take it easy so that I get into bad trouble and get hurt beyond repair. He says he is my shade and my shelter and that he is into teaching me and shaping me for my whole life until I one day see him face-to-face, when I will finally see who I really am and who he created me to be and I will no longer be guessing. I will have finally grown up and become complete.


Adults need a heavenly Father; kids need their parents at any age. Don’t leave them. God will not leave you. Our teens still need us.




Adrian Kitson, December 10, 2010

The Beginning of Advent



ADVENT 2010

Twas The Beginning of Advent

by Todd Jenkins
Published by permission of Todd Jenkins (96-11-19) on this Kir-Shalom Sub Page on November 19th 1996. Permission to use this poem is granted provided due acknowledgement is made as to authorship.



Twas the Beginning of Advent




'Twas the beginning of Advent and all through the Church
Our hope was all dying-- we'd given up on the search.
It wasn't so much that Christ wasn't invited,
But after 2,000 plus years we were no longer excited.


Oh, we knew what was coming-- no doubt about that.
And that was the trouble-- it was all "old hat."
November brought the first of an unending series of pains
With carefully orchestrated advertising campaigns.


There were gadgets and dolls and all sorts of toys.
Enough to seduce even the most devout girls and boys.
Unfortunately, it seemed, no one was completely exempt
From this seasonal virus that did all of us tempt.


The priests and prophets and certainly the kings
Were all so consumed with the desire for "things!"
It was rare, if at all, that you'd hear of the reason
For the origin of this whole holy-day season.

A baby, it seems, once had been born
In the mid-east somewhere on that first holy-day morn.
But what does that mean for folks like us,
Who've lost ourselves in the hoopla and fuss?


Can we re-learn the art of wondering and waiting,
Of hoping and praying, and anticipating?
Can we let go of all the things and the stuff?
Can we open our hands and our hearts long enough?


Can we open our eyes and open our ears?
Can we find him again after all of these years?
Will this year be different from all the rest?
Will we be able to offer him all of our best?

So many questions, unanswered thus far,
As wisemen seeking the home of the star.
Where do we begin-- how do we start
To make for the child a place in our heart?


Perhaps we begin by letting go
Of our limits on hope, and of the stuff that we know.
Let go of the shopping, of the chaos and fuss,
Let go of the searching, let Christmas find us.

We open our hearts, our hands and our eyes,
To see the king coming in our own neighbours' cries.
We look without seeking what we think we've earned,
But rather we're looking for relationships spurned.

With him he brings wholeness and newness of life
For brother and sister, for husband and wife.
The Christ-child comes not by our skill,
But rather he comes by his own Father's will.


We can't make him come with parties and bright trees,
But only by getting down on our knees.
He'll come if we wait amidst our affliction,
Coming in spite of, not by our restriction.


His coming will happen-- of this there's no doubt.
The question is whether we'll be in or out.
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock."
Do you have the courage to peer through the lock?

A basket on your porch, a child in your reach.
A baby to love, to feed and to teach.
He'll grow in wisdom as God's only Son.
How far will we follow this radical one?

He'll lead us to challenge the way that things are.
He'll lead us to follow a single bright star.
But that will come later if we're still around.
The question for now: Is the child to be found?


Can we block out commercials, the hype and the malls?
Can we find solitude in our tinselled halls?
Can we keep alert, keep hope, stay awake?
Can we receive the child for ours and God's sake?

From on high with the caroling host as he sees us,
He yearns to read on our lips the prayer: Come Lord Jesus!
As Advent begins all these questions make plea.
The only true answer: We will see, we will see.

J. Todd Jenkins, Intentional Pastor,
First Presbyterian Church, Fayettevile, Tennessee



The Spirit calls us to take this Advent personally and be personally invested in seeking his new future in this remembering and re-telling of Emmanuel – God being with us now.


We still need him. We still rely on Emmanuel. We need his life, his grace and his power for a new Advent – one more until the second Advent when all will be said and done and our mission complete – to love God with our whole heart and others as ourselves.

With Elizabeth may we find God’s new future for us and our college and our lives this Christmas;

“The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favour and taken away my disgrace among the people.”




Come, Lord Jesus, come.


Amen

Risky Responsibility

Sermon,
Day of Fulfilment
21 November 2010.
Ocean Forest

Luke 19:11-27

Risky Responsibility

TEXT:  v26       The king replied, "Those who have something will be given more. But everything will be taken away from those who don't have anything.

As we sit here on the end of another church year and look over the way to see another Christmas, end of year and new year on the horizon, we do so with a timely word from the Master about life and our calling for now and the new year. It is a ward of affirmation and challenge.

As Jesus draws ever closer to the fulfilment of his earthly mission which will end in Jerusalem, the crowds are gathering and wondering what is going to happen when the guy who is proclaiming himself to be God’s own Son, arrives in the Royal city and clashes head-on with the powers that be.

Will Jesus the King rise up and create a new political landscape? Will he overthrow Pilate, the Roman governor and Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest? Will he challenge the Jewish Council? Will he challenge and overthrow even Rome?

Many want this. Many want triumph without suffering. Many want Jesus to do it all and fix it all without any cost or personal investment by them. We can tell this from some poignant words spoken by those few depressed followers, who talked with the strange traveller on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection,

“What are you talking about?” asks the stranger (who actually is the risen Jesus). “About Jesus of  Nazareth. He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to save Israel….” (Luke 24:21)

As he has done before, Jesus re-directs the mob with all of their excited banter and wild imagining of new power and peace without any risk on their part by telling a memorable story about a young prince who heads off to a royal city to get his stamp of approval from those above him to rule his local kingdom.

The Prince gives each of his servant’s different and moderate sums of money with the instruction to make a profit with the money until he returns. He tells his servants to do business; to trade with what he has given them.

The reckoning occurs when the Prince; now the King of his kingdom, returns. The first two servants are generously affirmed and rewarded by the new King for trading in his gifts; for doing business with what they had been given by the King. Their success in using what they had been given is rewarded with them being appointed governors over towns in the King’s kingdom.

However, it is the third servant who gets most of the attention. It has not gone well for him. If he had actually traded or done business with what he had been given and lost it all, that would be one thing. But he has not even tried to trade or do business to profit his King. He only has hid what he had been given.

Why didn’t he have a go? Why did he hide the gift away? Why didn’t he take a risk for his King and do his King’s business?

He says he was afraid of his King. This fear seemed to paralyse the man. He was unable to risk losing, unable to risk trading and doing the King’s business. He describes the King as a “harsh man”. The servant has misunderstood the King’s intentions and his goal, and now the King will be indeed harsh on this unfaithful, ‘untrying’, ’safe’ servant. This person will have no share in the King’s rule.

The King does not withdraw his gifts to himself but gives them away again to the person who took the risks, made the effort and actually did the King’s business.

Friends, I hear Jesus now affirming us for the many times we may have done our King’s business with the gifts he has given us this year. I also hear the King telling us that we need to take risky responsibility for the coming of the kingdom of the King n our times and places.

I hear Jesus affirming us for all the times we have dared to do his business of living and speaking of Jesus and the forgiveness and love found in him to people of all sorts.

I know there are people here who almost daily risk a lot – their reputation, their emotional well-being, there professional practice in the attempt to bring the Good news of Jesus to kids and parents in this college.

I know there are also parents here who put it all on the line to keep their kids growing up in the fear and favour of the Lord. To those have traded in the gifts of the Spirit Jesus says, ‘Well done faithful servant. I affirm you and I love you”.

There is another message here: preserving what we have received is not being faithful and it is not enough for the growing of God’s kingdom of life in this world of death and darkness. Playing it safe is not what God is calling us to.

What will help us take risks in kingdom work? What will help us move further out from the shadows into the glare of people? What gives us the confidence to put our gifts from God to work for God’s purposes of drawing all the world into the grace and love of Jesus Christ – where we live?

It seems that trusting God as being an affirming, loving, rewarding giver of gifts is the foundation to taking risky responsibility for God’s work in our world.

The third servant did not seem able to trust that his King was any of these good things – but viewed God as harsh and possibly unfair and untrustworthy. How are you viewing God?

Before we blame the third servant for being silly too quickly, let’s not forget that sometimes we find it hard to trust that God’s intentions and character are good. Maybe we are the third servant at the moment. Maybe we have been him in the past. Lord knows, we may be he in the future.

But as we look over the hedge at a new year coming, we might need to ask the King for mercy and for direction and a renewal in trust. We may need to ask the King to show us again that his intentions for our life and his church, and this college and our families are good. We may need to ask God to show us again that he loves us and wants the very best for us.

We need to ask God to show us his generous character again this Advent and Christmas so that we hit the New Year with trust in him for our year ahead.

We need each other to be “risky God-business people”. We need to learn the lessons of how to be faithful with a little so that we may be faithful with much.

We need plenty of people around here who will take on the risky responsibility of trusting in God’s power and goodness and then using the gifts he gives to bring more into the grace and love of Jesus.

Will you take some risks for the Kingdom? Will you ask the Lord to show you the many gifts of home, money, means, people, skills, character you have and direct your life in God’s service in this community and where you live.

• Parents, will you keep on parenting and bringing up your children in the Lord’s way?
• Grandparents, will you keep encouraging your kids to seek the Lord and encourage them to keep on parenting in the way of love and truth?
• Workers, will you work your job as a calling from Jesus and do it in his name?
• Young people, will you seek God’s direction in your heart and give your life’s dreams and goals into his hands for his purposes and follow his lead? We need young people to commit their lives to God’s business of bearing witness to Jesus in their vocation and their personal lives.

The thing is that the most successful “risky God worker” was also the most rewarded. The more we risk “losing” anything for God’s name and work, the more we are rewarded by his affirmation. And what I am hearing here is that God is lavish in his giving and in his affirmation and rewarding!

We can trust this as we ponder the coming of the Saviour again this time around…

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. …18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:15-20)

So,

….so live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God; 11 be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and give joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you[b] to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. (Colossians 1:10-12)

Amen



Thanks for Life

Sermon

Pentecost 24C
Sunday November 7, 2010.
Ocean Forest


Thank you for life, God.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 16-17


16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.


There is a lot to worry about when thinking about the future. I think even as Christians who know how things will end we struggle at times to view a hope-filled, God-filled future.

Nowhere does this struggle come upon us than when our future is personally threatened – be it in a financial threat, a status/employment threat, a threat to our children or grandchildren, a tragic death of a friend, and most of all, a threat to our own bodies through serious health issues or an injury by accident or the like…


But, most potent a challenge to faith in God’s promise of life forever in him is the threat of death – to another or ourselves.


We have had such a tragic brush with death these last two weeks. A beautiful little baby boy named Tyrone died – probably a cot death. I went into the Primary school class of which the little baby’s older sister is a member. She bravely told the class what had happened over the weekend. There were tears and there was such sadness.

We lit a candle and we read the word – “Let the children come to me and don’t stop them for there is the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus took the children in his arms and blessed them. How precious are these little ones – precious in God’s sight, says Jesus.


The little grade one girl is being so brave. She is trusting that her little brother is indeed in Jesus’ arms.


Then many of our community have been shocked by the tragic loss of Darren Strudwick, a fit, positive colleague and family and well known and loved by many in the cycling and mining community and here in our school/church community. If only we could this child-like grade 1 faith more often; that simple but profound trust in God’s word for now and the future.


Paul urges this simple faith as he writes to a community of people who have obviously been shaken up by trouble and those who have played on their anxieties about the resurrection to life on the final day.


He keeps it very simple. We might think simplistic?


1 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way….


Somehow, someone has been telling people in church in Thessalonica that they have missed the boat on God’s promised future of life. Part of the community have been duped into believing that this great promised resurrection Jesus spoke of has already happened and they did not make the cut!


It sounds a bit naïve to us. How could anyone believe this?” we ask. Well, how can anyone believe any “out there” message like this?


I might be easier than we think. There are plenty of “out there” messengers in our day too. How about the Mormons? How about the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the many Eastern/New age strands of spirituality – particularly Scientology? How about some who speak of the future in the name of Jesus? Of course, God gifts some of his people to see future things and hopefully their message encourages and strengthens faith in God’s promises to never leave or forsake us and be there now and at the end.


But so many have very “out-there” messages of gloom and doom and strange belief for the future. Planets, prejudice, even hatred, space-ships, stars, thousands of wives…..these are all mentioned in the many “out-there” messages…


We can and sometimes do fall for them. Given the right conditions, we can fall for anything, it seems. The right amount of anxiety and fear of unknown cultures and people, an appealing message of self-improvement and victory over our fears, the right mix of prejudice and even hatred at times, a dob of moralism and elitism, and hey presto: out goes the simple trust in Jesus’ word on living, dying and rising again, and in comes a huge variety of warped but appealing beliefs about the same.

Paul knows this. All he can do is appeal to what he has already shared with this community and exhort them to hang on to that which they originally trusted to be good and truthful and real.

….God chose you as first-fruits to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. 14 He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
15 So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.


Friends, this message is for us as we ponder the future and the world as we hear and see it now. The fundamental truth is that we have already been called by God through the death and rising of Jesus of Nazareth for a purpose that he will bring to completion in his time. Paul declares this…..

14 He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.


God has given you your future in your past and you live in the present in this gift of life. In baptism the Spirit of Jesus resurrected you in power and set you on a course for a known future – a future that we can trust.

Our life in Christ is linear. We are heading somewhere, not just going around in an endless meaningless circle of life. We have a beginning and an end and He is in this – the “Alpha and the Omega”, as St John hears Jesus being named.


It is clear from the Word that God will bring this world to its end in his time and will. Christian faith says that the end is in God’s hands. No one knows the hour or the day. So, even though the church has sometimes got very sidetracked trying to “do a Nostradamus” and declare an end date for the world, this is far beyond any human being’s authority and quite foolish.


So, whether or not there are dangerous conspiracies going on in the world, or great natural forces at play or UFO’s or other life-forms on other planets in this massive universe or not, God began this and he will bring it to its completion in his way and time and his will is one of grace and love for human beings. He has proven this in the giving of his Son for the world – the “sacrificial Lamb of God who now takes away the sin of the world” so that it shares in the promised new Jerusalem and new heaven and new earth when this old one passes away.


Paul is urging us to stick to this and leave these things in the good and trustworthy hands of the Lord. There is good reason for this. If we delve into things that we cannot know and certainly cannot control, we get sidetracked from what we are being called to be and do – work with the Spirit of Christ to make God’s kingdom come on this earth – to participate in God’s mission to “bring all things under Christ” so that “none may be lost” – in other words, to love the stranger, the oppressed, the different, the needy, the lost, the loved in the name of Jesus and in his mighty love.


The Faith of Job (Job 19:26-27)……


And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!


Amen.

Freedom

Sermon

Reformation Day
Sunday October 31st, 2010

 

John 8:31-36

Freedom

A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes. Thomas Huxley, "Address on University Education," Collected Essays, 1902, III, p. 236.

Friends, it is interesting that the gospel word for Reformation Day is this part of John’s gospel. It is part of a long and very heated exchange between those who believed they were absolutely right with God and a Rabbi who said they were absolutely in bondage to sin in their belief! You can see why it was heated! This whole conversation eventually ends up with the Jewish leaders present picking up some big stones to throw at this Rabbi Jesus!

Hopefully there will be no stone throwing today as we hear some confronting words from Jesus, at least at first.

This would be an offensive word from Jesus to us if we replaced the word “”Jews” with “Christians”.

“To the Christians who had believed in him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are REALLY my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

“What, you mean there are Christians who have believed in God’s existence and gracious love, but are not REALLY disciples, and not truly free from being bound up in sin?” the “Jews” and we might ask? Well, it seems so, according to Jesus.

“Is he saying I am not really free and not really following?” Maybe….


As he made this charge against them, those in his hearing rolled out the truth they always returned to. “We are free. We are not slaves to anyone. We know this because we are Jewish. We are of the family line, the community, the history of Abraham – the father of all – the father of God’s promised acceptance”.

We might respond the same way. “I am not a slave to anything or anyone. I am free. I am a Christian. I have connection, belonging and history with the church. I have believed in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour’.

“I tell you the truth” says Jesus, “everyone who sins is a slave to sin and a slave has no permanent place in the family….”

Now there is a dent in the pride! Jesus seems to be laying a big axe right at the roots of our faith and saying that we are not a free as we think we are. He suggests that we are not permanently in God’s family. We can fall out of the family. And then even deeper; the fact that we rebel and disobey God and say and do wrong shows that we are still entangled with this sin problem.

Now that is difficult to take. In fact, many Christian folks do their very best to minimize this reality of bondage to which Jesus refers. “You Lutherans are always talking about being “sinners”, people say. “Why can’t you be more positive!? God loves people and is gracious and Jesus has already died for our sin and it is a past reality. Got over the sin talk and stick with God’s grace……”


Well folks, therein lies the seeds of a shallow and unfaithful life. If sin really is no big deal, and we are not slaves to it, then what do we do with the reality we find when we look within and around us? And once we admit that we have issues, and the world has issues, then where do we turn for justifying ourselves before others and God?


For the Jews that Jesus addressed, it was family/national pride (really themselves). They were children of Abraham, don’t you know. They were free. They we were above all other nations and peoples.


For us Christians – we belong to the church, don’t you know. I am fourth generation Christian or my grandfather was a minister, or my name is Schultz (for Lutherans) or I am a moral person and I do not deliberately sin. I am trying my best, you know!” we might say. Really it is the same place we return to – ourselves.

But the truth that will be the beginning of our real freedom is that our words and actions confirm our status.

Surely, as we reflect honestly on our life and relationships, we are entangled in many “unfree” things – words, actions, inner wounds and the addictions, idols and harm they bring, lack of understanding, lack of attention to God and his Word, envy, greed, just plain weakness and doubt about Jesus and his presence in my life….and so it goes.

These things tell us that sin is a present reality – a “clear and present danger” as one Harrison Ford movie was called back in the 80’s.

When one accepts this reality check of being still entangled with all that is offensive and unfaithful to God, then one just cannot rely on family heritage, church history, someone else’s faith in God or anything else – except one thing.


When the reality of my sin is brought to my attention – by the Holy Spirit, by the way, “who convicts the world of sin” (John 16:8), I am led by the Spirit to the only source of true freedom, and therefore, true following and true reward.

“A slave has no permanent place in the family, but a Son belongs to it forever. So, if the Son sets you free, then you will be free indeed”

The Son is the permanent freedom for all slaves. Jesus is the permanent source and giver of complete freedom. Seeking him for our justification is true freedom.

Friends, the great and complete freedom we already have to live truly free – in love and compassion and faith and confidence is only found in the grace of God poured out in the person and word of Jesus.

May we find that great release from bondage and the freedom it brings that Luther and millions

 of others have found – God has done a new thing that is deeper and more far reaching than mere family tradition, church tradition or national pride – he has done something in the heart of a human being that changed a person from within – beyond family ties, or national boundaries.

God has poured out his undeserved gifts of faith and love and grace in the giving of his Son and surely taken all human sin into himself in his Son’s death and resurrection and created the environment for true freedom now.

We are free only in the Son. We are truly free from sin by faith in this grace of God given in the Son. Our faith rests on nothing else – our moral purity, our efforts to be Christian, our church going, our efforts

 to be above reproach, to be better than anyone else, our intellectual understanding of Christian faith, our knowledge of the bible even.

Our true freedom from all the sin and evil which still so easily entangles has its source in the Son – Jesus Christ and his dying and rising and his word speaking now.

"I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." (John 8:51)


Now that is complete freedom – freedom even from death and its shadow over us. That is freedom that re-forms the church into a living, active, gracious, community of faithful followers of Jesus’ Way.

The freedom from sin and death that Jesus gives in our baptism and ever since is that which transforms the community into a community centred on the truth of things – and the ability to speak the truth in love and forgive and restore each other – in all truth and with all love.

Friends, the new deal has been made, God has done his new thing and is calling us to find freedom in his Son. Lt’s not justify ourselves or rely on anything less than the grace of God freely given in the Son, Jesus Christ – and let’s follow where he leads us.

Living it Together 7

Sermon:

Living it Together1 & 2 Timothy Sep 12 – October 24, 2010.
Pentecost 22C, Week 6

Stand by me2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

6For I am already being poured out like a drink offering and the time has come for my departure. 7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

16At my first defence, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. 17But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion's mouth. 18The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Everyone needs someone to stand by them. We need someone to stand by us when we are under threat and when we are witnessing something joyous.
When fear rises, danger draws near and we feel the threat, it is so helpful and encouraging to have a trusted person with us to help us, protect us and share the fear with us.

When we are standing at some place of great meaning – a place we have always wanted to see, or we are finally doing that thing we have always wanted to experience, the first thing we naturally want to do is share the moment – share the joy with a person who stands with us in our joy.

“the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength”, declares Paul as he signs off.

Of course, it is not always possible to have that trusted other person near to stand with you in the good or bad moments.

In good times, others can stay away because of envy or jealousy. In bad times people can fall away from us because of fear or shame.

But the great human need we have is for someone to stand with us – which means to share our thoughts, our feelings, our fears; our hope. We all need someone to stand by us to protect us, to help us, to give of themselves to us, to broaden our own experience and learn things we cannot learn alone.

Paul declares that God has been this “stand by me”, ‘Other’ person for him all the way through. That statement of great praise of God’s ability to stand when all other people and things fall reminds me of a famous story about one of the early Church Fathers named Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna…

After dodging the Roman authorities for a few days and then seeing a vision of his own death given by the Lord, Polycarp was arrested under the persecution of the Roman empire in AD 156. He was a well regarded bishop and old man of faith in the church generally. He was pursued by a certain Constable, named of all names, ‘Herod’!

On the journey to the Coliseum he was put under a little more pressure than your run of the mill “atheist” (Christian) was put under by those gave their allegiance to the Caesar and Roman gods. “Just say, “Caesar is Lord”, and make a sacrifice to Caesar and all will be well, Polycarp!” Constable Herod and his father, Nicetes implored; first with just words, and then with physical tactics to the old but important man.

Polycarp made it clear he would not Hail Caesar or sacrifice to him. His fate was sealed as they eventually entered the stadium. Before the Proconsul, as the great crowd watched another “atheist-Christian” being eaten by the lions, Polycarp took a firm standing as the Proconsul attempted to get him to deny his faith in Jesus as Lord and declare publically that “the atheists” should be done away with. Say, “I curse Christ”, Polycarp, and I will release you.” it went on…

The Proconsul, knowing he had a much known and respected “atheist” before the crowd saw the opportunity to make a great attack on the faithful people of God. He pressed on and on…

And then comes the very famous response from a man of God in the face of the darkest and most sinister kind of evil aimed at destroying not only his faith, but attacking the faith foundation of the whole community of God…

“Eighty six years I have served him, and he has done me no wrong: how then can I blaspheme my King who saved me? Do you what you will”

Polycarp of Smyrna was then burnt at the stake instead of being fed to the lions in the great stadium and became a great inspiration to the whole church as he confessed faith in Jesus in the face of all fears and threats.

Paul and Polycarp betray a simple faith in God’s dependability, despite the injustice, attack, betrayal, hardship and doubt they experienced. Amazingly too, they also betray lack of anger at God. It seems that they have been through all of that. Surely they would have had their moments of being angry at what was happening to them in various fearful and even shameful moments.

Surely they would have prayed the psalms and the book of Job when they were under great pain or sorry or threat.

“Why do the wicked keep winning, God and the poor keep losing?”

Why do the unjust and corrupt people make it and the honest and kind people get trodden under foot?”

Why do we work so hard only to find out that the generation will squander we have worked for anyway?

Why is this happening to me, God? Where are you? Why don’t you respond to me?

But now it seems, as Paul speaks a final word to his son, Timothy, the time for anger at God, despondency with the church, anger at people who have hurt him and caused him great personal damage is passed.
Only One remains and His faithfulness and dependability is all that matters for whatever may come.

18The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.

Friend, I don’t know what you are angry about or if you are angry at all. I don’t know if you are despondent about your life and where it is heading or whether you’re pretty happy with how things are shaping up.

I don’t know if you have ever been angry with the Lord and whether or not you admitted it and told him or someone else that you were or whether you still are.

I don’t know if today you are where Paul has ended up – with no angry words to say to God or anyone else – just a word of praise of God’s ability to stand by people through to the end of it all.

Whether there are words to be had with God or not, the truth being proclaimed here is that God is a “stand by me” God. He stands not apart from, but he stands with his people.

He is calling us to believe this about him and inviting us to a deeper experience of his trustworthiness and inspiration in our place here.
Will we believe and will we let the Spirit of Jesus draw us further into the experience of God standing with us in all we are and all we are facing?

 

This God in whom we live and move and have our very being, is the God who stands by his people as much as is humanly possible in the shedding of the blood of his Son, and the giving of the gift of the Spirit to his people. He stands by us in all circumstances; shutting lion’s mouths, staying close and never abandoning you. As we follow his call to trust here and now, in our everyday things and our inner world, he will stand by you. His light and life will be with us in us all.

We will end up where Paul ends up – seeing so far beyond the current circumstances of chains, and grief and loneliness and instead, seeing life, community, God’s surrounding faithfulness, God’s promises coming to pass in his life and the people of God moving on to their goal – the presence and glory of Christ and his crown of victory.

To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.