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.