A day for families to remember

We had an extraordinary day at our place this Sunday. We gathered families from our church and school communities to give thanks to God for his gift of our families.

Here's what was said...

Family Foundations
Matthew 7: 24-28 The Wise and Foolish Builders

24"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."
28When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching....

Friends, we are encouraging everyone to give thanks to God for all families today because family is a foundation for our life – a foundation given by God.

God is into family. All human beings are in families – these days, all kinds of families – blended, single parent and everything in between: but nevertheless, family!

Now of course, family is not always easy. George Burns, the American comedian once said, “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city”. We might say from time-to-time, “Family: can’t live with them, can’t live without them”!

But our very life is family. From our parents, grand-parents, relatives, husband, wife, partner, comes part of our identity, our sense of well-being, our role as God’s givers of life to children. And that is how God always intended us to be – in families.

Our family shows us who we are. Without them we feel cut loose, alone, unsure. Gail Lumet Buckley, the Black American journalist and author said, “Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present and future. We make discoveries about ourselves”.

Families are under pressure though. For some strange reason, we know our family is our very life, and yet we are capable of making all kinds of decisions to damage or diminish our families. Chasing the almighty dollar seems to be a big one these days. Accumulating more then we need at the cost of time together, at the cost of our relationship with our partner and the kids happens a bit.

Funny how we can spend so much time and energy storing things up (and telling ourselves – “It’s for the kids”) and miss relating to, teaching our kids, and just being with each other now.

But Jesus speaks into our families today and says that there is a wise way to be the best parents and kids – and family we can be.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his family on the rock. (Matthew 7:24)

So, building our marriages, kids and wider family is best done with the words of Jesus ringing in our hearts everyday:
words about God being a Father to us and we being his children in his human family.

Words about baptism being the great gift of being adopted by God as his very own dearly loved child and the moment when we are given a seat at his family table to share his victory over all that destroys and diminishes our family and ourselves.

Words like,
“Come to me, busy Mum and Dad, and I will give you rest”.

Words like,
“I have come to serve you as you constantly serve your partner and your kids -
I have come not to put you down, or judge you harshly, but give you life and power and faith to build your life and your family on my wisdom and strength”.

Friends, let the words of Jesus be your rock so that you can be a rock for you r partner and your kids.

If faith is difficult for you – no need to worry, faith as big as a tiny little speck of a mustard seed is enough and faith comes from simply hearing this word of Jesus and taking it into your heart. He will do the rest.

Let’s build our families strong, resilient, free from fear, wisely.

Let’s live for now, and let the future worry about itself. God knows our names. He knows our issues.

He knows our present and our dreams and promises that as we do all we can to live at peace as parents and children, he will give long and prosperous life for now and the future.

A Father’s Blessing

Sermon
Father’s Day
Sunday September 5, 2010

A Father’s BlessingDeuteronomy 1:29-31, Ephesians 6:1-4, Luke 11:9-13


Friends, on this Father’s Day I would like to do some talking straight to men. We need it. Women need it and children need straight talk to men more than they might know.

There is a epidemic emptiness among us that is causing men (and women and then children) so much pain that we need to talk about on Father’s Day. I begin with a gifted man of Christian faith, Father Richard Rohr. He names the huge chasm in the soul we are all dealing with in various ways that is crippling our relationships and families and society. Let me explain…

Rohr says,
“All men know how to do is pass on roles, money and opinions, but not who
they are. The fundamental drive affecting male spirituality is “father hunger.”

Rohr speaks of one example of what this “father hunger” is. He says, “I gave a directed retreat recently to a very fine man, a priest who has driven himself to be perfect, successful. We were trying to determine where that drive was coming from…… “

’It’s like a chasm. It’s like a canyon,’ the priest said.”

“’What is?’ I asked.”

“’The depth of the emptiness and pain of my relationship with my father,’ he replied. All he could keep saying was, ‘It’s like a canyon.’”

“Here was a man who looked very productive and creative. And he was, but in his 40’s his world started collapsing because he was always driven by a need to please his father. Nothing he ever did for his father was right. He transferred that need to please the Church, the bishop and the people. But that drive was keeping him from the real experience that he already was loved by God.”
“That little example is the story of much of the Church as far as I am concerned. This father hunger is running so many things for good and for ill. When we don’t recognize we are seeking love and approval from the absent father, then we become compulsive, frenetic, busy, wild in a bad sense. That is why we need power, addictions, money…. We don’t recognize that what is really at work is father hunger.”

Another well known man who really names this great wound we carry is John Eldridge. He wrote a little book called “Wild at Heart”. It sold millions of copies. He was onto this chasm in the soul of a man that affects his partner, children, work, health and our community.

This hunger we have is for affirmation from the only one that really counts at the human level. A man will not become a fulfilled and functioning man in relationships and life until he has his father’s affirmation – or in older terms, “the blessing of his father”.

Our modern reality is that this foundational blessing that a man can only get from his father is not being given. It is not understood, not valued and not experienced between fathers and their sons at epidemic proportions.

As an example of how wide and deep this chasm between sons and their fathers is and how completely it affects our community, Rohr speaks of his experience in prison ministry. He says that in his 15 years of working in prisons in the US, the single most potent and common underlying driver of crime is this chasm of father hunger.

“Somehow – and this is the heart of the problem – men have lost the ability to pass on the wisdom and experience of their life and who they are. All they know how to do is pass on roles, money and opinions, but not who they are. I would see that as the single greatest lack of power, dysfunction and disability in civilization today”. (Rohr)

Rohr says, “By “father hunger” I mean the profound, but usually unconscious longing for affirmation and limits from male authority figures. The most common words people use to describe their relationships with their fathers are “absence,” “sadness” and “I don’t know him.”

“Men have not been given the permission or the skills to pass on who they are to their children. We often know what makes fathers angry, but not the deep desires and dreams of their hearts, much less their loneliness and hurt. That vacuum creates a similar emptiness in the hearts of sons and daughters. Dad is an unnameable mystery, which only calls forth fear, doubt and sometimes endless rebellion”.
”In so many of the countries that I have visited men are no longer authoritative or empowered – leaders in any true sense. They have walked no spiritual journeys so they have nothing to offer. All they can do is go in the direction of clichés, control, comfort, legality and all the rest. That’s all that is available to them. As a result, there is a tremendous father hunger within many societies today”.

So, have you got it? Have we got it here? For sure. I see it in adults and kids, Christian and non-Christian. I see people striving, busy, emotionally guarded and yet obviously hurting, seeking affirmation from anyone and everything they can find – I see it my own spiritual journey.

Here’s a reflection point for men and women about whether or not you have received that precious “blessing of your father”.
What is one specific way you knew that you received your father’s blessing?
Here are some answers to that question asked of one hundred people by Gary Smalley, popular author and psychologist.
1. “My father would put his arm around me at church and let me lay my head on his shoulder.”
2. “When my father was facing being transferred at work, he purposely took another job so that I could finish my senior year in high school at the same school.”
3. “When I wrecked my parent’s car, my father’s first reaction was to hug me and let me cry instead of yelling at me.”
4. “When I was thirteen, my dad trusted me to use his favorite hunting rifle when I was invited to go hunting with a friend and his father.
5. “My father went with me when I had to take back an ugly dress a saleswoman had talked me into buying.”
6. “My father would let me practice pitching to him for a long time when he got home from work.”
7. “Even though I had never seen him cry before, my father cried during my wedding because he was going to miss me no longer being at home.”
For me , I would say even though I would use those words of “absence” and “just not there” for my experience of my own father, I would also say that I have received my father’s blessing. For me it first occurred on our wedding day when I was 21. My Dad had a tear in his eyes as he looked straight into my eyes and shook my hand firmly. No words – but that longed for affirmation that “You can do, son. You are a man now, son”. “You have my blessing”.

The problem was for me that it took 21 years to know that I had my father’s blessing. Some people never get it. In fact, they get just the opposite. “You will never amount to anything, son”. “You are lazy”. “You are useless”. “That ‘B’ was not good enough. You should have got an ‘A’. “Why can’t you be like Jack. He’s really good at footy…..”.

Oh, the pain this withholding of a fathers blessing creates deep in a person – girl and boy, but especially boy. Oh, the mistakes we parents make and the pain we cause. Oh, the length of time it takes to discover why we are so driven, so busy, so restless, so empty and lonely! All along we have been longing for our father’s blessing.

In steps God. In all the years of dealing with this wound of the absence of a father and his blessing, God has been blessing me. Jesus has given the gift of naming God “Father” to all who repent of their sin and weakness and need and believe in him.

All along the journey of being a man, a complete and fulfilled human being, God is the ever-present Father who invites us to call him “papa” and to seek him, knock on his door, seek his presence, his word, his healing, his love – his blessing. I can tell you that without those words of absolution, gospel grace and especially that word of blessing, I would be an even more wounded man, driven to find what I desperately need from somewhere – in addiction, control, power, achievement in others’ eyes…..

It is true. Brennan Manning, another mentor of mine, believes that the single most important, radical and needed word Jesus ever spoke was, “Abba” (The Signature of Jesus). Jesus allows us to call God, ‘Father’, ‘Papa’. In this intimate relationship of he as Father and we as his sons and daughters, God is pouring out his affirmation and his blessing on us and filling up that chasm we may have between our own fathers and ourselves and our children.

Fathers, we have the calling to be a father. God has given us children. Our single most important task in the 18 + years we will live at close quarters to our children is to give them our blessing.

The single most important message a young son needs to hear from his Dad is “You can do it, son.”, “I believe in you, son”. “You’ve got what it takes, son”.

If you have never received this blessing from your father and it is still possible to receive, seek it from the old man. If it is not possible, then hear your heavenly Father’s blessing on you. It will be enough for you to be the man he created you to be. Take that blessing (‘The Lord bless you and keep you, …….’) whenever you hear it as your heavenly Father saying “You can do it, son”.

What must accompany this single message also is passing on who we are, not just what we know.

Rohr chimes in…” If fathers could pass on their feelings, their excitement, their grief, their touch and the process of their struggles to become authentic men instead of just their dogmatic conclusions to their sons and daughters, I believe that we would have a very different world. There would be less mistrust and anger toward power and maleness, much less need for war and competition,……

Not only that, we would be becoming more like our own Heavenly Father who “carries you as a father carries his son, all the way until you reach a safe place…” (Deuteronomy 1:30).

The blessing of God our heavenly Father be with us all.

The Low Place

Sermon:
Pentecost 14C
Sunday August 29, 2010.
Ocean Forest

Proverbs 25:6-7/Luke 14:1, 7-14

The Low place

A couple who were making wedding plans, and went to an expensive hotel to plan their reception - a dinner of finest food, using the best china, plants, big band, the works, laid out $30,000. Then the groom got cold feet, and called the wedding off. The would-be bride was furious!

She went to cancel the party not to be consoled but told, "You signed a contract. You can either give up the money or go ahead and have a party." The woman thought about it, and decided, having once been homeless and down on her luck, to have that party. She sent her invitations to all the homeless shelters and mission places in Boston and they partied with the tuxedoed waiters and everything.

The only change she made? She changed the meat to boneless chicken in honor of the groom. (Phillip Yancey)

It must be very disappointing to have to cancel the grand plans for a wedding reception! Still, when they happen they are great fun.

In my line of work, I get to go to a few wedding receptions. They can be interesting. One stands out as my most interesting reception experience. I was invited to marry a Maori couple in Auckland some years ago now. The couple was lovely and all was well with their relationship. I was looking forward to being at their wedding but was very unsure about what it would be like.

It was to be at a local house. I did not know what the customs were and whether or not I was meant to stay for the reception meal or just leave after the ceremony.

I had two choices: Either I go in cocky and confident and be the “holy man” and take the best seat and revel in it and hope that this was the way to go. Past experience with Maori people was that they had deep respect for priests and would expect a certain aire of confidence or even arrogance from the padre. Maybe they had got that a lot!
The other choice was to start low, listen, learn and only do what you are invited to do. I took that approach. This is the one the wise man of Proverbs and Jesus recommends in our word for today.

Proverbs 25:6-7
Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, "Come up here," than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.

We finished the marriage ceremony in the back yard underneath a beautifully flower decorated gazebo. During the short message I got to experience that great southern American kind of response to my preaching. Big Maori boys at the back were nodding heads, calling out, “preach it” and “Amen bro”…. It was fun. Not sure how genuine it was – but God does…
I was not sure what to do – whether to go or stay. So I employed the wise approach as outlined by Jesus and the wise man and stayed low and only went where I was invited to go.
Within 5 minutes it was obvious I was going to be at this wedding for a while. I was invited into the garage. It was beautifully set up for a large wedding meal. To my surprise, I was ushered to sit quite close to the head of the table where the wedding party, the parents, the grandparents and other “elders’ were seated.

I happened to be right next to this massive Maori man with a biker look, tats and dark sunglasses on (inside). You should have seen him cracking into his oysters kilpatrick! I had to duck for cover a couple of times!

What a privilege it was to be invited to the high seat, to pray at the meal, to be honoured even though a complete stranger to everyone except the bride and groom.

I remember a quote about his from Luther…
"We need to do good works because our neighbor needs them." (Martin Luther)
In that unfamiliar and therefore uncomfortable environment, I needed the good work of a family. Their kindness opened up for me a whole world of experience which has actually broadened my view of the church, Christians, family and God’s grace.

Isn’t this meant to be the heart motivation for all we are and do as Christians among a non-Christian world? We are what we are and we live the way we do because the world needs it. People’s needs are the focus of our witness to Jesus’ grace and love.

Of course, it is often other things that seem to become the goal of our church life. Maybe we become far too much like the leading Pharisee who invited Jesus to this meal in his home. We become interested in reaching people with Jesus’ love for reasons other than Jesus’ love!
Evangelism becomes about “saving the church” as in institution. It becomes about getting back that “winning feeling” for a congregation. It becomes about Christians wanting to be seen to be the moral guardians of society or even seen to be a powerful force in society.

Ask a Pharisee why he is so interested in society and one might find these motivations. Of course with these motivations of “winning”, power, influence, morality and etc any perceived threat to effectiveness in these pursuits needs to be nullified. Jesus is the threat.
He does not seem to be at all concerned with winning as human beings see winning. He does not seem to be interested in being seen as powerful or influential or a moral guardian. He turns up at a big man’s house with all the other big men waiting to trap him, assert power over him, find and expose his weaknesses and does not respond to that in kind. He takes the lowest seat and suggests that these men need to learn to do that too.

If they could learn another way different to winning, morality, power and influence they would be able to be real forces for God’s good in their world. If they could understand that ‘Not because we have value we are loved, but because we are loved, we have value’ (William Sloane Coffin), they could be released from keeping up appearances, human arrogance and callousness and actually be a person who can truly make God’s difference to people in need.

We are the same, friends We need to take the low road and take God’s invite to share who we know Jesus not to tell people what to do, to gain power over people, to get that winning feeling or to “save the church” and get people to church. No, we need to be in the love of Jesus to be the love of Jesus and Jesus love will bind his people together until the final day. He is with us always. We baptize, we teach, we take the low seat and remain open to people and respond to their invitations to come closer to what they view as important and be ourselves. In this way "We do good works because our neighbor needs them." (Martin Luther)

As Thomas Merton said once, “A tree glorifies God by being a tree.” We glorify God be being us.

Our goal is two-fold;
To be ourselves as risen and forgiven people of Christ giving our life up for the thanks and praise of God and bearing witness to Jesus’ love because people need his love – and no other prime reason.

Let’s not exalt ourselves to the status of moral guardians or powerful people or winning people as the world sees these things. Let’s do what we do here and be who God has created us to be here on the low road of service, honesty, practical conversations and actions of love and let God exalt us in the end. His exaltation is the only thing that really matters anyway.

For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

Amen

A Sabbath Rest?

Sermon
Pentecost 13C
Sunday August 22, 2010.
Ocean Forest

Luke 13: 10-17/ Isaiah 58:9b-14
A Sabbath Rest?

I wrote a short comment for the school newsletter this week on this whole thing of rest with family, self and God. I had an interesting conversation with a mum of two teens as a result of that. I wrote…

“I see lots of people giving up rest in pursuit of endless work for endless gain for some driven goal to get some place “better”. I see parents really missing their kid’s life as they leave home before dark, get home after dark, and then do a million things on the weekend, and hardly ever take a holiday during the year – “because we can’t get away from work”.
I see children becoming young men and women with minimal reference to their parents and nearly all reference to the media and their peers – almost living parallel lives to their folks because their folks have given up on resting with the, just hanging out with them and having a conversation with their kids for the sake of having a conversation with their kids!
Come on, people. Is life lived ignoring regular down time – both in families but also for your own inner spiritual life really that needed or necessary?”

This mum said her and her husband had been thinking about this for the last couple of days. She said that where she works she is under constant pressure to work more hours – and work on the weekend. She is trying to protect her weekends to be with her family. She said she knows of other mums at her work who start at 6.00am who then get the school to which their child goes to call at 9.00am to confirm the child is at school. Mum and Dad are not there for breakfast lunch or after school. She hears stories of kids of the people she work with leaving school at 3.30 and seeing no need to go home, because the house is empty and no one will be home until 5.30-6.00pm anyway, So one kid she knows just rides his bike around and gets into building sites wherever he can for something to do….

We have some very lonely children in our community who have indeed been cut loose far too early. When grade four comes around, children seem to be entrusted with their own upbringing – which will come from their peers and the TV. We wonder why we have issues with families and parenting and marriage and family?!

It was quite amazing to spend some time in the Middle East some years ago and see a culture totally devoted to planned rest – with family, including God. The Sabbath day runs the week and the family rhythm. There are things everyone does on the Sabbath and things you don’t do on the Sabbath. Why is it that the Jewish culture is so resilient an instantly recognizable?

I don’t know if anyone around our community has much sense of planned rest – observance of a regular rest where nothing gets in the way of that rest. Maybe our annual holidays are about that. Maybe trying not to work too much is the best we do.

I see even less people who have much regard for religious observance of a Sabbath day. We play sport, shop, fix things, plan for the working week, just keep working and just about anything else on the weekend – but do we really rest?

We might see a great ally for our busyness in Jesus as Christians. There is no doubt Jesus sets the welfare of individuals above religious observances such as the Sabbath. He says, "the Sabbath was created for human beings, not human beings for the Sabbath”. “People come first, not religious observance”, we say. "So, do what you need to do when you need to do it and don’t worry too much about observance of any religious rite or practice”.

For us who are not much into religious observance like Jewish people or Muslim communities etc…, this particular gospel word may not be so confronting to us who keep religious observances to a bare minimum and value a much more relaxed, personally orientated religion and hate using the word, “religion” anyway!

But, there is more to this than we might think. If we listen to both the word from God in Isaiah and the gospel word, we might get confused…

See, the first word from Isaiah urges that God’s people not "trample the Sabbath," that is, ignore religious observances to pursue their own interests (business, shopping, recreation). God is calling his people to be quite “religious” in terms of observing his call to rest with family, self and Him. Worship, conversation, the rites of the church like absolution, holy communion, baptism, funerals….. These are religious observances that really count when they are needed.

And yet Jesus is also saying that the planned rest and time with God was created for the benefit of human beings, it was not created as a legalistic thing to turn them into robotic slaves of God.

So, to observe or not to observe, that is the question!

What I hear the Spirit saying to us is that what we are free to dispense with down time with God and each other for the sake of others, but we it is not good to dispense with time with God and others in rest for the sake of ourselves and our own well-being.

Yes, we would easily give up the observance of a special day dedicated to God to take a family member to hospital or help someone in need and know that this is what God would have us do, because that is the kind of God he is – a God who sends his Son to directly challenge the warped view that religious observance is to be done at all costs – even at the cost of heart, life and mercy.

But would we see the value of observing a day a week with the Lord in front of our heads and hearts as being very much over and above the income for the mortgage, the house look, sport, shopping and everything else we fill that day with at the drop of a hat?

I am hearing Jesus affirm us for our willingness to be flexible and other-orientated when it comes to trusting that this whole one Sabbath day rest or time with him in the week is to be given up at times for the sake of other people in whatever need. That is Jesus, the Good Samaritan style, living. That is what God is always on about throughout the Bible. Human beings were not created to religiously observe the Sabbath day.

But what I am also being challenged with is the other side of this. That special day of rest in the Lord was created by God for human beings!

Friends, are we throwing out too much planned, even ‘religious’ down time with the Lord alone, with our family and with his people these days?

Why did God rest on the “7th Day” and tell us all about it? Why did God consistently call people back to that special resting with God and family? Why does Jesus both challenge what the leaders of Israel had made it (a huge burden around people’s necks that kept them from knowing God as a kind and loving heavenly Father) and yet say “the Sabbath day was created for God’s creatures”?

Religiously protected and planned rest has to be good for us. God created us and it. He has created a rhythm of faith and life for us with him. Work and Rest. Doing and praying. Receiving and giving. Dying and rising.

I hear the Lord calling us to take responsibility for not “trampling the Sabbath”. We need to make some decisions about our week, our income, our direction and our time in our week – now, not later. God wants to spend some quality time with us alone and in our close circle. We need to spend some quality time with him – even a whole day per week.

And here’s the payoff for committing to God our time and rest within that time.

“If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; {14} then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth…” Isaiah 58:13-14

Rest in God brings delight, a new joy to the relationships – just like rest with the kids or your partner or friends regularly. Rest makes for delight and the ability to enjoy life and do well in our relationships and work.

So, what will it be for us – will we be a family and a people in this community who clear space, even religiously, for rest with each other and more importantly, with the Lord in his Word and in his world – for more than an hour or two in a week – but 12 hours per week?
Hear God’s promise if we get quite “religious” or protective about this rest with him….
Isaiah 58:9b-14

The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. {12} Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. Isaiah 58:11-12

And how these streets need to be repaired by joy-filled, life-giving, restful people of God!
Amen

The straw and the wheat

Sermon
Pentecost 11C
Sunday August 15, 2010.

The straw and the wheat
Fire and Hammer
Jeremiah 23:23-29

As you probably know, I am a bit of a “culture watcher”. As I read various people’s comments on how things are today in the spiritual arena of life, there is this unanimous opinion that we are living in times in which anything goes and it is very much about the individual.

God calls out to people seeking spiritual connection and declares that he is more than any human spiritual seeking or dreaming.

Am I a God nearby, says the LORD, and not a God far off?
Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? says the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the LORD.

God interrupts the human search for spiritual connection and meaning in all kinds of places these days, with a striking truth. He, the beginning of all things is very close and yet, in the same breath, very far beyond. He is minute and massive at the same time – intimately aware of me and yet far beyond me. (Jeremiah 23:23-24)

In the days of Jeremiah, when the nation was under the pump economically, politically and even militarily, the people who once believed that God was indeed beyond and close gave this up and satisfied their anxiety, doubt and fear by seeking other things. They sought the visions and dreams of each other, or of the people judged to be “spiritually connected” or wise or gifted in the mysterious world of dreaming and seeing things.

When you think about it, this is easier in a way. If I seek God, he might tell me what I don’t want to here. If I seek a dream or vision of a guru – even a Christian guru, then I can more easily take my pick among the dreamers and hear what I think I need and want to hear anyway.

The leaders of Israel were hearing the guru’s say that everything will be alright. Everything will be fine. We can get ourselves out of these troubled times ourselves. Do some deals. Make some relationships, take some shortcuts to power and even spiritual experience – consult a medium, see a seer – everything will be alright….

The cost of course was ‘minor’. Just a few Ashoreh poles to worship things of stone and wood. That is no big deal is it?

Jeremiah finds himself totally marginalized by proclaiming that faithfulness to the Lord’s word is the ONLY thing that matters, and the only thing that will keep the community united and strong.

And like now, that word was an unpopular word. God dares to suggest that the only way a human being can find the only spiritual connection that really counts and that can really make all the difference to ones present and future well-being is his speaking, not human striving or even dreaming.

I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, "I have dreamed, I have dreamed!"
Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? says the LORD.
Is not my word like fire, says the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? (Jeremiah 23:25-29)

The “weeds and the wheat”. The weeds which are here today and gone tomorrow with no lasting value to human beings are the dreams, visions, and mystic experiences of human beings. The wheat is the solid, already spoken word of God which is the lasting thing, the thing of great benefit to people because it is truth and it actually gives life to human beings.

We know this. We have heard it and thought about it countless times. For many reasons, not the least of which being that we are products of our own individualistic and “anything goes” culture, we don’t know how to hear God’s spoken word much or don’t actually think we need to.

For this reason God uses his Word like a hammer. God’s word is a hammer. It needs to be in order to crack open our stone hearts at times. Stone, because we are busy, we are focused on ourselves, because we are faithless at times.
We are unsure, wounded, angry, hurt, and a million other conditions! But maybe the worst “condition” we have is our self-righteousness. We have this ability to revel in our own goodness. As someone once said, it is not until we repent of pride in our own good deeds that we will experience the joy of Jesus’ forgiveness. We all expect to confess our bad bits, but what about our pride in our good bits? God speaks his word of Law to our stone hearts, says Luther…

Hence God says through Jeremiah (23:29): “My Word is a hammer which breaks the rock in pieces.” For as long as the presumption of righteousness remains in a man, there remain immense pride, self-trust, smugness, hate of God, contempt of grace and mercy, ignorance of the promises and of Christ. The proclamation of free grace and the forgiveness of sins does not enter his heart and understanding, because that huge rock and solid wall, namely, the presumption of righteousness by which the heart itself is surrounded, prevents this from happening.

Therefore this presumption of righteousness is a huge and a horrible monster. To break and crush it, God needs a large and powerful hammer, that is, the Law, which is the hammer of death, the thunder of hell, and the lightning of divine wrath. To what purpose? To attack the presumption of righteousness, which is a rebellious, stubborn, and stiff-necked beast. And so when the Law accuses and terrifies the conscience—“You must do this or that! You have not done so! Then the heart is crushed to the point of despair.

Therefore the Law is a hammer that crushes rocks, a fire, a wind, and a great and mighty earthquake that overturns mountains. (Luther's Works, vol 26, 19)

If anyone felt the crack of a hammer in the body and in the heart it was Jesus of Nazareth in his “baptism of fire”, as Luke records in the gospel word for today.
49"I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Luke 12:49

He was distressed and he completed it for you and me! The hammer of God’s law struck him and he bled, until enough human blood had been spilled. But it was not his self-righteousness and sin that was being struck. It was mine. It was yours. He took the hammer of God’s Law in full and the Law was completely fulfilled in the perfect and innocent human being – the close and yet mighty Son of God. As that beaten body rose in joy from the Law’s end – death, the harvest began and it still going.

“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few”, says Jesus the King. If this God is my God and this Jesus is the One that has taken the consequences of my self-righteousness and in its place given me a home where I belong, in God’s family and made God’s beloved friend, then I must know him.

The truth is that I can know him because his Word is here for me. It is the wheat. Speculation, dreams, visions, may be part of our journey, but nothing comes close to the Word of Jesus in that thing we have been gifted, the Bible.

It is him here and now. We could do a lot of seeking in the dreams, visions, opinions and lives of others and still only come up with an all together too small God, or an altogether too big God. Either way it would not be the only living God. We could, on the other hand, seek our spiritual connection where God promises to be heard – in the wheat, the hammer and the fire of his given word.

Let the hammer fall, O God. Break this stone heart of mine. Take my self-righteousness into yourself and grace ne with you love and kindness that I may live and move and have my being in you and find my rest in you. Amen.

Asylum Seekers

Sermon
Pentecost 11C
Sunday August 15, 2010
Ocean Forest
Asylum seekers
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

“Stop the boats” has become a central election slogan for both parties in this election campaign. That name “Asylum seeker” has come to be associated with negative things, like cheat, illegal, stupid, unfortunate, preyed upon, misled……

We hear the stories of people leaving their own country and being named, “Asylum seeker”, and wonder, what would you have to be hoping for to be an asylum seeker? What would you be certain of? How motivated by a hope would you need to be to trust some dodgy person with your life savings as you step on to a very rickety and severely cramped boat for a 2000km sea journey with your loved ones in tow? You would have to have a great hope of finding a better place – a place of asylum, safety, prosperity – life.

This word from the writer to the Hebrews speaks of God’s people in the past (before Jesus) seeking “a better country”, a better place – seeking asylum with God in the world.
“People are looking for a country of their own……they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them”.

Friends, are we seeking God’s asylum these days? Unlike the home country of people wanting to run the gauntlet and reach our shores because of poverty, oppression and hopelessness, we are happy to be here for the most part. Are we or should we be desperate enough to risk all for God’s new heavenly country called, “The Kingdom of God”, as Jesus named it?

Whether we are still seeking God’s new country as intensely as assylum seekers on boats, or have even a minimal interest in what God is offering, God is not ashamed of people looking for something – a better country, a heavenly country, a place of belonging. God is not ashamed of asylum seekers who seek his better place.
I got to thinking…….

What seen or unseen things am I absolutely certain about?
• I am alive right now.
• I will always pay tax.
• I will always be an Australian
• I have people in my life that love me, depend on me and will always do that.
• I have people around me that I will know for some time – short or long.
• I will experience conflict, hurt and pain of all kinds in the future.
• I will experience some good moments – achievements, places, mile stones of myself and my family.
• I will experience grief and loss in various ways – some very painful, some not so.
• I will die sometime – it could be any time.
• I don’t know where I will live or work in the future – maybe you do.
• I don’t know who I will work with in the future – maybe you do.
• I don’t know what will happen to me tomorrow or after that – I know you don’t know that for sure either – even if you have planned it out.

When we think like this two emotions might be near – One is exhilaration: The future is open. Good things can happen in our lives. We can see new things, live new experiences and find new people and joys. We can see God in new ways.

The second is deflating for the ego. We hit the realty that we don’t know much really. We hit the realty that we can’t see much and that we certainly cannot control much! I am not as big or as important or as good as I think I am.

As a modern person I tend to put my faith in technology and work. If I get the right stuff then I will create conditions for illusive happiness. If I work a lot and make a lot then I will be able to get a lot of the things I need to create the conditions for “happiness” for myself and my family and friends – maybe even the country or the world!

But when I hear this “Faith Hall of Fame” that the writer to the Hebrews speaks of, I hear nothing of working hard or buying technology or things. Obviously in the Creator’s scheme of things, his “better country”, has not much to do with either hard work or achievements or things.

He says our hope comes from a “faith that is being certain of the things we already hope for and certain of things we do not even see”.
So, what do we hope for and what don’t we see? Let’s think about that now…..
What am I really hoping for?

• To see more of God’s world.
• To enjoy life with family.
• To work in a role that fulfils my aspirations
• To contribute something good to the world
• To live a long time?
• To see the grandkids come along
• To ride my bike tomorrow.
• To witness another WC Eagles Premiership (wait a long time for that one!)
To……(your hopes….)
So it seems that we are all asylum seekers; small and great and God is not ashamed of us. In our pondering of life and the future and our certainties, we are actually seeking God and his presence. With the promises of God in our ears – the promise of belonging, community, life, forgiveness – we are actually all seeking his better country, his better city he has prepared for us. We have a deep longing inside of us to search for a find God’s certain hope of a better way, a better place, a better life in him.

All these people the writer to the Hebrews holds up as people who hoped for things unseen and who were certain of the things for which they hoped did so because they were in relationship to God. We need the same.

He goes so far as to say that all these people of faith only saw the better country from a distance because they were waiting for us to join them before entering it in full. They knew God’s power and grace. We know it more than them because the new country has come to us – Jesus has brought God’s heavenly country to us in person and it is there we live and move and have our being – with Jesus.

By the cross and the tomb, Jesus has opened up the new country for us and these OT witness of God’s grace. We are not just looking at the new country from a distance, we are in it already – in part, but soon, fully. By our baptism we entered it and by God’s sustaining word we are sustained in the heavenly country.

Friends, are you longing for this new country of God’s these days? Are you still seeking his all embracing love and acceptance in your very soul?. In your list of things hoped for, is God’s affirmation and love for you and his promises to keep you in his future for you there?

You may have given up on anything good in your future. You may have replaced God’s future with your own – thereby going it alone and “hoping for the best”.
God calls out to us today and invites us back into his future for us. He calls us to receive certainty of his presence, his enduring and broad love and kindness for each of us. He reminds us that we have a place at his table and share his family name and that we have one foot in the new country and one foot still on the journey to it with him.

A wonderful prayer by Thomas Merton goes well with this reading, and we can almost imagine the letter-writer including it as a closing: "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone" (Thoughts in Solitude).
Amen.

To our "turned off church" community...

I read this Open Letter by Ron Rolheiser, a Romans Catholic writer, priest and commentator, and wondered if it might be what we would like to say to many people in our own community of Ocean Forest?

An Open Letter to those who don't go to Church
English | Spanish

2010-01-31


Dear Fellow Pilgrim:

I greet you as someone who is looking for meaning and happiness, as we all are. I know you're sincere or you wouldn't be reading this letter. Know this first of all: We miss you at church. There's not a Sunday goes by when your absence isn't felt. You're missed. Join us.

Yes, I know this isn't a simple thing. The heart has its reasons, Pascal said. Well the church too has its complexities. Perhaps it is precisely one of these complexities that make it difficult for you to walk regularly through a church door. So l won't try to sugarcoat the church. It is a far-from-perfect expression of God's love and mercy and it is a far-from-perfect expression of God's universal salvific will for everyone. Sometimes the church blocks God's love as much as it reveals it. It has been, and remains, a vehicle both of grace and sin. How do we get past its dark side?

Carlo Carretto, the renowned Italian spiritual writer, in his old age, wrote this Ode to the church:


How much I must criticize you, my church, and yet how much I love you!


You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe more to you than to anyone.


I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.


You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness.


Never in this world have I seen anything more compromised, more false, and yet I have never touched anything more pure, more generous or more beautiful.


Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face-and yet, every night, I have prayed that I might die in your sure arms!


No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you, even if not completely you.


Then too-where would I go?


To build another church?


But I could not build one without the same defects, for they are my defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ's church.


No, I am old enough. I know better!


That's a mature description of the church, expressing both love and realism. It's an honest description too. The church has a long history, both of grace and of sin and we who make up the church on earth don't do God very well. Nobody does. We need to admit that.

I can only guess at your reasons for not coming to church regularly or for not coming to church at all: Perhaps you have been hurt by the church, by the institution itself or by one of its priests or ministers. Perhaps you have been one of those who have experienced it as callous, as insensitive, as denigrating you in some way. Or perhaps you are intellectually disenchanted with the church, unable to square its claims with your own sane grip on life and its mysteries. Or perhaps you have found what you are looking for elsewhere, outside the doors of the church you attended when you were little. Or perhaps you have just drifted away and don't think about church very much at all. Perhaps you don't feel a need for church in your life. Or, perhaps you are convinced that Jesus and his teachings are in fact tainted by the church, that Jesus never wanted to found a church, but wanted only that people take his teachings to heart and live in love and graciousness. There are many reasons why people don't go to church. I can only guess at yours.

But your reason for not going is not important for this letter. I don't want to defend the church here, make some kind of apologetics for it, or argue against any of the reasons that people give for not coming to church. And I don't want to try to show you reasons why, I think, it is important to go to church. This I not an apologetics, but a plea, an invitation:

Come back! Try us again! Or, if you have never belonged to the church, try us!

Maybe this time you will find life in the church and be able to drink in some of its graces. Maybe this time you will find it in you to forgive the church for its faults, see those faults are your own faults, and see why Jesus picked such an imperfect vehicle to carry on his presence. Maybe this time you will be able to see in the church what Jesus saw in it - an imperfect body made up of men and women like you and me, full of sin, full of ourselves, petty, small-hearted, less-than- sincere, miserly, and tainted, but also full of grace, full of Christ, big-hearted, sincere, generous, and pure, a group of men and women worth dying for - and belonging to. Come be with us!

A fellow pilgrim and a flawed church member.