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Sermon
Epiphany 3A
Sunday January 23rd, 2011.
Ocean Forest

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Matthew 4:12-23

There is a lot of talk about leadership these days. Finding “the leader within” seems to have become a demand we place on people and ourselves. If we are not “developing our leadership skills set” we are deemed to be lazy, dumb or weak in the world of personal leadership development.

What do we then make of the Leader of all leaders whose authority surpasses the chief leaders of the world, when he calls what would definitely be seen as the wrong people from the wrong place for the wrong thing.

Jesus calls uneducated subsistence workers and small family business employees from a hick town up north in dark/unclean territory, and he calls them not to lead, but follow! It seems Jesus’ way is operating very differently to the human way of things here!


Let’s set the scene…..
Jesus has recently experienced that great moment of personal and public affirmation in his calling to fulfil the work of God’s Kingdom in his Baptism by John in the Jordan. “This is my Son, whom I love and with whom I well pleased. Listen to him” says the Father to the Son in the hearing of all. Just as John had already said, the Kingdom is on the march in the world. The One promised to lead a new life is now here to do just that.

Within a flash we are in the hunger, darkness, temptation and evil of the desert conversation between the Leader of Darkness and the Servant of Light. The humble One, who rests in his Father’s word and authority triumphs for the time being at least.

Then the public travelling mission begins and there is a pouring out of God’s power, love and healing on local people. The Leader is on the move. He moves in gracious and powerful serving and loving of people.

But there is grief and sadness as well – and yet at the same time hope. John, the one who prepared the way before Jesus by calling people to repent, baptising them and being imprisoned innocently has now just been executed innocently. John the Baptist, cousin, mentor and friend is tragically dead at the hands of Herod.

Almost to script, Jesus, instead of diving in where angels fear to tread, in the way a great up and coming leader might, withdraws from the public view of the city with its learned people and powerful men who claim to be experts in leadership under God. He heads as far away from the centre of religion and influence he can get – Galilee.


But he is exactly where he knows he is to be. He is right in the ways of God as he fulfils the ancient promise to do with God’s light breaking into God’s world from this far away, dark place. He is in


15 "Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles— as the promise of God always said he would be.

Jesus’ way becomes even more opposed to our “power and influence” thinking on leadership when he then calls some people by name. It is a specific and yet vague call. “Simon, Andrew, James, John….Follow me”. “Follow me and I will make something else of you. I will make you fishers of people”.

He names them and definitely wants each one of them personally. Yet, it is to a largely not understood purpose – you will be “catchers of people” into God’s way. God will work through you to draw in other people to the sphere of Jesus and his way in the world. – a bit mysterious!

Jesus chooses to gift and call very average people doing very average things. His call is a gift. It is a privilege because it transforms those to whom the call is given. There is no basis within the one being called for the call – Jesus just calls. They weren’t even looking or ready for the call. They definitely were not prepared for the task.

When he said, "Follow me," he apparently wasn't concerned that these followers might not turn out to be model disciples. Indeed, they were often dense and hard to teach, and on the rare occasions when they did understand him they would usually try to talk him out of his ideas. They squabbled about who was greatest. One of them betrayed him. And no one stuck around when the going got tough.

Jesus simply said, "Follow me," and something in the way he said it pointed to God so clearly that two, then four, then 12 decided that whatever Jesus had to offer was worth leaving their old lives for. And as far as Jesus was concerned, their willingness to get up and follow was credentials enough. He would make his community out of this diverse, contentious dozen.

Here’s what I am hearing about us and our call now:
Everyone is ok in Jesus’ eyes to get the call up. No one is on the bench or out of the team. No person can say “it is not my calling” to work for Jesus’ kingdom in the everyday world of school, work, family….


He chose people of all kinds. Thomas Long, the American theologian and preacher sees these four disciples as "representative" of those who will follow Jesus in the future: "Jesus summons people from the fabric of family relationships…and from the midst of the workaday world…into a new set of relationships and a new vocation".
Barbara Lemmel , New York State. Christian Century, January 6-13, l999

The call is not based on the person being called – your character, personality, family background, skills, work history, status, effectiveness, skill set, leadership understanding, righteousness, holiness, morality, sinlessness, intelligence or looks.

The Call is based on the one doing the calling – his choice, his insight, his gracious approach, his plan, his mission and the “success” of the call is also based on him.

He promises to do all the creating. “I will make you fishers of people – not you, but me”.

The effectiveness and success of your calling to be people who work Jesus in his mission of drawing all people into the grace and love of God is dependent on his living Word about our lives, death and our baptism resurrection.

I hear that a leader is only as great as he is faithful to Jesus’ call. We are called to be faithful to the word of the Caller as he shapes us into useful carriers of his invitation to sinners to come and find water for empty souls.


Jesus did not call these people to be anything but followers first and leaders of others second. Following was the call, not leading. So, as we hear about leadership and discovering out gifts and skills and training ourselves in our work and life roles, we do it as followers of the Master first and always, lest we fall for the usual sin of crediting ourselves or others with the success and the skills.

All is his: The Call is his, the transformation of our character is his and even the message is his – the message that others judge as foolishness – the message of the love of God triumphing in crucifixion and resurrection from death.


We follow a person not an idea or set of principal or a formula for “success” in life. We follow him – his voice, his way, his voice, his example, his grace given in bread and wine and his community called the church

We follow the Master and Saviour of our lives first and always, even as we learn to lead others if that be our place.


A last heard thing:
As we said at the beginning, there is a lot of talk and expectation toward being “leaders” in our time. It is easy to go on a hunt for things that will supposedly make me a better person, giver me more status, more of a person who influences my spouse, partner, kids and other people. There is a lot or pressure in some people’s lives to become “Leaders with influence” to get more dollars and more respect in the business or company or school…..


Friend, let’s keep following and let the leadership come after that. Let’s follow first and most and let the Lord transform our character, words and actions into ones that attract and influence and deliver to him people to be forgiven and restored to his love. As we follow first and most, we may become the leaders we need to be in our family and community – but in his Way and as he sees best.


Jesus is still your Saviour and he lives here among us in the beach-side place and he is calling – “follow me, man, woman, young man/woman, young boy/girl. Follow me”.

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.