tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56046348299933398492024-02-07T04:42:08.709+00:00Preaching Peacesermons from wood green mennonite churchPeterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-36200882819816974062013-06-11T20:40:00.001+01:002013-06-11T20:40:36.689+01:00This blog, Preaching Peace, has now moved to a new location. Please follow this link:<br />
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<a href="http://wgmc.wordpress.com/preaching-peace-blog">wgmc.wordpress.com/preaching-peace-blog</a>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-82503447221009506912012-07-08T03:30:00.000+01:002012-08-06T21:41:17.122+01:00Reflections on a Theme of Silence<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">Leader: Phil</span></h1>
<h2 style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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</span></span></span>Today there are only a few of us but it gives us
an opportunity to do something different<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span>We’ll be reflecting on silence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span>This could be a very short and quiet time
together, but silence is more than an absence of what happens when words run
out.<o:p></o:p></div>
<h2 style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Conserving
Silence<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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</span></span></span><i>Isaiah <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px;">34:11-13;
35: 7-9a</span></i></div>
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</span></span></span>When Anna and I were house-hunting we came
across a house in Highams Park on Sky Peal road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Huge house by Epping Forest with a forest
gate at the bottom of the garden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
blighted by noise of road.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span>Conservations talk a lot about endangered
species but silence itself is endangered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Defra maps shows noise pollution [picture 1 – noise map, from <a href="http://services.defra.gov.uk/wps/portal/noise">http://services.defra.gov.uk/wps/portal/noise</a>].
Shared quiet spaces are in retreat.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span></span>Our reading from Isaiah shows a two-way process<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span>Can anyone guess what [picture 2’( Coptic forest
) is?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Ethiopian Orthodox Church preserves forests
around their churches as pictures of Eden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Known as Coptic forests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Planted
to prevent prayers being lost to the sky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Churches surrounded by sounds (silence) of the forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Creates a haven for creatures and clean
springs where 95% of forest felled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>35,000 forest like that in Ethiopia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span>What would it mean if every church adapted the
same principle around our places of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>worship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some positive UK
examples in old churchyards<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Wild Wood<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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</span></span></span>Silence not just what happens in absence of
noise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Refers to listening
(attentiveness) as well as what we hear or don’t hear in the outside word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bloom
p.108</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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</span></span></span>Many different kinds of silence: quiet of a
Quaker meeting, an awkward silence, a pregnant pause, silence that gives depth
to words (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bloom p.6</i>), silence that
happens when people are afraid to speak up, birding stillness, silence of
space, silence of a place far from human settlement – only the sound of wind
and water, a contested silence (e.g. Friars garden).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Silence can be restful, inspiring but also
frightening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Silence in forest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Maitland
reading p.173<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and [picture 3 - ratty]</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span>Also in Lord of Rings – watchful, unsettling
silence in forest<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span>Silence exists not only in space but in
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Silence of a forest is older than
we are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span></span>This is a wild silence. Wild, wilderness –
beyond our control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Silence is untamed
by words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<h2 style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Finding
Ourselves in Silence<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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</span></span></span>Anabaptist tradition is largely community
minded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peaceable like Quakers but
noisier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span></span>Not wholly true in first generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span></span>Means we have something to learn from traditions
that have an emphasis on silence (Quakers and Trappists)<o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Maitland
Reading p.155<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>[<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Picture 4 – Henry Thoreau<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-
Walden</i>]<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span>Silence and solitude good to get priorities
straight – to know what’s important<o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span></span>Early monks went out in desert – found
themselves in silence<o:p></o:p></div>
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</span></span></span>They went to meet God and themselves (demons)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span></span>Our world is a human construction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Based on lies – that we can exist on our
own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Silence and solitude teaches us how
we are ‘related’ and who we are.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-85838915856722522012012-05-20T15:30:00.000+01:002012-08-07T14:13:38.191+01:00Peace in the family<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;">Preacher: Sue</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">This is the second in a sermon series devised by Veronica. The sermon titles move progressively outward, in concentric circles, starting with “peace in the soul” 5 weeks ago and then looking in turn at </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Peace in the home/family (today!), Peace in the church/es, Peace in the workplace, Peace in the local community, Peace in the nation and Peace between nations. Peace is a key Mennonite concern and this structure helps us to remember that peace begins at home – or even closer to the core of our being than that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">I found it hard to know what to say about peace in the soul because I felt so ill-qualified by my own life to talk about the subject. That applies today as well. But it’s also hard because I’m just not sure there is a clear biblical message on peace in the family. The bible is full of not very peaceful or functional families. Jesus’ teaching and throwaway comments on family are far from straightforward.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Let’s start with the first issue, and here I’m going to ask you to do some of the work. I’d like the people on this side of the room (you can work in pairs or small groups) to come up with some suggestions of families in the bible where there is not much peace, preferably the least peaceful families you can think of in the bible. And I’d like people on this side of the room – and I think your task may be harder! - to come up with some suggestions of families in the bible which do seem to have peace, preferably the most peaceful families. I’ll ask both groups to report back in a few minutes, not just with names but also telling us what made you put them in your category.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">So, we have an interesting pattern here…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">In our founding stories, there is a rich mixture of family experience, including plenty of very troubled relationships. Maybe that prompts us to turn away from the stories in search of greater clarity in instructions and commands about family.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">But here too it’s a bit of a mixed picture. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal;">In the Old Testament of course there’s the commandment, one of the ten commandments, to “</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal;">Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” And in Proverbs </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal;">children are told to </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal;">keep their father's instruction and not to forsake their mother's teaching. There’s plenty of encouragement to strong discipline. We might see that as a way of having peace in the family, a clear pattern for the flow of authority from parents to children and of respect from children to parents.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal;">But imagine a parent who’s tried that and somehow it just hasn’t worked and there’s conflict and clashes in the family. They’re at their wits’ end… Maybe they turn to the Old Testament for advice on dealing with a wayward teenager. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal;">Deut 21:18-21 has some advice, but it’s not instantly recognisable as a peaceful means to a peaceful end:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal;"> </span></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">18</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him,</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">19</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">20</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">They shall say to the elders of his town, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard."</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">21</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Now of course our prime example and teacher is Jesus, who conveniently both is part of a family and comments on his own family and families in general. So let’s have a look at how he behaved in his birth family and what he had to say about his own family and families in general. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Artists over the centuries have painted countless pictures of the “holy family”, usually looking calm & contented if not busy fleeing into Egypt. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Christmas carols tell us that Jesus slept perfectly as a baby, never cried on waking and grew up mild, obedient and good… But then in Luke 2 we find him lingering in the temple chatting while his parents go half-crazy with worry at having lost him. At best you might describe this as teenage lack of awareness of others, at worst as thoughtlessness & disobedience. And he doesn’t seem to put his immediate family before all other concerns. Let’s hear Mark 3:31-35.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">31</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">32</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">are outside, asking for you."</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">33</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?"</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">34</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">And looking at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers!</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">35</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Not exactly a recipe for a smooth relationship with his family (or indeed the stuff of “family values” rhetoric). And in Luke 14 it gets worse. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">25</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them,</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">26</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">27</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;"> … </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">33</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">And Matthew 10 is no better:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">35</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">36</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">and one's foes will be members of one's own household.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">37</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">38</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">39</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Hardly peace in the family… It seems that to follow Jesus we have to “hate” our closest family members, and that it’s fully Jesus intention that following him will bring conflict and disagreement in the family.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">I think this a helpful corrective to what CS Lewis has described as a kind of idolatry of the family. But it isn’t the whole story. I think in its context this instruction to hate our family is not about hating – just as we don’t have to hate our time, money and possessions in order to be willing to give them up as necessary. Rather we have to give them their proper place in our priorities and passions, not letting them displace God, and we are called to be ready to part with them or give them away generously when necessary. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Of course there are settings – the early church, the early days of the Anabaptist movement - where these choices would have been stark. For us it may be less obvious how to give proper weight to these words of Jesus. Perhaps they’re a warning against selfish choices ostensibly made for our family’s sake because they actually appeal more to us. It may suit us very well, to take a rather crass example, to say that we have to earn lots of money and live somewhere comfortable & affluent because that is what our family needs. Or perhaps it cautions us not to be so determined to do the best for our families that we are willing to sacrifice everyone and everything else to that cause. Some of you here have made choices about what is the right way for our communities to work in general that have had implications for your family life in particular, for instance where your children grew up, what privileges they did or didn’t have, and I think this may be one way of living in the spirit of Jesus’ teaching</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">But, as usual, there’s a balance to be struck. Let’s hear </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Mark 7:9-13</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">9</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Then he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">10</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">For Moses said, "Honour your father and your mother'; and, "Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.'</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">11</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, "Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban' (that is, an offering to God</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">)—</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">12</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother,</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">13</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">So while we need to be careful not to idolise family or let keeping the peace in the family become an excuse for acting selfishly, it’s still important to work at relationships that are peaceful and show that flow of respect from children to parents that we talked about earlier. This passage is partly about the hypocrisy of a religious establishment giving permission for people to give lots of money to the temple instead of to their parents. But here Jesus also emphasises the need for children to take </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">actual </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">care of their parents, not just fulfil some other civic or religious duty instead. We can’t say, “oh, I have a peaceful and generous relationship with God and with my church and Jesus says we may have to hate our family so it’s OK for me to ignore or mistreat or fight with my family”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">These two apparently opposite strands come together in Jesus’ words on the cross in John 19:25-27.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">25b</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">26</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son."</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">27</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;">Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">On the one hand, in letting his mother lose her son and his brothers lose their brother, Jesus is prioritising the call of the God and the bringing in of the kingdom of God over the preferences and needs of his family. On the other hand, he’s remembering an apparently contradictory call to honour his mother and to cherish and care for her in her old age, and making sure that someone else can do this in his place. (And in an interesting twist the person who will do this is not another relative but Jesus’ close friend, a reminder again that in the kingdom of God it’s not only family that count and not only the nuclear family that can be family.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">So, just as I feared when I started preparing this sermon, it’s a mixed picture. In a way I find that comforting. Our families can be where we feel most safe and treasured or where we suffer the most pain, partly because there is often the most at stake. Or both at different times. Or both at once. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">So if things are not always plain sailing, if we don’t always seem to make a good job of maintaining peace with our family members, if we make a mess of conversations in our families that in any other setting we would sail through with wisdom, maturity and gracious generosity – then maybe it’s reassuring to think that there is not one simple biblical model or command that we are wilfully ignoring or failing to live up to, but that families can just be quite difficult… </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">And maybe the best we can do here is remember </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Romans 12:17 – 18. “17</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">18</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">” It’s both wildly ambitious – live peaceably with all – and recognises that sometimes in a family there is more going on under the surface and in others than we can hope to deal with. So all we are called to do is what we can do, as far as it depends on us to “live peaceably with all”.</span></div>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-58911246071035577352012-05-11T03:30:00.000+01:002012-08-06T21:36:43.270+01:00Grace<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Bold"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">WGMC Sermon 11
March 2012<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Bold"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Readings:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Bold"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Psalm
19:1-10<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">1</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
heavens are telling the glory of God;</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> and
the firmament proclaims his handiwork.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">2</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Day to day pours forth
speech,</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> and
night to night declares knowledge.</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">3</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> There
is no speech, nor are there words;</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> their
voice is not heard;</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">4</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> yet their voice goes out through
all the earth,</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> and
their words to the end of the world.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> In
the heavens </span><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">he
has set a tent for the sun,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">5</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> which
comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">and like a strong man runs its course
with joy.</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">6</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Its
rising is from the end of the heavens,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> and
its circuit to the end of them;</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">and nothing is hid from its heat.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">7</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> The
law of the Lord is perfect,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> reviving
the soul;</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> the decrees of the Lord are
sure,</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> making
wise the simple;</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">8</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> the
precepts of the Lord are right,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> rejoicing
the heart;</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">the commandment of the Lord is clear,</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> enlightening
the eyes;</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">9</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> the
fear of the Lord is pure,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> enduring
forever;</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">the ordinances of the Lord are true</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> and
righteous altogether.</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">10</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> More
to be desired are they than gold,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> even
much fine gold;</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">sweeter also than honey,</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman Italic"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> and
drippings of the honeycomb.</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Bold"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">John 2:13-22</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">13</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to
Jerusalem. </span><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">14</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In the temple he found people selling cattle,
sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. </span><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">15</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple,
both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money
changers and overturned their tables. </span><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">16</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">He
told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop
making my Father’s house a marketplace!”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #fc1405; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">17</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">His
disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume
me.” </span><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">18</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you
show us for doing this?” </span><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">19</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and
in three days I will raise it up.”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #fc1405; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">20</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The Jews then said, “This temple has been under
construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” </span><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">21</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">But he was speaking of the temple of his body. </span><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">22</span></sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered
that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus
had spoken.<br clear="all" style="page-break-before: always;" />
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Bold"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">WGMC
Sermon 11 March 2012<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Before I started writing this
sermon, I wanted to talk about the grace of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A simple definition of grace is that it’s the
undeserved, freely given love of God towards us, regardless of any moral worth
of our own. Then I looked at the lectionary readings for today and found that
they included the Ten Commandments, and the praise of the Law in Psalm 19. I
realized that I would have to talk about law first, and the complicated
relationship between law and grace. So here goes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Christians, though not
Anabaptists, have often been keen on trying to recall society to the Ten
Commandments. When I was young there always seemed to be<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>some Christian campaign happening to bring
the nation’s attention to these ten rules for living;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>though<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>like many<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christian campaigns
they never seemed<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to have much impact.
Nor did John Major’s ‘Back to basics’ campaign which was in some ways a secular
version of the same thing - and one has to note the irony that the man who was
calling the country back to traditional morality, had<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>himself broken the seventh commandment by
having an extramarital affair with Edwina Currie. So much for back to basics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There’s nothing wrong with the
Ten Commandments in themselves. They’re one of the best sets of rules around
for living a God-centred life and caring for your fellow human beings. David
Armes shared with us not long ago how the Ten Commandments had helped him in
his quest for mental health. And although Christians often dismiss Judaism as a
rule-based religion,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the Old Testament
is actually full of praise of the law as a great gift from God, a sign of God’s
love. There is no sense in Psalm 19, which we read together,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that the law is burdensome, or impossible to
keep. Rather, just as we can discover God’s presence through the beauties of
the created world, so we are to sense and enjoy God’s goodness in the moral
law. The law was, in fact, for the ancient Jews (and perhaps too for modern
ones) a sign of God’s grace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The trouble is, it’s so easy to
slip from respecting the moral law,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>into
thinking that to please God, all we have to do is obey certain simple rules
(which always seem to get more complicated the deeper you go into them). And
when you start basing your spiritual life on a set of rules, it’s only a step
away from<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>becoming rigid, judgmental and
hypocritical, as so many Christian sects have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the past I’ve heaard
Christians say that the work of the Holy Spirit in our life is to help us to
obey God’s laws. I’ve always felt uneasy with this. John’s Gospel<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>tells us Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit
and of grace, but<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus himself
repeatedly broke the Jewish law:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sabbath
laws, laws about purity, laws about how men were supposed to relate to women
and to Gentiles (preferably as little as possible), and all sorts of other
rules of the Judaism of his day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of course there is an easy way to
get round Jesus’ repeated law-breaking: you simply say that the Jews of the day
had added all kinds of unbiblical extra laws, which God never wanted, to the
simple biblical law. Then you say it was only these laws that Jesus broke.
Unfortunately, this interpretation simply doesn’t work. There are all sorts of
laws Jesus broke which are clearly there in the Bible - the laws against
touching a dead body for instance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Another way to slice this is to
separate the moral law from the ceremonial law, and say it’s only the moral law
that we are meant to keep, and that the Spirit’s job is to help us keep it.
This has more mileage in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But apart
from the difficulty of determining which is which, it also still leaves us with
a religion which is essentially about how well we behave. Which doesn’t seem to
have much to do with undeserved grace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of course you can err in the
other direction, as Anabaptists have been keen to point out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>St Paul was very hot on the opposition
between law and grace, especially in Romans and Galatians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many have interpreted this to mean that
salvation is purely about accepting God’s grace through faith, and that how we
live contributes nothing to our salvation. Some even say that once we are
‘saved’, nothing we do can erase our salvation. This is extremely
un-Anabaptist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In recent years scholars have
come up<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with ‘the new perspective on
Paul’. This sees<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>him, when he talks
about law and grace, as talking about more about the Jewish law, not morality
or good works as such, which God still calls for. The new perspective has been
welcomed by Anabaptists, who have for five hundred years insisted that the
grace of God doesn’t mean we can disregard moral behaviour. Yes, we are saved
by grace through faith, but we still have to live a life of Christian
discipleship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I lived in a
theological college, the students were set an essay on ‘What are we saved
from?’ This<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>struck me as a very odd
question. I believe we are saved not just </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">from</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
something but </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">for</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> something: to
live a Christlike life, to join God<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in
the transformation of the world. And salvation isn’t just about rescuing
individuals from destruction, it’s about creating a community of salvation
through whom God will make a new heavens and a new earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So it isn’t all about keeping the
rules, but nor is it all about believing the right things. Faith and works,
grace and law,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>go together and can’t be
separated without harm. But that still leaves me wanting to talk about grace,
more than I want to talk about law. And one reason for this is that I suspect
we Anabaptists have not been very good at grace over the centuries -
particularly in the use of the ban. I actually think that when Jesus said in
Matthew 18 that if your fellow Christian refuses to repent, you should treat
them like a Gentile or a tax collector, he didn’t mean ‘shun them’, he meant
‘regard them as a non-Christian, since they are not behaving like a Christian’.
What do we do with non-Christians? We proclaim the good news of Jesus to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dealing with the relationship
between law and grace, or faith and works, is a very fine balancing act. We
Mennonites place a lot of emphasis on how we live our daily lives, and on
Jesus’ life as a model for ours. This is a key conviction for us, and it is
important that we keep to it. But we have a particular danger, along with other
Christian denominations and especially evangelical ones. The danger is that when
we emphasise right living,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>we are only
one step from losing sight of the grace that loves, rescues and restores us no
matter how often we fall into sin. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It’s a supreme irony that the
people who put most emphasis on God’s free forgiveness of our sins through
Jesus, are often the most afraid of falling into any sins at all. However much
we disagree with Luther on some things, I wonder whether we need to hear again
his call to ‘love God, and sin on boldly’? I don’t think he was saying that if
we love God, our sins don’t matter; but that if we truly love God and our
neighbour, although we will still sin, we will be firmly on the road that leads
away from sin to salvation. Augustine put it a slightly different way - and I
don’t often agree with Augustine, but here I do: ‘love God, and do as you
like’. Because if we love God, what we will come to like will be what God
likes. Somebody, I think it may have been Dave Andrews, has said that we are
either moving<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>towards Jesus or moving
away from him. If we are on the road towards him, it doesn’t matter how often
we stumble over the boulders on that road, so long as we stay on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There’s a second thing I had
determined before writing this<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- that I
didn’t want to preach on the cleansing of the Temple, because we’ve all
probably heard too many sermons on it already.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But I am going to say something about the cleansing of the Temple, and
I’m also going to do something I rarely do: I’m going to spiritualize it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Jesus’ given reason for driving
out the traders was that they were ‘making his Father’s house a marketplace’.
Where is ‘the Father’s house’ for Christians today? It isn’t in Jerusalem, or
even in Westbury Avenue Baptist Church’s foyer. Paul made it clear that we, the
gathered believers, are ‘the Father’s house’, the temple where the Holy Spirit
lives. So I thought it would be interesting to ask the question: in what ways
do we make the Father’s house - that is, the Christian community - a
marketplace?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It would be easy to take a dig at
the Christian bookshops and conferences where money (though not very much) is
made out of selling people diaries, pens and greetings cards with texts on
them. But I think that would be a cheap shot. It would also be easy to say that
modern capitalism has made every area<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of
life a marketplace, so that politicians can even talk about ‘a market in
health’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that might be a cheap shot
too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So let’s look at ourselves.
Perhaps for all of us, there are subtle but destructive ways in which we
introduce ‘market thinking’, or the idolatry of competition, into our faith and
lives. In a culture where the market is king, it would be surprising if
Christians weren’t influenced. Do we try to bargain or earn favour with God,
expecting that God will have to bless us if we live a really just, low carbon,
moral life? Do we unconsciously compete with each other, or with other
churches, as to who’s got the best theology or discipleship?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At a church weekend away a long time ago,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I and some others, appearing as ‘Anna and the
Baptists’,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>sang a song I’d written based
on the famous Monty Python lumberjack song. It<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>included this verse:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">‘I share my goods, I share my
lunch, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I share my colds and flu;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I thank my God each day that I’m<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">more radical than you’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This was followed by the chorus:
‘I’m a Mennonite and I’m OK, I pray all night and I work all day’. It was a
joke, but sometimes I fear it was a joke on myself. Do I, somewhere deep
inside, think that I’ve won the spiritual lottery and am much more Christian
than any other type of believer? Because if I do, I am making the house of God
a marketplace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Especially in Lent, when some of
us make extra rules for ourselves, it’s so easy to either pride ourselves on
how well we kept away from chocolate, or to feel guilty and embarrassed that we
lapsed and had a chocolate digestive. So let me make it clear, to myself as
much as anyone else: God will not love you any more because you filled in your
Christian Aid ‘Count Your Blessings’ leaflet every day in Lent, or love me any
less because I ate a few desserts and haven’t lost as much weight as I hoped
to. Because we’re under grace, not under law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That doesn’t mean grace equals
licence, as Paul made clear to the Romans: ‘Should we continue in sin in order
that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in
it?’ .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone who has really appreciated
the grace of God, cannot feel good about doing things that don’t please God, or
failing to do things that do please God. After all, children with good parents
want to please their parents. So if you know that in God you have a parent who
is not just loving but actually </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial Italic"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">is </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Love,
you would certainly want to please that parent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The best parents, however,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>don’t discipline their children by having
large sets of rules to be obeyed. The best parents model their values to their
children and try to foster a love in their children of what they themselves
think important. Of course children have to have boundaries, because as a very
good Mennonite parenting book says, they arrive on this planet as little aliens
who don’t know the rules of earth behaviour. But as they grow up they need
those boundaries less and less, because the boundaries have been internalized
and the desired behaviour comes naturally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And it’s the same with growing up into the full likeness of Christ; the
Spirit in us helps us internalize what God wants, in the process that Alan and
Ellie Kreider call ‘re-reflexing’, and we begin to live naturally as God wants.
Rules imposed from outside are for our spiritual childhood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We will never get the whole way
to what Ephesians calls ‘the full stature of Christ’ in this life. Still, we
have the body of Christ, the church,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to
encourage each other to grow into it. In fact this is the first congregation
I’ve been in that I feel really does that. And it’s something that can never be
achieved just by rules.</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-82257620868867686902012-04-15T03:30:00.000+01:002012-08-07T14:19:39.588+01:00Peace in the soul<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Preacher: Sue</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 23px;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 23px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This is the first in a sermon
series devised by Veronica.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sermon
titles move progressively outward, in concentric circles, starting with “peace
in the soul” today and then looking in turn at </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Peace in
the home/family, Peace in the church/es, Peace in the workplace, Peace in the
local community, Peace in the nation and Peace between nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peace is a key Mennonite concern and this
structure helps us to remember that peace begins at home – or even closer to
the core of our being than that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
all too easy to focus on questions about peace between nations and ignore
issues of peace on our doorsteps or in our house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s an elegant and helpful structure for the
sermon series.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Even so I have found it hard to prepare
this sermon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I’m not sure I even know what “peace in the
soul” means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I don’t mean by that to
ask whether the word soul is the most helpful here or how it is differently
understood in Hebrew and Greek thought and how that may influence our
understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m going to take this
phrase “peace in the soul” to mean two things: some kind of inner peace with
ourselves, and peace with God – which interestingly doesn’t appear anywhere
else on the list.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Peace
with God.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the language of tracts
and posters and evangelistic sermons and, if you’re old enough to remember
them, tent missions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Available to all”
promises the website <a href="http://www.peacewithgod.co.uk/"><span style="color: black;">http://www.peacewithgod.co.uk/</span></a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or there’s <a href="http://peacewithgod.jesus.net/"><span style="color: black;">http://peacewithgod.jesus.net/</span></a>
which offers a “</span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">four-step journey to peace with
God”</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of
course I want to rejoice with anyone who after a long hard road draws comfort
from these promises and finds that they open the way into relationship with
God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And googling “peace” and “soul”
throws up all sorts of sites, including offers of tarot readings and similar
paths to so-called peace in the soul which suggests that if we have some glimmer
of how to experience peace in the soul we ought to be finding ways to get that
message out there and might find a ready audience…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But I
think we may also have some questions about peace in the soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I certainly do…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">One
whole cluster of questions comes from a suspicion that it may be at best
short-sighted and at worst rather self-centred and self-absorbed to be
bothering with peace in my soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
mightn’t peace in the soul be largely an accident of personality, birth order,
early experiences, physical health and so on?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Is it desirable or even possible to have peace in my soul if there are
people suffering injustice or loneliness or inner torment?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And
anyway what does peace in the soul look like?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What does it mean in real life?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As Veronica put it as she sketched her ideas for this sermon series, “</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">what does it mean to have the peace of God in our hearts,
when a lot of the time we are anxious or distressed?</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Can
we find a way of embracing and talking about peace in the soul without making
it all sound at one extreme a bit too easy and too selfish or at the other
extreme so serene and unruffled as to be unrealistic and out of reach?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Well,
maybe it’s time to go back to our scriptures…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Let’s start with Philippians.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="versenum"><b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">4</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Rejoice</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">in the
Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span class="versenum"><b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">5</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span class="versenum"><b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">6</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span class="versenum"><b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">7</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will
guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What
do these verses tell us about the focus of this “peace of God” and how that
peace might happen to us?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It
looks as though there are four things which might predispose us to experiencing
this peace: rejoicing, being gentle, being aware of God standing close beside
us, and dealing with our worries by converting them into prayers in which we
not only cry out to God with our requests but also thank God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I
find that quite reassuring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to
experience the peace of God, I’m not asked to reach a point where I am always
at peace with every aspect of myself, never hate myself and my mistakes, never
feel pulled in different directions as I take decisions, never panic and want
to run away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Admittedly the instructions
are quite demanding – I can’t usually find that elusive off-switch for worry -
but mostly they are about behaviours we can realistically hope to have a crack
at even if it takes our feelings a while to catch up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So maybe peace in the soul, peace with God is
more about where we are headed than about how we feel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Though
of course our feelings can sometimes follow where our actions lead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To
take a trivial example, 18 months ago Peter and I had a grim, icy and snowy
journey to meet my family for Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Possibly foolishly as it turned out, we’d taken up a friend’s kind offer
to lend us her car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took us around 10
hours to cover 170 miles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After around 4
or 5 hours, feeling deeply discouraged and frustrated, we decided to have a
cheerfulness competition, with a judging every half hour where we awarded each
other points for cheerfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
second half of the journey was still slow and exhausting but the atmosphere in
the car – and in our souls – was much better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(And, in case you are wondering, I think Peter won…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just…)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
much more serious situations, I have seen three friends – including Lesley –
live through the misery of losing a child with both honesty and a remarkable
capacity to continue to find things to be thankful for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They all radiated peace even as they also
experienced and voiced intense grief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
wonder if that was partly linked with their thankfulness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I
think this passage from Philippians acknowledges too that it’s quite hard to
get our heads round this peace of God and how it works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It does, after all, “pass all understanding”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And
there’s something similar in the verses from John’s gospel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“</span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not give to you as the world gives.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">” </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /> <o:p></o:p></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p> </o:p></span>“Not as the world gives.” This phrase has many resonances which I want
to talk about more – but its very language hints at the impossibility of
understanding the peace Jesus leaves his disciples unless we learn to live and
think by his values not those of the world.<br /><o:p> </o:p>“Not as the world gives.” A couple of chapters later, in John 16, Jesus
promises his disciples peace – but in the same breath he warns that in this
world they will have trouble. So peace
and trouble can go together – which I think gives us the beginnings of an
answer to the worry that peace in the soul may be a selfish thing to aspire
to. The kind of peace Jesus gives is not
a ticket to or a by-product of a free ride, coasting along happily with no
responsibility and not a care in the world.
I guess that’s not surprising since presumably Jesus is the best example
we have of someone who has peace in the soul and his life was emphatically not
self-indulgent or passive.<br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span><br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This
peace is independent of the trouble that the world brings – the trouble the
world is likely to bring for the followers of Jesus since, as we learn another
two chapters on in John 18, Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That pus the peace of Jesus directly at odds
with the usual ways of this world, which may even lead us to places that look
far from peaceful by this world’s standards – it certainly did for Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So if
the peace Jesus gives is not the peace that the world gives, what is it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it is not about things going smoothly or
about a calm life without challenge or stress, what is it? And how do we receive
it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Isaiah
26:3-4 may give us some clues:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Those of
steadfast mind you keep in peace— in peace because they trust in you.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span class="versenum"><b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">4</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord God</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">you have an everlasting rock.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> “<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Psalm 119:165 says: </span></span><span class="versenum"><b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">165</span></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"> </span></span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make
them stumble.<span class="apple-converted-space"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">I like the solidity of that word “steadfast”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I think that “steadfastness” may be
closer to what it means for a Christian to have peace in the soul than
four-step programmes to personal forgiveness or dreams of an untroubled
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Psalm 34:14 suggests that seeking
peace is the twin of turning our backs on evil: “</span></span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.<span class="apple-converted-space">”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Indeed there’s a hint in all these verses that </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">peace in the soul is not our primary goal, something for us
to strive for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather it’s something
that happens while we’re busy aiming for other things, as we depart from evil,
are steadfast in trusting God, love God’s law, rejoice and are gentle and pray
with thanksgiving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which might tell us
something not only about what peace in the soul is but also how we receive
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Maybe
one reason I’ve struggled with this sermon is that I’m not very disciplined at,
well, spiritual disciplines of bible reading and prayer and meditation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I think they are important to experiencing
peace in the soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I think peace in
the soul has other deep roots too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
also about what and who we give ourselves to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s about trying to live by Jesus’ values not the values of the world,
about seeking good and pursuing it, about trusting God, rejoicing and giving
thanks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s partly about who or what is
in control in our lives and about not getting in the way of the Holy Spirit but
allowing some space for the fruit of the Spirit (of which peace is part) to
grow in us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So,
to come back to Veronica’s question, “</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">what
does it mean to have the peace of God in our hearts, when a lot of the time we
are anxious or distressed?</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">” I guess I would answer
that the peace of God is not so much about how we are feeling at any given
moment but about what and who we are aiming for and how we are acting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems to be partly about a kind of
singlemindedness, a focus towards God and others and a way of taking to God the
things that threaten to throw us off course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I was
struck by a comment Giles Fraser made as he was in the thick of controversy
over the response at St Pauls to the Occupy camp and had just left his job –
and with it presumably his home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
wrote “</span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">The hassle of <span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0cm; padding: 0cm;">Christianity </span>is something that does not feature prominently
in its sales literature. People often say that faith must be a source of great
comfort — and that is said mostly by those who don’t know a great deal about
what a life of faith really feels like. They talk as if religion in general is
some sort of metaphysical strategy for achieving beatific calm; as if religion
were always painted in pastel colours.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But
in spite of this wish to debunk the idea of faith as a means to calm, a bit
like a pastel coloured painting or a CD of splashing water sounds or whale
song, Giles Fraser did acknowledge that “</span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">for all this, Christianity does promise the clear sense of
purpose which has something in common with calm.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(<i>Church Times</i> </span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">11 November 2011)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I
think Giles Fraser is right that a sense of purpose and direction has something
in common with peace in the soul, may even be part of the recipe for
experiencing peace in the soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that
sense of purpose and direction and that kind of steadfast focus on God don’t
protect us from swirls and gusts of hassle and anguish but maybe they can help
us live through them well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps they
can help us live well with the tension between the call to serve Jesus in a
world that seems infinitely and impossibly full of need and the tug to tend our
relationship with God, ourselves and those close to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">I
suspect</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;"> that part of peace in the soul is learning
to live with our own inner dividedness and with tensions between two truths or
two apparently opposite callings or insights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe part of finding peace in the soul is accepting that in this life
we will never be fully at peace but finding that we can somehow make our peace
with that.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-2830713176439186802012-03-18T03:30:00.000+00:002012-08-06T21:55:40.201+01:00The snake on the stick<br />
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Preacher: Peter</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoTitle" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
Lectionary
readings: Num 21:4-9; Ps 107:1-3, 17-22; Eph 2:1-10; John 3:14-21</div>
</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Today I am focussing on one of today’s
lectionary readings, this strange, disturbing story of the bronze serpent from
the book of Numbers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Have you ever been on a country walk where
the person responsible for navigating has messed up the map reading? This has
happened to Sue several times since we got to know each other. Only last autumn
we were wearily trudging the last few miles after a long day in the mountains
of South Western Lakeland. I was the mapreader for the day. The route I had
planned cut through a large forest on its way down to the railway station where
we would catch a train back to our lodgings. Only when we got to the edge of the
forest we found the path was closed for logging operations. Oh no! We would
have to make a long detour, and we were already tired and ready for our dinner.
In such circumstances there is sometimes a temptation for those being led to
grumble about their leader.....<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In our passage today we have the people of
Israel making a long weary detour to bypass the land of Edom, whose
belligerent, powerful people will not allow them passage. Aaron has just died
on the journey, and been buried with 30 days solemn mourning, and there has
been bitter fighting with a small Canaanite kingdom at Atharim. The thrilling
events of the Exodus, when they were rescued by the hand of God from slavery in
Egypt, seem a long long time ago, and the promised land is an ever-receding
mirage as they tramp on through the heat and dust, on short rations and low on
water. Not surprisingly, they start to grumble. If they were British, the
grumbling would probably have started much earlier! They have lost hope that
they will survive this desert ordeal. They are tired of eating the same food
day after day. They are worried about water supplies. And they blame Moses (and
God) for ever rescuing them from their comfortable bondage in Egypt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">God’s response is shockingly drastic. He
sends a plague of venomous, aggressive snakes into the camp, so poisonous that
many of the Israelites die when bitten. Faced with this deadly onslaught they
quickly repent of their grumbling, and God tells Moses to make a bronze effigy
of the snake that is tormenting them. Whoever looks at the bronze serpent is
miraculously cured of the poison and lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">There are strong echoes in this story of
Genesis 3. Israel’s sin of grumbling, which amounts to a failure to trust in
God and obey his directions, is essentially identical with Adam and Eve’s
primal sin, when they refused to trust in God’s wisdom and providence, and
disobeyed his mysterious command to avoid the fruit of a particular tree. And
of course the serpent in the Garden who tempts our first ancestors and so brings
trouble and sorrow and death into the world, is clearly <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the ancestor of these fire-coloured snakes who
bring pain and death into the Israelite camp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So we can read Numbers 21 as almost another
Fall myth, a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>striking parable of the
human predicament. God’s people grumble and disobey, bringing God’s judgement
on themselves. Just read today’s papers - who can deny that there are deadly
snakes among us? Terrible things are loose in the world – terrorism, plagues,
nuclear weapons, murder, corruption, racism, torture, greed, climate change,
habitat destruction, mass extinction, civil wars, proxy wars, the war on
terror, wars without end – and we seem to be powerless to stop them from biting
us, poisoning us, killing us. But the story also offers us hope that God will
provide a remedy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In Salisbury cathedral there’s a suitably
dramatic 18<sup>th</sup> century window depicting this moment, with a stern,
muscular Moses pointing to the bronze serpent on its cross-like pole,
surrounded by a writhing crowd of agonized Israelites. The window is set high
up, looming over the high altar where the eucharist is celebrated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In our second reading, from John’s Gospel
Chapter 3, Jesus identifies himself with God’s strange medicine, the bronze
snake on a pole.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><i>And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him
may have eternal life.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So Jesus sees Moses lifting up the serpent
as prefiguring his own lifting up on the cross of crucifixion. As Son of Man he
identifies himself with our sins and sorrows, and by his own suffering brings
us eternal life. Paul shines a light on this in 2 Corinthians chapter 5:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><i>For our sake he made him to be sin who knew
no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So Christ’s death on the cross effects a
substitution – on the cross he identifies so closely with “that old serpent”
Satan, with sin and its punishment death, that he paradoxically brings about
Satan’s defeat at the moment of his own death, and buys back the human race
from sin and its bitter consequences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Is that all that can be said about this
text? Maybe – but in our homegroup we have been studying Lloyd Pieterson’s book
“Reading the Bible after Christendom”, and I am learning from him to be
suspicious of readings whose implicit message is “shut up and do what you’re
told”. So before we go home I invite you to don your anabaptist spectacles and
have one more look at this old story from the Torah. Can it be read perhaps as
a parable of Christendom? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">We have Moses, a charismatic leader who
rules in God’s name. Political power and religious authority are united in one
man, even more so since the death of Aaron. In this theocratic setup,
dissenting voices are most unwelcome, and when questions are asked about Moses’
leadership, then God/Moses responds with lethal violence – death is dealt out
indiscriminately by a plague of snakes until the people are brought back to a
more compliant attitude. The punishment – painful death on a mass scale -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>seems disproportionate to the relatively
trivial crime of a bit of harmless grumbling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">States often fear dissenting voices, and
respond with escalating harshness. It’s a story that’s been repeated many many
times in humanity’s sad history. And sadly it carries on today: in Syria protest
marches are met with bullets, arrests and torture; in China, the voice of
Tibetan Buddhism is being systematically silenced. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The Israelites only find release from their
sufferings when they submit in repentance. They are required to look submissively
at an image of the instrument of their oppression – the fiery serpent –
acquiescing in the right of Moses to wield lethal force against them in the
name of God. There is something almost Orwellian about this – the citizen is
required not only to obey Big Brother, but also to love him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So what does it mean when Jesus identifies
himself with this story in John 3? Firstly, we should remember that Jesus
himself is the archetypal dissenting voice. He loudly and repeatedly criticizes
those who wield political power in God’s name. Just watch Pasolini’s wonderful
film “The Gospel According to St Matthew” to get a powerful picture of Jesus as
the angry young man. Jesus threatens the uneasy status quo, in the process
undermining the compromised position of the Temple authorities and their
accommodation with the Roman Empire. So they decide he must be silenced. Once
more the state will employ lethal force to safeguard its position.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high
priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand
that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the
whole nation should perish.” (John 11:49-50 ESV)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So on the cross, Jesus meets and absorbs in
his body the state’s lethal violence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I’m no theologian, but Sue tells me that Girard’s theology of the atonement revolves around the idea
of truth-telling. Human societies maintain the status quo by means of
scapegoating, deflecting their dangerous hostilities towards a guilty outsider.
The death of Jesus exposes the scapegoating mechanism for what it is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Violence
is unable to bear the presence of a being that owes it nothing – that pays it
no homage and threatens its kingship in the only way possible. (Girard, Things
Hidden Since the Foundation of the World)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So in the death of Jesus we are confronted
with our own violence and the violence of the state. We see clearly that there
is nothing we will not do to protect our own position and privileges, no-one we
will not kill to keep them quiet – even God. More than that, we see that Jesus
is there alongside every political prisoner, every Syrian shot or tortured for
speaking out against the regime, every jailed or forcibly resettled Tibetan. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So, an ancient tale from the Torah, and two
quite different readings:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Sin and punishment, substitution and
atonement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Or Christendom and dissent, violence and
truth-telling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Mutually exclusive readings? Well I’d be
reluctant to lose either of them, and I hope they both shed a little light on
the central mystery of our faith as we approach Easter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-77703161758787146262012-01-15T15:30:00.000+00:002012-03-08T08:22:07.831+00:00<br />
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<b>Preacher: Veronica</b></div>
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<b>Readings:</b></div>
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<b>Luke 24:13-27</b></div>
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Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">14</span>and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">15</span>While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">16</span>but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">17</span>And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">18</span>Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">19</span>He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">20</span>and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">21</span>But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">22</span>Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">23</span>and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">24</span>Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">25</span>Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">26</span>Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">27</span>Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.</div>
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<b>Hebrews 1:1-4</b></div>
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<span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">1</span>Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">2</span>but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">3</span>He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">4</span>having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.</div>
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<b>Sermon:</b></div>
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As a writer I get quite a few letters from readers, sometimes nice, sometimes not so nice. There’s one in particular who writes to me every few months and sends me copies of letters he’s sent to the Bible Society and other organizations. I call him the Marcionite. Long ago in the second century, there was a heretic called Marcion who rejected the Old Testament completely. He believed that the God of Israel, Yahweh, was a lesser God, full of anger and prone to punish people, and that God had been replaced by the all-forgiving Father of Jesus. And my letter writer believes something similar: he thinks that because of all the violence and wrath in the Old Testament , which has been used to justify war and genocide, we should only read and publish the New Testament.</div>
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Like all Mennonites I believe Jesus taught us that all violence, including war, is against the will of God. So I can understand Marcion’s problems with the Old Testament. But there are a number of problems with this approach:</div>
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First of all, the Old Testament is the Bible that Jesus and his disciples read or listened to - the events of theGospels and Epistles had not even happened yet, let alone been written down. And both Jesus and later Paul quoted frequently and creatively from the the Jewish Scriptures, which we call the OT. Can we really reject the Bible Jesus used and from which he drew his message?</div>
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Secondly, the New Testament relies heavily on the Old in explaining what it means to belong to Jesus. Without the Old Testament, we would be totally at sea in the New Testament . We wouldn’t know the stories Jesus and Paul were quoting, we wouldn’t know the Ten Commandments or the rest of the Law which Jesus reinterprets and which Paul talks about a great deal. We wouldn’t understand the meaning of sacrifice in the Old Testament which gives the background to how we understand the cross of Jesus. We really couldn’t make head or tail of the New Testament at all.</div>
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Thirdly, the Old Testament doesn’t just show us a God who is angry and who punishes sinners. It is also full of a compassionate, loving God who forgives freely and who longs for his people to walk with him and receive his blessings. Consider this prophecy from Hosea:</div>
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‘How can I give you up, Ephraim?</div>
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How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me;</div>
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my compassion grows warm and tender.’</div>
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If there weren’t passagas like this in the OT, how Jesus could draw from it the loving, self- giving Father God that he proclaimed? He said himself quite clearly that his teaching was not in contradiction to the Jewish scriptures, but fulfilled them.</div>
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You may be wondering what all this has to do with the passages we heard read. Well, I’ll try to explain. First, the story of the walk to Emmaus. We heard the whole story, but the last verse is the one I want to focus on:</div>
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‘Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.’ </div>
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Books hadn’t been invented and Jesus couldn’t have carried all the scrolls of the Old Testament with him, so he’s working here from all the Scripture he has learned in the past. Yet the risen Jesus can explain to these two disciples exactly how all the Old Testament scripture points to him and his death and resurrection.</div>
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Wouldn’t you love to have been there on that seven kilometre walk? I’d give a lot to know how Jesus interpreted that very difficult book of Joshua, which is full of wholesale slaughter carried out in God’s name, and showed them how it pointed to him. I had to write Bible reading notes on Joshua a few years back and it was a big struggle for someone who believes that the Prince of Peace calls us to be peacemakers too. It would have been very handy to have Jesus there explaining it to me.</div>
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But of course in a sense I did have Jesus there. He promised that his Holy Spirit would be, not just beside us, but within us, leading us into all truth. And that verse from Luke about Jesus interpreting the Scriptures in relation to himself, was my other guide. I never read any part of Scripture without testing it against what Jesus said and did. So in thinking about Joshua, I had to say something like: this is a part of the Scriptures, we have to take it seriously. However we can’t accept its picture of God the warmonger as our final word on the character of God, because Jesus reveals God as the God of peace. As followers of Jesus, we can no longer read the Old Testament separately from the New, and take it as our standard for life. We have been called to something new.</div>
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Mennonites and other Anabaptists tend to express this principle as ‘Jesus is the hermeneutical key to the whole of the Scriptures’. Sorry for the academic language, but hermeneutics simply means interpretation. It means that whatever part of Scripture we’re studying, we have to read it in the light of Jesus, of his life and death and resurrection. Sometimes this will be easier, say if we’re reading Isaiah’s Servant prophecies like Isaiah 53, which so puzzled the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts, and which Philip explained to him in the light of Jesus. Sometimes it will be a lot harder, as with the book of Joshua. But we have each other, and a lot of good Bible scholarship, to help us come to the truth. And of course, we have the Holy Spirit in us. If we are listening well, the Spirit will not lead us into anything which contradicts the teaching and life of Jesus.</div>
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Inevitably this mean may we see some parts of Scripture as more important than other parts, because they are more Jesus-like. And Jesus’ own teaching is going to be at the top of the pyramid. But I think we can justify this from the second reading we heard, which I’m now turning to, especially the first half of the first verse:</div>
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‘Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, <span style="font: 8.0px Arial;">2</span>but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.’</div>
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This suggests two things to me. First of all, God speaks in many and various ways through the Scriptures. The Old Testament does not have a single point of view. One part thinks that kings are mostly a good thing, another thinks that kings are mostly a bad thing. The writer of Ecclesiastes is pretty cynical about life, the writer of Proverbs is quite positive about it. Some prophets tell us that suffering is a result of disobeying God, the book of Job tells us that it isn’t. Yet they all speak to us from God, at different times and in different ways. We have to take them all together as a witness to who God is. And this frees us from trying to make every little verse mean the same thing.</div>
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Secondly, God’s final word to us is in Jesus. The writer of Hebrews says ‘in these last days’ because he or she believed they wer in the last days. Well we’re still here two thousand years later. But in a sense we’re all in the last days - we’re in the Jesus era, the era of the Spirit, where anyone can have a relationship with God through Christ. And it is through Christ that we have to read what went before.</div>
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It’s not spelled out here, but I believe Hebrews 1 affirms the modern idea of ‘progressive revelation’. This means that in ancient history, God revealed to people as much of the truth as they could understand at the time, in terms that they could understand. So if Joshua won a battle and gained some of the Promised Land, the people interpreted it as God giving them the victory. And this is part of the truth, because God does give victory to God’s people - but not through killing other ethnic groups. God’s victory cannot come about through war, because war is one of the evils that Jesus came to destroy. We know this because we know the teaching and life of Jesus. So we are not free to follow Joshua into military conquest.</div>
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Hebrews 1 goes on to outline how much greater Jesus is than angels, and by implication, how much greater his revelation of God is than those that went before. So I think we can fairly say that the Bible is the story of God gradually revealing God’s nature, over thousands of years, till God could be revealed fully in Jesus, ‘when the time was fulfilled’.</div>
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Of course the idea of Jesus as God’s final word doesn’t mean God has stopped speaking to us. God continues to speak through the Spirit within and among us. But we have to make sure that what we think we hear is genuinely in the spirit of Jesus.</div>
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So here are two principles for understanding the Bible, which the Bible itself gives us:</div>
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First, it all points to Jesus. If when we interpret Scripture, it seems to tell us something that contradicts what Jesus said and did, then we are probably reading it wrong.</div>
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Secondly, God’s word is given gradually, in various ways, over a long period of time, and it is only in Jesus that we can understand the full nature of God. So we can’t just take, say, the Ten Commandments and think they tell us everything we need to know. But because they are a revelation from God, we can’t dismiss them either. Which is why, to return to the beginning, I am not a Marcionite.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-75437089340719698932012-01-08T15:30:00.000+00:002012-03-15T09:42:37.558+00:00Covenant Service<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<h1>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p>Preacher: Sue<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span></b></span></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It feels to me as though as a church we spent much of last year in
the teeth of a storm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a storm
above all of loss and grief, as we said goodbye to Lesley and to the London
Mennonite Centre, both its physical incarnation in Shepherds Hill and our
previous certainties about that relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For some the storm was personal too – illness, especially depression,
moving house, seeing organisations through upheaval and change.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That feeling of having passed through a storm felt very vivid and
I’d like to linger over it a little longer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Please pass round this picture – which you’re welcome to keep if
you’d like.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In a moment we’ll hear a few verses from Luke ch 8 and I’ll invite
you to look at this picture and imagine yourselves into the thick of that
storm, whether on the sea of Galilee or some other stretch of water you are
more familiar with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps the storm is
exhilarating and surviving it leaves a sense of triumph or at least relief –
“we made it!”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or perhaps the storm is
so violent that it is just plain scary, loud and wet, leaving us exhausted,
battered and bruised, like Jonah spat out and limp on the beach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it feels lonely out there, far from the
shore, or maybe there’s a rich sense of being in it together, clinging to
others for safety, literally in the same boat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Perhaps there’s frustration at being kept from our plans, blown way off.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<h1 style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></h1>
<h1 style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Luke 8:22-23<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;">One day he got into a boat with his disciples,
and he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side of the
lake." So they put out, and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A
windstorm swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they
were in danger.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Let’s have a moment’s silence to bring before God the storms of
the past year…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So where is Jesus in the midst of this storm?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe some of have asked us that over the
course of this past year: “Where is God when we need him?”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I’d been in that boat I think I’d have
been infuriated and incredulous and disappointed with Jesus’ inaction: he’s
fast asleep for goodness sake!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder
if I hear that in the words of the disciples as the story continues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we listen I invite you to take this second
card and picture yourselves into the drenched wind-tossed boat and the terror
of the storm:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h6>
<span class="versetext7"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Luke 8:24<o:p></o:p></span></span></h6>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;">They went to him and woke him up, shouting, "Master,
Master, we are perishing!" And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the
raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;">Let’s pause again to remember the ways in which
we saw God come to the rescue over the past year, whether spectacularly or in
the quiet realisation that God was with us, had been with us all along…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;">And before we leave that image of the storm let’s
hear the end of our story and another story of being almost overwhelmed by a
storm on the lake immediately after the feeding of the five thousand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<h1 style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;">Luke 8:25-26<o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;">He said to them, "Where is your faith?" They were
afraid and amazed, and said to one another, "Who then is this, that he
commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then they arrived at the country of the
Gerasenes,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;">which is opposite Galilee.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versenum"><b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Matthew
14:22-34<span style="mso-tab-count: 10;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Immediately
he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side,
while he dismissed the crowds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And after
he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When
evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the
waves, was far from the land,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">for the wind was against them.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">And early in the morning he came walking
toward them on the sea.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">But when the
disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is
a ghost!" And they cried out in fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I;
do not be afraid."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter answered
him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the
water."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said, "Come."
So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward
Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when he noticed the strong
wind,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">he became frightened, and beginning to sink,
he cried out, "Lord, save me!"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him,
"You of little faith, why did you doubt?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they got into the boat, the wind
ceased.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And those in the boat worshiped
him, saying, "Truly you are the the Son of God."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they had crossed over, they came to land
at Gennesaret.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> </span></span><span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So in the end, in both stories, the boat lands safely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But I’m not sure we are quite there yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are, I trust, in calmer shallower waters
but I’m not sure we’ve landed quite yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At the vision day we began to look at who and where we are, where we
have come from and where we are going, but found it hard to dream concretely
for the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used the image of
Noah’s dove looking in vain for a twig to land on or even to break off, and
eventually having to return to the ark empty-handed – or empty-beaked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think we are empty-handed ourselves –
we are trying new ways of being together and of opening ourselves more to
others and we have the prospect of Lena’s work with us, our plans for walking
church and working with the findings and recommendations of our mission
audit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I don’t think we’ve quite
found a branch to settle on yet or a beach to land on.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I guess that could feel frustrating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I think it is important that we keep up
the momentum and maintain a sense of urgency – our small numbers and our
bedraggled finances will force some decisions on us soon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I think we also need to pray and trust
and be patient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not a particular fan
of the theology of Teilhard de Chardin but I think his spirituality may have
something to offer, at least in the shape of this poem inviting us to trust in
the slow work of God:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<h6>
<span class="versetext7"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Teilhard de Chardin<span style="mso-tab-count: 10;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></h6>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 110%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 110%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Above all, trust in the
slow work of God.<br />
We are quite naturally impatient in everything<br />
to reach the end without delay.<br />
We would like to skip the intermediate stages.<br />
We are impatient of being on the way to something<br />
unknown, something new.<br />
And yet, it is the law of all progress<br />
that it is made by passing through<br />
some stages of instability -<br />
and that it may take a very long time.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 110%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 110%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 110%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And so I think it is
with you;<br />
your ideas mature gradually – let them grow,<br />
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.<br />
Don’t try to force them on,<br />
as though you could be today what time,<br />
(that is to say, grace and circumstances<br />
acting on your own good will)<br />
will make of you tomorrow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 110%; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 110%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Only God could say what
this new spirit<br />
gradually forming in you will be.<br />
Give our Lord the benefit of believing<br />
that his hand is leading you,<br />
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself<br />
in suspense and incomplete.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There is real wisdom I think in this commendation of being willing
to live with a degree of instability, anxiety, suspense and incompleteness and
of giving our ideas time to shape themselves, allowing a new spirit form within
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope that for some of us that is
where the vision day left us, with a willingness to let that happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And I think there is wisdom too in Alan Kreider’s recommendation
that we follow the GPS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had my first
brush with a dedicated GPS gadget over Christmas when my brother took us out
into the woods geocaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Alan’s
GPS is an acronym for “Gifts, Passion, Service”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d like to suggest that as part of letting
our ideas mature gradually, letting a new spirit form in us, we spend a few
minutes thinking about – and writing down – what we think are our gifts and
passions as a congregation, gifts and passions which continue to be part of our
DNA after many year and gifts and passions which are only in embryo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we look inside our church where do we see
our corporate heart leap and our corporate eyes light up?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where do we sense that God’s hand is leading
us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I’ll keep whatever we write.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I hope I can pass it on to Phil in connection with the mission audit or
that it can be useful preparation for future conversations based on the report
from the mission audit and as we think about where to go from there.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So the questions to reflect on are <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">"What gifts do I think are well represented in our
congregation?” and <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">"What passions do I have which I believe are shared by the
congregation generally?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I suggest that you take a little while to think quietly on your
own, then write them up on the sheets at the front, them spend some time
looking at what others have written and let that feed your own reflection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Add what you need to as new thoughts come to
mind.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">(If you don’t want to keep your pictures please pass them back to
the front now and if you do please put them somewhere safe where they won’t be
trampled as we do this exercise together.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[interactive activity]<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As we prepare to read the covenant together, I’d like to take us
back briefly to where we’ve been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
started in the storms that the past year brought us and remembered where and
how God had come to us in the midst of fear and towering waves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I wondered whether we were already
safely on the shore or still looking around for a beach to land on or a branch
to settle on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And now as we look to the
future we have looked inside our congregation and asked God to light up to us
the things we care about the most and the gifts we can offer so that this can
guide us as we seek our way forward.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span class="versetext7"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Let’s
give our Lord the </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">benefit of believing that God’s hand is leading us, and accept the
anxiety of feeling ourselves in suspense and incomplete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we face into this year together and with
God, as we hope and pray for growing clarity about our calling, let’s trust in
Jesus to meet us in the storm and accompany us to the shore, and let’s trust in
the slow work of God.</span><span class="versetext5"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 140%; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-40732680419444805992011-11-20T15:30:00.000+00:002011-11-20T21:46:58.861+00:00Speaking the word of God<b>Preacher: Peter </b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US">I was asked
to speak today about speaking the word of God. Which made me think of all the
different, and often contradictory, ways in which I have heard that phrase “the
word of God” used in the course of my Christian journey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">For
example, in my years in a Free Evangelical Church, the sermon was often
introduced with the words: “and now our brother will bring us the Word of God”.
This usually made me feel uncomfortable – how can the disorganised and let’s be
honest rather commonplace thoughts of Mr ____ (much as I’m fond of him)
possibly be described as “the Word of God”?! Anyway, surely only the Bible is
the Word of God?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Or I can
look further back to my years in a Pentecostal church, where it was expected
that God would regularly speak through ecstatic Spirit-filled worship in words
of prophecy or tongues and interpretation: God himself speaking directly to us
with words of encouragement or challenge or even angry criticism. Of course
there’s plenty of scope for abuse here – the temptation use the overwhelming authority
of speaking the very words of God to browbeat your fellow Christians to come
round to your way of thinking is too much for most of us mortals to resist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This
Pentecostal prophetic speaking was in tension with an equally
characteristically Pentecostal emphasis on the Bible as the inerrant word of
God. The Bible was very much on a pedestal, possibly even subject to idolatrous
reverence, and of course inerrant scripture required inerrant interpretation
from the preacher in his (and it always was a “his”) sermons. Another
opportunity to browbeat your fellow Christians into submissive conformity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So “speaking
the word of God” has been a slippery concept in my experience. But before we
give up on the idea all together, let’s go back to the bible itself in search
of some solid ground. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Acts 4:23-31 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">When they were released,
they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders
had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to
God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea
and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your
servant, said by the Holy Spirit,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> “‘Why did the Gentiles
rage,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> and
the peoples plot in vain?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> The kings of the
earth set themselves,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> and
the rulers were gathered together,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> against
the Lord and against his Anointed’—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> for truly in this
city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you
anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the
peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to
take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants
to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your
hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy
servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered
together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and
continued to speak the word of God with boldness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Peter and
John have just been released, after being arrested and threatened by the
religious leaders and told to stop talking “in the name of Jesus”. They go back
to the Christian community who immediately pray for them. This prayer is
helpful for us today, because of the way it handles this concept of “the word
of God”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">They start
their prayer by referring to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">written
scripture</i> as the word of God.
They quote Psalm 2 as words spoken by the creator God, through the mouth of
David, enabled by the agency of the Holy Spirit. And they confidently apply these
words of scripture to their own situation of besieging hostility, expecting God
to speak to them through this ancient text. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But they
also pray that God will help them to “continue to speak his word with all
boldness”. So here we also see the word of God as something that continues to
be spoken by Christians, especially in situations of persecution and prophetic
confrontation with the authorities. This speaking is an act of witness,
speaking “of what we have seen and heard” (v20). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We have a
complex dynamic process going on here – David speaks out his poetry, which is
written down and incorporated in scripture, which generations later is read and
memorized and meditated upon by Jews who encounter Jesus and apply it to him.
Under pressure of persecution they quote the written scripture as they pray for
boldness to speak out God’s word, and later the whole story is written down and
incorporated into scripture all over again. And finally, here am I reading it
and speaking it again. The Holy Spirit is indispensably involved at every step,
even – I hope – the last one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Notice in
this passage the emphasis on obedient service – both David, past writer of the
word, and the apostles, current speakers of the word, are described as “your
servants” (vv25,29). Notice also that both written and spoken “word of God” are
deployed in service of the same task – to bear witness to Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So Acts 4
gives us a helpful model of how the written and spoken “word of God” can be deployed
together by the church as tools for prophetic witness. As Lloyd Pietersen puts
it: “The biblical text .. acts as a means of funding the prophetic imagination
of the church.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But
questions remain for me, and the “word of God” has an elusive quality. Do we
choose our scripture, or is it chosen for us? The boundaries of the Christian
Bible are fuzzy, even today. If you open a Catholic Bible you will find a
slightly different contents page than you would in a Protestant Bible. Going
beyond that, how do we even choose <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">which</i>
sacred book? After all, we are not the only “people of a book” – there are many
books in the world which people hold sacred: the Torah, the Koran, the Book of
Mormon, the Tao Te Ching, the Vedas, the Lord of the Rings... <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">What about
novels or poems that move us and challenge us? Is God speaking to us through
these – are these in some sense “the word of God” as well? Or music and songs?
As The Hold Steady sing in “Stay Positive”: “the sing-along songs will be our
scriptures”. There’s a terrible danger here of straying into banal
wish-fulfillment religion. Whatever I happen to find moving or comforting I
call “the word of God” for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">OK I’m
getting lost again. Let’s turn back to the bible for a some guidance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Hebrews
1:1-4<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Long ago, at many times
and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last
days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things,
through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God
and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of
his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of
the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he
has inherited is more excellent than theirs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The unknown
writer of this particular piece of scripture tells us that God’s revelation is
progressive. God spoke through the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures, revealing
more and more of his character, but this self-revelation climaxed in the
sending of Jesus his son into the world. Jesus is the ultimate self-revelation
of God to us – God can do no more. John 1 gives us the profound idea that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jesus is the Word of God</i>. God is there
and he is not silent (to quote Francis Schaeffer) – he loves to speak to us in
words that we can understand. He speaks, and what he speaks is Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This
explains why the Bible is our sacred scripture – it is the record of the
difficult, troubling, liberating, tragic, argumentative encounter between
Israel and the creator God, and the climax of that process in the life, deeds,
teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The bible is sacred because
of Jesus. And likewise, the word of God comes alive for us when we speak it –
to each other, but also to the world at large in witness, but only if we bear
witness to Jesus. When we speak truly of Jesus, bearing faithful witness to
what we have seen and heard (as in Acts 4:20), only then is there the
possibility for us of speaking the word of God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So the word
of God cannot be a “dead letter”, a book on a shelf. If it is to bring life it
must be handled, used, spoken out. How can we even begin such a task? What does
it feel like to “speak the word of God”? Is it even possible? I’m going to
finish by going back to a very ancient text from our Bible which I have found
helpful when thinking about this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana;">Genesis 2:18-20<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana;">Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I
will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the LORD God had
formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them
to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every
living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to
the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there
was not found a helper fit for him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This primal
myth comes down to us with a powerful archetypal image – the first man giving
names to all the animals. God makes “out of the ground” animals and birds, and
brings each one to Adam “to see what he would call them”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We see Adam
here as the first poet. Good poetry <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">names</i>
– it uses words to describe an experience that has perhaps never been described
before. But when you read it there is a shock of recognition and you think,
“yes, I have felt that too, but never knew how to put it into words”. So God brings the animals to Adam so
that he can name them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We also see
Adam as the first scientist, making an early start on the work of Linnaean
classification, bringing orderly description to the chaotic appearances of
nature. Naming, classifying and describing open the way into a deep
understanding of the structure and workings of God’s world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Maybe Adam
is also the first prophet. God shows something to Adam, and asks him to name
it. Think of the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures. God shows them things too –
not animals and birds, but injustice, oppression, violence, idolatry, adultery,
unfaithfulness – shows them clearly so that they can no longer be ignored, asks
the prophet to name these things, to speak out clearly and name them for what
they really are. This is not word-by-word dictation, but nevertheless the
prophet is truly speaking the word of God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Which
brings us back to Peter and John before the Council: “we cannot but speak of
what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20), and what they have seen, above all,
is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jesus</i>. Their task is to name, to
speak out, what God has shown them – the wonderful words and deeds of Jesus. Let’s
pray that like them, God will enable us to “speak his word with all boldness”
(Acts 4:29).</span></div>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-59136195827806047112011-11-13T15:30:00.000+00:002012-03-15T10:44:38.974+00:00The Bible can be misused as well as used well<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Preacher: Sue</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Readings: Matthew 4:1-11 & Matthew 15:1-9</span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This is
another in our sermon series on the bible and Veronica’s headline for today is
“the bible can be misused as well as used well”.<span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We
certainly saw that in our first reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jesus is hungry having fasted for 40 days in the wilderness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s not just hunger Jesus is dealing
with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before he went into the
wilderness, Jesus went to be baptised by John the Baptist who gave a clear
message that although John had a powerful public ministry which had people
flocking to see him, Jesus was in a completely different league.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then there was the voice from heaven, </span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">"This is my Son, the
Beloved,</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">with whom I am well
pleased."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So in the 40 days just
past Jesus must also have </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">been turning all that
over in his mind, pondering and praying about what this special calling looked
like in practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he has already been
beginning to think in terms of being Messiah, he has a number of models to draw
on in contemporary expectations, including expectations that focused round the
Messiah as a king who would protect the Temple and fight Israel’s battles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And
perhaps it’s those models that the tempter draws on in the temptations, ways of
being Messiah, different Messianic styles, that, variously, hold out the
promise of mass appeal, invincibility and power over an immense empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus spends time in the wilderness figuring
out his calling, finding his own Messianic style.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe as we think about our future, against
the backdrop of so many different ways out there of being church, we need to
spend time finding our own calling and our own distinctive “style”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Anyway,
the tempter misuses scripture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Psalm
91, from which the tempter quotes, certainly does offer a picture of God’s
great care for Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span class="versetext"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who
know my name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they call to me, I
will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honour
them.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.0cm; margin-right: 1.0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It
would be possible to read this as a charter for risk-takers – don’t worry about
what you do because God will always be there to take care of you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I think Jesus’ response shows two things:
firstly that this isn’t the message of Psalm 91, which is more about finding
even in the midst of trouble that God is still there and still taking care of
us, and secondly that Jesus knows the whole of scripture and has grasped its
spirit so that he can’t be tricked by one verse taken out of context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">That
reminds me of an image in the book the Monday homegroup is working through at
the moment, “Reading the Bible After Christendom” by Lloyd Pietersen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lloyd draws on NT Wright’s image of the Bible
as a five act play whose last act has been lost, except for the first scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fourth act is Jesus, the first scene of
the fifth act is the early church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
because there is so much material in the first four acts and that last scene,
the decision is made to perform the play with five acts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The actors are asked to improvise the rest of
the fifth act based on having immersed themselves in everything that has gone
before, so they know the characters, the themes, the central questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And
Jesus has certainly immersed himself in scripture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He answers all of the temptations with
quotations from Deuteronomy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he has
such a strong sense of the core of all that reading that when he’s tempted with
a verse from scripture he doesn’t have to thrash around with questions of
appropriate interpretation, he simply has a gut reaction that it would be wrong
to indulge that line of thinking, it would be wrong to put God to the
test.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bible has become part of his
bone marrow and he can improvise in a way that entirely fits with all that he
has read.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And
if we return to our improvising actors, I think we’ll find them a helpful image
as we think about the second reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
the actors improvise they will need both to be consistent with what has gone
before AND to innovate, to be creative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As Lloyd puts it, the bible in this view is not “ a rule book or a
repository of timeless truths” but instead provides “an authoritative
foundational script for an unfinished drama that requires sensitive performance
in the present to move the drama to its ultimate conclusion”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And
in some ways our second passage could be read as wrestling with the question of
how to improvise from an authoritative script.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
that passage, the Pharisees and scribes challenge Jesus over his disciples’
failure to uphold the tradition of washing their hands before eating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now washing your hands before eating sounds
like a thoroughly sensible practice and entirely in keeping with biblical
attention to purity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a good
improvisation from the authoritative script, you would think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Jesus apparently feels free to leave that
tradition to one side, to improvise all over again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As
I was preparing this, I couldn’t help thinking not only about our theme for
this sermon series, the bible, but also about our situation as a church,
seeking new ways forward that will help us to be visible, open and welcoming
and meet people where they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No doubt
we have some sensible traditions that are in keeping with what we understand
the bible to teach – but however good they are it may nevertheless to be time
to improvise afresh, to start some new traditions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But
of course it’s not as simple as just innovating away like mad for the sake of
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like stock markets and single
currencies, improvisations can go wrong as well as right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Pharisees too have done their own
improvising and innovating over the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their tradition has reinterpreted the command to honour father and
mother to allow someone to devote whatever they would have given to their
parents to the Temple instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus
roundly condemns this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sees this
re-interpretation as just a self-serving attempt to wriggle out of what God
commands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also seems suspiciously
convenient for the Pharisees that their fresh interpretation brings in lots of
extra money for the religious establishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So it turns out to be quite easy not only to misuse the bible but also
to ignore it – just substitute a plausible tradition and you have the perfect
excuse to ignore the call of God. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I
think we too could easily enough fall – or may already have fallen - into the
Pharisees’ trap of interpreting a core commandment into a tradition that just
happens to suit us very well by allowing us to ignore scripture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If some of our old traditions or our new
ideas are suspiciously convenient we may need to examine our hearts and the
tradition and be open to correction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I
think these passages bring us several challenges.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">They
challenge us to follow Jesus’ example and immerse ourselves in the bible so we
are equipped like Jesus to pick out and apply the spirit of scripture to a
whole range of new challenges and temptations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One of those temptations maybe to follow seductive popular trends which
don’t fit with our calling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But
that’s not to say that we should dig our heels in and refuse to change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We may need to be willing to let old
traditions go, however good they are, and creatively improvise new ones.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So
it’s not a straightforward question of sticking conservatively with the wisdom
of the past, nor a simplistic “out with the old and in the new”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The old traditions may not continue to be
necessary or helpful, but equally the new will not, just by being new,
automatically be faithful to the bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We’ll have to work together, with extreme alertness to the danger of
being too self-serving in our interpretation and improvisation, to give the
appropriate value to old and new.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I
think this is what </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Alan Kreider was talking about in
April this year when he quoted </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.5pt;">Matthew 13:52:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Therefore every
scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a
household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.")<o:p></o:p></span></h4>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So
my conclusion seems to be that, as usual, there are no easy answers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll need a good knowledge not only of
scripture but also of the overall character of scripture and the character of
God so that we can find our way through all this and avoid misusing the
bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll need each other as we work
together on interpreting the bible and improvising our part of the drama.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And although our practice of seeking to
interpret the bible together gives us some safeguards, the community of the
Pharisees interpreted together and went astray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So we’ll need to be keenly alert to the danger of self-serving
interpretation, interpreting the bible in ways that are all too convenient for
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll need to work hard as we seek
to discern carefully, keeping all this in mind, as we evaluate traditions new
and old, ready to repent of any that are really there for our sake not that of
God or others<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– and we’ll need the Holy
Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I pray that we may have the
determination, the honesty with ourselves and the openness to the Spirit that
we will need over the coming months.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-40677329538819563272011-10-23T15:30:00.000+01:002011-11-20T21:43:02.788+00:00The word of God is not easily ignored<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<b>Preacher: Veronica</b></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<b>Readings:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Jeremiah 36:1-32 John 10:31-38</b></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
It’s a strange and almost comic story we just heard from Jeremiah. I like it particularly because as a writer myself, I see it as a story of the most drastic editing in history, followed by the writer’s revenge on the editor. But my reason for sharing it today is different. It’s that I think it links interestingly with what Jesus says in the other story we heard from John 10: ‘the scripture cannot be annulled’.</div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
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What did Jesus mean? Fundamentalists might say that it means the Bible is infallible, that it contains factually accurate history, and that its prophecies are literally being fulfilled for today which is, of course, the last days - it always is the last days for people who devote their energy to working out when the last days are.</div>
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But readers or hearers of the scriptures in Jesus’ day would not necessarily have thought of them that way. At this time the canon of scripture was still fluid. The final list of which books were authoritative was probably not fixed till the start of the rabbinic period, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. So opinions would vary about which scriptures were valid - and even then, this would not have been thought of in terms of whether you could prove who wrote them, or how historically accurate they were. Rather, scriptures were evaluated in terms of how useful they were in directing everyday living and worship.</div>
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Actually, to be honest, Jesus is quoting and using scripture here in a way which would certainly not be recognized as valid by modern scholars. He quotes Psalm 82:6:</div>
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<i>I say, “You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like mortals, and fall like any prince.”</i></div>
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In the context of the original psalm, God appears to be speaking to the ‘divine council’. This is a concept we also meet at the beginning of Job when ‘the heavenly beings’ come to present themselves before the Lord. Clearly this is a more ancient form of Jewish theology in which lesser gods, perhaps the gods of other nations, are subservient to the chief God, Yahweh. But Jesus takes this Scripture and uses it to talk about human beings, affirming the divine status of women and men made in God’s image. So actually he’s being very free and easy with Scripture, in a way reminiscent of other rabbis of the time.</div>
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When he declares that ‘scripture cannot be annulled’ (or ‘cannot be broken’), then, Jesus is not saying then that every scripture must be interpreted literally or even that every prophecy has a specific time in history for ‘coming true’. Rather, I think he’s saying that no part of scripture can be dismissed or discarded and that every scripture can be used to interpret the relationship between God and humans, and between us and others, at every time in history. In a sense he’s saying something similar to the modest claim of Scripture’s ‘usefulness’, made by Timothy about Scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16 :</div>
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<i>‘All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness’</i></div>
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Scripture, then, does not have a ‘use by‘ date or a single use code. It is perennially relevant and will speak again and again to every new generation, though each generation may have to do some new interpreting.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But I think there is a second sense in which Jesus means something like ‘scripture cannot be deleted’. To return to the story from Jeremiah, if God wants to say something to God’s people, a penknife and brazier job is not going to silence that message. Despite the king’s drastic editing, Jeremiah is able to reproduce word for word what God has said to him, and even add some more. And this is what I call the writer’s revenge.</div>
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Have you ever laboriously written a document on your computer and then found that with one misstroke of keys you deleted the whole thing? I certainly have. But I have found that if I started writing again immediately, it was remarkable how much of the original I could remember, sometimes word for word. I could recreate my writing without too much trouble - although I’ve never deleted a really long document or a whole book, which might be harder. And I don’t think this ability is exclusive to writers like myself.</div>
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How does this happen? It’s something about the ideas existing not just on the page or screen but in our own minds and hearts - so that the same mind and heart which produced the first version can reproduce the gist of it in the second version. It’s notable at the beginning of the Jeremiah story that there seems to be a time gap between Jeremiah hearing the word of God and writing it down with the help of Baruch. He is told to write down everything God said to him in the reigns of Josiah and Jehoiakim - a long period of oral testimony before he is instructed to write. The primary source, if you like, is the word which arises in Jeremiah’s consciousness, and the written form is secondary.</div>
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Of course if you believe that all of Scripture is directly dictated by God, so that the writer is in effect doing automatic writing, it’s simple - God just dictates the whole lot again. But this is not my theory of how Scripture came to be, and I don’t think it’s even something Scripture claims for itself. When 2 Timothy 3 says all Scripture is inspired by God, the literal translation is ‘All Scripture <i>has the breath of God’</i>. I think that’s wonderful - it suggests that Scripture is created by human beings, using their own insight and imagination and mental powers, but under the inspiration of God.</div>
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If the primary source of Scripture is the mind and heart of the writer, rather than the written text, then it is a lot harder to erase, because as an old song says about memories,<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>‘they can’t take that away from me’. Jeremiah himself describes the word of God as being like a fire in his bones (this is Jeremiah 20:8-9<i>)</i>:</div>
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<i>If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.</i></div>
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This speaks to me of God’s communication to humanity being a matter of passion - Jeremiah has to speak it out because he is passionate about what God is saying. And that of course is the mark of really good writing: a passion to say what you want to say. Could we also extrapolate from that and say Scripture is the product of God’s passion to communicate with God’s children? I think there is a case for this. Take Isaiah 42:13-14:</div>
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<i>The Lord goes forth like a soldier, like a warrior he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes.</i></div>
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<i>For a long time I have held my peace,</i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><i>I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant (42:.13--14)</i></span></div>
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In Luke’s Gospel, Luke has a habit of pairing a parable with a male image of God, with another with a female image of God. Here Isaiah is doing something similar, pairing the image of God as a soldier with God as a woman giving birth. We Mennonites may have trouble thinking of God as soldier; but this is not someone controlling a drone bomber from a remote computer desk, it’s a man going into battle with passion for his cause, crying out his battle cry, perhaps fighting injustice and oppression. And in case that’s too destructive an image of God, it’s immediately balanced with image of a woman giving birth - crying out in pain, but also panting to deliver her long awaited baby.</div>
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These are images of God being passionate about letting people know what God feels about them, and what plans God has for them - a passion to communicate, which cannot easily be destroyed. And the word God speaks is meant to make us long with a passion for the same things God longs for: justice, peace and the wellbeing of the whole world. Then the word from God will inhabit our hearts, souls, minds and lives and will bear fruit.</div>
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‘Bearing fruit’ suggests a third aspect of Jesus’s saying: that the word of God is never spoken in vain. Which leads us to Isaiah again, in ch 55:10-11:</div>
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<i>For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,</i><i>so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it</i></div>
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In other words, prophecy is not given to confirm speculation about the future; it is given to accomplish change in the present. When Scripture is engraved on our hearts, it begins to effect real change in the world. Paul describes this process to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 3:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><i>...You are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts</i>... <i>for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life..</i></span></div>
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When the word is written on our hearts in this way, then we can become what James calls ‘doers of the word, not just hearers’.</div>
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So to recap: I think there are three things Jesus is implying here:</div>
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1. No part of scripture ever becomes redundant; it will always have new applications for a new situation.</div>
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2. Scripture, as the product of God’s passion for humanity, cannot be destroyed or blotted out so long as it lives in our hearts and lives.</div>
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3. The word of God, once spoken, will accomplish the thing it has been spoken to achieve.</div>
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All this brings the Scriptures off the page and into real life. It allows Jesus, in the story from John, to use a psalm verse rather freely to speak about his own unity with the Father. And it also allows us, following in his steps, to achieve the same divine status, as we are gradually conformed into the image of Christ. One of the best ways of conforming us into that image is for us to encounter Jesus in all of scripture, as Anabaptists have been doing for five centuries.</div>
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<br /></div>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-88028436525170596472011-10-16T15:30:00.000+01:002012-03-15T09:58:14.888+00:00Ps 119 – the Bible is there to benefit us not to condemn us<!--[if !mso]>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "ArialMT","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Preacher: Sue</span></b></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">One of the things I
like about poetry is its capacity to say a lot in a short space, in just a few
words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so I rarely see the point of
long poems…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">So you can probably
imagine that my heart sank at the idea of preaching on Psalm 119 – all 176
verses of it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">But it’s not just the
length of Ps 119 that made my heart sink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For the English reader or listener, Ps 119 is kind of shapeless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It rambles around meditatively – and
repetitively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a clear focus to
all the reflections – but no narrative thread or logical progression.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">But, while Ps 119 may
seem shapeless in English, in the original Hebrew it has a very clear formal
shape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s an acrostic, in 22 chunks
(or stanzas), one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and each chunk
consists of 8 sentences, each beginning with the same letter of the
alphabet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So for instance the first 8
sentences all start with the Hebrew letter <i>aleph</i> and the next eight with
<i>beth</i> and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">A British Catholic,
Ronald Knox, translated Psalm 119 into English using the same pattern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll hear one letter’s worth of his
translation, after we hear the NRSV translation of the same verses, 9 to 16,
just to get a feel of how this works:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">9</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> How can young people keep their way pure? By
guarding it according to your word. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">10</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> With my whole heart I seek you; do not let me
stray from your commandments. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">11</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may
not sin against you. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">12</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your
statutes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">13</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> With my lips I declare all the ordinances of
your mouth. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">14</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> I delight in the way of your decrees as much as
in all riches. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">15</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> I will meditate on your precepts, and fix my
eyes on your ways. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">16</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> I will delight in your statutes; I will not
forget your word. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7ucMElqBOFTCMbgmaRUeYQKcLjlJLakk2gMDh_pHNvL84ha9CBt0Dm6GMzpltis6lwAVGbiNY5iCfH0jhRKBljrzS_tzcgO3RSGuM-1_b1ODq8mp0kqTTcTFiQ7aDPAWmRDVeYH4FRhiU/s1600/Knox.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7ucMElqBOFTCMbgmaRUeYQKcLjlJLakk2gMDh_pHNvL84ha9CBt0Dm6GMzpltis6lwAVGbiNY5iCfH0jhRKBljrzS_tzcgO3RSGuM-1_b1ODq8mp0kqTTcTFiQ7aDPAWmRDVeYH4FRhiU/s320/Knox.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 17px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">A number of
commentators see the first verse of our reading, verse 9, as the key to the
psalm, that is the question “</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">How
can young people keep their way pure? By guarding it according to your word” or
“By keeping to your word.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The whole
psalm, then, is an answer to the question of how a young person can learn to be
faithful to God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The heart of the answer
is a deep commitment to and love for God’s word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">This answer holds true
for any faithful Israelite, not just for the psalmist, and for all of us who
ask the question, “How can we keep our way pure?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Walter Brueggemann talks about Israel as a
community of joyful obedience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
fragility and vulnerability that followed Israel’s return from exile (when the
psalms were probably being edited into their final shape), this community
needed identity and comfort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It found
that in its relationship with Yahweh and its commitment to living within the
tradition and the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">Brueggemann says that
Israel’s horizon is defined by the Torah, that they accept Yahweh as the
“horizon of life”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine being on a
hill top or in a wide valley – or a 13<sup>th</sup> floor flat and looking into
the distance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that word horizon
there’s openness and the reassurance of knowing that wherever Israel looks, she
is still looking at the world of Yahweh – but there’s also a sense of an edge,
a boundary to contain us and protect us.</span></span><span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">Well, that was all by
way of introduction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In thinking about
how to preach on Psalm 119 I decided to focus on two main questions, what
scripture is to the psalmist and how he experiences scripture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">[interactive activity]<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">So, to pull some of
that together, we noticed a good number of different ways the psalmist refers
to the scripture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many are connected
with direction – in both senses of the word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>God’s word is directive, giving instruction and commandment, and it
points out a path, a direction, a pattern of life for the faithful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">In our Western, 21<sup>st</sup>
century culture, commandment and direction may not sound very welcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet if we move to our second question, how
does the psalmist experience scripture, I’m struck by the joy and delight and
sense of freedom in God’s word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">Let’s take one example,
verse 96: “I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is
exceedingly broad.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">The language and
sentiment of “I have seen a limit to all perfection” remind me of
Ecclesiastes,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Ecclesiastes nothing
makes sense and choosing God and God’s commandments is an expression of
faithfulness in spite of everything not because of the rewards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By contrast with Ecclesiastes, Psalm 119’s
overall mood is positive and confident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Brueggemannn describes it as a psalm of orientation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are some tastes of bewilderment and
pain – “</span></span><span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">81</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> My soul languishes for your salvation; I hope
in your word. </span></span><span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">82</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> My eyes fail with watching for your promise; I
ask, "When will you comfort me? </span></span><span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">83</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke,
yet I have not forgotten your statutes. </span></span><span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">84</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> How long must your servant endure? When will
you judge those who persecute me?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
it’s as if the psalmist has had brushes with the world of Ecclesiastes - . “I
have seen a limit to all perfection” – and then found himself rescued by God’s
word – “but your commandment is exceedingly broad.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The psalmist is intent on keeping God’s commandment but for
him this is not narrow and limiting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
puts him on a broad open path in pleasant places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed verse 45 of Psalm 119 captures just
this sentiment: “</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">I shall walk at
liberty, for I have sought your precepts.</span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Veronica’s
headline for this sermon on Psalm 119 was “</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "ArialMT","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">the Bible is there to benefit us not to condemn us</span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this psalm certainly sets out plenty of
benefits of the Bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Happiness or
blessedness go hand in hand with keeping God’s commandments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously that’s only one side of the story –
bad things DO happen to good people – and in Brueggemann’s terms this psalm is
part of the bible’s core testimony about Yahweh and must be taken alongside the
bible’s voices of counter-testimony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
there are many other benefits which would hold true even in times of
trial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God’s word delights the psalmist,
revives him, keeps him from sin, gives him hope, sustains him through misery,
gives him wisdom and understanding, gives him light and peace and keeps him
from stumbling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God’s decrees are
counsellors for him – a beautiful picture of scripture as companion and
adviser.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">And
if this all sounds a bit self-centred, let’s notice two of the psalmist’s
prayers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In verse 36</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> he pleads, “Turn my heart to your decrees, and
not to selfish gain”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In meditating on
God’s precepts and fixing his heart on God’s ways the psalmist does expect some
response from God – but he also expects to be transformed into a less selfish
person – perhaps we could even say a more generous person, more committed to
the welfare of the weak who are protected by God’s law, like the widow, the
orphan and the stranger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And though he
trusts that his obedience will translate into a good outcome – “</span></span><span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">173</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">
Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts” – he is
also determined that any good outcome for him will be a good outcome for God
too, for he will have the opportunity to continue being obedient and praising
God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To quote verses 88 & 175: “</span></span><span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">88</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">
In your steadfast love spare my life, so that I may keep the decrees of your
mouth… </span></span><span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">175</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"> Let me live that I may praise you, and let your
ordinances help me.”</span></span><span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">As I finish, let’s
return to our headline: </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "ArialMT","sans-serif"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">the Bible is there to benefit us not to condemn us</span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The psalmist delights in scripture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is his constant companion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The delight and constant companionship feed
each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe there is something
there for us to appropriate for ourselves in our personal lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I think there are corporate benefits too,
to our wider community as we turn our hearts to God’s ways and not to selfish
gain, and to our church community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Brueggemann describes Israel at the time of the psalms as marginalised
(a new word to me!) and “a vulnerable, outsider community, endlessly at risk,
without serious social power”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They find
a dependable reassuring constancy in commitment and obedience to God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the church generally in post-Christendom
Britain – and for us as a congregation as we learn to live without Lesley and
without the building in Shepherds Hill - perhaps a love for and obedience to
the bible is one response to feeling fragile, vulnerable and on the
margins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beneficial indeed…</span></span><span class="versenum8"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-40438016038874234112011-08-21T10:46:00.000+01:002012-03-15T10:48:05.726+00:00Facing change: Miriam<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText3">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><b>Preacher: Sue</b></span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoBodyText3" style="text-align: right;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">At WGMC we've been looking at characters from the
bible who faced change. We chose this
theme partly because this is a time of change for us. The London Mennonite Centre has sold their
building where we have held many church activities over many years and which
holds many happy memories. We thought we
might find stories in the bible that would help us think about how to follow
Jesus faithfully in these times of change.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Some weeks
back I decided to preach on Miriam – and now I’m regretting that as I’m really
not sure what to make of her story! But
let’s start with the easy bit, the early chapters of Exodus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Reading:
Ex 1:8- 2:10<o:p></o:p></span></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span class="versetext8"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know
Joseph. He said to his people,
"Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than
we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with
them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and
fight against us and escape from the land." Therefore they set taskmasters over them to
oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses,
for Pharaoh. But the more they were
oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to
dread the Israelites. The Egyptians
became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, and made their lives
bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor.
They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them. The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew
midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, "When you act
as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a
boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live." But the midwives feared God; they did not do
as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives
and said to them, "Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to
live?" The midwives said to
Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for
they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." So God dealt well with the midwives; and the
people multiplied and became very strong.
And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. Then Pharaoh commanded all his people,
"Every boy that is born to the Hebrews <span style="display: none;"><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/exodus/#fn-descriptionAnchor-a" title="Sam Gk Tg: Heb lacks [to the Hebrews]"></a></span>you shall throw into
the Nile, but you shall let every girl live."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span class="versetext8"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Now a man from the house of Levi went and married
a Levite woman. The woman conceived and
bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three
months. When she could hide him no
longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and
pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the
river. His sister stood at a distance,
to see what would happen to him. The
daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants
walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid
to bring it. When she opened it, she saw
the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. "This must be one of
the Hebrews' children," she said.
Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get you
a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" Pharaoh's daughter said to her,
"Yes." So the girl went and called the child's mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take
this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages." So the
woman took the child and nursed it. When
the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and she took him as
her son. She named him Moses, <span style="display: none;"><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/exodus/#fn-descriptionAnchor-a" title="Heb [Mosheh]"></a></span>"because," she said, "I drew him
out <span style="display: none;"><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/exodus/#fn-descriptionAnchor-b" title="Heb [mashah]"></a></span>of the water."</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Let’s think
about who are the heroes and villains in this story. Who do you think is the villain? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Who is the
hero? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">What do you
notice about the heroes?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">I love the
central role the women play. The
midwives ignore Pharaoh’s instructions to kill all the Hebrew baby boys. Moses’ mother cleverly follows the letter of
the law by throwing Moses into the Nile as Pharaoh commands – but to give him
the best possible chance of survival she first puts him in a basket that can
float and puts it among the reeds to stop it getting washed away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Then we
meet Moses’ sister. She’s not named but
I’m going to assume this sister on the river bank is Miriam. When Pharaoh’s daughter finds the baby,
Miriam bravely rushes forward. She talks
as if Pharaoh’s daughter is going to keep the baby – maybe it’s even Miriam who
gives her the idea. Thinking on her
feet, Miriam offers to find a Hebrew nurse.
She races home to fetch her mum and next thing we know Moses’ mother is
not only looking after the child she so nearly lost but is actually being paid
to do so. And being paid by the daughter
of the man who wanted the baby dead in the first place… What a great way of resisting oppression and
injustice! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">(As an
aside, I’m intrigued by Pharaoh’s daughter too.
Surely she knew that her father was having Hebrew boys put to
death. She may well have guessed too
that her adopted baby’s nurse is not some random Hebrew woman but the child’s
own mother. I wonder if this was her own
resistance to her father’s cruelty?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Anyway, we
should get back to Miriam… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">We meet her
next just after the Israelites have escaped from slavery in Egypt and have seen
the army that was pursuing them drowned by the sea they themselves had just
crossed safely. I guess this may raise
some uncomfortable questions for us about the deaths of the Egyptian men and horses,
but of course the Israelites hadn’t come across Jesus and his awkward teaching
about loving your enemy. Besides, they
had just escaped by the skin of their teeth from an army which would probably
have slaughtered them if they hadn’t drowned first.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">So they
were ecstatic and Moses led the people in singing – then Miriam led the women
in <span style="color: black;">dancing and singing: Exodus 15:20-21 tells us “</span></span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">the prophet Miriam, Aaron's sister, took a
tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines and
with dancing. And Miriam sang to them:
"Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has
thrown into the sea.” </span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">So
Miriam is a prophet, an inspiring leader, followed by all the women</span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Micah
6:4 underlines this: “</span><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">For
I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and redeemed you from the house of
slavery; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and <span class="highlight">Miriam</span></span></i><span class="highlight"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">.” The
resecue from Egypt is a defining story for the Israelites. And here in Micah the sending of Miriam (and
Moses and Aaron) is right up there with the Exodus as a demonstration of how
much God loves Israel. It makes me
wonder whether there aren’t some other amazing stories of what Miriam did, how
she led the people, which have got lost over the centuries as those who wrote
the bible focused so much on male leaders and prophets.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">But
I wonder how things were for Miriam as the weeks and months of wilderness
wandering wore on. The bible only really
gives us one more glimpse of her and this is where it all gets a bit puzzling. Let’s hear the story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Reading:
Numbers 12:1-16<o:p></o:p></span></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span class="versetext8"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron
spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he
had indeed married a Cushite woman); and they said, "Has the Lord spoken
only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?" And the Lord heard
it. Now the man Moses was very humble, <span style="display: none;"><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/numbers/#fn-descriptionAnchor-a" title="Or [devout]"></a></span>more so than anyone else on the face of the
earth. Suddenly the Lord said to Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam, "Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting." So
the three of them came out. Then the
Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the entrance of the tent, and
called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. And he said, "Hear my words: When there
are prophets among you, I the Lord make myself known to them in visions; I
speak to them in dreams. Not so with my
servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. With him I speak face to face—clearly, not in
riddles; and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to
speak against my servant Moses?"
And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed. When the cloud went away from over the tent,
Miriam had become leprous, <span style="display: none;"><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/numbers/#fn-descriptionAnchor-b" title="A term for several skin diseases; precise meaning uncertain"></a></span>as
white as snow. And Aaron turned towards Miriam and saw that she was
leprous. Then Aaron said to Moses,
"Oh, my lord, do not punish us <span style="display: none;"><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/numbers/#fn-descriptionAnchor-c" title="Heb [do not lay sin upon us]"></a></span>for a sin that we have so
foolishly committed. Do not let her be
like one stillborn, whose flesh is half consumed when it comes out of its
mother's womb." And Moses cried to
the Lord, "O God, please heal her."
But the Lord said to Moses, "If her father had but spit in her
face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut out of the
camp for seven days, and after that she may be brought in again." So Miriam was shut out of the camp for seven
days; and the people did not set out on the march until Miriam had been brought
in again. After that the people set out
from Hazeroth, and camped in the wilderness of Paran.</span></span><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Let’s
ask the same questions again. </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Who are the
heroes and villains here? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Well,
to me this is a much more puzzling passage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">What
is even going on here? What are Miriam
and Aaron complaining about? Is Moses wife
the same wife (Zipporah) as we’ve already met a couple of times in the book
of? Or is it a new wife? Are they angry with Moses’ wife? Or are they angry with Moses? Maybe they don’t think he’s treating her
well? It’s often said that Moses’
Cushite wife was probably black. Does
this mean Miriam and Aaron are being racist and having a go at her in a very
nasty way? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">And
what do we make of Aaron’s & Miriam’s complaint that God has spoken through
them as well as Moses? Are they right to
be feeling overlooked and aggrieved? I
wonder whether Miriam at least was getting a lower profile than she
deserved. Perhaps Moses DID have a habit
of squeezing Aaron and Miriam out of the picture. It’s hard to tell. The text is very pro Moses but then it was
handed down and written down by a long line of people who had looked to Moses
as THE great prophet and leader of his people.
And we do know from a story in Exodus that Moses’ father-in-law had to
teach him about sharing responsibility as he tended to be a bit of a one-man
show. And one of Miriam’s gifts seemed
to be precisely NOT being a one-woman show – as she led all the women joined in
singing and dancing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">And
why did Miriam get punished and Aaron apparently not? It seems unfair and hard to explain. And what do we make of an account of God
punishing someone this way, even if she is restored a week later?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Well,
I don’t have answers for these questions and it’s hard to be sure how fair the
writer is being to Miriam, but I do have a few reflections both on how Miriam
dealt with change and how she handled conflict.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">The
first is that is doesn’t matter how much you have served God in the past – you
may even have been well-known and respected for your prophetic ministry or your
leadership – you still need to carry on being faithful. Miriam has been bold and faithful in the past
but that doesn’t give her permission to switch off now and just do what she
wants. Maybe Miriam found it relatively
easy to be faithful and obedient in the midst of the challenge and drama of
rescue from Egyptian slavery but finds it harder to keeping going weeks or
months later. Maybe she was good at
dealing with exciting change but less good when times of high drama changed
into days of repetitive routine. There
are probably moments for us all when with God’s grace we rise to a challenge
but often it’s harder once things calm down and the new challenge is being
faithful in small things day by day.
Perhaps that’s been the experience of the young people and organisers of
Junior Apprentice – a real sense of being close to God during that week and a
struggle to stay in touch with God in daily life once it was all over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">It’s
not just how you start that counts but also how you finish. Of course that applies in visible projects,
maybe in school or at work or in church which it’s easy to start with
enthusiasm and finish with bitter complaining – or not finish at all! - but I
think it counts hour by hour too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">My
husband Peter <b><i>loves</i></b> playing complicated board games frequently
and for hours at a time. I <b><i>quite
like</i></b> playing short easy board games occasionally… You can probably already see where this is
going…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Sometimes,
especially if Peter is feeling a bit low, in a surge of love and generosity I
offer to play a game with him – but then spend so much of the game sighing and
groaning about how difficult it is that the game is ruined for Peter! So I need to learn to finish as well as
start… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Or
take some other examples. How many of
you have just got exam results? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">With
most exams, once you pass you’ve always passed – if your filing is good you can
hang on to the certificate for the rest of your life. If you run you’re only as fit as your last
few weeks of training. And I imagine
that even the amazing young musicians we have here today are only as skilled as
their last few months of practice and performance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">I
think the Christian life is more like running or playing an instrument than
doing an exam. You can’t just put
previous highs of serving God or sensing God’s presence in your pocket – or your
filing cabinet – and then feel free to be mean and divisive later in life
because you’ve already done the following Jesus bit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">I
wonder whether Miriam has also seen her role or her position changing – or at
least feels that she’s not being appreciated.
And we will probably often face changes in our roles. In both our congregations people come in and
out of leadership - Baptist deacons and Mennonite elders step down and return
to being ordinary members of the congregation.
Or perhaps people who’ve been leaders in other churches or still are
leaders at work are part of a church where they have less responsibility or a
lower profile. Or perhaps we change role
as we move to a new place or change church, school or job, retire or, in this
economic climate, lose a job. What could
we learn from Miriam?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Well,
I have quite a bit of sympathy with Miriam.
And I certainly don’t think this passage is telling us not to challenge
our leaders or that when we do the leaders should clamp down hard. Notice that it’s not Moses who reproves
Miriam and Aaron, it’s God. It’s not up
to Moses to squash Miriam and Aaron’s challenge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">But
I do think Miriam and Aaron get several things wrong. Let’s have a look.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">What
do you think they are really bothered about?
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">What
do they say to Moses?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Let’s
look more closely at what they do. They
talk with each other behind Moses’ back.
And when they do speak to Moses they don’t actually say they’re unhappy
that they’re not being given enough responsibility or recognition. They go off on a completely different tack,
making a complaint related to his wife.
I wonder what would have happened if they’d come to Moses individually
with their real grievance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">I
think there are lessons here for all of us about disagreements and
disappointments and conflict – in the church and elsewhere. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">The
Israelites were facing a lot of change.
It was a tough time for the whole people and for the leaders. This was bound to bring strains in
relationships. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">How
Miriam and Aaron deal with this is unhelpful in at least three ways. Firstly, they talk to each other before they
talk to Moses. They feed each other’s
grievance. The Mennonite congregation
has for many years tried to follow the pattern for dealing with disagreements
which Jesus talks about in Matthew 18.
Verse 15 says “</span><span class="versetext8"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">If another member
of the church <span style="display: none;"><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/matthew/#fn-descriptionAnchor-e" title="Gk [If your brother]"></a></span>sins against you, <span style="display: none;"><a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/nrsa/matthew/#fn-descriptionAnchor-f" title="Other ancient authorities lack [against you]"></a></span>go and point
out the fault when the two of you are alone.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">” It’s hard to stick to that but it’s an
important principle. Instead Miriam and
Aaron decided to have a good moan behind Moses’ back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">The
second unhelpful thing is what they say to Moses. They don’t mention the thing they are really
unhappy about - unless perhaps they’re complaining that Moses’ wife is taking
some of their role.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">And
the third thing is that they turn the focus on Moses and attack him rather than
talk about what they are finding hard and what they want to happen. They’re annoyed with him so they look around
for an excuse to have a go at him. (Now
that’s a temptation I recognise…)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">So
instead of going to Moses individually and saying “I’m unhappy at losing my
role and not being properly appreciated, and I would like us to find a way of
dealing with that”, they talk behind his back, go to him with a different issue
and then make it all about Moses: “you are getting things wrong, you are at
fault”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">These
are real temptations at the best of times but I think it’s particularly easy to
fall into these traps when there is lots of change around us or when our role
is changing, particularly when we are feeling more on the fringes than we used
to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">Reflecting
on our two congregations, I think there is change for both, now and ahead of
us. As Mennonites we are working out
life without the London Mennonite Centre building and with a less close
relationship with the Centre. Maybe we
feel a bit like Miriam. As Baptists you
face change now as you continue to open yourselves and your premises as widely
as you can to the community and more change in the future when you appoint a
minister.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 120%;">So
in spite of my many unanswered questions I hope we can learn from Miriam and
her story. Miriam was brave and creative
in a crisis. She undermined Pharaoh’s
cruelty by setting up a subversive childcare arrangement for her brother. She thanked God wholeheartedly, caught the
spirit of a whole community and inspired them in worship. And she made some mistakes in the way she
tackled conflict at a time of change and disappointment. Maybe we can commit ourselves again to the
pattern of Matthew 18, aiming to talk privately <b><i>with </i></b>someone we
have a difficulty with – including our leaders - <b><i>with </i></b>them not <b><i>about
</i></b>them behind their back and to being honest about our struggles, not
just finding an excuse to attack other people.
In doing that we may find that we are learning both from Miriam and from
Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-32412401802945280122011-07-24T15:30:00.000+01:002011-11-20T21:49:43.430+00:00Facing Change: Mark<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<h1>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Preacher: Peter</span></h1>
<h2>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Readings</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Acts 12.25-13.13</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Acts 15.36-41</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Col 4.10-11</div>
<h2>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Introduction</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Change is not always something imposed on me from the
outside – a change in where I live or who I live with or how I earn a living
for example. It can be even tougher to deal with an internal change – a sudden
change in my picture of myself, who I am, or what my future holds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will be talking today about Mark, a
young man we meet in the pages of the New Testament who suddenly, and
irrevocably,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>lost his vision of his
identity and his future, and replaced it with – what?</div>
<h2>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Mark’s background</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the time of our readings from Acts, John Mark was an
educated young man from a respectable and well-to-do Jewish family. His mother,
Mary, owned a large home in Jerusalem - roomy enough for “many” Christians to
gather in for prayer (Acts 12.12). And his cousin Barnabas was a wealthy
landowner and a Levite. He had a latin name (Marcus) as well as a Jewish one
(Johanan), so was perhaps equally at home in the Jewish and gentile cultures of
his day. It seems likely that in his youth he was associated with the circle of
Jesus’ followers. If indeed he was the young man who fled naked from the mob in
Gethsemene (Mark 14.51) then he witnessed the terrible events of Jesus’ passion
in Jerusalem.</div>
<h2>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Paul’s First Journey</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We find him a few years later in the flourishing church at
Antioch, having been collected from Jerusalem by Paul and Barnabas, clearly
singled out for great things. When the Holy Spirit calls the two apostles to
set out on their first evangelistic foray into the Eastern Mediterranean,
without hesitation they choose Mark “to assist them”. We can only guess at the
qualities which led to him being selected by the great men: his education
perhaps, or his inter-cultural ease, or his youthful enthusiasm?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All goes well at first. They have a torrid time in Cyprus,
confronting both black magic and Roman power, before they turn their eyes to bigger
prizes and set sail for mainland Asia Minor. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And it’s here that Mark turns out to be a big
disappointment, to himself probably as much as anyone else. He decides to go
back home. We can only guess at his reasons. Was he shocked and a little scared
by the dramatic events on Cyprus? Was Paul proving difficult to live with
day-in day-out? Was he just homesick? Or could you put a more simple, ugly
label on his behaviour – cowardice? He was given this amazing,
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he thought he had the enthusiasm and energy and
courage for it, but when it came to it – he gave up.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h2>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A personal aside</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s painful for me to think about Mark’s story, because it
reflects my own. Aged twenty I was a medical student at Oxford University. I’d
just been offered a place at Cambridge to do my clinical degree. A vision of a
golden life lay before me, within my grasp. And for reasons which with
hindsight now seem stupid or cowardly, I gave up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve often bitterly regretted that foolish decision of my
youth. A wonderful opportunity which seemed to drop so easily into my hands,
turned out to be strictly a one-off – once lost, impossible to recover.</div>
<h2>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">God of Second Chances</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But God is the God of second chances, right? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Barnabas seems to think so. He and Paul are back in Antioch,
planning their second journey back to Asia Minor, visiting the churches they
planted on their first trip, and perhaps planting a few more. Barnabas tells
cousin Mark not to feel sad, he’ll have a word with Paul. After all, Paul’s a
great believer in God’s grace - he’s sure to give Mark a second chance. Hope
swells in Mark’s heart.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But it turns out Paul is also a great believer in assembling
a reliable team, and as far as he’s concerned Mark is tainted with
unreliability. He’s not willing to take the risk.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even worse, this leads to a “sharp disagreement”. Now Mark
has dragged Barnabas into his failure. Thanks to Mark, Paul and Barnabas will
never work together again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is the crunch point, where Mark has to face the fact
that he is not and never will be the great evangelist that he dreamed he would.
And his future will not be what he imagined and dreamed of – sharing the
apostle Paul’s great adventure, taking the gospel, in the face of terrifying
opposition, across the Roman Empire to Rome itself. That identity, and that
future, could have been, but now – thanks to Mark’s loss of nerve - never will
be. Nobody else did this to him, he did it to himself. And God is not going to
make everything all right and produce a second chance for him. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, he goes off to Cyprus with Barnabas and does some
useful work. But it’s definitely small time, not big time. It’s not storming
the Empire with Paul.</div>
<h2>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A corporate aside</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m sure I don’t need to labour the resonance between this
point in Mark’s story, and the point we find ourselves at in Wood Green
Mennonite Church’s story. We had a vision of our identity and future that has
been shaken. We had a picture of our future stretching decades ahead, of
ourselves in a warm ongoing relationship with the London Mennonite Centre and that
wonderful house on Shepherd’s Hill. And a sense of our own identity as a church
that was both enabled and constrained by that relationship. That has all gone
now, and we are left wondering: what is our identity and future now?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So with this in mind, let’s go back to Mark, eating his
heart out over his lost opportunities....</div>
<h2>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Something else</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
....something else happens.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It often does.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Years later we find Mark, now well into his middle years, in
Rome, and – what a surprise this is! - reconciled with Paul. Paul is in prison,
and Mark is one of his inner circle, one of only three Jewish friends standing
alongside him in his trouble. Mark, says Paul, has “been a comfort to me”(Col
4.11) and “is very useful to me” (2 Tim 4.11), and is the apostle’s trusted
messenger, running errands for him to places like Colossae. Paul, maybe humbled
a little by his experience of imprisonment, has come to see that Mark has some value
after all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Rome Mark is also highly valued by Peter, who regards him
as “my son” (1 Pet 5.13).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
through this association, Mark finds himself engaged in a new task that he
probably never imagined in his enthusiastic youth. Irenaeus tells us that “after
their departure [ie the deaths of Paul and Peter] Mark, Peter’s disciple, has
himself delivered to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching”. So Mark
becomes the writer of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>his gospel,
a gloriously immediate, exciting and memorable piece of storytelling which
belongs with the great works of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>world literature, and has arguably done more to acquant people with
Jesus down the centuries than even the apostle Paul ever did.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So Mark turned out to be an evangelist after all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I take two things from this. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Firstly: we don’t always value our own talents, we value much
more highly the things that we find difficult, the skills that we struggle to
acquire. My son Gavin has a gift for drawing, always has. From a young age he
has been able to draw a lifelike representation of pretty much anything you can
place before him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he’s never
done anything with it – my guess is that it comes so easily to him he hardly
thinks of it as a talent at all. And I wonder if Mark was the same – thanks to
his privileged background he was always able to write, and write well. But in
his youthful idealism he didn’t want to be a writer, he wanted to be the
missionary church planter – a vocation that, as it turned out, he was not so well
suited for. Writing seemed too easy to be exciting. Even so, it turned out to
be his life’s work, the thing he was born for.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Secondly: Mark did not retreat into middle-aged cynicism. I
guess most of us have met people like this, who talk with world-weary irony of
their own youthful idealism. Maybe I am sometimes tempted to talk like that
myself. But Mark’s gospel, written in his fifties or even his sixties, is a
young man’s book, and his Jesus is every inch the idealistic young man, rushing
hastily from one confrontation with evil to another, not a minute to lose,
burning with the urgency of his mission. Despite the bitter disappointments
that life, or more accurately Mark himself, had dealt out to him, Mark never
abandoned his youthful love for Jesus and enthusiasm to serve him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May I be able to say the same of
myself. Amen.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-84945823620963250582011-06-19T10:49:00.000+01:002012-03-15T10:52:15.951+00:00Why suffering?<br />
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Clean, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<b>Preacher: Sue</b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Clean, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
In preparing this, I have been very influenced by a paper, “When darkness covers the earth”, given by one of my teachers when I studied at King’s College London, Murray Rae.</div>
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Today I’m going to focus on human suffering. And I’m going to assume that for us as Christians, one of the key difficulties of suffering - apart from just the sheer business of getting through it ourselves or with others - is the questions it raises. I’m going to crystallise the problem as follows: if God is good, loving and all powerful, why do so many people suffer so much? What I found helpful in my teacher’s paper was that he pinpointed three beliefs underlying this question and examined ways in which people have tried to explain away the problem by denying one of these beliefs. Those three beliefs are: suffering is bad, God is good and loving and God is all-powerful.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Clean, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.5em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
I’ve found it helpful to visualise this as a stool: take away any one of the legs and you no longer have a useable stool. Take away any one of these beliefs and, although you still have to live with suffering, you no longer have the agonising questions about where God is in it all.</div>
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So let’s look at these three legs in turn, starting with the belief that God is good and loving. I understand from my Advanced Workshop students (<a class="ext" href="http://workshop.org.uk/advanced" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.rootandbranch.org.uk/sites/all/modules/extlink/extlink.png); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; color: #2763a5; padding-right: 12px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="http://workshop.org.uk/advanced">http://workshop.org.uk/advanced</a>) that there are Christians who question this - though I’m afraid that in a very unscholarly way I have forgotten all the details! Of course in the midst of suffering we may wonder just how loving God really is - and perhaps we wonder this also when we read parts of the Old Testament. But I think to remove this leg would be the least satisfying way of destabilising the stool because the faith it would leave us with would be so impoverished. I want to insist that God loves us and is on our side. So I’m not going to explore that “leg” further.</div>
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What about the next leg, the belief that suffering is evil?</div>
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Although this may not instantly appeal, when we stop to think we can probably come up with a number of ways in which people downplay the evil-ness of suffering.</div>
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One way might be a strong belief in providence, where God is in full control, so anything that happens is God’s will and even things that seem awful must have some good about them. For instance, Joni Eareckson came to terms with her paralysis after an accident by seeing it as part of God’s plan for her life and being grateful for the way it forced her to seek God in a way that she would not have done otherwise.</div>
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However, I think this view misses the fact that we are in a fallen world. For instance, we see violence all around us but do not as Anabaptists believe that just because it exists it must be God-ordained. So our theology of providence has, I think, to make room for the fact that not everything that happens is proved, just by the fact of happening, to be God’s will. And we need this belief that the world is not as God wants to give us a foothold from which to protest against injustice and the suffering which it causes, a point which has been made effectively by a number of liberation theologians. If things are as they are because God has willed it that way, then the rich can relax and enjoy their wealth and the poor had better learn to rejoice in the circumstances which God has chosen for them.</div>
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Another problem with insisting on God’s providential control of everything is that it can force us into all sorts of contortions. The philosopher and Christian Nicholas Wolterstorff lost his son in a climbing accident. Reading a book by someone who’d had a similar experience, he found this other father reflecting on Psalm 18:36 - “You gave me a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip” - and concluding that his son had indeed not slipped but that God had shaken the mountain because the son’s allotted days were completed. This may have been a comfort to that man but it came at the price of having to believe in a God who is happy to reach down to topple us to our deaths when “the time is right”. This is not the loving God I believe in.</div>
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However, I think we can say that whatever happens, God can bring some good out of and into the situation - and will lovingly do so. So while we don’t have to say that suffering is good we can, even in the darkest times, look with hope and trembling trust to the One who will never be at his wits’ end.</div>
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Others may see suffering as beneficial when it is punishment calling us to repentance - Calvin views disease and war in this way. Or perhaps suffering and struggle will be character-building. On a global scale, John Hick talks about the “soul-making” possible in our world that would not be possible for human pets living in a risk-free world of pleasure, and I do think there is something in this.</div>
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But if suffering is to be welcomed as punishment and correction or as a path to realising our full humanity, let’s think about how suffering is shared out. If we look at countries plagued by war and poverty, at women and children regularly beaten and abused by partners or fathers, or at workers exploited by ruthless factory owners, should we conclude that they are more in need of correction or character-formation than those of us whose lives are going well?</div>
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There’s another way of embracing suffering, a tradition which I believe is particularly Catholic and which teaches that our human suffering can be a way of sharing in the cross of Christ. I instinctively recoil from this, because I want to insist that suffering is bad and should be protested against and, where possible, alleviated. But I’ve been struck by a story told by Stanley Hauerwas of a friend from a Catholic background who had grown up with this tradition of redemptive suffering and later rejected it as abusive, only to feel cheated when she had to suffer prolonged sickness without it. At this point she returned to her earlier understanding and chose to see the way she dealt with suffering as her Christian calling, especially when she was unable to do other things which she might formerly have associated with that Christian calling.</div>
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So maybe we could choose to accept our own suffering and seek to learn with God how it could be in some way redemptive or life-giving for us. I’d want to insist that people be allowed to make this choice for themselves, without pressure from others, and that it would probably not be appropriate in situations of degrading suffering, such as systematic oppression or abuse. But maybe there could be a place for a community to support someone in that choice if they chose to take that path.</div>
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So what about the last leg of our stool? Could we dispense with the belief that God is all-powerful and solve the problem that way?</div>
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Process theology particularly challenges the idea of God’s omnipotence - the title of Charles Hartshorne’s book says it all: Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. In process theology, God does not have unlimited power or knowledge. Instead God and the world are in a mutual relationship where God empowers other beings but does not take power over them. This tips over the stool at one easy stroke - God is not omnipotent so God cannot be held responsible for suffering and evil in the world. The simplicity of this may be attractive, but again it’s a high price to pay because it seems that the overall witness of the bible does justify a belief in some degree of power for God.</div>
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I found this downplaying of God’s power particularly attractive when, at a time of great loss and distress, I prayed for months for God to change someone else’s mind - and that person’s mind remained firmly unchanged. And I think this “God can’t help it” approach had some truth in that particular situation, because God had chosen to leave that person free to decide what to do. However, the “free will defence” as it’s called, is a much weaker claim than that of process theology - and takes us back to John Hicks’ “soul-making”. If you had to design a world where people can have free relationships with each other and with God and can grow into “children of God”, then probably, after poring over thousands of blueprints, Hicks suggests, you would end up with a world much like this where there is freedom of choice, risk and, as a result, suffering. And if you accept this argument, you can at least explain that part of human suffering which is caused by other human beings.</div>
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Some versions of the free will defence are quite close to open theism, put forward by, for instance, Clark Pinnock and others in the book The Openness of God. Unlike the process theologians, they think that God could have been omnipotent but chose to accept some voluntary limitations on power and knowledge. So God has taken a risk, leaving some freedom to us the rest of creation. So there will be suffering which results from the freedom and openness of the universe in general, not from a particular decision on God’s part to permit - or even cause - it for any of the reasons we considered earlier.</div>
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Now, there is another way to come at this question of God’s power. It’s an approach that we find in open theism, in feminist theology and in Jürgen Moltmann to name just a few. That is to question what we mean by God’s power and in particular to question whether “omnipotence” is a helpful description. After all, though the bible is happy to talk about God’s power (and to use the title “Almighty”), it doesn’t use the concept of omnipotence as such which many, including the writers of the Openness of God, view as an import into Judaeo-Christian thought from Greek philosophy.</div>
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Writing on the Holocaust, Melissa Raphael, a Jewish feminist theologian, concludes that it was not “God-in-God’s-self, that failed Israel during the Holocaust” but rather “a patriarchal model of God”. For her, to think of God as controlling history in the same way as a patriarch might control his domain is misleading. I think there is some truth here. Though I want to hang on to some sense that God’s love will ultimately be strong enough to bring history to a good conclusion, I wonder if we sometimes confuse control and power. God can have power, I think, without having full control of every detail.</div>
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Think of the cross which Jürgen Moltmann and Eberhard Jüngel encourage us to see as the paradigm for the exercise of God’s power. When God wants to intervene powerfully in human history what we get is the frailty of a human Jesus who dies on the cross.</div>
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I wonder what you make of these attempts to remove the “stool” of our difficult question. Personally I guess I’m drawn to slightly weaken one leg by talking carefully about God’s power in a way that doesn’t make God responsible for every tiny detail of life or for every instance of suffering.</div>
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But there’s another question about these arguments. Would we be happy to rehearse them, as Irving Greenberg puts it, in “the presence of the burning children” of Auschwitz or within hearing, to draw on Moltmann and Jüngel, of the one crying out as he dies the cross ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’</div>
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Maybe, if we cannot kick away any of the legs of our stool or are too uncomfortable in the presence of real suffering to produce a neat and tidy answer, we will be left to live with the stool. Perhaps we will have to say with Michael Goldberg “there is only one fully truthful answer we can give as to why during the Holocaust such bad things happened to such good, God-revering people: We do not know.”</div>
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Wolterstorff, lamenting his dead son, puts it this way:</div>
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I cannot fit it all together by saying, ‘[God] did it,’ but neither can I do so by saying, ‘There was nothing [God] could do about it.’ I cannot fit it together at all. … I do not know why God did not prevent Eric's death. To live without the answer is precarious. It's hard to keep one's footing… I can do nothing else than endure in the face of this deepest and most painful of mysteries. I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and resurrecter of Jesus Christ. I also believe that my son's life was cut off in its prime. I cannot fit these pieces together. I am at a loss. I have read the theodicies produced to justify the ways of God to man. I find them unconvincing. … My wound is an unanswered question. The wounds of all humanity are an unanswered question.</div>
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If we can’t find a neat explanation of suffering, how can we live with the unanswered question and the stool still so solidly visible among us?</div>
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We can lament and protest as Job and many Psalms do and as we are doing today in our service.</div>
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We can try to prevent suffering by working for change and to alleviate suffering when it happens. Rowan Williams said after the tsunami “…the reaction of faith is or should be always one of passionate engagement with the lives that are left, a response that asks not for understanding but for ways of changing the situation in whatever – perhaps very small – ways that are open to us.” And perhaps part of our response to the “problem of evil” is to seek to be the kind of community which can campaign against injustice and support and advocate for those who are suffering.</div>
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And we can trust to the God who walks alongside us in our pain. Living with our questions is uncomfortable - but it’s what Job chooses despite his friends’ attempts to answer the questions neatly. Writing on Job, liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez says “God is a presence that leads amid darkness and pain, a hand that inspires confidence”. David Adams quotes a similar image: “as the rain hides the stars, as the autumn mists hide the hills, as the clouds veil the blue of the sky, so the dark happenings of my lot hide the shining of Thy face from me. Yet, if I may hold Thy hand in the darkness, it is enough.”</div>
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So I think we can find comfort in holding the hand of our loving God as we travel through the darkness of suffering. We may not know where the path is leading or understand why we have to walk this way, but we know that God goes with us and holds our hand.</div>
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And I suggest that we can also find comfort in trusting that God suffers along with those who suffer. In the Old Testament God is moved by the plight of individuals or people because he loves them and cares about them. Then in the life and death of Jesus God experiences human suffering close up. Faced with the problems of the world, seeing war and injustice and poverty and pain and illness, in the incarnation God gets stuck in, joins human beings in the mess of the world, lives and dies as a human. Theologian Colin Gunton preached at his little grandson’s funeral. He expressed grief but also certainty that this death was in some way ‘encompassed in, bracketed by the love’ of Jesus in whose death human agonies are ‘taken into the heart of God’.</div>
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In Jesus God joined us in the midst of the suffering and shared in it. God has experienced what it is to be human when everything is going wrong. In Wolterstorff’s words, “God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers. The pain and fallenness of humanity have entered into his heart.” Because of the cross, Moltmann says, ‘[t]here is no suffering which… is not God’s suffering’.</div>
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I’ve already said that the way God shows power is in the frailty of Jesus who dies on the cross. And this is also the way God shows his love, and does offer some kind of an answer to human suffering, though not in the sense of a tidy explanation. Not only have our pain and suffering entered God’s heart, but God has also entered our pain and suffering.</div>
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This is the reason I remain a Christian despite the big question of suffering. This is why for me the incarnation is so important. God has been powerless, at the mercy of events and of other people, has felt lonely and isolated as his friends were too scared to accompany him, has experienced pain and death. So those who suffer are in the company of God who has suffered too.</div>
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We may not be able to say why there is so much suffering in the world. But we can know that God is in it with us, holding our hand and understanding what it is like. In the cross Jesus not only demonstrated this supremely but also in some mysterious way began the process of redeeming our pain, overcoming suffering and preparing the way to a time and place where there will be no more pain and no more tears and where there will be healing for the nations - and for each of us.</div>Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-628199152095806652011-06-12T15:30:00.002+01:002011-07-09T10:28:11.397+01:00Facing change: Lot and HagarPreacher: Veronica<br /><br />God called Abram from his home to a new land; Abram was old and he faced many difficulties but he was given a promise and a new name, and he eventually made it to the new land.<br /><br />That’s actually got nothing to do with what I’m going to speak about today - it’s just by way of explaining why I’m not going to preach on Abraham. We all know the story too well, we’ve been reading it since Sunday school and whenever we want to think about going forward in faith, we turn to Abraham and come up with something everyone’s heard before. So I’m not preaching on Abraham, or even on Sarah, which would at least have the virtue of being less hackneyed.<br /><br />Instead I want to look at two characters in the circle around Abraham; people who were caught up in his call and who had to uproot with him even though they themselves hadn’t had a special call from God. They were, if you like, the unwilling travellers in faith, who found circumstances overtaking them and responded to them as best they could.<br /><br />The first of these characters is Lot. The earliest mention we have of Lot is in Genesis 11 where the Bible has him travelling to Haran with his grandfather Terah and his uncle Abram. There is no mention yet of a particular call to Abram and at this stage we might think of them as economic migrants, or indeed nomadic herders. However it’s also possible that Ur, where they originated, was a wealthy city and so they were in fact already well settled and lived an urban life. We know from Genesis 13, just before the passage we heard, that ‘Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold’ but we don’t know whether he already had all this wealth when he left Ur, or whether he acquired it during his stay in Haran. Lot may have followed him because his economic security was tied up with Abram’s. Ultimately we can’t tell whether Lot went with Abram willingly or unwillingly but every reference to the story elsewhere in the Bible refers to the faith of Abraham, not the faith of Lot. So we could see Lot as no more than a fellow traveller, in both the literal and political senses of that phrase.<br /><br />Now here’s where it gets interesting. After a brief and not very happy diversion to Egypt, Abram and all those with him have arrived for a second time at the borders of the promised land. But Abram (who has not acquired his new name yet), and Lot seem to be in competition for the same grazing land. Fights are breaking out between Abram’s herders and Lot’s herders; you can just imagine what chaos must have ensued when they both tried to drive their animals onto the same land. A conservative government might have called it healthy competition, but it’s more like dog eat dog, or maybe sheep eat sheep.<br /><br />Abram doesn’t want to be in conflict with his own nephew, so he suggests a solution. There is plenty of land open to them, so he suggests that they split up; and very generously, Abram gives Lot first choice of land. Now Lot, who is not renowned for his faith, probably has an eye to the main chance. So he takes a good look around and sees that the river plain is fertile and well irrigated. It’s a natural choice. But what the narrator knows, and we know, but Lot doesn’t yet know, is that Sodom, where he settles, is a place with a corrupt and callous culture.<br /><br />A side note: before we get caught up in the usual stereotype of what Sodom’s wickedness consisted of, we should listen to a verse from Ezekiel:<br /><br />Ezekiel 16:49<br /><br />There’s absolutely no mention of homosexuality here, just a city that prides itself on its luxuries and comforts, and doesn’t give a fig about the plight of those of its citizens who are in need.<br /><br />Back to Lot. We know very little about him, or how historically accurate the Bible stories of him are, but he strikes me as an example of one way to respond to change in our lives. He is the person who takes things into his own hands, who does everything he can to make the new situation as close to the old situation as possible. In Haran, or perhaps even back in Ur, he had fertile land and a good living. He is going to make absolutely sure that he gets the same in or near Canaan. In effect he’s saying, as I once posted in my Facebook status, ‘I like change, so long as it’s the kind of change I like’.<br /><br />It’s a very understandable response; one which I am often guilty of myself. In my father’s speech at Ed’s and my wedding (which incidentally was written by my mother!) my dad said it was nice to be a complete family again. He was referring to the death of my brother in 1975, and saying that welcoming Ed into the family was like bringing things closer to what they used to be. Most of us, except those who have had bad old days, secretly would like to restore things to the way they were in the good old days.<br />As for myself, I had ten years in which I would go to the LMC for tea every Friday on my way to my therapist in Tufnell Park. This was my Friday routine, set in stone. When that therapist died and I went to a new therapist, the timing didn’t work out the same, because I saw her in the morning and it was just too late to get to the LMC for coffee. So I’m very pleased that I now see a therapist in Archway, at a time when it just works out for me to go to tea at the LMC after I’ve seen her. Things are almost back to the way they used to be. But I’m also aware that soon there won’t be any tea at the LMC to go to and I shall have to go to a café and be tempted by the cup cakes.<br /><br />For many of us, when things change, our first response is to see how we can arrange it so that they end up not too different from the way they were before. But we need to bear in mind that for Lot, that meant he ended up in a place which was far more dangerous for him and his spiritual welfare, than if he’d just embraced change fully and gone into Canaan with Abram. And his subsequent history is no more edifying, involving drunkenness and incest with his daughters.<br /><br />Now I want to look at our second character, Hagar. Can we have the first reading from Genesis 21 please?<br /><br />Genesis 21:8-16<br /><br />This is much later, when not only the promise of a land, but the promise of a son, have been given to Abram who is now called Abraham. Actually, prior to this, Abram has taken quite a Lot-like decision, in sleeping with Sarah’s servant Hagar and having a son with her, Ishmael. Because the promised offspring with Sarah had not turned up yet, he decided to take matters into his own hands. In fact this was Sarah’s own suggestion, but he didn’t have to listen to her.<br /><br />So when we speak of the faith of Abraham, we need to remember that his faith was actually quite flawed. And indeed we see this earlier in Genesis 12, when he goes walkabout to Egypt instead of staying in Canaan, and pretends Sarah is his sister, to avoid the Egyptians killing him and taking her.<br /><br />But now the promise has finally come true, Abraham has a son by Sarah. And according to which translation you follow, Hagar’s son Ishmael either ‘plays with’ that son Isaac, or ‘mocks’ him. If he is indeed teasing Isaac, then Sarah is understandably upset. But we know that Sarah has already resented Hagar for a long time; and to be fair, Hagar did invite some of this feeling by ‘looking with contempt’ on Sarah when she had a son and Sarah didn’t. So now Sarah prevails on Abraham yet again, forcing him to drive Hagar away into the desert.<br /><br />Although Hagar has run away from Abraham and Sarah before, God met her in the wilderness, and she obeyed God’s call to her to return to them. It must therefore seem very cruel to her that God has now allowed her to be cast out of the very place she returned to in obedience to God. And whereas on her first time in the desert she found a water source, now she has only the limited supply of water she has brought, and a bit of bread. Also, when she ran away before, she didn’t even know yet that she was pregnant with Ishmael. But now Ishmael is a young boy, and she has no means of feeding him or giving him drink. All she can do is to watch him die - and since she can’t bear to do that, she hides him under a bush and walks away from him. Actually the timing’s a bit confused here, because Genesis 17 tells us that Ishmael is already thirteen when Abraham receives the promise of Isaac. Yet this later story suggests he is still a young child. But either way, there is no sustenance for him or his mother, and so she despairs.<br /><br />Hagar’s response to unwanted change is to believe that nothing good can ever happen to her again. It’s a very understandable response: she has obeyed God in the past, even being willing to go back to an abusive situation, but now it looks as though God has abandoned her completely.<br /><br />I can identify with Hagar’s response. In my teens and early 20s I visited regularly, and later worked in, a Lutheran conference centre where the staff lived and worked in community. It was there that I first got bitten by the community bug, and also learned about peace and justice issues. In the mid 80s, the Lutherans couldn’t afford to keep the place on any more, and they sold it to a consortium of Christian families who were going to run it as a commercial conference centre. This was a big bereavement for me, as it was a place that had been deeply significant for me and formed my faith in many ways. It also happened close to the time when the minister who had baptized me, who was also a big formative influence, died very suddenly on the street at the age of 57.<br /><br />Several years later, after I had got married and moved to Muswell Hill, Ed and I discovered the Mennonites, and it was as if God had given me back the relationship to an intentional community, and the style of Christian faith, that I had encountered years before among the Lutherans. But now God seems to be taking away a huge element of that situation again. I could be pardoned, like Hagar, for wondering what on earth God is up to.<br /><br />Change can be highly traumatic, especially when several changes come at once. Hagar had lost her job, her home and it seemed she was about to lose her precious child.<br /><br />But now we’re going to hear what happened next.<br /><br />Genesis 21:17-19<br /><br />So God meets Hagar, for the second time. This time God provides for both her and her son, not only for their immediate needs but for their future. It may not be the future she has envisaged for him, but the earlier promises to her still stand; Ishmael is still a son of Abraham, and he has a place in God’s purposes.<br /><br />We could see Hagar, then, as an example of despairing when unwanted change happens. Yet she finds that despite her lack of trust, God does actually provide for her both physically and spiritually. Change comes, but God remains faithful.<br /><br />A side note here. I’m always a little suspicious when people or hymns declare that God never changes. It’s often an excuse for blocking any change in the way we worship or serve God. Actually the Old Testament is full of examples of God changing his mind, not least in the story of Abraham, where God agrees to spare Sodom if there are ten righteous people there. But one thing we can say is that God never changes in his or her loving attitude towards us. Sometimes God’s love may be expressed in events which seem negative to us - but it doesn’t mean God has stopped loving us. It may just mean God is giving us freedom to choose, or allowing us to have experiences that train us in Christlikeness.<br /><br />Back to Lot and Hagar. What can we draw out of these two characters’ stories for ourselves? I think we can say that when change comes, whether we have chosen it or not, we need to accept it as change. We should neither try to minimise its impact as Lot does, or treat it as a catastrophe as Hagar does. The old hymn says ‘Change and decay in all around I see’, but I don’t see why we should have such a negative view of change. Why not ‘change and growth in all I see’? Maybe I’ll write a new version of that hymn with those words in it.<br /><br />Genesis 13:5-13<br /><br />Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, 6so that the land could not support both of them living together; for their possessions were so great that they could not live together, 7and there was strife between the herders of Abram’s livestock and the herders of Lot’s livestock...Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herders and my herders; for we are kindred. 9Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.” 10Lot looked about him, and saw that the plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar; this was before the Lord had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. 11So Lot chose for himself all the plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward; thus they separated from each other. 12Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom. 13Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.<br /><br />Ezekiel 16:49<br /><br />This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.<br /><br />Genesis 21:8-16<br /><br />Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. 10So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” 11The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 12But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. 13As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” 14So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.<br />15When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept.<br /><br />Genesis 21:17-19<br /><br />And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 19Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-22166159138591876422011-06-05T15:30:00.001+01:002011-07-09T10:16:31.171+01:00Goodbye to the London Mennonite CentreLiturgy by Wayne<br /><br />L: As we gather at the London Mennonite Centre for the last time as a congregation, our minds and senses are tuned to the many memories and senses which this place holds for us. We feel the ambience, we smell the fragrance, we see the beauty, we hear the sounds; people from the past materialize for us; we are fully present in this place.<br /><br />1. Indeed, this is a special place for us. We have spent many hours in this space. Some of us have lived here. Many of us have worked here: in the garden we have mowed the grass, raked the leaves, tended the plants, trimmed the hedge, formed the stone walls, and done other tasks, both small and large. We have washed the floors and windows, we have cooked meals and we have repaired the complex.<br /><br />2. Ah, the meals. House meals, church meals, communion meals and services, receptions, community events, seminars with food. We remember gathering in the kitchen with the smells and tastes and sounds of a community gathered around the table. Singing the grace, sharing the food, and sharing fellowship. Tea on the patio. Memories ...<br /><br />3. And the garden. We treasure this peaceful and beautiful place. We have eaten, sat, walked, read, and prayed in it. We have struggled with others and God in it. Some of us came to peace with God and ourselves in it; the prayer hut was our companion.<br /><br />ALL: For the life, beauty, peace, wonder, and memories of this space, we give you thanks.<br /><br />1. Life transforming things happened here. That’s why we cannot easily leave this place. Late night discussions, parties, jam sessions, singing, all influenced us. Relationships were formed and deepened. Some of us were married here. Jocelyn Murray’s ashes are buried here. For others, there are rose bushes and trees in their memory. <br /><br />2. A rowan tree for John Coffman, a may tree for Eileen Coffman, lime trees, an ash tree, rhododendron and azalea bushes, plus the abominable chestnut tree which makes such a mess on the patio. The smells of the fragrant lavender, roses, and rosemary linger with us, as do the chives and other tasty produce from the vegetable garden.<br /><br />3. And don’t forget the birds and the foxes which freely roam these haunts. The tits, robins, woodpeckers, and wrens who nest here and raise their young. Their songs and sounds still inhabit this space and our memories.<br /><br />L. “What is this place where we are meeting?” As the hymn suggests, this is more than simply a house. Indeed, for many of us, it is the community which we encountered here which made this a holy space, where we have encountered God in life-changing ways. God has spoken to us in this place through the people, the space, the teachings, and the numerous seminars. <br /><br />ALL: God, for your grace and persistence in meeting and transforming us in this place, we give you thanks.<br /><br />1. We remember the many people who have come through this place and whose memories and teachings continue to inform us. Quintus and Miriam Leatherman, John and Eileen Coffman, Alan and Eleanor Kreider, the Nelson and Ellen Kraybill, Mark and Mary Thiessen Nation, Vic and Kathy Thiessen; leaders of the Anabaptist Network, trustees, Colloque, the various hosts and hostesses, and numerous others. These people have enlarged our world view, and impacted us in ways we cannot fathom. <br /><br />2. Through the presence of these many people and their teaching, we have learned how hospitality, theology, and discipleship are all woven together in your grace and love. God, you changed us through this, and blessed our lives abundantly. Ultimately, this is what is holy to us. <br /><br />3. In this place the London Mennonite Fellowship had its roots and eventually became the Wood Green Mennonite Church. From this beginning grew a larger vision for an Anabaptist influence and presence in the U.K.; The Anabaptist Network was inaugurated as an expression of this vision. <br /><br />ALL: God, in your grace you have led us through our birth, growth, and learning. We are humbled and awed by the many ways in which you have walked with us to this point. We give you thanks, and we praise you for your faithfulness.<br /><br />L: Each painting or work of art in this building has special meaning for some of us. Fred Yokum’s art, the 50th anniversary quilt, “The Fruit of the Earth” dedicated to JD Graber, The piano dedicated by Minnie Graber, the wall hangings, Ian Pentney’s artistic impressions, and much more. <br /><br />ALL: For every memory, we give you thanks. <br /><br />L: These memories and relationships have influenced and shaped us. As we carry them forward, now an integral part of our personhood, they will also shape our future. But now we grieve the necessity of leaving this place. Yet leave it we must. We grieve this loss. (Silence)<br /><br />ALL: God, we ask you to accompany us in our grief. Guide us as we integrate this loss into our lives. May we be faithful in this part of life also. <br /><br />L: As the People of God undertook many journeys throughout history, we also undertake this next journey of our lives. We remember God’s faithfulness to us in the past, and believe that God will also be faithful to us in this coming chapter of our congregational life.<br /><br />ALL: God, as you lead us, we will follow you faithfully. Help us to remember your mercies past and present, and to hope for your Kingdom coming to us in fresh breaths of your Spirit. We believe that Your will for us will be accomplished in our life together. Lead on, O King Eternal.<br /><br />ALL: May all this, past, present, and future, bring honour to you, our God and Lord! <br />Amen and Amen.Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-38649053958042984942011-05-22T15:30:00.002+01:002011-07-09T10:23:13.938+01:00JephthahPreacher: Veronica<br /><br />You may think I have chosen a very brutal Bible story to preach on this sad afternoon. It’s a story of a dysfunctional family, a wild and violent man, a rash commitment and above all a premature death. What can such an ancient story have to say with us? What redemption is there in this sorry tale? It is one of the Bible passages that feminist scholar Phyllis Trible calls ‘texts of terror’, stories where women are totally at the disposal of men. We struggle to find any good news for women, or indeed for men, in this text.<br /><br />As a peace church we struggle with the idea of God’s Spirit inspiring Jephthah to military victory over the Ammonites. As Mennonites we may also shake our heads at his swearing an oath, even to God. But any Christians, Anabaptist or not, would struggle with the insane vow that Jepthah made to gain him victory. The King James translation has him saying that he would sacrifice ‘whatever’ came out of his house to meet him, rather than ‘whoever’ as we had in our reading. This suggests that he might have expected a calf or sheep to come out, which is possible as animals were often kept in the house. But I suspect the more modern translation we heard is more accurate, which means that he was prepared to perform human sacrifice. He probably expected to have to sacrifice a servant, but he should have thought that it could be a member of his family.<br /><br />We may find Jepthah’s actions incomprehensible, but there are still ways they can speak to us. Jephthah thought he had to offer something to God in order to get something from God. Our own danger, especially in a church which emphasises discipleship, may be that we try to do the same. We know in our heads that we can do nothing to earn God’s grace, that Jesus, in the words of the letter to the Hebrews, has opened a ‘new and living way’ to God. But that doesn’t stop us trying to bargain with God. ‘If only we had prayed more’, ‘if only we had anointed her with oil one more time’, then God would have given the healing we longed for.<br /><br />I remember when I was 20 or so resolving that I would pray all night for my brother who was having mental health problems. I lasted about half an hour before I fell asleep. And when he committed suicide at the age of 27, when I was 22, I felt guilty for years about not managing that time of prayer.<br /><br />But to quote Job, ‘God gives, and God takes away’ and there is no understanding the mysteries of life and death. Which brings us to the heart of how I think this story can speak to us, and why I chose it for today, because it is the story of a premature death. Some commentators suggest that instead of sacrificing her, Jepthah dedicated his daughter to perpetual virginity. This would be a severe sentence in a society where the whole purpose of being a woman was to have children. But there is no evidence in the story for it. We could also plead that it is a legend, a story so old we cannot rely on its historical status. But that does not make it any less a text of terror, a story of undeserved, untimely, brutal death.<br /><br />We have seen a lot of premature death in our congregation in the last eight years. There are many Bible passages that might comfort and console us, and I’m sure we will be turning to them as we mourn Lesley, who died on Tuesday. But sometimes when it’s hard, I find - and this may just be me - that a hard Bible passage can speak our grief for us in unexpected ways. I have often found reading the book of Job oddly supportive when I have been through hard times.<br /><br />So at the very least, this text can tell us that the Bible is full of stories of grief and sorrow, and that we don’t need to hide our grief from each other or from God. As Christians we can read it alongside Jesus’ promise in Matthew that ‘not one sparrow will fall to the ground apart from your Father’, or as Luke tells it, ‘not one of them is forgotten by God’ - and ‘you are of more value than many sparrows’. Or in the words of Psalm 116: ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones’.<br />I find it ironic that Jepthah’s daughter comes out of their house ‘with dancing and timbrels’, celebrating his victory. She thought she was about to receive good news, and instead she heard the worst news she could. I heard of my brother’s death on a day when I was preparing for my belated birthday party that night. I arrived at my college room with arms full of food for the party, and I saw my parents sitting there looking devastated. I have found it hard to have a birthday party since then. But there is never a good time for news like this..<br /><br />Something that may horrify us even more about Jephthah’s story is that instead of blaming himself for his stupid vow, Jepthah blames his daughter for her own fate. Blaming ourselves when someone dies is a natural response, but actually it is also natural to blame others: the doctors, the family, even the person who has died. Sometimes, there really is someone to blame: a drunk driver, an abusive parent, occasionally a deliberate killer. And we may need to blame these people and get angry with them, before we can truly forgive. We are not mourning this kind of death today, but anger is a normal part of grief and we may need at some point to be angry. It’s all right to be angry with God. It’s all right to tell God we don’t understand what the [expletive deleted] God is doing. Jepthah was angry, but he directed his anger to the wrong place. We can direct ours to the God who takes away as well as giving, because God has taken all the blame already. He took it on a hot spring day in about AD 33 and there is nothing worse we can throw at him.<br /><br />The third point of contact I see with this story is that Jepthah’s unnamed daughter had time to prepare for her death. It is a protracted rather than an instant, unexpected death. In some ways a quick death is easier. My mother, who is 96, would much rather go quickly than slowly, and while this would create problems for her family, I understand her wish. But she is 96. Jepthah’s daughter, since she was unmarried in a culture of marrying very young, might have been as young as 13.<br />Lesley, and her family, and this church, had time to prepare, as we did with Bernard and with Esther. That doesn’t make it any less hard. In some ways it makes it harder. We have to start our grieving before the person is even gone. But notice that Jepthah’s daughter asked for that stay of execution, so that she could have a time of saying goodbye to her friends. We may find it odd that she wanted time to ‘bewail her virginity’ but in her society, dying unmarried meant she was not fulfilling what she had always been told was her life’s purpose. Her friends would go on, get married, perhaps have children, but she was to die unfruitful.<br /><br />I remember Lesley often saying she hadn’t yet found out what she was going to do when she grew up. We might think that now she never will. But I think she already had: her job was being Lesley, a highly intelligent and caring woman, who gave so much to so many people. People she met in her community health work, on mental health tribunal, in her Open University teaching; people she studied with, people in her family, people in this church. And I think on the whole it’s good that we had time to say goodbye to her. We have been able to find ways to support her on her journey, and to support her family who travelled it with her.<br /><br />Finally, I want us to notice the last verse of our readings. ‘For four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.’ Even at the end of the story of Jepthah’s daughter, we still don’t know her name. But we know that she was remembered. As Bernard is, as Esther is, as Lesley will be, for the rest of our lives. Jewish people light a ‘Jahrzeit’ or anniversary candle every year for someone who has died, on the anniversary of their death. I remember my mother used to light one every year for her father, even though he had died decades before. We can perhaps find our own ways of commemorating Lesley.<br /><br />One more observation. Last Sunday afternoon when we prayed at the hospice, both Judith and I both thought of reading out Psalm 139. I ended up reading it, and I missed out the verses we always tend to miss out, the ones about wishing God would kill God’s enemies, who are also the psalmist’s enemies. I understand why we leave these verses out, especially in a peace church. But I think maybe I should have read them. Because our enemies are not flesh and blood, but as Ephesians puts it, ‘the cosmic powers of this present darkness,... the spiritual forces of evil’. And as Paul promises the Corinthians, ‘[Jesus] will reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet [and] the last enemy to be destroyed is death.’<br /><br />This was meant to be the first sermon in our series on Bible characters facing change. Actually I think it probably still is. The biggest change anyone can face is death. Lesley’s death is more important to our church than the possible loss of the Mennonite Centre, or all the others we are facing. But the good news is that death leads to life, because, to quote again from 1 Corinthians, ‘God... gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’. No easy answers, just a promise. Amen.<br /><br /><br />Judges 11:1-11<br /><br />Now Jephthah the Gileadite, the son of a prostitute, was a mighty warrior. Gilead was the father of Jephthah. 2Gilead’s wife also bore him sons; and when his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah away, saying to him, “You shall not inherit anything in our father’s house; for you are the son of another woman.” 3Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Outlaws collected around Jephthah and went raiding with him.<br /><br />4After a time the Ammonites made war against Israel. 5And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob. 6They said to Jephthah, “Come and be our commander, so that we may fight with the Ammonites.” 7But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Are you not the very ones who rejected me and drove me out of my father’s house? So why do you come to me now when you are in trouble?” 8The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Nevertheless, we have now turned back to you, so that you may go with us and fight with the Ammonites, and become head over us, over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” 9Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me home again to fight with the Ammonites, and the Lord gives them over to me, I will be your head.” 10And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord will be witness between us; we will surely do as you say.” 11So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them; and Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord at Mizpah.<br /><br />Judges 11:29-33<br /><br />Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. 30And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, 31then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” 32So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the Lord gave them into his hand. 33He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel.<br /><br />Judges 11:34-40<br /><br />Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. 35When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.” 36She said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites.” 37And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: Grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I.” 38“Go,” he said and sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. 39At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never slept with a man. So there arose an Israelite custom that 40for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-83334777086875235702011-05-01T15:30:00.000+01:002011-05-18T13:39:40.086+01:00BelovedPreacher: Gareth Brandt, Professor of Practical Theology, Columbia Bible College<br /><br />OPENING<br /><br />I feel almost apologetic, coming in as a guest speaker from another country and speaking on something as basic as what I want to present today. Will this be insulting to the congregation? If so, a 20 minute nap is not necessarily a bad thing on a Sunday morning! I am convinced however that many of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus have lost or at least partially forgotten the foundational truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ amidst all of our doctrinal and institutional deliberations. In fact, a focus on this centre may in fact help us not only with institutional deliberations, but also with a unique male and female spirituality, and our life together in church and community.<br /><br />Herald Press just recently released my book on men’s spirituality. I need to state at the outset that I did not write such a book out of vast experience in men’s ministry. I simply come as one who has half a century of experience being a man and who has been on a quest to know what it means to be a spiritual man in the Anabaptist tradition. I will not be preaching on what it means to be a spiritual man. I want to begin with a more universal question. What does it mean to be human?<br /><br /><br />THE DESIRE TO BE LOVED [Luke 2:41-52]<br /><br />I believe that all creation is inter-related and that all creation praises its creator, but that human beings have a unique relationship with their creator. Genesis 1:27 says that all humanity is made in the image of divinity. I also believe that God is in very essence, love. “God is love” is a foundational gospel truth. To love precludes that parties relate to one another; they are in relationship. To be human is to desire to be in relationship with those outside of our selves. As one who believes that God is creator, I believe that all humans desire to be in relationship with their creator.<br /><br />We express this desire in different ways. Jesus’ desire to be in the temple as a boy was an expression of his desire for God because to the Jews of the ancient world, the temple represented the presence of God. To desire God is part of being human. God made us for relationship. This desire for love began with God’s desire to be in relationship with us. Love begins in the heart of God because God is love. We desire, we yearn, we hunger and thirst to be loved and to love God. <br /><br /><br /> <br />WE ARE NAMED AS BELOVED [Luke 3:21-22]<br /><br />Thus we come to our key text for today. Other than the birth narratives in Luke and Matthew, the first event in the life of Jesus that is recorded in the Gospels is his baptism by John in the Jordan River. This baptism marks the transition from John’s ministry to Jesus’ ministry and from Jesus’ private life to his public life. It is a pivotal text.<br /><br />Jesus hears the words, “you are my beloved son and I am pleased with you,” before he has done anything. He has not preached a sermon. He has not performed a miracle. He has not yet cast out any demons. He has not called any disciples. He has not made any friends with tax collectors or advocated for the poor and oppressed. Jesus was the beloved before he was anything. Knowing that he was the beloved of his father became the foundation for his ministry.<br /><br />Desmond Tutu has said, “You don’t know anything if you don’t know you are beloved.” To know that we are loved unconditionally is at the core and foundation of our identity. <br /><br />You may have heard other words from your father or others in your life. “You are a weakling. You’ll never amount to anything. You’re stupid.” But these voices are false. We are loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, bosses and friends ever had the opportunity to say anything about us. You are beloved before anything else. Henri Nouwen urges us to “listen to that voice with great inner attentiveness… Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply.”<br /><br />How we experience being the beloved is where there is some gender difference. Women and men will experience being the beloved very differently. Men, in particular might find this a difficult experience. We won’t get into specific male problems here today in a mixed congregation! <br /><br />When we are children it is easy to receive love, but as we grow older and more independent it sometimes becomes more difficult to be the beloved, but if we do not first experience being the beloved it will be impossible for us to love others truly and deeply. <br /><br /><br /> <br />CLAIMING OUR IDENTITY AS BELOVED [Luke 4:1-13] <br /><br />Jesus has been given his primary identity as the “beloved” but immediately after the baptismal texts, the synoptic Gospel writers insert the temptation story. Satan tempts Jesus with alternative identities of self-sufficiency, popularity and power. The foundation of our identities continues to be threatened today.<br /><br />The Anabaptists of the 16th century were also tempted in the midst of persecution. One of their leaders, Peter Riedemann, wrote from prison- “Love is like fire, which goes out before it really ignites if one puts too much wood on it. But once it really flares, the more wood one puts on it, the better it burns. It is the same with love. When it is first kindled, small troubles and temptations smother and hinder it; but when it really burns, having kindled the person’s eagerness for God, the more temptations and tribulation meet it, the more it flares, until it overcomes and consumes all injustice and wickedness.”<br /><br />We too, like Jesus and the Anabaptists, are bombarded with the similar lies from the world around us- “You’re no good unless you can do this or be like this…” The truth is, “you are beloved before you are anything,” and as Jesus and the Anabaptists did, we can resist the lies of the evil one that contradict our God-given identity, and when we do, our love burns with holy flame!<br /><br /><br />SENT ON A MISSION TO LOVE [Luke 4:14-21]<br /><br />Jesus’ mission is described in Luke 4:18 as he reads from the prophet Isaiah. His mission includes freeing the oppressed, binding up the broken-hearted, healing the sick, giving good news to the poor. Jesus’ mission is to love; to reveal divine love to humankind in the flesh. Jesus’ first acts in the Gospels are acts of compassionate love, and deliverance from oppression. <br /><br />In Luke 4:19, Jesus proclaims the “year of God’s favour.” This is the year of Jubilee, when all slaves are set free and land is returned to its original owners, so that there would be equality, justice and shalom.<br /><br /> <br />This is the mission that God gave to Jesus and now we also are invited to participate in this mission. But we, evangelists, social activists, church workers, parents, students… sometimes get so consumed with the mission that we burn out because we have forgotten our foundation, our inner core. We have “nothing left to give” because we have never been filled. Bernard of Clairvaux illustrates it by comparing a canal and a reservoir- <br /><br />“If you are wise you will show yourself a reservoir and not a canal. For a canal pours out as fast as it takes in; but a reservoir waits till it is full before it overflows, and so communicates its surplus… We have all too few such reservoirs in the Church at present, though we have canals in plenty. ...they desire to pour out when they themselves are not yet inpoured; they are readier to speak than to listen, eager to teach that which they do not know, and most anxious to exercise authority on others, although they have not learnt to rule themselves.”<br /><br />When are filled with the knowledge that we are deeply beloved we can reach out and love others with depth and authenticity. Our life, our love, is the greatest gift we can give to another. To know our selves as beloved is not for our own sake to enhance our “personal relationship with God.” We know ourselves as beloved so that we can fulfill God’s mission in the world. We know our selves as beloved for the sake of the other.<br /><br />CLOSING<br /><br />Both women and men need to hear, “You are my beloved son or daughter” even if it might be a unique challenge for men. The children in our families and in our church need to hear and experience “You are my beloved son or daughter.” The special love that Jacob had for Joseph is for all our children. The experience of being the beloved of God is closely linked to being the beloved of our parents or other adults. It is important for all of us to be grounded in this experiential knowledge that we are the beloved of God. <br /><br />How can we truly and deeply love another if we have not ourselves experienced being the beloved? Being the beloved is the centre point where we are tethered in Christ so that we can face with courage whatever might face us tomorrow, this season or in the coming years.Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-43841521123293299812011-03-27T15:30:00.001+01:002011-05-18T12:48:19.504+01:00Lent 3 – Trust God and tell the truthPreacher: Sue<br /><br />Readings: Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; John 4:5-42<br /><br />You can’t imagine how thirsty I was that evening – how thirsty we all were. <br /><br />We’d been walking all day in the sun and the wind with hardly a pause. We were all parched and the children were crying.<br /><br />Not for the first time, I couldn’t help wondering whether Moses really knew what he was doing.<br /><br />OK, so life hadn’t been that great in Egypt but at least you always knew where your next meal was coming from. The work was hard, that’s true, but it got a whole load worse when Moses came on the scene – antagonised the Egyptians so they took it out on us. We cried out to God for help, for an easier life.<br /><br />And then Moses has this great idea of leaving. And once it looked like enough of us were going to go, well we couldn’t very well stay could we? Didn’t feel like it would be very safe, just a few of us Hebrews left in amongst all those Egyptians. And what if they’d still expected us to fulfil the brick quotas with most of the workforce gone? So we had to go along with Moses.<br /><br />But it was just one disaster after another, Moses clearly making it up as he went along. First of all the Nile. Well of COURSE there was a river in our way. What had he been thinking? Oh, and there was an army chasing us, so we got to choose between drowning or being massacred. <br /><br />Well, at the last minute Moses got away with that – turned out there was a kind of marshy drier bit we could get across, being on foot, and the Egyptian army missed the way or were too heavy with all their horses or something and they drowned. Something like that anyway, I couldn’t really see what was happening. Anyway, we escaped by the skin of our teeth.<br /><br />But then there we were in the wilderness. No water of course. Or at least there was but it was undrinkable – it was like Moses wanted us all dead. In the end he found some kind of wood that you can throw in and it makes the water drinkable after all. Desertcraft some people said – but his fancy desertcraft didn’t stop us getting hungry. But it was like Moses didn’t even notice – we always had to tell him what was wrong, tell him we were hungry, force him into doing something about it. In fact that time he didn’t lift a finger – we were just lucky to find some flaky stuff all over the ground the next day which it turned out we could eat – not exactly a varied diet but it kept the wolf from the door.<br /><br />So there we were again on that evening, without water. It was just typical that Moses told us to camp where there wasn’t a spring for miles around. Moses is always going on about God leading us, God providing for us – but in that case how come we were in the middle of the wilderness AGAIN with not a drop to drink? I don’t think God’s with us at all. Don’t think God cares.<br /><br />Although I must admit I did wonder whether God was with us, just for a while that evening. Against all the odds Moses was wandering around, so furious he was just kicking things and hitting rocks with his stick (well, that’s what I’ve heard, I wasn’t actually there) and as if by magic one of the rocks kind of split open a bit and water came gushing out, clear and cool and delicious and - well, we were all there like a shot as you can imagine and so Moses got away with it for another day.<br /><br />Well, I hope you both recognised and didn’t recognise this story. Of course it culminates in the passage from Exodus 17 we’ve just had read, but it also presents a rather different version of the earlier chapters of Exodus. This is the Exodus story retold from the perspective of someone who longs for a comfortable life, who isn’t really up for radical change, who rewrites the past to justify their bad behaviour or at least to suit their current perspective – and who doesn’t like being hungry or thirsty, especially at the end of a long tiring day.<br /><br />Which is probably why I found it so easy to get into character. This is me all over.<br /><br />Or maybe there was something about the Israelites’ predicament that drew me in. They are on the move, travelling away from the settled and familiar (if, in their case, also nightmarish) but they are far from arriving, indeed they don’t really know where they are heading or how long it will take them to get there. Perhaps that sounds familiar… And in this kind of inbetween maybe it is easier to behave badly, to allow each fresh setback to pitch us into despair, to blame others and fail to notice what we have contributed to a problem or could contribute to resolving it.<br /><br />In one way, or course, the Israelites’ concern is perfectly reasonable. Water is a basic human need.<br /><br />But look at the way they react. They are straight into scapegoating-the-leader mode, refusing to share responsibility for taking sensible action as well as rewriting the story of their journey so far. "Give us water to drink," they say to Moses “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?"<br /><br />One of the things I really appreciate about sharing in leadership in this church is that, whatever may flit through people’s minds from time to time in private, I don’t think I have ever been given the message that I – or I and my fellow elders – carry sole responsibility for resolving difficult situations or sole blame for things that go wrong. I think we can hope that if a few WGMC-ers had been around, they might have been saying to Moses, “we’re all very thirsty, what shall we do about it?” rather than demanding that Moses sort it out.<br /><br />However, it’s not just scapegoating the leader and shirking responsibility that are the issue here. It’s also the way the Israelites rewrite the story of the Exodus in two ways. Firstly it’s not God’s gracious rescue of them from slavery, forced labour and persecution, in response to their cries of despair and distress, but Moses’ pet project. And secondly although they were happy enough to ask God to intervene back when they were in slavery, now they have escaped they question God’s faithfulness: "Is the Lord among us or not?"<br /><br />And rewriting the story and forgetting God’s faithfulness are a temptation for all of us – or perhaps I just think they are because they are a temptation for me.<br /><br />So, finally to arrive at some T words (following Chris’s challenge to give this sermon a title beginning with T to match Veronica’s sermon on temptation and Chris’s on transfiguration and transformation), I think this passage brings us some reminders about trusting God and telling the truth.<br /><br />Since leaving Egypt, the Israelites had already three times experienced God’s intervention at a time of crisis: as they needed to cross the Nile to escape the Egyptian army, when there was no drinking water and when there was no food. Yet they couldn’t trust God in this new crisis… To pick up an idea from Chris’s sermon last week, it seems they’d experienced the potentially transfiguring moment without being transformed by it.<br /><br />Last Sunday Jane encouraged us to remember times of transition and uncertainty and look there for signs of God’s presence and provision. I suspect that this is a good habit to cultivate – remembering God’s promises and provision not only in the bible but also in our own lives and drawing encouragement to trust God in new uncertainty. <br /><br />And I think we should ask God – and perhaps, more scarily, each other – to keep us accountable for trying to be honest in how we tell our stories and the story of the church. There’s a temptation to tell the story in a way that makes us look reasonably good or at least justifies our weaknesses and failures. <br /><br />Lesley touched on this in her sermon 18 months ago on the phrase from the Lord’s prayer, “forgive us our sins”. She talked about the way we all construct an internal narrative about ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with that; as Lesley says, it’s essential to our sense of identity, but here’s the risk: “we want to be the hero of the tale, so we explain things to ourselves in a way that shows ourselves in the best light. We do not believe we are sinful. We make excuses and justifications for our actions.” Lesley pointed out that for a murderer at a Parole Board one of the criteria for early release is “whether the person admits the crime, is remorseful and empathises with the victims”. <br /><br />That made me wonder, if I was facing a Parole Board, would I pass the test of truly taking responsibility for what I’ve done over the years, the mistakes and cruelties, the cowardices and the lazinesses? Or would I tell it in a neat little self-justifying narrative?<br /><br />And as we think about the future of the church and the choices that have brought us to this point, can we tell the story honestly? Can we recognise our shortcomings, personal or corporate, and acknowledge where others including God may have been right or wise or gracious while we were wrong or foolish or ungracious?<br /><br />So if Exodus 17 reminds us to trust God and tell the truth, what about Psalm 95, presumably chosen by lectionary compilers for its apparent reference to the Exodus passage. Indeed it appears to retell that story. It rejoices at God’s care for his people as a shepherd dependable as a rock. But then it pulls itself up short – “O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness”. Well, that is clearly good advice which the narrator of my first few minutes would have done well to heed and which the writer of Hebrews underlines: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” <br /><br />But listen to the next bit. “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways." Therefore in my anger I swore, "They shall not enter my rest." <br /><br />In our Exodus passage God doesn’t complain about the people’s lack of trust but just instructs Moses on find water from a rock. The people complain, Moses turns to God in frustration and God responds graciously and generously to human need. <br /><br />The psalmist though knows how this pattern was repeated again and again in the Israelites wilderness wanderings and how, in two incidents in the book of Numbers (14 & 20) God does lose patience and warns that, as punishment first for the people and then for Moses and Aaron too, only two trusting and hopeful spies will still be alive by the time the Israelites make it into the promised land. <br /><br />But it’s interesting that in retelling the story the psalmist is rather harder on the Israelites than God was at the time and shows God running out of patience much earlier than we see in Exodus and Numbers.<br /><br />And there, I think, is another risk for us as we construct our narratives – sometimes we are much less gracious than God is. I think there’s a challenge here for us as we continue in uncertainty and enter a period of thinking about the church’s calling which will surely in part at least grow out of its story: while seeking to tell the story honestly, let’s also try to learn God’s graciousness with our personal and corporate failings. Let’s not be harder on ourselves, on others or on the church than God is.<br /><br />Let’s turn finally to John chapter 4 with its rich resonance with the other two passages so resonantly through the theme of water and longed for refreshment.<br /><br />In John 2, Jesus has been at the wedding of Cana where noone really gets his miracle with water and wine, much though the guests appreciate the fine wine, and then at the temple where noone really gets what his Father’s house is for, and then he’s had the night time conversation with Nicodemus who doesn’t really get what Jesus means by being born again. <br /><br />And then in John 4 he finally meets someone who does get it. Admittedly it takes a while, but the Samaritan woman gets there. Maybe it’s the surprise of Jesus talking to someone who by being both female and Samaritan is doubly out of bounds for a Jewish man to talk to or maybe it’s the inspired twists and turns of conversation –but something brings the woman to a strong suspicion that she has just met the Messiah. <br /><br />And just look at the change in her. We’re often told that the reason the woman has come to the well in the hot middle of the day and apparently alone, rather than in the cool of the morning or evening with the other women, is that she is a social outcast, probably connected in some way with the number of husbands she’s had. Maybe her husbands have divorced her because she’s been unfaithful (or just a bad cook?!) and the other women despise her for this – or maybe they’ve divorced her because she hasn’t been able to produce a child for any of them and her infertility hangs about her like bad luck or her grief makes her uncomfortable company. <br /><br />Anyway, whatever the reason, she arrives outcast and alone and yet – and here’s a bit I’d never noticed or questioned before - somehow finds herself able – and indeed eager – to rush back to the village and talk to everyone, to tell everyone all about Jesus. And not only that, they listen, and rush out to meet Jesus for themselves. So the outcast apparently becomes reintegrated into society, accepted and even respected.Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-51223106137206749512011-03-20T15:30:00.001+00:002011-05-18T12:51:49.854+01:00Lent 2 - TransfigurationPreacher: Chris<br /><br />Readings: Gen 12:1-4a; Ps 121; Rom 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17 or Matt 17:1-9<br /><br />I have titled the theme of my sermon today ‘Transfiguration’ following in line with last week’s sermon on the ‘Temptation’ of Jesus in the desert, since alliterative titles are clearly a vital and necessary sign of a holy and well-conceived sermon series. I leave it to next week’s preacher—Sue, I believe—to fall in line, making whatever wranglings of text or theology are necessary in order to come up with an appropriate T-starting sermon theme title.<br /><br />So, as the title suggests, I am going to spend the sermon-minutes today reflecting and ruminating on the event of Jesus’ transfiguration. I would like to bring into the reflection the passages we have heard previously, detailing the Abrahamic story of God’s promise, the sacrifice of Isaac, and then Paul’s commentary in Romans on Abraham’s justification. I would also like to weave in elements of my own background and personal journey.<br /><br />I am strongly drawn to images and stories of transformation. I am attracted by this idea that an object, a person, a life can, in a moment, become radically altered. The Bible is full of such moments, and we can read Jesus’ transfiguration in connection with them. Take Saul on the road to Damascus, when Jesus stopped him and said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting’. Saul was blinded by the vision of Jesus before him, the light of the world piercing his eyes, and for three days, Saul’s sight slept, as in a tomb, until one of God’s messengers touched him, and scales, like grave clothes, fell from his eyes, and he became Paul. I wonder what metamorphosis overtook him in that darkness, when the scales fell from his eyes—was it like coming out of the womb into the light of day for a second time? These moments of radical transformation are enticing in part because they involve a direct and seemingly sudden interaction between the human and the divine. Saul is at one moment Saul, an event occurs (really only covered in a few short verses), and Saul is now Paul. The whiplash must have been extreme. <br /><br />And to continue the examples, prior to his own transfiguration, Jesus was already speaking about this Divine movement, a Divine change in being. The alternative Gospel reading for today was from John 3. To be honest, I dismissed it right out of hand, opting for the passage from Matthew, because John 3 more than any other passage of scripture recalls to my mind a childhood of Bible study, scripture memorization, conservative church culture, prayer meetings, accountability groups, mission trips, and Sunday morning services. Not that any of these things is in and of themselves bad—but they have collectively formed a system which I have found painful. So, John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son...’ etc etc is the sign and hallmark of my previous relationship to God. In John 3, Jesus also speaks about being ‘born again’. Thus: <br /><br />3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.[a]” 4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[b] gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You[c] must be born again.’<br /><br />And therein lies the phrase that dominates evangelical Christian culture—to be ‘born again’. A re-birth; a literal renaissance. Change, transformation, transfiguration are bound up in notions of the kingdom of God; they are, as Jesus says, the entry points of the kingdom. So in the story of the transfiguration, Jesus’ final line is: ‘ 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”’ A momentous change has taken place, and Jesus points his disciples to a time in the near future that signals the start of a new order: when ‘the Son of Man has been raised from the dead’.—when a second, perhaps more mighty transfiguration has taken place (that of the revitalization of the dead body)—ushering in the Kingdom of God.<br /><br />***<br /><br />If you will indulge me for a moment, I would like to pull the schoolboy essay trick of quoting from the dictionary for some easy content. I, however, feel wholly justified in doing so since I spend several hours a day pleading with the Oxford English Dictionary to tell me the definitions of words that went out of fashion four centuries ago. Anyway, back to the topic at hand: definitions. I have been using a general vocabulary of change so far in this sermon—transformation, transfiguration, change, metamorphosis, but in the passage about Jesus, the Bible translation chooses to use the word ‘transfiguration’ (and, indeed, the word ‘transfiguration’ is so connected to this particular passage of Scripture, that one of its definitions is ‘the change in appearance of Jesus Christ on the mountaintop’. But its primary definition is: ‘transfiguration n. the action of transfiguring or state of being transfigured; metamorphosis.’ The noun form of the word is related to its verb ‘to transfigure’ which comes with its own definition: ‘to alter the figure or appearance of; to change in outward appearance; to transform’. I find the slight differences in definition to be quite interesting, as the two definitions appear to be in tension with one another. The verb ‘transfigure’ refers to outside shape—‘to change in outward appearance’. The noun—‘transfiguration’—however is glossed as a ‘metamorphosis’ which can involve more than a change in outward appearance, but is rather conceptualized as a ‘complete change’. In the span of time between verse one and verse eight, Jesus undergoes a radical experience. He is—the verb—transfigured. But perhaps the transfiguration—the noun— is about more than a change in outward appearance, and is in fact more representative of a culmination of all that’s gone on before rather than a sudden and momentary experience. The transfiguration then took place not instantaneously on a mountaintop but slowly, starting even at his birth, and continuing through his time of temptation in the desert, through his ministry, and here—on this high mountain—the change, which has been sub-ficial, sub-dermal, manifests itself in an awe-filled and luminescent moment.<br /><br />I have, to this point, been spouting some rather disorganized thoughts about transformation and transfiguration—though the sermon may pass the T-in-the-title test, it likely fails the ‘three points and a conclusion’ test. But then, I am not sure that there are always clear points to be drawn from instances of change. We may be able to examine the causes leading up to it, or the effects proceeding from it, but the moment itself is often hard to pin down. I would now like to shift to a question: what about after the transfiguring event? Here I would now like us to recall the passages that were heard relating to Abraham. <br /><br />The first Genesis passages concern God’s promise to Abraham—to make him a great nation, to bless him and through him, to bless all people. During the second passage we see God’s test of Abraham and the sacrifice—or attempted sacrifice—of Isaac. And finally in the Romans passage we hear Paul’s commentary on Abraham as a man justified by faith. <br /><br />Kierkegaard in his short but powerful work ‘Fear and Trembling’ ruminates on the Abrahamic story and the Abrahamic journey of faith. It has been a few years since I have read the book, but one of the more striking ideas I remember from it is Kierkegaard’s assertion that the real test of faith for Abraham comes not from the ‘will he or willn’t he’ of the sacrificing Isaac bit, but rather the return to society—the coming down from the mountain, and the re-accepting of his son ‘with joy’ as Kierkegaard describes it. Or, the reintegration into life as it was before. While you may have been distracted by all that business going on in verses 1-18 of the Genesis passage, verse 19 is in fact a key phrase ‘Then Abraham returned to his servants’. Because that’s just it—no life can go on ‘just as before’ after such an experience. Something has fundamentally altered—something life altering has happened, has been done to Abraham. The angel stayed his hand, but what must Abraham think of a relationship with a god who would put him into such a situation in the first place? Yes, he has demonstrated a resignation of his will to the Almighty by going up the mountain, even by placing his son on the altar, but he demonstrates faith in the going down the mountain, in continuing onward. This is Kierkegaard’s admiration for Abraham: that Abraham could resign himself to God’s command and then receive Isaac back with joy. The mountain for Abraham is his own transfigurative experience.<br /><br />I think the idea of transformation, even in a seeming instant, resonates with me because of my own experience of transformation. Indeed, I would imagine that all of us have experienced these moments which, like Jesus’ sudden change on the mountaintop, seem to clarify all that has gone before and significantly alter all that will come after. Personally, my own coming to terms with my sexual identity was just such a defining moment—in one moment a blithe asexual and in another moment a deeply frightened homosexual. The mental transfiguration that occurred felt like a mountaintop experience—not in the glorious sense as Jesus’ experience on his mountaintop but rather in a harrowing test sense as Abraham’s experience on his mountaintop. As I look back on that period of change in my life, I identify with Abraham’s transformative experience but also with Kierkegaard’s skeptical admiration. How can we understand change that is both monumental and painful, and can we continue to relate to God in the same way after the moment of transfiguration? In response to the second question, I think ‘no, change in ourselves alters our relationship to God’—but I do not think it must necessarily change our relationship with God. I am not ‘Christian’ in the same sense or even same terminology as I was two years ago—I do not seek to convert the masses, and, as mentioned, I have problems relating to standard tenants (and even verses) of evangelical Christianity. But at the same time, transformation has placed me in a new position to consider and relate with God.<br /><br />One more thought before I conclude: I have been listening to many podcasts over the last three months since one of my jobs involves some fairly mindless work. Recently I’ve been listening to the speeches and sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr. through the Black Media Archive. I was listening to his speech to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1961, and he begins talking about an old order, represented by prejudice, racism, and injustice giving way to a new order, a time in which justice and civil rights will extend to the African-American community and the wider global community. But he says something very perceptive about the transition-ry period: he says that we must not walk with bitterness into the new age. That the pain caused by the old and reflected in the time of transition itself must be let go of if we are to walk unencumbered into the new. The change Jesus undergoes on the mountaintop is both figuratively and literally a ‘mountaintop experience’—a highlight, but prefiguring the dark road that lies ahead to the Cross, a time at which he chooses to release bitterness by saying ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ He is free to enter into death—but he is also free to enter into a resurrected life. <br /><br />***<br /><br />To conclude: transformation is both individual and social—Jesus, in a single verse, is transfigured. But he is also transfigured ‘before them’, that is, before the disciples. The change takes place or manifests itself in Jesus because the disciples are also experiencers and participants in it. And not just the disciples, but Elijah and Moses, as well. And the force and nature of the change is strong and overwhelming for the witnesses. Peter, no doubt shocked and confused, says the first thing he can think of: ‘I will build three shelters for you’. Not only is the statement just a bit, well, off—but it also misses the point. Jesus is transfigured, he becomes ‘white as the light’—the change is a visible one, one to be witnessed, not sheltered. The moment of change is, itself, a glorious moment, but it cannot be sheltered in the sense of hidden, nor can it be sheltered in the sense of contained, or maintained and perpetuated. A shrine to change somewhat misses the point.<br /><br />So as we consider moments of change in our own lives, and as we experience this time of transition in the life of our church—notably in how and where we worship and in how congregational life will appear in the passing of the LMC and the arrival of a new centre, let us recognize that these moments are inspired and touched by the Divine. And that our responsibility is to enter into it with hands that are not clenched but rather open-facedly welcoming the new.Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-58530693319397347582011-03-13T15:30:00.002+00:002011-05-18T12:55:47.161+01:00Lent 1 - TemptationPreacher: Veronica<br /><br />Readings: see below<br /><br />I hope you’ll forgive me for starting this sermon with ‘one of me pomes’ - a rare one that’s in rhyme and metre.<br /><br />Deception<br /><br />In Eden's sun the woman basks, <br />she works, plays, loves as each day asks <br />and knows not she is God's mirror and sign;<br />till, curving elegant his tail, <br />the serpent (who is surely male) <br />insinuates a lack of the divine.<br /><br />'To be like God' - a worthy goal <br />for any self-improving soul, <br />an offer she, or man, can scarce disdain. <br />Poor Eve! Why won't she realise right now <br />she's able, strong and wise <br />with nothing but the choice of good to gain?<br /><br />Yet still the priests perpetuate the lie <br />that led to Eden's gate <br />and raised the fiery sword our bliss to bar: <br />still women make the same mistake <br />and bow to some religious snake <br />who tells us we are not the gods we are.<br /><br />This poem explores a favourite idea of mine about the story of the Fall. This is that the serpent is actually offering the woman something she already has. He holds out to her the chance to become ‘like God’ by eating the forbidden fruit; but in fact we have already heard in the first creation story in Gen 1, that she and the man are in the image of God. So the serpent’s trick - and we are told that he is tricky - is to make her think she is less than this, and has something to gain.<br /><br />I also have another favourite theory - that the reason the serpent tries out the woman first rather than the man, is not just because she has only heard the command second hand, but because her instinct on acquiring this new knowledge is to share the fruit. If the man had taken it first, he might have decided to keep his new knowledge to himself, to get one over on his partner. It’s only a theory, and this is an ancient, mysterious story that has a number of profound things to say about human nature. But one thing it could be saying, based on my theory, is that when we are tempted or tested, it is often our best human qualities that are used against us. In fact in the story of Genesis 3, the goodness of humanity is the only weapon the serpent has, because at the point of temptation, humankind has not discovered its divided self, constantly torn between good and evil. All that humanity knows, before eating the fruit, is goodness.<br /><br />Another profound thing the story says to me is that God gives humans radical freedom. God’s first words to the couple are words of permission to eat from every tree in the garden - except one. But God does not make it impossible for them to eat from the forbidden tree - all God does is to warn them that this would have consequences. Melvyn Bragg’s ‘In our time’ programme recently, was all about free will and whether it exists. I didn’t have time to listen to it all, as I had this sermon to write, but I heard enough to hear something about scientific determinism, and about Calvinism. Well, I don’t know much about determinism or Calvinism, but I fail to see how anyone could read the story of Eden and not think that human beings are made to have free will. There is a genuine choice before this primal human couple: they can trust God and do what God says, or they can try to get hold of something God has not, as yet, given them.<br /><br />You could of course argue that ever since humankind first sinned, we no longer have free will but our actions are determined by our sinfulness. This seems to be what Paul is arguing in Romans 7:<br /><br />I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.<br /><br />Our will is compromised and we do not have the capacity to do everything the way we might like to do it. We can make a good choice over a particular action, but we clearly don’t have the choice to do everything right all the time - that is beyond human ability.<br /><br />This might sound like determinism, but Paul makes it quite clear in this passage and elsewhere that in Christ we have freedom to make right choices. Also he suggests in Romans 2 that those who do not know God can still do good by the light of nature:<br /><br />When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts (Romans 2:14-15).<br /><br />So actually, Paul is quite clearly teaching freedom of moral choice even for those who do not consciously follow Jesus.<br />What does all this musing about determinism and free will have to say to our Gospel passage for the beginning of Lent - a passage so well known that at first I despaired of having anything new to say about it?<br /><br />Let’s go back to that theory about the serpent using the woman’s good qualities against here. Satan (which simply means ‘the accuser’, or we might say ‘the counsel for the prosecution’), uses Jesus’ own divine status as God’s son, to try to distort the shape Jesus’ mission will take. The phrases usually translated ‘If you are the Son of God’, can also be accurately translated ‘Since you are the Son of God’. It’s as if Satan knows that since Jesus’ baptism, Jesus will have no real doubt about whether he is specially called by God. So rather than sowing doubt, what Satan is doing here is to take the benefits of being God’s son, and use them against him. The facts that God will feed Jesus, protect him and give him power, are not in themselves bad things. What is happening is that Jesus is invited to use them in ways that will completely skew the nature of his ministry, right at the start.<br /><br />First Jesus is invited by Satan to use miracles as spectacular demonstrations of power, rather than what he in fact goes on to do, which is to perform miracles in response to human need. Likewise in the second temptation, he is invited to expect a life free of difficulties, where God will miraculously airlift him out of all dangerous situations; but in fact his mission will lead to torture and death, and he never loses sight of this. Thirdly, he is encouraged to use the methods of the world to rule the world, rather than using the methods of the upside-down kingdom, where the Son of God must endure death to win victory over the powers of death.<br /><br />What is striking is that when Jesus has resisted these offers from Satan, all the gifts he has refused from Satan actually get given to him by God. The angels that Satan promised would catch him falling from the Temple, do indeed come along to comfort him and feed him, not in response to a reckless act, but in response to his human need. There’s an echo of the story of Elijah, Israel’s favourite prophet, being fed in the wilderness by ravens. Actually the word translated ‘ravens’ could in fact be translated as ‘foreigners’, which puts a whole new complexion on Elijah’s experience. And like Elijah’s crisis point, which comes after his triumph on Mount Carmel, Jesus’ crisis also comes after the high of his baptism. It’s been my experience that trials often come to us in the same way. When I was in my first term at university, I had a dramatic spiritual experience which some would call ‘baptism in the Spirit’. But very soon afterwards I had a big low, partly provoked by falling in unrequited love with a Jewish fellow student, who by the way is now a Buddhist lama. It sometimes seems that every new step we take in faith, has then to be followed by a situation where that faith is tested out - a bit like breaking in your new walking boots.<br /><br />Jesus does resist all the temptations, even when Satan uses his own weapon of Scripture against him. And that’s another argument for free will: if he was predetermined to resist, it would hardly have been worth bothering to tempt him, and his apparent commitment to God’s way would not really be commitment at all. Jesus freely accepted the upside down way of the kingdom, where suffering is redemptive and apparent defeat is victory. And because he chose this way, as Paul says in the passage we heard from Romans 5, he was able to fulfil the call that other human beings, represented by Adam and Eve, could not. So he became ‘the second Adam’, the representative of humankind, who both shows the best that humanity can be, and suffers the worst that humanity can dish out.<br /><br />So what about us? Are Jesus’ temptations peculiar to his role as Son of God? You might think the particular nature they take could only apply to Jesus as he starts his ministry. But I think they are ours too, as we are called to replicate the life of Jesus in our own lives. As we seek to follow him in living Christlike, cross-shaped lives, we will encounter similar challenges and questions. We don’t expect to turn stones into bread, but we may expect God to perform miracles for our own benefit, or to make people come to our church. Wouldn’t it be great if God performed some spectacular miracle of healing in our church and people heard about it and started flocking to our door? But they would be ‘rice Christians’, as the missionaries used to call them - they would have come to Jesus for what they could get, and not for love of God.<br /><br />Similarly we don’t expect to be able to leap from the top of a building and have angels catch us. But we may expect comfortable lives in which God gives us everything we want at all times - witness the popularity of the ‘Footprints’ poem. It’s a clever poem, but the reality is that even if God is really ‘carrying us’ when times are hard, we will probably not know this and only have a sense of God’s absence. And perhaps there are times when God wants us to walk in the dark, having no light to guide us except our trust in God and our past experiences of rescue.<br /><br />We don’t think God will let us rule the world, but some of us come perilously close to wanting to. One of the main things that first attracted me to Anabaptism was that Anabaptists did not believe we could change the world just by having more Christians in political power, or by organizing marches for Jesus and singing ‘Into our hands he will give the ground we claim’. We have had a succession of professing Christians in the most powerful job in the world, President of the USA - but did the world get transformed as a result? Did it ‘eck as like. Even now that we have a Christian president whose politics we might be more sympathetic to, his hands seem to be tied by other professing Christians who think he is the devil incarnate. It certainly doesn’t look as though Christians having political power is the route to the Kingdom of God.<br /><br />So what can we do to avoid falling into these kinds of temptations? My poem suggests that if Eve had seen herself clearly as a person in God’s image, a daughter of God in fact, she might not have been so easily deceived. Likewise, Jesus’ answers to Satan is in effect: ‘I know I am the Son of God, I don’t need to prove it to you or the world, or even to myself. And I will fulfil my role as the Son of God in God’s way, not in the way of the world’.<br /><br />For us this might mean realizing we are already walking miracles, through our creation and redemption in Jesus. We don’t need either to believe six impossible things before breakfast or to demonstrate six impossible things before lunch, in order to be signs of God’s kingdom to others. Nor do we need to have a successful, ‘victorious’ life in order to attract others to the Jesus we follow. Our victories may be small, hidden and unspectacular - indeed we may be called to witness to God through our brokenness rather than our prosperity. And if we are involved in the corridors of power in however small a way (and just about everyone has some power in their lives), we can choose to exercise that power sacrificially rather than use the conventional tools of powermongering.<br /><br />Our power to withstand temptation may be limited - as Oscar Wilde said, ‘I can resist everything except temptation’. But the Spirit of Jesus lives in us, and is slowly transforming us into people who instinctively do good. In the meantime, both the story of the Fall and Psalm 32 which we read together, remind us that there is always forgiveness when we are ready to ask for it. In the Fall story, God does not in fact kill the first humans and thus wipe out the human race at its start. God forgives them and takes measures which will limit the amount of damage their sin does in the world, and enable them to live in a new, less than perfect situation. And as we know, God’s eventual solution is to identify fully with our sin and to break the power of violence by Jesus’ non-violent life, death and resurrection. Whatever we take up or give up in Lent, it is not to gain spiritual brownie points, but to make us more able to live our lives in the light of Jesus - to live a resurrection life.<br /><br /><br /><br />Readings<br /><br />Genesis 2:15-27 and 3:1-7<br /><br />The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”...<br />...Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” 4But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.<br /><br />Psalm 32<br /><br />Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,<br />whose sin is covered.<br />Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity,<br />and in whose spirit there is no deceit.<br />While I kept silence, my body wasted away<br />through my groaning all day long.<br />For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;<br />my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.<br />Then I acknowledged my sin to you,<br />and I did not hide my iniquity;<br />I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”<br />and you forgave the guilt of my sin.<br />Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them.<br />You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance.<br />I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;<br />I will counsel you with my eye upon you.<br />Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding,<br />whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.<br />Many are the torments of the wicked,<br />but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.<br />Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous,<br />and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.<br /><br />Romans 5:12-19<br /><br />Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— 13sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. 14Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.<br />15But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. 16And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. 17If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.<br />18Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. 19For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.<br /><br />Matthew 4:1-11<br /><br />Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written,<br />‘One does not live by bread alone,<br />but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle<br />of the temple, 6saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,<br />‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”<br />7Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,<br />‘Worship the Lord your God,<br />and serve only him.’” 11Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-51204933313221222462011-03-06T15:30:00.000+00:002011-03-15T15:48:30.844+00:00Lent homilyPreacher: Peter<br /><br />Readings:<br />Jeremiah 6:10-15<br />Matthew 13:31-32<br />James 1:19-25<br /><br /><br />Well, we have come to the end of a fascinating and challenging journey – our sermon series on environmental issues. There have been many highlights, but perhaps my favourite moment was discovering during Jane’s sermon the other week that speaking about animals in church is “an abomination”. Anyway, if you want to review the excellent material that was presented to us, you can find most of it on our sermon blog.<br /><br />So, I have somehow landed the awkward job of challenging us to actually do something about all this. As James said in our 3rd reading, hearing the message is all well and good, but it is critically important (unless we want to fall into self-deception) to act on what we have heard.<br /><br />It seems to be human nature to ignore our prophets. As in Jeremiah’s day, we prefer to listen to the people who say “Peace, peace” even when there is no peace. In a recent interview James Lovelock, father of modern climate science, foretold the coming climate catastrophe in the starkest terms. Much of Europe Saharan by 2040. Britain a lifeboat for refugees from Europe. 80% of the world’s population dead of starvation by 2100.<br /><br />The scale and seriousness of the current environmental crisis is enormous. It would be easy to despair - in fact James Lovelock does seem to have despaired. According to him climate change is now irreversible, and the best we can do is enjoy life while we still can. But we are Christians, and we believe in the God of hope. And the power of small beginnings. Jesus’s parable of the mustard seed encourages us not to despair, but to trust that God can use even seemingly insignificant acts of faith and discipleship to transform the world. In his book Planetwise, Dave Bookless quotes Nick Spence and Robert White: “Climate change is not one big, intractable problem but billions of tiny tractable ones.”<br /><br />So my challenge, to myself as well as to you, is to do something small and mustard-seedy this Lent, a little gesture of love and care towards creation. Often our Lent disciplines are turned inwards towards self-improvement or a slimmer waistline. But this year maybe our Lent can look outwards, inspired by our sermon series to take on a discipline which, if only for a few weeks, will mean that we are living more lightly in God’s world.<br /><br />There are plenty of places to go for ideas. Tear Fund are suggesting a Climate Fast for Lent this year, with all sorts of ideas. For example:<br />• Turn your heating down to 17ºC and wear more clothes. <br /><br />• Cook simply with local and seasonal food.<br /><br />• Save time and emissions by not ironing unless absolutely essential. (I’ve been doing this for years but perhaps for the wrong reasons!)<br /><br />• Meatless Monday. If everyone in the UK gave up meat once a week, the emissions savings would equal taking 5 million cars off the road.<br /><br />• Power down. Have a technology-free day. It cuts carbon and gives you space.<br /><br />• Buy only products with little or no packaging.<br /><br />• Pray every time you throw something in the bin.<br /><br />• Give up baths for Lent (I know some of you probably do this already!) Take a quick shower instead.<br /><br />• Learn how to sew, knit or darn, so you can make and mend rather than buy new.<br /><br />• Start growing vegetables, herbs and fruit in your garden. If you don’t have one, use pots on a windowsill or in a sunny spot indoors.<br /><br /><br />Here’s something from the A Rocha website: <br /><br />• Plant a tree. As well as sequestering some carbon you’ll be providing a little bit of habitat for birds and insects. If you have no garden or no space in your garden there are plenty of ways to fund or help with tree-planting further afield.<br /><br />And a couple of suggestions inspired by Dave Bookless in Planetwise:<br /><br />• Put the car away for Lent and walk cycle or bus instead. Or maybe if that’s too difficult enjoy a careless carless day just once a week.<br /><br />• An Easter electric fast! Bookless describes how one year he and his family did without electricity and gas from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. This involved, among other things, going to bed when it gets dark or sitting chatting by candlelight, and going out into the garden to build a fire to heat the water for a morning cup of tea.<br /><br /><br />So you’re probably all hating me by now. No-one likes receiving smug suggestions for more righteous living. I suppose I guessed this might happen when I accepted this assignment. <br /><br />No-one is saying you should do all these things – and some of them may well be part of your lifestyle already. But please think about using this Lent as an opportunity to respond creatively to all the thinking, preaching and studying we have done together over the last few months about our place in the community of God’s creation.Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-53021189956912980392011-01-30T15:30:00.000+00:002011-01-31T17:32:14.876+00:00Wild AnimalsPreacher: Jane<br /><br /><br />I’d like to start with what according to Wikipedia is a famous, but possibly made-up, quote. The 20th century scientist and writer J B S Haldane was once asked what could be deduced about the mind of the Creator from studying God’s creation. His reply was “an inordinate fondness for beetles”. This relates to the fact that over a quarter of all known animal species are beetles - around 350,000 species. (And there are probably more as yet undiscovered.) <br /><br />This is the final sermon in our series on Richard Bauckham’s book Bible and Ecology. Today we’re looking at a specific section of the book, which is actually about wild and domestic animals. There’s also more about animals elsewhere in the book, which other preachers have already spoken about. A more accurate title for today would be “some thoughts about wild animals – especially the dangerous ones – and about domestic animals”. Accurate but not very snappy. <br /><br />I’ve found the book inspiring and thought-provoking. I particularly like the way Richard Bauckham looks at a range of scriptures, not just the more obvious ones, to show how God’s good purposes are for both humans and the non-human creation. But I’ve found today’s topic difficult to get to grips. I have some questions – for example about suffering and evil in the animal kingdom – which, as Bauckham puts it, are unlikely to be answered “this side of the end of history”. Bauckham points out that “the Bible is a book for humans” and that God has a relationship with the animals that we don’t know about and doesn’t need to be mediated by us. As we heard from Lesley’s sermon on the book of Job, recognising our lack of understanding about God’s creation can lead us to greater humility, and help us find our place alongside the other creatures God has made in the community of creation. Going back to Haldane’s quote, maybe God does have a special fondness for beetles - there are many things we just don’t know.<br /><br />On the other hand, there are some wonderful things we can learn from the scriptures. <br /><br />Reading: Isaiah 11: 1-10<br /><br />This passage focuses on a particular group of wild animals – those that might harm people and their livestock. The background has been pointed out in previous sermons, especially Veronica’s. One of the worst consequences of the fall was ever-increasing violence, affecting both humans and animals and resulting in broken relationships. Following the flood, God makes a covenant not only with Noah but also with every other living creature on the ark. This includes measures that limit violence but don’t totally deal with it – including that humans are for the first time allowed to eat meat, although with certain restrictions, and animals will live in “fear and dread” of humans. It leaves the world a place in which two major fears for people are predation by dangerous wild animals and predation by invading armies.<br /><br />Broadly-speaking there are two ways the Bible talks about dealings between humans and animals – one realistic, as in what I’ve just said about the aftermath of the flood, and the other paradisal, picturing in various ways a return to Eden or a new creation. Isaiah 11 is one of the most far-reaching visions of a new creation, looking forward to the peaceable kingdom of the Messiah. Through the knowledge of the Lord, the Messiah establishes justice among humans and peace with wild animals. The picture here is of things being put right, first among the Messiah’s own people, then spreading out to encompass all nations in universal peace. <br /><br />A key feature is the establishment of peaceful relationships between wild animals and people (and people’s livestock). The passage isn’t primarily interested in the relationships between wild animals, but verse 7 makes it clear that carnivores have become herbivores and so that’s likely to make a big difference! <br /><br />The passage talks about human children and young domestic animals – the most vulnerable - which no longer need fear wild animals. Likewise, wild animals no longer need fear people, as the human dominion commanded in Genesis 2 is exercised as it should be, in gentle and beneficial service, as Bauckham puts it. A little child can lead the wild animals, with no coercion, and they willingly follow.<br /><br />Bauckham acknowledges the problems for modern readers in thinking about lions becoming vegetarians. (It’s one of the things the Wednesday homegroup has discussed.) It’s hard to see how this could work biologically, as lions and many other species are adapted to kill and eat other animals and can’t survive unless they eat meat. From our human perspective we might also feel that a lion that didn’t hunt other animals would have lost something of its essence, it’s lion-ness. Whilst writing this sermon I realised this doesn’t particularly bother me. On a purely practical level, in a world where scientists are working on making synthetic meat, I don’t think it’ll be too difficult for God to resolve this. And Bauckham reminds us that there are many things about the new creation we can’t comprehend, and it will involve a new creative act of God comparable to the wonders of the original creation. <br /><br />But there’s another thing that I find more difficult. Science tells us that animals were eating other animals long before humans came on the scene and it’s difficult to square this with God’s command in Genesis 1. After God has created humans, Gen 1 vs 29-31 say “Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on the ground - everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food’. And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” Bauckham says that this picture of animals and humans originally being vegetarian is idealised and should be seen as eschatological – in other words, I suppose, that hasn’t yet been a time that the world God created was very good in the way described here, but that these verses look forward to God’s ultimate plan for creation, a time when there will be no more violence and when all creation lives in harmony with God. I must admit I haven’t been used to looking at the creation accounts in this way and it challenges me to think again. <br /><br /><br />Mark 1: 9-13<br /><br />Only Mark’s Gospel talks about animals being part of Jesus’ wilderness experience - “He was with the wild animals”, and Bauckham links this with the passage we heard from Isaiah 11. I once heard a comment about what I’m about to summarise that it might be stretching a point to build an argument from one word - “with”. <br /><br />This may be a fair point, but I really like what Bauckham says. Jesus is baptised and designated the Messianic Son of God. I’m grateful to Chris for pointing out that the Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus in the form of an animal – a dove. I’m not sure what all the symbolism of this would have been to the original readers, but Jesus told his disciples to be “as innocent as a dove” and I think of it as a gentle, non-violent image. Then he is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to establish his relationship as Messiah with the non-human creation (Satan, wild animals and angels), before he establishes that relationship as Messiah with the human creation. Satan is clearly an enemy, angels clearly friends, but the wild animals are more ambiguous. Traditionally, as we have seen, they are enemies of people. However, the setting here is the wilderness, where the wild animals belong, as Sue pointed out in her recent sermon on wild places. <br /><br />Bauckham says that the word “with” indicates Jesus’ peaceful presence, and has no sense of hostility. In Mark, “being with” is often used to describe a friendly closeness – for example of the disciples in Mark 3:14 “He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach…” and so on. Bauckham sees in Jesus “being with” the animals a foreshadowing of Isaiah’s peaceable kingdom. He points out that Mark could have viewed the ideal relationship between the Messiah and animals as being one of domination or of recruiting them to become domesticated – taming them if you like. <br /><br />The Bible’s original readers would have had good reason to fear wild animals, so the promise of healing of the relationship between people and animals would be good news for people. And of course today in some parts of the world people still have cause to fear wild animals. For instance in the Sunderbans mangrove forests of Bangladesh around 50 people are killed every year by tigers. However, Bauckham points out that there’s been an enormous shift in the balance between humans and animals, and now it is overwhelmingly the animals that are threatened by humans. (Tigers, even those in Bangladesh, are gravely threatened and may soon become extinct in the wild.) But the good news of the reconciliation that Jesus brings is still good news in these changed circumstances. Bauckham suggests the way Jesus is “with” the animals in the wilderness can be a model for us – respecting animals to have independent value for themselves and for God and allowing them to live in peace in their own habitat. Interestingly, in the Sunderbans, there’s work going on which aims both to protect people and conserve the tigers – this seems to me an example of creative and practical peacemaking. One of the things in Bible and Ecology that I’ve been struck by is the recurring theme of violence and peace, and it seems to me that a Biblical understanding of God’s purposes for non-human animals fits very well with our calling to be a peace church. Having said this, we need to be wise. We can begin, in our limited way, to live lives that reflect God’s will for creation, but Bauckham warns people against trying to create utopias, which always fail. The full expression of the peaceable kingdom is for God to bring about.<br /><br /><br />Can we have our final three verses please?<br />Deut 25:4<br />Proverbs 12:10<br />Luke 6:3 <br /><br />So now we come to domestic animals. There is a wider discussion we could have about people becoming vegetarians, but that isn’t the main focus of the section in Bible and Ecology, and would need a whole sermon, or even a sermon series – so I’m not going to address that here.<br /><br />Domestic animals are probably mentioned more than wild animals in the Bible – not surprisingly as they lived closely alongside Biblical people and were likely considered almost part of the household. Contrary to the view of some who are interested in animal rights today, the Bible doesn’t suggest that there’s anything wrong with the domestication of animals. In fact it seems to see a distinction between domestic and wild animals as being part of God’s intention. Accounts of the creation, flood, and the post-flood covenant all make a distinction between domestic and wild animals. <br /><br />The Bible makes it clear that both humans and domestic animals are to benefit from the arrangement. The Hebrew scriptures contain specific instructions about looking after the welfare of domestic animals, such as the one we just heard – while the ox is threshing grain, it should be allowed to eat some of it. More generally, there are passages showing how people can relate to domestic animals in a way which mirrors God’s caring responsibility towards creation. Bauckham points out something I hadn’t seen before - about all those references to good and bad shepherds in the Bible. Although often given to illustrate human or divine leadership, they draw from an idea of a proper relationship between people and their domestic animals. Those passages wouldn’t make sense unless the readers understood what it meant to treat the flock well or badly. <br /><br />I see Bauckham’s book as mostly about Biblical study rather than the nitty-gritty of our behaviour. But on the subject of domestic animals, Richard Bauckham is uncharacteristically forceful in condemning some of the things we humans do. Here’s one quote: “ …in the modern west, animal husbandry has largely been replaced by systematised brutality and exploitation quite unlike good farming practice in the past and in a different league of evil even from bad farming practice in the past. It cannot possibly be justified by reference to the Bible. Crucially, the Bible does not regard domestic animals as mere objects for people to use, but like wild animals, as subjects of their own lives.” This challenged me as, although I don’t normally eat meat, I eat dairy products and am therefore implicated in this systematised brutality, which I have chosen to ignore. Not many of us are livestock farmers, but by our choices as consumers we are linked to the systems of farming, for good or ill. Bauckham reflects on the Proverbs reading we just heard, to encourage us to use our ability to empathise to help us imagine something of what an animal’s experience might be. This may help us to act rightly towards domestic animals, and with true kindness and tenderness, in imitation of God’s character. There are resources to help us think further about this – for example the organisation Compassion in World Farming.<br /><br />To conclude - something a bit more personal. Some of you won’t be surprised when I say I really like animals. That’s especially true of the cute and furry ones with big eyes, but I can even find beetles – and of course bats - fascinating. I’m not sure what Richard Bauckham would think of this, but one of the things I like about animals is that they make me laugh. One of my guilty pleasures is (very) occasionally watching television programmes like Planet’s Funniest Animals. But I also have a sense of wonder, of privilege and even awe in encountering wild animals – in real life or through books or films. What’s it like to be this slow loris – what’s going on in its head? What’s it like to be a penguin in an Antarctic winter – or even what’s it like to be the robin in our back garden? I think this is to do with what Bauckham describes as the value of otherness – recognising animals as distinct from us, having their own lives and their own value to God, and their own relationship to God. Contemplating this otherness, Bauckham thinks, might help people towards humility in recognising that it’s not all about us, what we achieve and control – and might also help us towards recognising the greater otherness of God, the creator and reconciler of all.Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5604634829993339849.post-91340800722444926362011-01-16T15:30:00.002+00:002011-02-18T20:06:26.687+00:00Wild placesPreacher: Sue<br /><br />Readings: see below<br /><br /><br /><br />Today we continue our sermon series on creation and the environment, using Richard Bauckham’s book Bible and Ecology. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Creation - solidarity & care</span><br />Veronica started this series with a look at the Genesis 2 creation story. She pointed out that the man is made from the dust of the ground – just as the birds and other animals are a few verses later. Humans and all the other creatures are made of the same stuff – they are all part of the “community of creation” that Bauckham talks about throughout the book. And humans are commissioned to cultivate and preserve the earth – not to cultivate it intensively till it gives way to dustbowl and desert but to cultivate it in such a way that it is also preserved. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Flood – violence, chaos, creation re-made, violence contained</span><br />Veronica then looked at the flood and memorably observed that one of the main symptoms of creation’s gradual descent into corruption and alienation from God was that it was full of violence.<br /><br />Bauckham defines the Flood as a kind of ‘de-creation’, a return to chaos. But at the end of the story there is a ‘re-creation’ in the covenant that God makes with Noah and his descendants and, significantly, with ‘every living creature that is with you’. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Creation – tenants and fellow-fillers</span><br />Wayne also talked about the “community of creation” and pointed out that it’s not just humans who are encouraged to “fill the earth”. The birds are also urged to fill the earth and the sea creatures the seas. We have to bear that in mind when we interpret ideas like subduing the earth and having dominion over it – as well as remembering that the earth belongs to God and we are merely tenants. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Job</span><br />Lesley looked at some passages from Job which remind us that we are simply a small part of God’s creation, a part about which God cares, no doubt, but part of the community of created beings, who are not less important. Our task is to respect them, to accept that God is working ultimately for our good (however painful and puzzling life may be at times) and join the divine resistance against the forces of chaos and destruction.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Sharing the earth</span><br />Then I looked at Psalm 104 and Matthew 6 which describe a community of creation which is abundant, ordered but diverse and beautiful. There is enough for every human and every creature as they all depend on a generous God and none takes more than they need. And the animals relate directly to God, they don’t have to go through humans as a kind of dominion-wielding earth-subduing middleman. God is at the centre here, with humans dependent on God just as the other creatures are and animals as creatures in their own right and “subjects of their own lives”.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Praising and mourning together</span><br />Chris echoed this when he spoke on the community of creation and how all creation praises & mourns together. He quoted Richard Bauckham: ‘all creatures bring glory to God simply by being themselves and fulfilling their God-given roles in God’s creation’. Chris described the rest of creation as not only a neighbourhood but also as neighbours – and fellow worshippers. <br /><br />Chris gave examples of the obvious concrete interconnectedness of all creation, for instance in the way that greedy land use, intensive agriculture or overfishing on the part of humans have disastrous environmental consequences. But he also touched on the more puzzling question of the spiritual connection between human choices and consequences in the natural world. He highlighted the danger of talking too simplistically about these connections, for instance saying that hurricane Katrina was the consequence of the easy availability of abortion in America. Bauckham mentions the deep connection between physical, moral and spiritual orders in the biblical world view. But he doesn’t talk concretely about quite what he means by this – at least not here, but we’ll come back to this…<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Alpha to Omega - the cosmic Christ</span><br />Veronica reminded us of the temptation to substitute “humanity” for “creation” as we hear or read Colossians 1, so that Jesus Christ is not the creator, firstborn and reconciler of all creation as the text tells us but just of all humanity. Bauckham talks about human fantasies of a world in which we have subdued nature, maybe even become completely independent of it. The vision of Colossians is the very opposite: all creation is integrated in Jesus Christ. <br /><br />And Veronica’s sermon offered one way of dealing with Chris’s struggle with the questions about the fallen-ness of creation and what that means. According to Bauckham, the Bible does not really attempt to answer this question fully, but simply prophesies that through Christ the creation will be liberated from the evils that it now suffers. The bible focuses on the creation’s future, not its past.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Alpha to Omega – Jesus and the renewal of creation</span><br />Judith preached on Jesus and the renewal of creation, drawing on passages from the gospels, Philippians 2 and Revelation. Bauckham talks about Jesus’ calming of the storm which echoes God’s calming and containing of chaos at creation and the way God continues to confine chaos to create stability for creation, as seen for instance in Job and Psalms 89 & 104. It also gives a foretaste of transformed and peaceful relationships between humans and t non-humans in the renewed creation. <br /><br />Judith reminded us that this will be a renewed not a replaced creation. She drew attention to the parallel with Paul’s words in 2 Cor 5, “So if anyone is in Christ – new creation! The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new!” When someone becomes a Christian they are transformed and renewed now in the same way as the whole of creation will one day be transformed and renewed.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Wild places</span><br />And so we come to today’s theme, wild places. Jane will be preaching our last sermon in this series at the end of January when she will look at wild animals. <br /><br />Let’s start with a reading from Genesis 2:1-15.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The garden of Eden</span><br />In this passage we are far from the extremes of wilderness we’ve just been thinking about. We’re in the garden of Eden, gentle, luxuriant, fruitful, beautiful. Bauckham suggests that in the bible a garden is usually a vegetable garden or an orchard, and with all the trees mentioned here, presumably this is an orchard. According to Bauckham, as they toiled away at ploughing, sowing and reaping, Israelites dreamed of being able to live from vineyards and orchards alone – much less hard graft, digging and bending involved. So in some ways this is the ultimate fantasy for an Israelite – a beautiful orchard planted by someone else with a little light pruning and maybe some gentle irrigation to be done from time to time and plenty of time to hang out enjoying the cool and beauty of the orchard. But there is more about this garden that is special. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Humans and nature – made for each other</span><br />In verse 5, there is no-one to till the ground. So God makes a man. Then God plants a garden, full of every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. And then he puts the man in the garden, to till it and keep it, and gives him permission to eat from all the trees but one. It’s a marriage made in heaven: the garden gets someone to care for it and protect it; the man gets a ready source of easy and delicious food. As Bauckham says, the garden and the man are made for each other. There’s a harmony and mutuality here that are lost with the man’s expulsion from the garden. Ever since then there’s been a potential tension between human beings taking care of themselves and taking care of nature. As technology becomes more powerful there is more and more scope for neglecting the care of creation as we seek to take care of ourselves.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Fear of wilderness?</span><br />So we have in Eden a clear illustration of the harmony and mutuality intended between humans and nature, but don’t we also find in the bible some more negative views of nature, in particular of wilderness? Indeed, Bauckham reports that some critics of the bible consider that its negative view of wilderness has contributed to our ecological crisis. Certainly the wilderness is the place where the Israelites wander frustrated for forty years, desperate to get away from its perils and into the safety of the promised land (Deut 8:15) . And the wilderness is what takes over after the disastrous fall of a once great city, the ultimate sign of failure and God’s judgment.<br /><br />Before we go any further, I’d like to ask you to think for a moment about a favourite wild place – or if you don’t like wild places, a favourite place where you experience nature. Imagine yourself there. What is the weather? Who else is there? What else is there? What is it you like about it? Is there anything about it that is frightening or threatening? Now picture it in its extreme of bad weather – driving rain or snow and wind, storm & high waves, flood, extreme heat. How do you feel about it now? What do you long for in these extreme conditions?<br /><br />And now let’s think a bit more about wildernesses and wild places in the bible. We started with a garden, God’s garden which for a time is also home, workplace and larder to the man and woman. As well as gardens and orchards we find in the bible arable land, land that can be grazed but not cultivated, forests, deserts and wasteland or wilderness. Bauckham suggests that anything other than garden or arable land is frightening for the Israelites, a place where they might encounter wild – and dangerous – animals. That some of us apparently feel differently reflects perhaps that over the centuries (particularly in the UK) we have “tamed” the wilderness and also live at a greater distance from it, often exiled from wild and raw nature in lives lived in paved streets, supermarkets and largely weatherproof homes. But for an Israelite the definition of wilderness is largely to do with survival: wilderness is desert where lack of water makes it hard for humans to survive and forest, where a hungry wild animal could also make it hard to survive…<br /><br />So it’s not just expulsion from the garden that opens up a rift between humans and non-human creation. The Israelites’ pattern of agriculture also creates a division between hospitable productive land and inhospitable barren land. (Interestingly this isn’t quite a division between humans and non-human creation – in the hospitable productive portion of the land, domestic animals are included along with the humans. They too rest on the Sabbath and they too, in Nineveh (Jonah 3) are expected to fast and wear sackcloth as a demonstration of the city’s repentance.)<br /><br />So in many ways the negative views of wild nature are a logical result of a life lived close to the land – and quite close to the edge too. Bauckham picks out a number of passages where the wilderness is described as an eerie threatening place but also one rich in other life, particularly bird life. Let’s hear an example.<br /><br />Is 34:8-17<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Celebrating wilderness</span><br />But I think we can also read this as a real affirmation of wilderness, one that it is important for us to hear today. The wilderness is not good for human beings – but that’s fine because they are not meant to be there. There are other creatures who do belong there and the wilderness is meant for them. I think this is a salutary message for a culture that all too easily thinks all the earth is there just for us. <br /><br />Psalm 104 gives a similar picture. God gives different habitats & has different creatures in mind to occupy them. So for instance “the high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the coneys”. I think that’s important to hear in an age where human activity is destroying habitats directly by building on top of them or indirectly through climate change, pollution, fragmentation and so on. It challenges us to ask whether difficult-to-cultivate wildernesses are a technical challenge to be overcome by ingenious agriculture or development or are actually areas intended for other creatures to enjoy.<br /><br />And there is affirmation in the bible of another form of wilderness too, the forest. The garden of Eden, the ideal garden and the place of perfect relationship between God and humanity and nature, is, according to Ezekiel 31, not only an orchard but also a forest planted by God. So God’s garden is also wild nature, in Bauckham’s words “the original, glorious heart of wild nature”. Along with Psalm 104 I think this tells us that however unnerving wild places may have been for the Israelites or may be for us, God delights in them. And, in the chapter where Isaiah imagines God’s people returning from exile, the blossoming of the desert wilderness is described in terms of a majestic forest growing up. Let’s hear the passage – and you’ll need to know that Lebanon and Carmel are famed for their lush forests and woodland. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Is 35</span><br /><br />Notice the very strong echoes in verse 2 between the glory of the forest of Lebanon and the majesty of the woodlands of Carmel and Sharon and the glory of the Lord and the majesty of our God.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Conclusion</span><br />So all in all I think we can say that the bible is full of positive messages about wilderness. In God’s garden the man and the woman and comparatively wild nature dwell harmoniously together, each made for the other. <br /><br />With the loss of this harmony, humanity’s relationship with nature becomes more fraught as people are haunted by fear of the wild animals which may roam wild places, but they still affirm the value of those wild places to God and to the animals to which God has given the wild places. And in visions of God’s future rescue of his exiled people one wilderness – the desert - is transformed into another wild place – the forest. So I think we can take from that a challenge to safeguard wild places as the rightful home of the species that live there and as parts of God’s much loved garden. And a calling to value wilderness for its place in God’s heart, for its value to other species and in its own right, not just for our enjoyment or recreation.<br /><br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Gen 2:1-15</span><br />1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. 4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6 but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.<br /><br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Is 34:8-17</span><br />8 For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of vindication by Zion's cause. 9 And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulphur; her land shall become burning pitch. 10 Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; no one shall pass through it forever and ever. 11 But the hawk and the hedgehog shall possess it; the owl and the raven shall live in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plummet of chaos over its nobles. 12 They shall name it No Kingdom There, and all its princes shall be nothing. 13 Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches. 14 Wildcats shall meet with hyenas, goat-demons shall call to each other; there too Lilith shall repose, and find a place to rest. 15 There shall the owl nest and lay and hatch and brood in its shadow; there too the buzzards shall gather, each one with its mate. 16 Seek and read from the book of the Lord: Not one of these shall be missing; none shall be without its mate. For the mouth of the Lord has commanded, and his spirit has gathered them. 17 He has cast the lot for them, his hand has portioned it out to them with the line; they shall possess it forever, from generation to generation they shall live in it.<br /><br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Is 35</span><br />1 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2 it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. 3 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you." 5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7 the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. 8 A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God's people; no traveller, not even fools, shall go astray. 9 No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. 10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.Peterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10825350227973550098noreply@blogger.com0