Eating an apple with attitude!

A sermon on Genesis 2-3 & the Temptations

As most of you know I took the theme for today’s service as “eating an apple with attitude”.  Now whilst the story we read from Genesis does not refer to an apple being the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil certainly historically the apple has often been associated with that fruit.

So what does it mean to “eat the apple with attitude” and what kind of attitude might we have as we eat the

apple – the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

Well to let you know from the outset where this is going I believe one of the truths within this story is that like Adam and Eve we all reach out and taste the fruit, we eat the apple.

But, and this is the big but, we eat the apple with an understanding that despite this error God continues to reach out to us in love. So we eat the apple with an attitude both of rebellion and of humility.

So let’s explore this story and this theme a little more deeply.

Whenever I teach this story at school to grade 7 kids the question is asked of me “but is it true sir” by which the questioner is usually asking whether I believe Adam and Eve were real people.

In response I usually ask the students to put up their hand if they have a brother or sister.  (You can do this now too).  Now what I want you to do is to leave your hand in the air if you have ever blamed your brother or sister for something you did wrong.

Whether or not Adam and Eve actually existed or not, which is indeed a moot point, the story is true in each of us.  We are very good at conveniently blaming someone else and deflecting blame if something has gone wrong.

Just as they story is true at this point I believe the story is true in the ambiguous question it poses about the knowledge of good and evil, of morality.

So let’s focus on the tree and its fruit for a moment.

The very presence of the true and God’s instruction concerning are paradoxical.

Here is the riddle as I see it.  Adam and Eve are told not to eat the fruit.  But to understand that disobedience to God is wrong or evil Adam and Eve need to be able know the difference between right and wrong.

How can they know disobeying God is wrong if they do not know the disobedience is wrong or evil?

But if they already understand eating the fruit would be wrong then isn’t logical to say they don’t need to eat the fruit?

What is often presented as quite a straightforward story, a story we will to teach in Sunday School, I believe has some quite difficult and confronting themes.

What kind of answer might we find to this riddle in the story?  If we paused and looked back into Genesis 1 I think we can find an indicator in the first of the two stories about the creation of man and woman.

In Genesis 1: 26 & 27

‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’

               

So God created humankind in his image,

                in the image of God he created them;

                male and female he created them.

The little passage helps unlock the riddle in chapter 3.  Man and woman are made in God’s image:

So here is another truth the scriptures teach us which traditionally be describe as the doctrine of the imago dei.  Unfortunately, like most things in the truth Christians are no always in agreement about being created in the image of God means but let me suggest a few things.  Being made in God’s image means:

We are creative beings

We are made to be in relationships

We are loved and have the capacity to love others

We are given knowledge

And, here is the biggy, we know something about good and evil

It would be my contention that Adam and Eve having being made in god’s image already know the difference between good and evil.

So when serpent turns up with his crafty words and exaggerations he is not speaking to people who have no idea about good and evil but to people who have the capacity for doubt.

Whatever the serpent is the doubt he sews into the mind of Eve and through her Adam also is a doubt in their created nature, they doubt they are in God’s image and try to be like God: another paradox.

Going back to the idea of how truth is operating in this story one of primary the questions the story raises for us is this: do we doubt ourselves and do we doubt God?  The answer in the story is clear – we do.

And it is because we doubt we go seeking for knowledge, knowledge of good and evil, knowledge about God, knowledge about ourselves and knowledge about our world.

Now on a day we are celebrating the beginning of the university year I do not want to be suggesting that seek knowledge is necessarily wrong; whether it is of good and evil or of engineering, pharmacy, teaching business, law or whatever else you may be studying. However, when the motivation for our seeking is grounded in the denial of our created nature in preference for the existence we would carve out for ourselves then there are some serious questions to be raised and that is what I believe this story does.

Flipping forward into the New Testament for a moment the story of the temptation of Jesus is closely linked to the story of the garden.  In tit the temptation to define our own existence rather than accept our existence as gift is played out again in a different way.

In each scene that Jesus is tempted we hear a temptation that each one of us is susceptible to.  Jesus is tempted to turn the stones to bread: to use his gifts simply for his own needs and wants.  Jesus is tempted to put God to the test: to place his trust in things other than God.  Jesus is tempted to gain power: to use his abilities for the sake of his own prestige.

Once again these temptations ring true of the story in the garden we too can easily deny the purpose our gifts are given for.  Instead stones to bread it might be using our gifts for building our own wealth: big houses, cars, expensive gadgets and holidays.  There can be no doubt in our search for knowledge humanity has put God to the test, the rise of new atheism and its prophets echo Friedrich Nietzsche proclamation “God is dead” whilst many of us will use our knowledge and gifts to gain power and prestige for ourselves.

The scriptures tell us who we are and challenge us on that.  We eat the apple with attitude, we seek knowledge and our motivations are intentionally or otherwise about denying our created existence in preference for the identity we can make for ourselves.

But the stories do not finish with our failures or with God’s rejection of us for them.

Hear the good news of the Genesis story.  Despite the prohibition God makes, despite the indication anyone who eats the fruit will die Adam and Eve live.  Yes they die but not immediately, another debate point for theologians through history and God’s response involves consequences yes but also grace.  God makes Adam and Eve clothes and God sends them into the world.

This story of grace is then backed up by Jesus response to the temptations.  Where we fail Jesus resists and through the gift of the Spirit our lives are joined to his faithfulness.  The promise of his resistance of the temptations culminates in the resurrection of Jesus and the promise that death indeed is not the final word, just as death was not immediate for Adam and Eve God’s choice is always in favour of the creation.

The scriptures show us ourselves: we eat the apple with attitude; we pursue knowledge to set ourselves over against God and for our own selfish motivations but despite the confusion of our ways God continues to reach out in love for us.  God transform and resurrects our mistakes and leads us into new life. God clothes us again in Jesus resurrection and promises us new life.

King's College: Enrolment Service

1 Samuel 8

1 When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. 2 The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beer-sheba. 3 Yet his sons did not follow in his ways, but turned aside after gain; they took bribes and perverted justice.

4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, 5 and said to him, ‘You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.’ 6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to govern us.’ Samuel prayed to the Lord, 7 and the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. 8 Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. 9 Now then, listen to their voice; only—you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.’

Reflection

Veritas Vos Liberabit, which you should recognise as the College motto “The truth shall set you free”.

As far as I can see there are at least two confronting ideas in this motto.

The first is to wonder about the same thing that Jack Nicholson wondered in the movie “A Few Good Men”: can we actually handle the truth? Can you? Can I?

And the second is to wonder at what kind of freedom we are talking about.  Have you have ever asked yourself the questions ‘freedom from what’ or even more importantly ‘freedom for what’?

My short hand response to these confrontations in the Kings College motto would be “We are set free to serve” but how do I come to this conclusion.

It may seem odd that I chose to have a story which dates back over 3000 years to help elucidate a response to the idea that as Kings men (and for the women who work here as well) you have been “Set free to serve” but I hope you noticed just how poignant the passage is for us this evening.

In the passage we have an aging prophet called Samuel seeking to do some succession planning in anticipation of his death he wishes to install his sons as Judges over Israel.

Yet, as the Israelites rightly point out, Samuel’s sons do not follow in his ways.  They are off message! So it is that the Israelites request that God appoint a king over them, like the other nations.  A plan which Samuel rejects and God questions as idolatrous, outlining that such a choice will have disastrous consequences.

Despite this divine warning God graciously accedes to the wishes of the people and the rest as they say is history. Saul is chosen to be King.

What does this have to do with us here 3000 years later?  Well, I believe it has a few lessons for us to listen to because this passage is not simply about challenging the idea of Kingship as a concept but is about power and authority and where we place our allegiance.

You may be thinking at this point that you do not have much authority or power in your life, especially if you are a student.  But the reality is everyone here is a place of privilege.  We are among the wealthiest people in the world, and we have been given the opportunity for education, if we have not already received it, and there can be little doubt that many of us will grow in our power and influence through our lives. 

In this sense as Australians living her ate Kings we have a great deal of freedom which is accompanied by the opportunity to exercise that freedom because of our education and access to power.

If we turn back to the reading for a moment I find that when we look at the issues associated with the application of power and authority there is a two edge sword. 

On one side we find that regardless of which way the Israelites choose it will be inadequate.  Neither a King nor Judges will be a perfect option.  Power and authority are always and ever open to misuse and misunderstanding because the limitations of our human capacity.  We are it seems never all that we should be or could be.

For me this is a reminder, that any who grow to have power and authority must be wary of the mistakes we will undoubtedly make and to approach our leadership with a sense of humility.

The other edge of the blade is that people still long to be lead and look to others to exercise power and authority in decisions about how a community operates.  In other words despite the problems and conundrums that leaders give to us we still need leaders.

As I indicated before because of the opportunities and privileges you and I have most if not all of us will be leaders and will exercise significant power and authority but how do we move beyond that conundrum that I have named, the imperfection of our leadership.

It is my view that in our own efforts we cannot but within the limitations of our own capacity we can seek to respond to the ideal of Jesus and the kingdom that he speaks of.

After his arrest Jesus was brought before Pilate and in response to the question in John’s gospel, ‘Are you a king?’ Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”

Jesus kingdom is not a place and so his kingship does not occur within a physical domain.  Rather Jesus kingship is connected to the idea of how God longs for and intends things to be within the creation.

The basileia tou theo of which Jesus spoke or the kingdom of God is not a place but is when and where God’s reign and rule is expressed within our lives.  Jesus exercise of power and authority occurs in his willingness to give up his life for others – not to fashion his existence around gaining power and prestige and authority for himself but to look to heal, help and reconcile people with one another and with God.

It is precisely in Jesus action of doing this that he sets us free from the problem of our imperfection.  His perfect response to having power and authority supersedes our inadequacies and errors.  Moreover, when we examine Jesus life we are challenged with a picture of power and authority which sits in a skewed relationship with what we know and experience in most of our lives.  Life is not about what I am going to get out of it for myself rather it is about what I give of my life for the sake of others.  In this we, are as I suggested, ‘Set free for service to others’.

This truth, the truth of Jesus gift of freedom from our abuse of power, is a difficult truth inasmuch as it suggests we are not in control of as much as we think we are.  Yet it is also a truth which sets us free for the purpose of leading and serving others in new ways.  This is the purpose of participating in the coming reign of God by putting others before ourselves, living against the mainstream and living for God.

So as we begin the year at Kings the good news is this Veritas Vos Liberabit.  Can we handle this truth and can we live this freedom which we receive as gift as we enter into this year at Kings?  The answer is probably only ever imperfectly but as we look to Jesus and have our notions of power authority turned on their head we are lead to consider what it means to be a community of God’s grace together. 

Transfiguration: Baby eats a book!

“This is my Son, the Beloved! With him I am well pleased, listen to him!”

These words of affirmation of Jesus’ identity are at the heart of Matthew’s gospel, a claim concern the nature of Jesus and his relationship with God.  It is from this central truth that the gospel radiates out.

Yet as human beings when we encounter this message there is a sense of bafflement and confusion, and incomprehension to this other worldly claim of who Jesus is.  It is as if we are like infants given a book for the first time.  Not knowing what we should do with it and not comprehending its purpose we assume quite wrongly that it goes in our mouth.  Like the infant with its first book we need help to understand the content and purpose of the gospel message

Today is the day we remember the transfiguration of Jesus as we come to the end of epiphany.  Looking behind this jargon we find that today and these past few Sundays have been focussed on how God reveals the truth of who we are and who we are in relationship with God.  It is as if a light has been turned on in the darkened room of our world view.

This morning as we listen again and reflect on the story of the transfiguration I want to encourage you to listen with fresh ears and open hearts to the good news of Jesus Christ.

The story of the transfiguration of Jesus is clearly related to the story of Moses ascending the mountain.  The Old Testament reading from Exodus that we heard today gave us a snippet of the encounter between God and Moses on the mountaintop.

To help us understand the claims concerning Jesus identity and what God is up to I want to take a moment just to fill out a few details of the story.

Obviously there are parallels in the two stories.  Moses and Jesus both encounter God’s presence on a mountain top, in the high places.  God’s presence is both hidden and revealed within a surrounding cloud.  And standing in the presence of God brings about change.  Both Moses and Jesus glow reflecting God’s glory.

But the Moses story also provides the backdrop to the transfiguration of Jesus because in the encounter between Moses and God God’s relationship with humanity and in particular the Israelites is shaped.  God promises to the people of Israel “I shall be your God” and gives Moses the commandments. 

But while Moses is on the mountain the chosen people of God are basically running riot.  With Moses preoccupied in the company of God on the mountaintop the people bring their gold to Aaron who shapes a God for them cast in the image of a calf and they begin to worship and to revel.   

God seeing the behaviour of the Israelites names them a stiff necked people and sends Moses down the mountain.  The relationship hangs on a precipice but in conversation with Moses God chooses to remain faithful to this wayward people.

Moses plea for the people is that God would forgive their wrongdoing and to remain open in the relationship.

God’s ultimate response to Moses plea is the sending of Jesus, his only son, to live and walk among us.  Jesus who is fully God identifies totally with the brokenness of our human predicament sharing our flesh and becoming for us the essence of true humanity which he share with us not for his own benefit but for our sake.  He is the representative human being.

This is why 6, days prior Peter’s declaration that Jesus was the Messiah is now reiterated by God’s decree from the cloud: “This is my Son, the Beloved!”  Jesus identity as God’s Son is the outworking of God’s faithfulness to humanity and to the whole creation.  In Jesus, God himself, fulfils the human side of covenant and so the requirements of human and divine faithfulness coalesce and coincide.

This is God’s choice and more than that it is God’s choice to involve these stiff necked and fallible human beings; that is to say Peter, James and John in the revelation of this truth. By so doing God invites us all to participate in the experience and sharing of God’s glory.

At the beginning of the reading we are told that Jesus took with him Peter, James and John up the mountain.  Just as last week we hear about Jesus choosing of these disciples so now we hear we hear a reiteration of Jesus, and God’s commitment, to involve people in his ministry and mission.  The disciples become witnesses to the work of God in Jesus Christ.

Are these three men better than those stiff necked people who made their own God’s and revelled whilst Moses spoke to God?  The simple answer is no.  6 days earlier Jesus had called Peter Satan.  On the mountaintop their incomprehension of the event is emphasised when Jesus tells them that they are not to share what they have seen until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.

In fact it is a story that we can only really guess at the historical truth of because the accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke differ significantly.  This may be another reflection perhaps of their incomprehension of the moment.  Whilst the Scriptures do reveal God’s truth to us we need to be honest in our appraisal of the different versions of stories such as this which have significant discrepancies: if anything, Matthew lets Peter and James and John off more lightly than the other gospel writers.

In Luke’s telling of the account Peter’s comment about the making of the dwellings or tabernacles is reportedly said because “he did not know what to say”.  The idea of making dwellings for Moses, Elijah and Jesus indicates the human propensity to want to domestic encounters with God.  In thinking of making the dwellings is Peter not trying to seize control of the situation and contain the experience?

I suspect for Peter, James and John not unlike the infant with the new book they just did not know what to do.  But Jesus chose that they be there. Jesus invited them to be on the journey with him for it is exactly for men and women such as these that Jesus comes to bring the light of God’s forgiving and loving mercy to a misplaced and uncomprehending  humanity. 

Peter and James and John are truly our representatives on the mountaintop – they display the truth of our inability to wrap our heads around what is going on and when we have some great experience or some glimpse of God’s light our tendency to want to control that message, to package it as another product to by bought and sold, some programme for consumers in the market for spirituality.

Yet these approaches which seek to wrest the truth of divine revelation from God’s hand or to domestic them and house them in mundane pious religiosity miss the point. 

At the heart of the church is truth of the gospel message that Jesus Christ, God’s incarnate Son, comes to be for all humanity what we have failed to be and so help us to walk in newness of life with him.  This is indeed good news for us despite how difficult as it may be for us to consume in Christ we have a foretaste of the coming kingdom, here and now.

God expects maturity not perfection!

Leviticus 19:1-18

Matthew 5:38-48

                                          

If I were to graph my relationship with God through my life I suspect it would look something like this (red line).  At the beginning as a newborn infant I do not believe it was perfect and I certainly do not see that it has been a steady climb of getting closer and closer to God through trying to follow Jesus.

In fact I have probably been pretty generous with how well I have gone since there have been times for me of deep doubt and even depression.

Given this is how I perceive my relationship with God is going, a series of peaks and troughs, it is difficult to read this section of Jesus sermon of the mount from Matthew which ends with the words:

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

I know I am not perfect, I have a sense I am far from perfect, even though I had a colleague once who used to call me Perfect Flaming Peter. If we put a line on my graph that demonstrates perfection we can see just how far I might be from perfection.

And if we consider the readings from both Leviticus and Matthew this morning there are enough personal faith challenges in the teachings here to occupy a life time. “Turn the other check”, “Walk the extra mile”, “Love your enemies”.  Really, I think I struggle to do any of these with any level of competency let alone all of them perfectly!

So the gap between me and “being perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect” seems insurmountable.  As a young adult I was acutely aware of this gap and wondered what it might mean that I could not follow Jesus and God the way this passage appears to be suggestion.  The guilt I felt was immense, even though I knew about forgiveness.  Was I a good Christian or not?  Was I going to go to hell for my failures?  Was I a poor witness and follower of Jesus?  There can be a great deal of pressure applied to people when we begin to think this way about our faith.

So how do we deal with this conundrum? How do we reconcile this gap between my life and perfection?

For me there are two things that help deal with this issue and for each I have a simply saying..

The first is: My life is hidden in Christ!

Whilst the second is: God expects maturity not perfection.  That is what I believe God expects from me personally as a Christian: maturity.

If we go back to my life graph the straight line running across the top at 100 per cent is Christ’s life, and therefore my life hidden in Christ.

What is impossible for me has been made possible by God in Christ.   When God looks at me and you God sees us through the lens of the perfection of Christ’s life.  We do not have to be perfect because in Jesus incarnation, his life, his death, and his resurrection as well as in his ascended ministry Jesus has made us right with God.

As an aside when we share the peace in church this is part of what we are recognising, we have peace with God and other because God has made our relationships perfect in Christ.

If we look to Jesus life we do see Jesus turn the other check and go the extra mile and so on.

This gift of perfection though comes with an invitation to respond.  From right back to the beginning of the church the question has been asked, “If I have been made right with God then does it matter what I do?”

Put simply the answer is yes.  Unconditional grace is what it is unconditional, but the invitation of Jesus is to life life in its fullest by responding maturely to this gift.

Which brings me to the statement: God expects maturity not perfection!

When we trace this passage from Matthew to its original language the word which we translate as perfection could also mean something like “purpose” or “maturity”.

So whilst there is an expectation of perfection which is met in Jesus, Jesus challenges his followers to live maturely and to see God’s life as an example.  Of course, the life of God we interpret here is Jesus own life.

Looking back to the graph, despite all the troughs and peaks, there is a growth in the maturity of the relationship which I believe is occurring.  And this is pragmatically important for us in our life as Christians in the world and our participation in Christ’s mission.

You see in general when people judge God they generally do so through looking at the imperfect line of my life in relationship with God, or our life, or even our corporate life as the church.

Let me share some examples of how this works from the week that was.

This week I heard on the radio the unfolding drama of the Royal Commission into Child Abuse and the interview of a Principal from a Catholic school in which abuse occurred less than a decade ago.  If we consider the injunction to love the neighbour and care for children it is clear this is one of the troughs in the life of the church.

We might try to shrug it off and say that was the Catholics not us but such a response is naive on two levels.  Firstly, because for many who are not Christian we are one group so the brand name is irrelevant.  Secondly, because as I Uniting church minister I am aware we too will be going before the Royal Commission for things which occurred whilst children were in our care.

On my graph this is certainly a trough in our relationship with God and begs us ask the question what is a mature response of faith? Possibly confession and lament? Changing our own practices to protect children better?

If we look at other significant events unfolding in the Central Republic of Africa there has been a shift in power and the now ascendant Christians, linked tribally, are committing atrocities against Muslims in the country.  And I read in the gospel “love your enemies”. 

What is a mature Christian response to these events?  In neighbouring countries maybe we can pray it will be Christians who reach out to offer shelter to those Muslims fleeing for their lives.

Once again closer to home I found myself lamenting for the life of Reza Barati the Iranian Asylum seeker killed at the Manus Island detention centre.  Reza was in the care of our country, as were all those others who were injured.

The issue of asylum seeks impacts Indonesia just as much as it impacts Australia but what is a mature Christian response, how do we love our neighbour and our enemy in this situation? 

These issues may seem distant and far away but in the life of we who follow Jesus issues of justice and love are always before us.

No doubt if we look into our own lives and relationships we might be able to ask many questions of our own maturity in our relationship with our family, our friends, our colleagues and our community.

We will not be perfect in these things but I do believe as we follow Jesus God expects maturity not perfection!

This maturity involves honesty and seeing how Jesus loved.

Maturity is enough of a challenge in our imperfect spiritual journey and when confronted by our inadequacies we should not judge ourselves or others too harshly.

Consider for a moment a well worn saying “Love the sinner and hate the sin”.  This saying traces its roots back to St Augustine and is found in Ghandi’s autobiography.

The big problem I have this is which sins we like to name as hating whilst leaving others alone.  Moreover, it can seem we are implying that somehow our imperfect journey is less tainted than another person’s.  I recently heard an interview in which the American evangelical Tony Campolo suggested that at best we could infer from Jesus teaching “Love the sinner and hate your own sin.”

This is not an invitation to amorality but just a sober reminder that as Paul wrote all have fallen short of the glory of God, which, in my mind, is exactly where I started this sermon with the graph.

The idea of perfectionism within our spiritual journey can lead to guilt and depression internally and sometimes judgmentalism and exclusion externally.  In hearing Jesus words about perfection we should always remember My life is hidden in Christ!

But in receiving this gift of perfection we should also remember that as we respond and follow Jesus God expects maturity not perfection!

Take a moment of silence read again the passages from Leviticus and Matthew. Receive the gift of perfection and contemplate where are you being challenged for greater maturity.

1 Corinthians 3 A healthy diet

Phase 1: The core ingredient!

For those of you who have had children or any of you who are aware of the early stages of childhood you will relate well to Paul’s metaphor.

In general we know that an infant relies on its mother’s milk alone.  Its body simply cannot cope with solids; there are no teeth to chew to start with.

Yet as the child grows opportunities arise and the situation changes.  Water and other liquids are added to the diet, mushy foods and other soft foods and then gradually solids.  It can take quite a few years until a child can engage in the full array of foods on offer.

This is a natural process and as well as taking time it can be a little frustrating and more than a little messy as the mashed sweet potato is tossed hither and yon. 

It is a good analogy that Paul uses for the growth of the spiritual life and it is quite a deliberate one.

Paul is entering into a conversation about where knowledge and knowing come from.

In Paul’s time the place of great teachers and philosophers was highly significant.  They were a source of knowledge.  So it was that certain members of that early Corinthian community had allied themselves with particular teachers: “I belong to Paul” or “I belong to Apollos,”

But Paul challenges this behaviour as divisive and destructive of the community and he appeals to a different understanding of where spiritual knowledge and growth come from.

He says, they come to us from God.  God works within us to nurture our spiritual lives.  The teachers are simply conduits through which God acts.

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”

Paul was trying to encourage a hunger and thirst for spiritual growth whilst at the same time indicating that this growth came from God and that the so–called meal or teaching provided by those who were called to teach needed to correspond to the stage of spiritual development of a particular people.

The teaching took place in the context of a community as people who shared in their connectedness to Jesus Christ and the call he had placed upon their lives.

As people of faith who have heard the good news of Jesus I have little doubt that each of us has some self understanding of how mature we are in the faith.

Yet tonight I want to remind you that the process of maturing in the faith can be a messy business just as the process of introducing solids to an infant’s life can be fraught with problems.

Just as child can mistake pureed vegetables for paint or can misunderstand that nostrils are not the appropriate orifice through which to ingest food our explorations of God’s love and message expressed to us in Jesus can create similar chaos.

This may seem to be an unhelpful thing but the reality of growth is that it involves inquisitive behaviour and risk taking and community.

The one thing which Paul continually emphasises in this journey of growth and discovery for the Corinthian community is that at the heart of our faith the diet which we are given is grounded in God’s message of Jesus Christ.  He is the core ingredient!

In 1 Corinthians 3, he goes on to say, “No one can lay any other foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.”

Maybe it is that we share a taste of the centre of our faith each week in the bread and the wine, signs of Jesus presence in us and with us.  As we chew the bread and swallow the wine we are drawn to remember Jesus and to be changed by him who is the staple of our diet and source of our growth.

Phase 2: Unhealthy Habits

In the first part of the sermon I have suggested some things to you about what Paul was trying to get across to the Corinthian community: people and communities can be at different stages in their spiritual development.  The stage that they are at relates to what they have received from God who is the one who brings growth.  Yet whatever the stage of our development the core ingredient within the menu is Jesus Christ.

I want to push Paul’s analogy about food and spiritual growth in a slightly different direction now and talk about unhealthy eating habits.

The first is to caution us about remaining childish in our palates. 

Often little children will express their distaste over particular foods.  I remember a personal dislike for brussel sprouts.  Yet we know that over the years our taste buds mature as we get exposed to different flavours.

The concern that I have to allow people to stay eating the same spiritual food without trying new things and maturing as God brings growth within them.

There are many Christians in our congregations who have been in the church all their lives but apart from a Sunday sermon they have not exercised their spiritual appetite since Sunday school.

As I suggested before transitioning a child to eat solids takes time, patience and a little mess but as the child grows opportunities for trying new things emerge.

Yes to be engaged in growth as Christians means coming to the weekly feast but it also means constantly consuming our daily bread.  Some among you have subscribed to the devotional that goes by the same name “Daily Bread” but I would challenge you all to reflect on how else you might try new flavours and expand opportunities for your spiritual growth.

The second is to caution you about the additives in food.  As modern people we know a lot about diet and healthy eating, although there is debate around what a healthy diet is we do know that some foods are simply not good for us.

There is a trend amongst food producers to load processed foods with sugar, salt and fat.  Things which add flavour and presumably make our food more palatable. Yet these are things which are not necessarily that good for us.

I am concerned at times that we have sugar coated Christ or spiced up our faith.  Rather than accept the taste of the message of Christ our explorations of the menu have lead us to overpower the flavour of our core ingredient.

So, for example, instead of speaking of the importance of Jesus to our daily lives we only want to talk about the church as a community and the friendships that we find there. 

Of course the church develops Christian community, but it does so because of who Jesus Christ is and what he has done for us.  So if we speak only of the community that is being developed and not the one in whom the community is grounded then we lose the meaning and purpose of our identity as church and community – the flavour of Christ is overpowered.

In a similar way we can become overly attracted to particular expressions of worship or understandings of worship that supplant the central message that we are disciples called to follow Jesus and sent as apostles into world to share the good news.  In other words we only accept worship when it tastes of the flavours we like and when it is different we complain.

Lastly, in terms of unhealthy habits I want to talk about the problem of skipping meals.

One of my favourite stories about food and faith is about the minister who goes to visit a congregation member who has stopped going to church.  When asked why the man says he has stopped coming because he doesn’t think he gets anything from it and can’t remember the sermon after the service anyway.

In response the minister asked can you remember what you had for dinner last Sunday night to which the man replies no.  The minister then asked did the meal nourish and feed your body, did it help you to live even though you can’t remember it.

The point is subtle but worth remembering it.  The discipline of coming to worship and share at the table every week feeds us in ways that sometimes we are not aware of.  It is important to be here every Sunday, to not skip meals, to be nourished by God and share in each other’s fellowship and encourage others to join us for all are welcome in at this feast.

Phase 3: A mature palate

I want to conclude the sermon with this third phase and consider maturity in our spiritual diet.

As we grow and try new culinary delights we are also drawn into the celebration of community that sharing food is.

The word companion literal means ‘with’ ‘bread’ and infers that a companion is one with whom we break bread.

Eating moves from simple function to enjoyment, enjoyment shared communally.

Jesus breaks bread with us and invites us to break bread with one another as companions – sharing physical and spiritual food.

To hark back to a point I made before about being engaged in our spiritual growth beyond a Sunday sermon, our Uniting Church tradition has not been the best at developing the discipline of weekly bible studies or home groups or prayer groups.  This congregation fits into that category.  Yes we do our Lenten studies but not much else.

Like constant dinner parties we should be gathering with one another to plumb the depths of what it means to be followers of Jesus and to share where we have seen Christ active in our lives. I do not believe the value of weekly gatherings to nurture our faith, be it a prayer group; a Bible study, or home group can be overstated.

More than that, there are those among you who should take the opportunity to host the meal and prepare the food.  The tendency can be to rely overly too much on the one cook – the minister, but the experience of so many Christians around the world is that the process of preparing the meal is where real growth occurs.  The companionship of sharing the journey of faith together is a truly enriching thing – enjoying God and each other intentionally and deliberately.

As we consider what it means to be a community of faith in this 21^st century, to follow Christ and to grow in his love, let us be adventurous in our palate and renewed in our committed to the menu as God feeds us and causes us to grow.