Who is this Blind Bartimeaus?

Who is this dirty bedraggled beggar?

Who is this man lying in the filth at the side of the road?

Who is the Bartimeaus? This son of Timeaus?

This Son of the Unclean? The Son of Poverty?

Who is this blind man crying out?

Interrupting our pleasant morning gathered with Jesus.

Who is this man?

This man, this Bartimeaus, knows his physical blindness has excluded him.

He is shunned and shoved aside by the world.

His affliction holds him back from participating in the fullness of life.

It is easier for us to ignore him and hide the problems.

Who is this man?

This man is you and I and everyone single one of us.

He is our soul crying out from within the midst of our needs from within the midst of our afflictions – Son of David have mercy on me, have mercy on us.

This is both a very personal cry and it is the communal cry of the church on behalf of humanity.

We cry out from within our affliction or at least we should be?

We cry out because we have gotten older and our bodies are failing us and the issues of our health dominate our weekly endeavours.  We long again to be more active and engaged in our communities.

We cry out because we are far from home and we miss our families and our friends and although we have found some welcome here loneliness can still overtake us.

We cry out because we are anxious and we are depressed.  Our minds play games with us and seem to thwart our sense security and peace in life.

We cry out because we are trying to forge ahead into a new future.  Studying and trying to find our identity and be the people God calls us to be.

We cry out because our relationships are not as we would have them.  Some of us long to find a partner to share our life with whilst others of us miss dearly a treasured spouse long gone from our side.

We cry out because our emotions overtake us.  We find ourselves angry with other people or judging them and even knowing that in our secret hearts we hate some people – event hose whom we don;t know.

We cry out because the pressures of our work life have overtaken us.  We feel weighed down and beset by the stresses and strains.

We cry out “Son of David, have mercy on me”

We know our predicament: each of us has our hidden struggles and collectively we know as humanity we cry out or at least we should:

We cry out “Son of David, have mercy on us”

Have mercy on those who are in the refugee camps and fleeing across the world.  The young girls being sold as wives.  The people languishing for years with no hope in sight. The people who have no fixed address and no country to call their.

Have mercy on those who feel so driven by their predicament to believe that violence is the answer. Have mercy on the warmongers and those who exploit the fragile lives of those who are seeking meaning and purpose.

Have mercy on us who as a race are driven by progress and growth in a finite world with finite resources.  Have mercy on us who are destroying the ecosystems and the environment and even the climate.

Have mercy on us who perpetuate exclusion and division.  Who ostracise the first inhabitants of lands like Australia.  Who elevate one tribe and country above others at the expense of others.   

We cry out because we are Bartimeaus bus we also are susceptible to crying out for the voices to stop.

Like the crowd who were gathered alongside Jesus, the ones who had become his followers and friends, we too can silence our own cries, each other’s cries and the cries of the community around.

Instead of being honest that we are indeed Bartimeaus we claim a spot alongside Jesus and think we are the only ones who belong there – we forget that we need that mercy too as we shut up and try to silence the voices within us, around us and beyond us.

But Jesus, Jesus, hears the cries.  I believe hears the spoken and the unspoken cries and Jesus upsets us as he invites the blind beggar close – the sufferer, the needy one.

I was here on Thursday afternoon as the thunder and lightning came and as a storm hit, bucketing a torrent of water from the sky.

A noticed a man standing in the doorway and opened the doors of the church so he might shelter from the passing storm.

As he thanked me I joked “The church is always here to offer shelter from the storm” but this is no joke for this is who our Lord is.

Jesus hears the cries of Bartimeaus and of all us as we recognise the shortfalls and the difficulties and the afflictions and we cry out “Son of David, have mercy.”

Jesus desire is that we might have fullness in our lives, Jesus intent is for healing and for hope and for wholeness in life.

He says to Bartimeaus, your faith has made you well.

It’s always shaky ground to connect faith with healing. We spent the last 3 weeks thinking about that as reflected on the story of Job.   Yet, persistent and perseverance are part of our journey and more than that accommodating each other’s cries for mercy – finding tolerance and not blocking the way to Jesus but leading people to Jesus.

Who is this blind beggar at the side of the road?

This man lying in the filth and turmoil of life.

This man is you, it is I, it is everyone we meet who can admit their problems.

And our faith, our hope is this, that Jesus hears our cries:

“Son of David, have mercy on me”

“Son of David, have mercy on me”

How do you experience God?

Mark 10:17-31 

Job 23:1-17

Hebrews 4:12-16

I wonder what it is that you might expect out of an experience of God.  What emotions do you think might trigger if you were in God’s presence?  If you were experiencing God?

Take a moment to reflect on what you would hope to feel out of such an experience?

Whatever words you have used reflect your assumptions, your expectations and even your previous experiences of God’s presence in your life.

It is an important thing to reflect on for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because often the hope we have in these experiences or our previous encounters sustain us in our own journey through life and in our faith.  And, secondly, these hopes and experiences shape our witness of faith to others.

During my trip to Japan one of my hosts, a Buddhist in his spirituality, asked me the question directly “Do you experience God?” To which I answered “Yes” but, of course, then he wanted to know “How?”

How do you experience God?

We have already reflected on that a little bit in identifying some words and feelings that we might associate with encountering God but I want us to reflect a little more on this question based on the readings that we have heard today.

We are going to take a snapshot from Job, Mark and from Hebrews to explore what it means to encounter God.

In the reading from Job there appears to be a sense of God playing some great game of divine hide’n’seek. Job declares:

“If I go forward, he is not there;

or backward, I cannot perceive him;

on the left he hides,

and I cannot behold him;

I turn to the right,

but I cannot see him.”

God remains elusive, mysterious, hidden.  But when we think on Job’s suffering and Job’s desire to come into God’s presence what we find is that Job wants to encounter to God to ask the question “Why?” “Why am I suffering?” What have I done?”

Job’s questioning very much arises out of the conversation he is ensconced in with his three friends.  In the previous Chapter Job’s friend Eliphaz has essentially said to Job “Look mate you must have done something wrong. Agree with God and be at peace.”

Last week Marilyn explored some of the difficulties around suffering in her sermon so I am not going to revisit too deeply what she said but simply to remind you that there are those among us, as there were in Job’s time, who interpret there situation in life as a reflection of their relationship with God: it is very much about reward and punishment.

As a minister I have heard this many times when people have asked me in the midst of a difficult time “What have I done to deserve this?”  Or, alternatively, when we judge what is happening to another person with phrases like “They made their own bed now they have to lie in it.”

Life is far more complex than this and the broader story of Job is about exploring this complexity and confronting with mystery.

Yet it would seem that Job is being influenced by this world view and importantly the assumptions made about divine activity in this world view.  Job’s desire to see God is a desire born out of questioning.

Yet despite God’s perceived absence seeing God has another element to it for Job – “Therefore I am terrified at his presence; when I consider, I am in dread of him.”

If we were to simply consider some key words that might answer the question How do you experience God? Based on the encounter between Job and his friends we might use words like: reward, prosperity, punishment, suffering, absence, mystery, questioning, confusion, fear & terror.

How do you experience God?

Are these words that are helpful for our own journey of faith and for our witness to others?  do these correspond with the thoughts and feelings that we had at the beginning?

Let’s move now into the New Testament and to the reading about Jesus encounter with the wealthy young man.  Now for the purpose of this sermon I would want to remind you that when he hear Jesus speaking his words are God’s words amongst us.  To use the language of John’s Gospel he is the living Word of God.

When the young man comes to Jesus the initial reaction of Jesus is to ask the young man questions which seem to affirm his righteousness – the young man appears to have been doing the right thing.  And maybe what the young man was seeking was an affirmation that he was going OK.

I think this is something many of us seek too in our relationship with God a word of affirmation that we don’t have to change anything and that everything we are doing is right on the money.

Yet, as we heard, Jesus pushed him further “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

For any of us here today these are certainly confrontational words, the can cause a deal of discomfort.  How many of us have sold everything to give it to the poor and then followed Jesus?

I have had friends who inspire me in their faith who have pretty much done this but we know that the young man turns away and the disciples are left confused.

“Who then can enter the kingdom?”

The disciples appear in this moment to be operating out of the same world view as Eliphaz.  So once again God’s presence, an encounter with divine truth, leads to confusion, disruption and mystery.

And so we might identify these words as ones which reflect again what an encounter with God is like: affirmation, questioning, confrontation, disruption, confusion and hope.

Why hope? Because Jesus response which is often lost in the impossibility of a camel and a needle’s eye is that with God all things are possible which brings me to the book of Hebrews

In the book of Hebrews we are told, “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.”  Already this morning we have explored the differences that might occur in an experience of the divine – it can bring affirmation and peace and comfort but it might also bring mystery and confrontation and confusion.

It can be an experience of absence of an experience of presence and encounter.

Yet whatever our experience of God and life there is another story of God’s closeness to us. That where we might think God is hidden or absence or we might be interpreting God’s presence in a particular way God knows us and sees us intimately and in this God cares for us.

God cares for us so deeply Jesus came among us to share our lives and to become our great high priest creating the pathway between God’s life and ours through the power of the Holy Spirit.

For me this is a source of comfort and hope.  Whatever else I might want to say about my experience of life and of God the accuracy of my understanding is always limited and God and God’s love is not contingent, is not determined by my personal experience of God and life whether it is one which is positive or negative in a particular moment in which I find myself.

With God all things are possible and the possibilities of God are the possibilities we encounter in Jesus who comes to serve and save us, who reaches bringing healing and mercy, who is God ‘s love and grace walking amongst us.  This does necessarily negate your or my experiences of life and of God but puts them in the context of a bigger story that regardless of what we think we are encountering there is a bigger story of God’s love whose trajectory is for the reconciliation and renewal of all things in Christ.

Maybe as Paul describe it “a hope in things not (yet) seen”.

How do you experience God?

A Preference for Bunnies

The disciples arrived at the tomb and they saw and believed yet they still did not understand. They were puzzled to pieces.

On Easter Day it is very easy for us to race to celebrating the incomprehensible event of Jesus resurrection without pausing to reflect on just how perplexing the event is.

Maybe, this is a reflection of our culture which pursues happiness above all else.

Maybe, this is why I would say to you on this day that it would appear to me that Easter Bunnies and Chocolate goodies appear to have won.  we live in a culture that has a preference for bunnies.

We prefer the instant gratification of a chocolate hit over the confusion of an empty tomb.

Even in my short time in ministry, a mere 16 years, the ascendancy of the alternate story has infiltrated and saturated the Easter holiday.  This week as I asked people about the meaning of Easter the answer that came back was about chocolates, relaxation and family time.

To be blunt I do not think I can compete with this message ambiguous as it may be.

In Coles on Thursday every employee was wearing rabbit ears.  As two people dressed in bunny suits wandered past I asked the guy at the checkout whether he was enjoying his bunny ears and he said under his breath no.  Then quickly said I better say yes just in case my boss is listening.

When I shared what I did he told me he would be going to church on Good Friday – it was a family tradition.  They don’t go on Easter Sunday, just Friday, and he really couldn't make any sense out of why they went given they don’t go to church any other time.  He said it was bit like Christmas.  He was puzzled to pieces.  None of it really made sense.

It left me asking myself, ‘why do we bother coming here on Easter Day?’  Why aren't

we at home spending time with family or eating chocolate or more likely both?

You see we come and we stand before the empty tomb and I think for many of us we are as puzzled as the disciples: we are puzzled to pieces.

We come; I come, with all the pressing questions of life and its meaning.

Why am I here?

What is life all about?

Is there a purpose?

What happens when I die?

What happens when those I love die?

Is there a heaven?

Is there a hell?

Why is there is suffering in my life?

Why is there is suffering in the world?

Why do people hate?

Why do I hate?

Where is God in all of this?

Why is the tomb empty?

If Jesus is raised why don’t people believe it?

The questions seem unending and the search for answers takes us beyond simplicity.

The disciples believed but they did not understand.

Are we the same?

We believe but we do not understand!

And if we believe what do we believe.

The empty tomb, the church, the scriptures, faith are places of mystery as we encounter the divine.

As a theologian I explore these questions all the time. It is part of my role to seek out the questions and to see out the answers.

This morning I piled some of the books that I have read about this God and this good news we share, as you can see I too am in over my head!

I don’t have all the answers: I stand with Peter and Mary and the other disciple.  I stand with you who come with your questions and with hopes and with your faith and with your doubt.  I too am puzzled to pieces.

So what can I say on this day that for most people is about relaxation, family and chocolate – none of which I offer.

I asked my family what to say today and I want thank Lucy who suggested I talk about the shape of the tomb.  It is from that yawning opening that we experience the fullness of mystery and grace as we bring all of our questions.

Lucy suggested a talk about one issue, but after some consideration I have three points to make.

The first which Lucy reminded me of is that the shape of the opening, from whence the stone was rolled, is a circle.  She reminded that a few weeks ago that I pointed out the circle, which is on this Celtic cross that I wear, is a reminder of eternal love.

The opening of the tomb she said is a reminder of God’s unending love.  It is as simple and as complex as that.  With all of our belief and not understanding, with all our questions and puzzlement, God loves us steadfastly and forevermore.

Secondly, the tomb is a hollow space it is empty but once it did contain something.  A few weeks ago I watched an episode of Shaun Micallef’s show Stairway to Heaven.  He was sitting in a cave with a Hindu holy man – a guru, in the Himalayas.  When they spoke about the cave the holy man likened it to a womb, a place of security and safety.  A place I would argue from which new life springs forth.

As I considered this insight and wondered at standing before the cave in which Jesus body lay, and I remembered Jesus words to Nicodemus, I could not help but think that this empty tomb, was the womb from which God brought forth new life.

Birth, re-birth, new birth, is about hope for the future.  As we stand with all of our questions and puzzlement the empty womb represents God’s desire for new life in us and says to us there are other ways to live.

And finally it was the metaphor of the mouth that came to me as I imagine myself before this empty tomb, this cave, this womb.  Jesus was laid in a tomb which was pretty much a cave and each cave has its mouth.

A mouth opened calling out – maybe in joy, may be in hope, maybe in surprise.  But it is Mary’s encounter with Jesus in the garden which is most telling.  Mary in her confusion, in her belief but not understanding, does not recognise Jesus. 

But then he calls her by name.  In that intensely personal moment of revelation Jesus speaks her name and so as I stand before that open cave mouth, as each of you stand there as well, I wonder can we hear Jesus calling our names as well.

You see I don’t have all the answers; what we believe from Christian to the next seems to change.  And, we all have our own questions.  The disciples believed but did not understand yet as puzzled as they were the open and empty tomb spoke to them and it speaks to us with all of our questions.

God’s love is unending.

God is bringing to birth something new.

And God is calling us by name.

Can you hear it?  Can you hear God speaking your name?

The parable of the talents or the cruel master?

As we gather around the scriptures each week in church and listen for Jesus word to us I sometimes wonder how we actually perceive what we are doing.

What are you expecting as you listen?  Are you possibly hoping that what the scriptures and sermon do is become a mirror reflecting our already established world views and spiritual ideas back on ourselves?  Or are you hoping that instead of a pane of glass in the frame, a window which helps us look into the real world of God’s love and the promise of a coming kingdom?

This is a fundamental and important question for each one of you and me to grapple with.  What is that we are doing as we listen?  I think if we take seriously the idea that when Christ is present he is inviting us to look through a window and not into a mirror serious questions arise around the nature of the real world.

It seems somehow a little more weighty to make such claims as this today whilst the G20 meets in Brisbane.  I saw a comment in response to some of the alternative G20 activities, protests and meetings and so on, that at least the world leaders meeting at the G20  live in the real world like the rest of us.  But what is the real world and what is Christ calling us to?

So as look at the story that Jesus told this morning I believe we need to remember the basic convictions of the Christian faith and use that as our frame around that mirror. 

God created all things. Human beings were given a special place and relationship with God, and the creation.  Human beings have not responded faithfully in that relationship.  Jesus came into the world and lived as God among us.  Through Jesus’ life death and resurrection God has renewed the relationship and shown us mercy.  In all of this the frame through which we look is the framework of grace, which is ultimately embodied in the person and work of Jesus.

All of this is rather a long introduction to talking about the parable that we heard today.  Clearly this is a difficult parable.  And from my research around it this week I have found it is one which has caused much debate in the church, particularly in the last few years.

The traditional interpretation of this parable is to think of the Master who goes away as God and then to spiritualise the talents as some kind of ‘gifts’.  I will come back to that issue because first I want to share with you one of the commentaries I found about this passage during the week.

Not from a spiritual website but a business one called “Early to Rise”. I assume it is echoing the old saying, ‘early to bed, early to rise, makes you healthy, wealthy and wise.’  It said this:

Why do some people retire rich and most people retire poor? This question has fascinated philosophers, mystics, and teachers throughout the ages. There have been so many men and women – hundreds or thousands, maybe even millions – who started with nothing and became financially independent that people are naturally curious to know why it happened and if there are common rules or principles that others can apply to become wealthy as well.

The Parable of the Talents is one of the stories told by Jesus to illustrate a moral lesson. The message in this case (from the Gospel of Matthew): “To him that hath, shall more be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away.”

What does it mean?

In the modern world, we say it this way: “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” The fact is that people who accumulate money tend to accumulate more and more. People who don’t accumulate money seem to lose even that little bit that they have.

What the author of this website has done is taken the parable at face value to affirm capitalism, the growth of wealth and dare I say – greed!

 

It reminds me of a time when a congregation member asked me where the passage “God helps those who helps themselves” is found in the scriptures.  To which I answered truthfully it is not.  But at face value this parable interpreted as an affirmation of using our gifts to amass wealth seems to echo such a sentiment.

In this situation, especially in our capitalistic and individualistic society, the parable is being used as a mirror to make us feel comfortable, worth and even self-righteous.

I have seen this kind of thinking to justify the idea that the poor are poor because they have not used their gifts appropriately or even worse done something to deserve their fate.  On the other hand, those who have wealth are using their gifts appropriately and are being rewarded with more.  If Jesus is understood in any way to be affirming this system then Jesus is actually patting us who ‘have’ on the back and deriding the poor.

I have to confess that this kind of reading of the parable is questionable if not downright destructive as it could be used to justify ignore those who are poor because the have not used their gifts.

Now of course there is the argument that the talents are not to be understood as money but as spiritual gifts. But even this kind of interpretation can lead to a spiritual elitism and self-righteousness.  I found this reflected in some of the comments made on blogs on this parable.  One person suggesting that one of the commentators obviously had not been given the spiritual gifts to understand the parable and so would be excluded and judged for their interpretation.

It seems to me that holding the notion that the focus is on how we use our talents leads us towards the dangerous area of works righteousness and elitism, in other words looking narcissistically into a mirror.

But how can we retain the frame of grace and smash the mirror and so look through the window into God’s future and promise.

As we look again at the parable despite the error of some English translations this parable does not begin with the words the kingdom of heaven is like in fact at the end of the parable the opening sentence following the story is ‘but’.  “But when the son of Man comes.”  In other words the parable is not representative of the kingdom, of anything it is quite the opposite!

As a helpful corrective I went back and read the story of the rich young man who came to Jesus found in Matthew 19.

The young man said to him, ‘I have kept all these; what do I still lack?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

 Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.’

Given this story I suspect that Jesus would be reticent to affirm wealth and those who pursued wealth as the master in the parable does.  This made think more about Jesus audience and I was thankful to Richard Rhorbaugh for his insights on the passage who argues that most of Jesus audience would have been poor, probably farmers and fishermen living hand to mouth.  The daily economy of their lives was not lived within a capitalistic culture but an agrarian one where labour was not about building a portfolio. It was about simply living day to day.

In fact the culture and philosophy of the era leading up to Jesus parable had raised some significant questions around the generation of wealth. 

Aristotle in his Politics saw retail trade as unnatural and was critical of making money or wealth as if it were an end in itself. Trading goods, which first two servants engaged, was thought of inherently evil. Plutarch similarly attacked those who amassed wealth in his writing On the Love of wealth.  Much later in the fourth century, the Christian scholar Jerome wrote, “every rich person is a thief or the heir of a thief.” (In Hieremiam, II, V, 2: CCL LXXIV 61)  For we who are wealthy and live a market based consumerist culture can only hear all of this as a critique of how we live.

This takes us back to Jesus audience.  To a peasant, the poor person listening to this parable, the Master in the tale would have been a terrifying figure.  It is not surprising that the servant who buried his talents in the ground describes the master as harsh, the Greek word here could actually be translated as cruel.  He was perceived as harsh and his judgement appears consistent with this.  And might I say inconsistent with Jesus teachings about God’s mercy and forgiveness earlier in Matthew.

To help fill in some context for us who not part of the Jewish tradition in the book of Exodus we read that if someone entrusted with an amount of money loses any of it they will be held to account over the loss and taken before a judge.  In response to this passage the Rabbis agreed that a person burying the money was not responsible for any loss.  It was thus viewed as a wise course of action to bury the wealth.

In addition to these problems the Master suggests that servant with one talent could have invested it, which means the Master is encouraging usury.  The lending of money to gain interest was once again at best questionable and at worst an outright sin.  Jesus himself is recorded as saying in Luke 6:35 Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.

Finally, the servant also says of the master reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed. The master has a reputation for taking what is not his and the master does not deny it.

Even when we spiritualise the talents the notion we are left with is one that appears contradictory to the story of Jesus life lived for us to draw us back into the relationship with God.

Where does this all this leave us?  With an image of an unmerciful, judge that will punish those who don’t make more for someone who is already wealthy beyond measure.  This vision has little room for the concept of God’s concern for the poor.  The Master is a still a tyrant and it has been suggested by some that Jesus is being quite specific about which tyrant he is attacking: Herod’s Son Archelaus who had gone off to Rome to seek the support of the Emperor.

Is it not more likely that as we look at this parable it is setting us up to hear what Jesus will say next to present a different view of God’s reality and God’s concern for the world: to look through the window of grace and hope.

We will be reading the passage which follows next week but let us have a sneak preview now.  It has an edge of judgement to it but centred within that judgement is where God’s true concerns lie:

for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.

Jesus audience including the poor would have heard the contrast as a sign of why Jesus was there with them and what God’s invitation was about: restoration of community, relief to those who suffer; compassion and care.  Good news for the poor, blessing and hope.  A window not a mirror of how we already live and what we already believe.

Jesus, the shepherd and the lost sheep

by Peter Lockhart

“The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

In these few words, that we hear nearly every week after the prayer of confession as part of the affirmation of forgiveness, is the heart of the gospel message.  Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

Christ Jesus did not come to give us a pat on the back about how we are good people.  Christ Jesus did not come simply to be an example of how to live our lives.  Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and that means you and me and everybody else.

Most of us do not want to hear this message. Most of us do want to be told that we sinners, that we are not righteous and holy people.  Most of us like to meditate on the first few verses on the Bible that asserts that when God created “it was good” and ignore the rest of the story about the corruption of that goodness.  Moreover I would say that speaking about sin is not that popular in many places and in many churches these days.

But to ignore sin is to ignore the reason for Jesus presence in the world.  Paul writes to Timothy that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the foremost.  Paul was under no illusion that he was a sinner, even after he had encountered Jesus Christ and become an apostle.  In his letter to the Romans he reflects his own predicament “I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.”  This is Paul the Christian who asserts his own inability to respond to God appropriately.

As Christians we cannot avoid the confrontation with God’s declaration concerning our estrangement and failure to be God’s people as God would have us be.  A failure that is captured in the words of Psalm 14:

Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”

They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;

there is no one who does good.

The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind

to see if there are any who are wise,

who seek after God.

They have all gone astray,

they are all alike perverse;

there is no one who does good,

no, not one.

When God looks upon human beings he does not see righteousness and goodness he sees that we have become corrupt, that we have gone astray, that none of us do good.

Regardless of how good we think we might be, regardless of how moral we think we might be God sees us as sinners.  Our relationship with God is broken.  On its own this Psalm does not comfort us it confronts us.  You are all sinners.

Once again in Romans Paul asserted that the law was given so that sin might be revealed.  The law is not given so that we can follow it and earn our way into heaven by what we do.  The law is given so that we would be confronted with the truth of our sin.  So for example, if we learn the Ten Commandments it is not affirm our righteousness in our following of them but to expose our inability to be God’s people because we cannot follow them.  Paul reminds us even if we can follow the law by our action in our hearts we resist the law and this is no different to breaking the law itself.

But are we left in this predicament of estrangement and sin?  Are we left to be abandoned to death and destruction and the hot winds that will lay waste?  We have all gone astray we are lost like sheep without a shepherd.

But listen to the good news of Jesus Christ as he speaks his parable to the tax collectors and sinners who had come near and to the Pharisees and Scribes who grumbled.

Creative Commons: Charles Roffey source Flickr

“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?”

Until he finds it!  Jesus is that shepherd who has come into the wilderness of human existence to find all of us who have gone astray.  He is looking for the lost sheep of all humanity and having found us in the midst of our sin and God-forsakenness he lifts us onto his shoulders and bears us in himself back into the presence of the Father.  He takes us home into relationship with God - into the fold of the Father’s love.

Notice the paradox of the telling of the parable that Jesus says that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than the 99 who do not need to repent.  The sheep did not seek the shepherd it had gone astray, like we who in our sin have gone astray from God.  The sheep was lost and it was found, it did not find itself through repenting.  The shepherd saves the sheep, the sheep does not save itself.

Here the parable echoes that wonderful Psalm, Psalm 23.  The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want he makes me to lie down in green pastures.  I do not choose to lie down but my Lord my Shepherd makes me to lie down.  It is the shepherd who acts in my and your best interest.

In this parable there is a sense that Jesus is not only the shepherd but the one sinner who repents, he is one with us, the lost sheep, and we are found in him as he seeks us in our lostness.

Grace is all the action of God, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.  And this is what baptism is all about. 

Baptism is not a naming ceremony.  Baptism is not simply the celebration of the birth of a child.  Baptism is the celebration of God’s unconditional loving grace.  As Christians we do not think of the innocent child rather we remember the words of Psalm 51:

Indeed, I was born guilty,

          a sinner when my mother conceived me.

The baptismal candidate does not repent but is drawn through the Holy Spirit into Christ’s own baptism by John the Baptist.  This is a baptism for the repentance of sin which he undertook for our sake.  The baptismal candidate is not required to know or understand but becomes a sign for us all of reconciling love and mercy of God.  This truth is summed up in the words of the prayer which I quote often:

Little child,

          for you Jesus Christ has come,

          has lived, has suffered;

          for you,

          he has endured the agony of Gethsemane

          and the darkness of Calvary;

          for you,

          he has uttered the cry “It is accomplished!”

          For you, he has triumphed over death;

          for you, he prays at God’s right hand;

          all for you little child,

          even though you do not know it.

Even though you do not know it!  Here in these readings today is the heart of the gospel.  Joy to the world the Lord is come, and he has come to bear us lost sheep, even if we don’t know we are lost, on his shoulders back into the presence of the heavenly kingdom.

So where does all of this leave us.  What are the implications for how we are to live?  To return for a moment to Paul’s words to Timothy, Paul says, “For that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost [sinner], Jesus Christ might displays the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life.”

We are called to live with patience and humility not thinking that we are no longer sinners but always remembering that we are forgiven sinners.  People who though we go on sinning God patiently goes on forgiving and loving. 

This humility means that we celebrate the repentance of Christ for us and our repentance in him with praise and thanksgiving.  We worship God, not only on Sunday but everyday, we meditate on his word to us, we pray, we celebrate baptism and communion. 

This humility means that we do judge one another or anyone else and that the doors of the church are open to any who would wish to be with us in God’s presence, for we forgiven sinners are not the ones who say who Christ can bear on his shoulders into the Father’s presence and whom he cannot.

This humility means remembering the truth of the gospel, “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” This is the good news of Jesus Christ to we who are the foremost among sinners.  Through God’s mercy we are set free to live our lives no longer burden by sin but in celebrating the steadfastness and the patience and the mercy and the great love of God.

Take a few moments to meditate on God’s love for you this day.

Peace: not as the world gives!

In the movie Miss Congeniality the contestants of the Miss America contest are asked, ‘If there is one thing in the world that you could wish for what would it be?’ One after another the contestants respond ‘world peace’, ‘world peace’, ‘world peace’¸ ‘world peace’… The answer is the expected one, it is the obvious one and in its own way it is the shallowest one.

Now whilst many people have hope for world peace the gospel reading today challenges us with a different

notion about peace than the peace that the world gives and that the world seeks. It speaks of the peace of Christ. So what is the difference?

If we think first about the peace that the world offers I would consider this peace on a number of different levels. First there is the idea of political or national peace. Second is the idea of peace in my personal relationships with family and friends. And third is the concept of inner peace.

To give a couple of examples of the kind of peace established by political means I would start by giving you the example of the world in Jesus time. In Jesus time people across much of North Africa, the Middle East and Europe were part of the Roman Empire. The Emperor Augustus established a vision of peace called the pax Romana or the peace of Roman. Rome established and kept this peace by invading territories and ruling those territories with might. True, the regions conquered by Rome were offered some concessions but ultimately it was on Rome’s terms. Peace was kept through the use of force and fear. This was the peace that the world offered in Jesus time. I wonder whether it has changed that much.

When I was growing up in the late seventies and early eighties people lived in the time known as the cold war. The two so called super powers, the USA and the Soviet Union, were having an arms race, building weapons of mass destruction to keep the peace. Peace was maintained through the threat of the annihilation of the planet. I can remember during my high school years believing that the world would be destroyed by war and I would die before I reached 18. As detached as I was from these great political events, I and many of my friends spoke of our fears. Just as in Jesus time a fragile peace was kept through the use of force and fear.

And, what about now? Well we know there is a still talk of a war on terror. Now I am not particularly interested in whether or not you agree with the ‘might is right’ approach to political power but ultimately this is the kind of peace that the world offers. It is unstable, often unsustainable and often very expensive. This kind of peace can inadvertently impact on the lives of millions.

What else can we say about the peace that the world offers? Do we have peace in our personal relationships and communities? I can remember hearing my own mother and many a teacher appealing for some peace and quiet. In most families relationships between brothers and sisters, parents and children, cousins and so on are never perfect. We may have good families but there are still times when there are problems. The same is true of friends, of colleagues, of teachers. Try as we might none of us develop perfect relationships. And even if we believe that we are getting on with everybody else we cannot control how others might be getting on with us. Is this the peace the world offers?

But what about inner peace? Spiritually and personally the world expects us to find inner peace, to have peace with ourselves, but how difficult is this when there is so much pressure? Reading any magazine, or watching the TV you will discover happiness lies in for example for a guy like me having a great set of pecks, and a good solid rack, enough hair, charm, good looks, intelligence, and charisma.

Questions continually confront us. Are you too fat or are you too thin? Do I wear the right brands of clothes? Is my hair perfect? What about my make up? The pressures to conform ourselves to the image of other people, especially the stars, is immense and contributes to great stress for many people – depression, anxiety, loneliness, isolation. The standards are unattainable.

Many individuals search out spiritual answers. Spirituality expos are on the increase. Meditation, crystals, oils and balms all directed at assisting people find their own sense of peace and well being. But even here the focus is often isolated from people’s experiences of life and when things don’t work out the sense of peace is too hard to sustain.

On all levels the peace that the world offers is limited to say the best.

So what does Jesus offer? Jesus says my peace I give to you. Drawing from his Jewish heritage Jesus when he speaks of peace is speaking of the fullness of a right and perfected relationship with God. Jesus had just such a relationship with God. His is a relationship which was not affected by sin, by turning away from God and God’s ways.

It is the relationship whereby God dwells in him and he in God and this has implications for Jesus relationship with the disciples and all other people. This is the peace that Jesus gives his disciples as a gift. The peace Jesus offers is not something that is to be strived for but accepted with thanks and praise. The peace that Jesus offers is our homecoming to God.

I am not sure where you think your true home lies but Jesus and the Bible speak of our true dwelling place, our home, to be in and with God. The reading from the book of Revelation this morning pointed us towards our future with God when we will live in the fullness of God’s presence. We sung of it in the song before the sermon.

Then we shall see a newborn sky,
A newborn earth below,
A newborn city, lit by love,
Where nothing false will go.
And God will live with humankind –
They will be his people sure –
And he will wipe their tears away,
And death shall be no more.

The promise of God’s future is that people will dwell in the presence of the glory and holiness of God: God who is the source of life in place that is abundant with food, with water, and with the light of God’s presence. It is a place where nothing false will grow. This is the destiny of all things reunion with God as God intends.

Yet in the reading from John it is clear that Jesus was going away from his disciples and that the new age was still to come. The fullness of the kingdom and peace with God lay ahead. So it is as I said to the children earlier that Jesus promise was that God would send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to teach and remind us of everything that Jesus had said. To remind us of the peace that we have already with God and the peace that is promised.

As Christians whilst peace is given to us as a gift this is not some excuse for us isolating ourselves from the world and its suffering to live in some cocoon of peacefulness. Rather, the Spirit is sent so that through those who follow Jesus’ word others would come to know of God and God’s peace. We walk through the ups and downs of life like everybody else but in the midst of our journey we can know that we are not alone.

However, like the disciples we are still awaiting the return of our teacher, as the song put it we groan in longing and ask how long? In the mean time we are lead into sharing Jesus’ peace which passes all understanding. In the presence of this peace breaking out around, in and through us we become witnesses to the promise of the coming kingdom as it becomes part of our lives right now.

The answer of the Miss America contestants in the movie was a little glib. And more often than not in real life and whilst many of us probably do long for world peace it is too complex for us to see how that might happen. As Christians the peace that we have been given and await for in hope is the peace Jesus offers. Peace with God, which ultimately will bring us the fullness of peace with one another.

(Photo: Creative commons. Flickr Samantha Celera)

Expanding the horizons of community.

“My sheep hear my voice

I know them and they follow me”

It could be easy to read these words of Jesus to the Jews in the Portico of Solomon in the Temple and read into them exclusion and separation. It would be easy to read these words with a sense of smug self-satisfaction that we have heard the Shepherds voice. It would be easy to read these words as a justification for treating others poorly. It would be easy to read these words as an affirmation of our goodness and to think of others as bad.

Yet as tempting as such readings might be I do not believe they would be either faithful to the context in which Jesus spoke the words or helpful to our own.

Jesus’ life is about breaking down barriers and expanding the parameters of the unity that he shares with the Father and, might I say, the Holy Spirit to include others.

To help gain an understanding I want to reflect on a glimpse from three Biblical texts we have heard this morning. First, the context of the question that the Jews ask, “Are you the Messiah?” Second is to consider the claim of Jesus to be the Good Shepherd and the connection that this has to the 23rd Psalm. And thirdly, to examine the trajectory that Jesus is heading towards revealed in the words of vision found in the book of Revelation.

So to the first issue! When the Jews come asking Jesus “are you the Messiah?” we should understand this is as much a political question as it is a spiritual one. The Jewish people were under foreign rule; their King Herod was merely a puppet of the Imperial might of the Roman Empire.

The prophecies surrounding the coming of the Messiah and certainly the expectations that sat alongside these prophecies were tied to the overthrow of foreign rule and re-establishment of the independence of Israel as a Kingdom.

The questioners may have seen Jesus miracles; they might have been challenged by his teaching; but, to actually throw themselves into a relationship of conflict with the might of Rome, that was a completely different matter. Was Jesus the Messiah? Would he restore Israel? Was God’s grace and faithfulness to the covenant about to be manifest in their time?

The Jewish people had a pretty clear idea that they were God’s chosen ones and this was expressed in the holiness codes and exclusion of various outcastes and gentiles from the community. It was all about insiders and outsiders.

The beginning of John’s gospel tells us that Jesus came to what his own and his own people did not accept him. This is being played in this interaction – the drawing of lines: ‘who is in?’ ‘who is out?’ For the Jews this was about ethnic identity which was tied to their religious conviction but Jesus challenges this suggesting it is not so much about identity or holiness but relationship: the ones who respond to his voice. The boundary between insiders and outsiders was being challenged.

Jesus’ claim at this point to be the Good Shepherd would have sounded blasphemous to those gathered. He was claiming to be God and he was claiming the role of the Shepherd found in Psalm 23. Jesus was not simply the Messiah, God’s chosen one he was far more than that.

David sang, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’, and now Jesus asserts he is that Shepherd. The Psalm was most likely written when David was at low ebb; it was a source of comfort in a time of distress. In the midst of persecution and challenges God accompanies people even setting them safely at meals where their perceived enemies sit.

In answer to the question that the Jews had asked, Jesus was expanding the horizon of his own identity for them. Jesus was not simply the Messiah, Jesus was the Good Shepherd. He was the Lord. He had authority and responsibilities further than they could perceive which lay even beyond the limits of life and death.

The expansion of the horizons for the Jews culminates in Jesus somewhat outlandish claim “I and the Father are one”.

This unity between Father and Son is further elucidated through John’s gospel but startlingly the relationship and unity that Jesus shares with God is to be opened out. There are ever expanding boundaries to the unity promised by Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus prayer of John 17 prays that the disciples share, not only a similar bond of unity with one another, but are drawn into the very relationship of Father and Son.

The vision of unity is also extended in other ways to those who sit outside the exclusiveness of the Jewish insiders. Jesus extends words of grace to those who have been ostracised and to those who are not even Jewish. His claim that all people would be drawn into his death, when the some Greeks came seeking him, must have been bamboozling for the crowds.

Just as Jesus was expanding who he was for the Jews who came seeking a political leader so too he was expanding the vision of who could be drawn into the unity of the Father and of the Son.

Rather than establish any sense of exclusivity Jesus is driving home new possibilities of who might be accepted when he makes the claim, “My sheep hear my voice!” The distinction is no longer tied to religious or ethnic affiliation.

The expanded possibilities are realised in the words of the prophecy in the book of Revelation:

“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

Gathered in the final visions of glory at the end of the New Testament the possibility and hope of salvation is for people from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. God’s grace and God’s love is forever expanding; it is ever incorporating others into the bond of Father and of Son and of Spirit.

It is my sense that when the Jews asked the question they wanted to limit God’s grace, to restore their nation, to reassert the exclusivity of who they were as God’s people: to be top of the heap.

Whilst Jesus words may sound exclusive when read in the context of John’s gospel they are a challenge to

such exclusivity and remind us that the relationship of Jesus with others was about new possibilities and new hope for all peoples.

I believe this is a vital message for us to hear in a world in which we already find ourselves divided on so many levels: political, racial, economic, spiritual and social. And in a world which continually encourages us to build select communities.

We are fed hate and hurt as reflected in the violence of the past week – in Boston, in Afghanistan, In Iraq and in every corner of the world where barriers were erected about people excluded: in refugee camps and detention centres; in prisons; in broken relationships; in racial and ethnic and religious tension.

Jesus response challenges our human tendency toward exclusion and opens out the life of God, dwelling always as community, and invites us in. This is the good news not just for a select few but for all peoples and the whole creation as God’s love and life expands to encompass all.