Do not let you hearts be troubled

John 14:1-14

The disciples were still in the upper room.  Jesus had washed their feet.  They had shared a meal.  Judas had gone out to betray Jesus.  And Jesus had just told Peter that Peter was going to deny him.  The room was filled with apprehension, unease, distress!  It is a liminal space, a space in which life seems to be on a knife’s edge. Things were out of control as the disciples leaned in and listened to Jesus.  It is into this moment of uncertainty and fear that Jesus speaks.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

Facing his own demise.  Aware of the disciple’s confusion, their fear and the impending desertion Jesus offers to them hope.  Jesus always offers to them and to us hope.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

In the face of uncertainty, confusion, doubt and fear: “Believe in God, believe also in me.”

I must admit that when I went away to the Centering Prayer retreat last year I was confronted by the tumultuous nature of my life, its business, and the concerns I was carrying.  It was there in the silence, not seeking to control God, but emptying myself before God that I was reminded deeply and truly that seeking God’s presence and way in my life needed to be rekindled. 

As I prayed at the retreat a strong sense of the words pf Psalm 121 came to me:

I lift up my eyes to the mountain from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

I have shared this story with you a number of times since because of its importance not only to me but to each one of you.  As many of you are aware this retreat set me on a personal journey to refocus my own spiritual development and to invite others to share that with me in the Sunday evening prayer group.

To believe in God and believe in Jesus has me letting go.  Letting go a sense that I can control things.  Letting go of things that are not mine to worry about.  Letting go some of the responsibilities I carry.  I have had a great sense of peace and direction developing in my journey and no doubt this all fed into my decision to accept my new role as a Chaplain.

I realise though that my decision has for some of the congregation taken you back to the upper room with the disciples encountering some unexpected emotions uncertainty, confusion, doubt and fear.  What happens next for St Lucia?  What happen next for me?  We are in that liminal space as a congregation; a space of change and uncertainty.

But when you think about it so much of our lives is lived in this way personally, day by day, and as communities.  The community of this congregation, the community of Brisbane, the community of Australia and the broader community of humanity.

Week by week as we come here, we come as people who live in liminal spaces, with all of the thoughts and emotions that brings I would echo Jesus words to you: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”

Believing in God and in Jesus means turning to God as a community.  It means devoting our gaze and attention to Jesus who helps us to know what to believe. 

Jesus, who, as he reassures the disciples declares those famous words: “I am the way, the truth and the life”.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

He does not tell the disciples that they have to do anything apart from trust in this - it is Jesus himself who is the way, the truth and the life.  It is Jesus who faces the rejection of the cross, who also rises from the grave and lives to pray for us forever.  It is Jesus in his earthly fleshly body, as the eternal Word made flesh, who bridges our journey from the liminal space of uncertainty and fear into the hope of God.

I was reminded of this good news this week as I participated in the space for grace conversation run by the National Assembly of the Uniting Church.  In that space we were invited to share with around 30 other people our deeply personal life stories and in the process to come to know one another.

As an outcomes focussed person this process of listening and sharing was not that easy for me.  I like to know at the end of our time we have something to show for it.  But in this time I was reminded that surrendering control to deepen relationships with the people with whom I gathered was just as important.  Or to return to the notion of devoting myself to God in prayer I was given the opportunity to devote myself to listen for God’s presence in the lives of others.

The conversation was grounded in four principles: openness, responsibility, awareness and confidentiality.  The confidentiality means I cannot share the stories but I can share a glimpse of the experience. 

After 2 days the insight I felt that I was given, or maybe reminded of, was that in our lives lived in liminal spaces in which all of us miss the mark and others around us do too.  To be a bit more specific about this I mean we all sin.  In the sense that in the Greek the word sin has its origin in the word ἁμαρτία (hamartia).  It connotes the notion of an archer missing the target.

Although we may seek to live a good life, a life of discipleship, a life responding to God the reality is that we miss the mark, we err.  When we listen to each other’s life stories we discover that this truth that all of his miss the mark and fall short of the glory of God and this has consequence for us and for those whom we travel with in community.  Sometimes we realise that we have missed the mark and sometimes it takes another person to reveal this to us.

I am also reminded of this truth on days like today which is mother’s day.  My mum was not perfect and I was not the perfect son.  Each of us missed the mark in our relationship.  I am thankful that we were able to work through this and to continue to love one another.  Not all mothers and children are able to achieve this so mothers days comes with a mix of emotions for a range of reasons.

All of us miss the mark, all of us err.  But as the saying goes, "to err is human but to forgive is divine."

Just as we all miss the mark, ἁμαρτία (hamartia), so too the promise of Jesus to his disciples is that thought we miss the mark God remains alongside us.  God shows mercy and grace.  God forgives.  There is the opportunity for many of us to encounter and experience this divine grace in our daily journey of faith.  In the midst of the liminal spaces of life when we are missing the mark, or we are filled with fear and uncertainty, we are reminded that Jesus is the way the truth and the life for us.  We hear the comfort of the words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled”.  Peace breaks into our existence and the coming kingdom of God comes close to us.

All of us, personally and communally, are people who miss the mark.  All of us, personally and communally, are therefore people to whom Jesus words of grace apply.  “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God believe also in me.

As we sit on the precipice of change I am reminded that most of us have been here before.  As we enter liminal spaces in life, spaces of uncertainty, and even fear I am constantly reminded that in my own life I miss the mark, but I am also constantly reminded that despite this Jesus is the way the truth and the life and it is he who guides us home.

As you consider this moment in your own existence, personally and as a community, hear the good news and be strong in faith for on the night those disciples gathered full of fear and apprehension Jesus words came to them as good news of hope for them and for all people:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

Choose Life

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Moses stands as one of the greatest heroes of the Old Testament.  Hidden in the bull rushes as an infant he escapes the persecution of the male children by the Pharaoh.  He ends up being raised by Egyptian royalty.  And, he is favoured by Pharaoh until an incident defending another Israelite causes him to run away.

It is in his exile that Moses encounters God in the burning bush which sets in motion the story of the escape of the Israelites from their Egyptian task masters.  After 40 years in the wilderness he stands at the border of the Prom

ised Land and gives his final instructions.

It is part of these final reflections which we heard today from Deuteronomy. In these final words for the people who have followed him, Moses declares, "Choose life so that you and your descendants may live."

Choose life that you may live.  But what does it mean to choose life? What is the alternative? What is the life that they were meant to be choosing?  What is the life that we are choosing? What is the life that is chosen for us? Choose life? But what is life?

Choosing life then and now could sound very different.

At the beginning of the gritty 1996 movie Trainspotting the central character Renton reflects on the idea of choosing life in a voice over that sounds a little like this:

“Choose a life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a… big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers... Choose... wondering who… you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit crushing game shows, sticking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away in the end of it all in a home… nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish… brats you spawned to replace yourself, choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life.  I chose something else.” (Renton)

There is a desperation in Renton’s words, a searching for meaning. In his description of what he thinks it means to choose life the character Renton summarises something of what modern people think life might be:  career, family, entertainment, status, possessions.  What he describes is life as we know it in these modern technological age.  These are the things that seem to have become central to our existence.  But there is a deeper question. Is it really life?  Is this what Moses meant when he said choose life?

What Renton describes may be consistent with our contemporary world and whilst Moses world and his words may feel out of place and out of time they still call us back to attention in what life is.  Choose life that you and your descendants might live?  What does it mean to choose life?  It means choosing God.

Moses says to the people, “If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live.”

Choosing life is living in the light of God’s love. 

But Moses also issues a warning, “But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish.” This is a big conundrum for us for we know the chequered history of Israel and we also the difficulties of finding the meaning and purpose of life in our time.

The desperation of the rant of Renton in Trainspotting reflects a judgement around the hollowness of so many things that we pursue as important in life.  And this is the conundrum.  When we do not hear God and when we are led astray by other gods this occurs without our understanding.

Being led astray implies a level of ignorance about is occurring, a naivety.  We do not know the wrong that we are doing.  No one would choose death over life deliberately.  No one would choose a life that is not life.

Now whilst in Moses time when he speaks about being led astray by other gods he is speaking of the ancient gods, of the statues and idols and temples of the ancient world.  Yet when we hear this challenge in the contemporary Australian context I would say that the other gods are more subtle and hidden.  The things that we bow down to may not be called gods but we imbue them with power and authority in our existence as we pursue them and make sacrifices to them or for them.

The things that lead us astray are the things that we honour by giving our time and our energy to.  We deify inanimate objects and owning things; we deify our children and our families; we deify our careers and our status; we deify celebrities – musicians, artists and actors.  Whatever or whoever we sacrifice our time for can unintentionally become that which we worship.  Many of these things we sacrifice our time for are not inherently bad but when they become all-consuming or get in the road of our relationship with God they become problematic. 

Just the other day I was chatting to some dance school mums waiting on the lawn at the side of the church for their daughters.  The amount of time these ladies spent taking their kids to dance and sport and other commitments was astounding.  When the idea of church and spirituality entered into the conversation though the response was about the busyness of life.  Their lives were so filled with all of the other running around that there was not time for church. 

I understand the busyness of our modern lives, especially with children, but I did say to them that what this indicated was not that there was not enough time for church but that God and spirituality was not a high priority in their life.  It was not that could not find the time it was that in the midst of what they were giving priority to faith was not high on their list.  It is difficult for any parent, for me too, to retain a balance, to not be led astray.  But it is that there is no time for church it is simply that when this becomes the case it indicates what we give the most important to.

Centuries after Moses when Paul wrote to the people in Rome explaining Jesus significance he indicated that all of us fall short of the glory of God, we are all lead astray, we are all perishing.  God’s response to our predicament and our predilection to be led astray is to send Jesus into the world to be both the light and life of the world for us. 

In the beginning of John’s gospel John says of Jesus, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”  In Jesus God’s choice for us who are perishing is life.  This is the heart of the good news when we fail to choose life, when we are lead astray, God in Christ chooses life for us.  Yet, more than this when God chooses life for us in Christ God pours out the Holy Spirit to draw us into that life and open our hearts and minds to God’s presence.

Paul, in the part of his letter to the Corinthians that we read today, reminds the community there that knowledge and understanding of God and growth in faith lies beyond us and in God.  It is God who is the source of our understanding and our faith.  And thus it is to God our attention should be directed.

Many of you know that last year I attended a prayer retreat.   Within one of the prayer sessions the words that dropped into my mind were these ones from Psalm 121, “I look to the hills.  From where will my help come?  My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.”

Now in ancient times what you found on the tops of hills were temples and shrines to the pantheon of gods of the other Middle Eastern religions and later also the Greco-Roman culture.  The Psalmist, however, did not want to be lead astray. His help was not going to come from any of these other gods, on the hills, and neither, dare I say, from all of the things that we might deify, but from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

In that moment of praying I felt I was being reminded that I too had to give time to pursuing the relationship God has gifted me more intentionally.  To choose life, to choose God.

As I was thinking about this, during the week, I recalled a great quote from Henry David Thoreau’s ‘Walden’

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...”

And not when I came to die to discover that I had not lived!  How do we put to rout all that is not life? 

God in Christ has chosen life for us.  God in the Spirit reveals this to us.  God in Christ and through the Spirit draws us in to living life in God and life in the world.

There is a validity to seeking time with God alone to centre yourself again on God.  To discover your life in Christ and as you do so to put to rout those things which stand in the road of that relationship with God. For me, this is very much what we are seeking to do in the Sunday night prayer group.  To learn to look to God more intentionally in our lives.  But lest we make our Christian mysticism an idol, some sort of pious prayer marathon, we are also reminded that Jesus’ life was lived for the sake of others.  The times of solitude in prayer and meditation as well as our times in gathered worship are to lead us into loving and serving others not isolating ourselves from others.

We are called to choose life 

As people for whom God has chosen life we have been set free from being those who are perishing to those who are living.  We live as we centre our life on the creator of heaven and earth.  We live as God pours the Spirit into our lives.  We live as we worship God.  We live as we love and serve others.

Moses words still ring true:

"Choose life so that you and your descendants may live."

So I too encourage you choose the life already chosen for you in Christ, choose life.

Paul's first words to Rome

If you can drag yourself back 2000 years and imagine that you are in Rome listening, for the very first time, to Paul’s letter to the community there, I imagine you might have wondered something along the lines, “Who the heck does this guy think he is?”

The opening line of his letter betrays an audacity that we can easily miss:

“Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.”

These words are no simple salutation; no common greeting.  Paul’s claim to be a slave to Christ Jesus and called to be an apostle contain echoes of the claims of the Old Testament prophets and their call to be God’s servants and slaves.  Paul is claiming a heritage and authority that reflects these ancient claims and may very well have astounded his first audience in Rome.

Yet, if those early Christians found Paul’s words surprising, it may have been just as surprising to Paul that nearly 400 years later one of the greatest preachers of the early church John Chrysostom, also known as golden mouth, said of this very letter that he read it twice a week, and sometimes even 3 or 4 times a week.

Further, it may have surprised Paul to know that in the early 1500's Martin Luther would be dwelling on Paul’s letter to the Romans so deeply, as he struggled with his faith and discovered in Paul’s words God’s grace.

And, again, at the beginning of the 20^th century, Paul might have been amazed as the Swiss theologian Karl Barth launched his stellar career with his commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.

Even beyond the walls of the Church Paul’s impact is recognized.  The historian Larry Siedentop argues that the origins of Western liberalism lie in Paul’s concept of the individual. 

And, here now in this small gathering of God’s people at St Lucia we are still reading and contemplating Paul’s words. 

Why?  Well maybe it is as Barth says, at the beginning of his commentary, that “he veritably speaks to all men [and women] of every age”. 

Paul may have never foreseen the impact of his letter to the Christians in Rome and how the influence of his words would spill over into 2000 years of history but maybe it is precisely because he is as he claims, a slave of Christ Jesus, that his words do this.  He recognizes something fundamental about his existence – it is not his own.

The revelation of Christ to Paul on the Damascus road led him to the deep discovery that life was less about who he was as it was about whose he was.  He was God’s and he was God’s in a special way: called to be an apostle.

Now it is my conviction that each one of you is called into a relationship of service with God. In fact I have a sense that all people are called into such a relationship.  Yet, for each one of us the calling to follow and serve Jesus is particular and specific. We are not all meant to be the apostle Paul.  He has a special role at a particular time in history. Paul’s words transcend his time and place in history because they carry an authority that invite us to reflect not about Paul but about the one in whom Paul has grounded his life: Christ Jesus.

It Christ Jesus who is ground zero for the Christian faith because as Barth says in his commentary on Romans:

Jesus Christ our Lord.  This is the Gospel and the meaning of history.  In this name two worlds meet and go apart, two planes intersect, the one known and the other unknown.

In Christ Jesus there is a convergence between our known finite earthly existence and the mystery of God’s eternal existence.  Our earthly existence in all its ambiguity and messiness: life and death; joy and sorrow; good and evil; pleasure and pain; beauty and horror intersects with God’s existence: source of life, origin of being, eternal mystery, love, grace, hope, transcendence and immanence.

Christ Jesus enters history and the life of the world intersects with the life of God in his very person.  This is whom Paul speaks of and like a stone thrown into a pond the ripples of Jesus existence extend out through space and time to touch of all of the creation for all of time, including your life and mine.  And in this God says to us your lives are relevant to me; you are not alone; you are loved.

We heard this amazing good news in the reading from Matthew this morning as Jesus’ birth was described by the gospel writer. 

 

All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’

God is with us, present with us in history, in the flesh, in Christ Jesus, but more than that through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is eternally present.  God is with us and so we can say that we are not without God.

This is the good news as we wrestle with conundrums of our lives.  As we confront loneliness and loss, evil and ego, temptation and terror, pain and poverty, suffering and sorrow God is with us, God walks beside in Jesus and has shared the fullness of our human experience.  God is with us and even when we might count ourselves forsaken by God we are not without God.  The intersection of created history with God’s life in Jesus is our source of hope.  

In this discovery of God’s love for us Paul knew whose he was and we can come to know whose we are as well.  Servants of Christ Jesus called into life and called into the love and life of God.

As Paul penned his letter to the Christians in Rome the words of admonishment, of hope, of faith and of grace flowed out into history to teach us about Jesus and who we are as God’s people.  He writes:

To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints:

Paul names the people as God’s beloved, beloved just as Jesus himself was beloved.  Not alone or bereft but accompanied through life by God in Christ Jesus and in this made saints, holy people, not by our own action but by God’s presence with us.  We are drawn beyond the division between the created and Creator into the unity of life with God – all of the prior boundaries are being obliterated.

This is why Paul then goes on to say:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Once again we drag ourselves back through history to understand the importance of Paul’s greeting.  “Grace”, charis, was a common greeting among the Greek speaking world, whilst “Peace”, shalom, was and remains a common greeting among the Jewish people.  Grace and peace represent once again the intersection of different worlds and of different communities. 

Just as in Christ Jesus God overcomes the division between the divine and the created, so to in Christ Jesus God is calling us into our common humanity: transcending cultural and ethnic and socio-economic disparities God calls us into community with one another. 

One of the key reasons for Paul’s letter to the Romans was to deal with the tension that had emerged between followers of Christ with different background.  Through history, we as Christians, and we as humanity, have continued to struggle to find our common identity.  We have not understood the greeting of Paul ‘grace and peace’ is meant to draw us beyond the safe boundaries of our communities into loving one another just as we have been loved.

This is no less a challenge for us as God’s beloved in our time, to recognize whose we are together, and to know that we are companions with all other people through this life.

This is why today, at the table of grace, we are called to remember that God in Christ is our companion on the journey of life.  Companion from its origins literally means ‘with bread’ and reminds us that in the breaking of the bread together with Christ as our host we are indeed God’s companions, God is with us, we are loved, and we are not alone.  The loving companion that we meet here binds us all together as God’s creatures as God overcomes our divisions: grace and peace.

When Paul wrote that letter to that first group of Christians in Rome, he made the claim that his importance was secondary to one to whom he witness:

Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.

Paul’s letter endures for us as a witness to God’s love for and reminds us that though we may not be an apostle like Paul, or a saint like Francis, or a teacher like Martin Luther, or a healer like Mother Theresa, we, each one of you, is beloved and is called into the service of the God who is with you and within you.  God is with us.  God is with you.  Christ Jesus: this is whose we are and defines who we are and this is indeed the good news.

Is this the idea that will make you rethink faith in God?

This morning I decided to go with a click bait title for the sermon:

Is this the idea that will make you rethink faith in God?

Faith involves doubt.

To increase the gift of faith you have received, no matter how small or large it might be, requires doubt because it is doubt that drove the disciples to ask Jesus to increase their faith.  Jesus had turned the disciples’ world upside down.  His stories and sayings challenged everything they believed and shook them to the core.  They were confused.  Following Jesus and believing in the God that he witnessed to left them floundering.  They asked him again and again to explain things, to show them, to help them understand and from the reading today “to increase their faith.” 

Faith involves doubt.  It is OK to have doubts.

Now some of you may have a strong faith, a faith that you feel is formed and shaped and grounded.  And some of you may feel that you have only a little faith, a faith that feels weak and unstable and unsure.  Yet, strong or weak, to nurture and grow the seeds of faith that you have been given requires you to doubt.  For it is in doubting that we question?  It is in questioning that we search?  It is the journey of a dynamic doubtful and searching faith that we grow?

As a follower of Jesus, as a baptised person and now as minister, my faith is driven by the constant clash of what I think I know and comprehend and what lies beyond my reach and experience.  It is my doubt that leads me to constantly rethink my faith and drives me to discovery.  It is my doubt that leads me to attend prayer retreats and conferences.  It is my doubt that inspires me to persist in my studies, and to read, and reflect.  It is my doubt that causes me to listen to the stories of your lives and your faith and to seek to know and understand.  It is doubt that inspires me to seek the wisdom and teaching of mentors and friends.

Faith is not an end point it is a starting point and I believe that without doubt faith sits and stagnates and does not grow but remains the same.

Faith involves doubt.  It allows questions.

Maybe it is the unspoken doubts and questions that you have that keep you coming back and searching for a rekindling of your faith week by week.  Maybe it is your doubts about your experience of life and what you see occurring in the world around you that has you coming here to find hope and to take confidence in God’s love and power.

I believe that doubt is usually seen as a negative thing, an impediment, but is having doubt the idea that might change and transform you as you grow in your relationship with God.

It is the midst of a faith filled with doubts that I found a way to cope with the words of the last words of Psalm 137. 

The words of this Psalm are written as a reflection on the sorrow of God’s people after they have been defeated and carried off as slaves to Babylon.  For most of us these concepts are beyond our comprehension: defeat, death, and utter disempowerment.

The response of the Psalmist though is more than a little disturbing:

Happy shall they be who take your little ones

and dash them against the rock!

Can this be right?  The people of God will be happy when they are killing babies in retribution and revenge for what has been done to them.  As much as it was known to be a practice in ancient warfare to decimate an enemy, even to the point of killing children, is this realty a reflection of divine retribution that we should blithely and blindly accept?

These are the words of our Bible.  Are these words which reflect God’s will in any way shape or form?  Are God’s people meant to be happy as baby killers?

I doubt it and I doubt it deeply.

Without doubt as part of the makeup of my faith these words of the Psalmist could be taken to suggest that God affirms the violence and the revenge killing reflected in the Psalm.  Passages such as this one often drive people away from Christianity who perceive God as of being callous and cruel.  More disturbingly I have heard passages such as this one used to justify Christians perpetrating violence.

These words of the Psalmist do not reflect the God I have encountered in the New Testament.  God, who rather than respond to violence with violence submits to the violence of the cross in the person of Jesus.  The cycle is interrupted.

So what do we make of these words of the Psalm? Do they carry any authority and weight for us still? What do they do to my reading of the Bible?

In my mind the authority of these words of the Psalm is in exposing the fallibility and confusion of human beings in response to the violence we perpetuate against one another. 

Throughout all of history we humans have found constant ways and means of hurting each other and killing each other.  We have been great at portraying other people as our enemy. We have not learned to love our neighbour or our enemy who is different to us.  We have been good at ignoring the impacts of our behaviours on others, especially those who are distant from us.

Just as I have doubts in my faith which drive me to question and grow so too I would say that I have deep doubts about having any faith in humanity.

As people who live after the age of enlightenment there was great hope in humanity to mature and respond to crises as they arose.  That we would shrug off the anachronism of religion and actual care for one another and the world in a much better way.  We thought our wisdom and advancement as human beings would bring us peace and security.

Beyond the obvious violent conflicts that continue to unfold across the globe, beyond the clear inequality and exploitation between the extremely wealthy and those in poverty, it was yet another climate milestone that pricked up my ears this week as I contemplated increasing my faith.  

This week I read that the atmosphere has passed a saturation point of carbon dioxide 400 parts per million and that it is not expected to drop below this bench mark again.  Whether or not you have doubts about climate science and the contribution of humanity to global warming, this figure is significant.  Human made or not we are on a trajectory that could see warming, accompanied by sea level rises, which may result in the collapse of society as we know it.

One of the most popular genre’s at the moment for young people are books and movies which look to societies in a not too distant post-apocalyptic dystopian future in which human beings have to cope in a world which has collapsed in on itself.  One of the constant themes in these novels is the violence of that future.  Movies and books like the Hunger Games and Divergent have echoes of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies as community breaks down.

If doubt drives my faith in God to go deeper ironically it is my doubts about human behaviour that leads me to lose my faith in humanity.

If the human response to bad stuff is more bad stuff – to kill the babies, then I am lead to look elsewhere.  I am lead to look again to God.

Is this the idea that will make you rethink faith in God?

That faith involves doubt.  Doubt can drive you deeper into your faith or it can cause us to lose your faith.  For me the faith that is deepening through doubt is my faith in God. 

Faith in God who rather than stay aloof and distant shares in our created existence.

Faith in God who rather than continue the cycles of violence submits to death on the cross in Jesus.

Faith in God who says to us in the resurrection that death is not the last word.

Faith in God who walks alongside us through our own questions, confusion and fears.

Faith is not about having all the answers.  Faith is not about what we can prove by our experience or argue through our knowledge.  Faith is a journey responding to doubt and gaining wisdom, strength and hope from the relationship.

When Paul writes to Timothy he encourages the community to rekindle their faith by the laying on of hands.  So on this day let us share in this moment, let us rekindle our faith and let us give strength to one another.

Amen.

Jesus and the Lawyer. A new sermon on the Good Samaritan.

Luke 10

You know I don’t think the lawyer in this story from Luke chapter 10 is a bad bloke.  I don’t think he is very much different from any of us.  Most of us at some point have asked the question that the lawyer asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  We are all worried about what happens after we die and we all want a sense that we are in control of the outcome.

In this sense the lawyer is not a lot different to you or me. And the lawyer is not doing anything abnormal in entering into debate with Jesus.  Part of the ancient culture of the Jewish people was for teachers and religious people to test each other through debating their ideas.  We still this do this in academic circles today.  When the lawyer gets up to test Jesus the lawyer is behaving normally as a religious leader of his day.

The nuance for us to remember is that in the Old Testament the word for a legal adversary in a debate is the word Satan.  This means that when the lawyer, or for that matter you and I, enter into debate with Jesus we become the legal adversary, we become Satan.

This little matter aside, the lawyer’s question is about him being in control of the outcome “what must I do?”  Now Jesus answer to the lawyers question follows what is often referred to as the Socratic Method.  He answers a question by asking a question.   And the question he ask directs the lawyer to the Torah, the law.

The biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine points out the twofold subtlety of Jesus questions.  Firstly, Jesus does not simply ask the lawyer what is written in the Torah but how he reads it.  This implies that Jesus’ understands the lawyer will give preference to particular texts.  And secondly, and possibly more importantly, as Levine points out “the Torah is not much interested in eternal life or life after death.  It is much more interested in how to live in the present.”  Jesus shifts the conversation away from life after death to life now.

The lawyer’s choice of Deuteronomy 6:5, part of what is commonly known as the Shema Yisrael. This is placed alongside Leviticus 18:18.  These are possibly some of the best know Biblical passages and Jesus affirms his choice.  “You have given the right answers.”  The lawyer’s understanding of the belief system in which he is embedded appears to be without fault.

Yet the lawyer is not finished because having answered rightly we are told he wants to justify himself as he asks “Who is my neighbour?”  Levine points out this a more subtle way of asking, ‘Who is not my neighbour?’  The lawyer is interested in a question that most of us would want to ask who can I ignore, who can I not offer help to?

This is a difficult matter for all of us who recognise the limits of our personal resources and have probably unconsciously been seduced into the lifestyle of wealth and prosperity of the Western world.  Sometimes our acts of charity are dominated by similar questions: ‘Who is my neighbour?’ ‘Who is more deserving of my help?’ ‘How much can I spare to give?’

Jesus response is the well-known parable which is often read is isolation from debate between Jesus and lawyer.  When read in isolation it is often turned into a moral tale that suggests that we should be like the Samaritan – that we should help others in need regardless of their culture, race or religion.  And, in itself this is not a bad lesson and has spawned many Christian societies and groups who use the name as inspiration for their charitable activities.

However, there is more to the parable than this somewhat obvious and simplistic reading of Jesus’ story.  The parables always have an edge to them and this parable is told as a way of leading the lawyer and, no doubt, Jesus listeners into a new understanding of God, themselves and the world in which they live.

Now at the beginning of the sermon I suggest that the lawyer is in many ways just like any of us and as Jesus begins the parable he speaks of a person, in Greek anthropos, travelling down from Jerusalem to Jericho.  This person once again is a generic figure.  I appreciate Levine’s description of this person: “The person lacks identification; he could be rich or poor, free or slave, priest or lay, naughty or nice… The man is ‘some man’ or everyone.”  It could be anyone amongst Jesus listeners: his disciples; the lawyer; other religious leaders; the crowd gathered; and, it could be any of us.

The randomness of the attack the person is disturbing and we might pause to wonder at why this has occurred – it appears senseless and Jesus does not seek to explain the violent act.  He simply names that it occurs.

However, I would want to point out that such an act potentially robbed the person of far more than any money or goods that he was carrying.  So often when we encounter suffering, whether it is at the hands of violence, or through illness, we ask the question, “What have I done to deserve this?”  We make a correlation, and probably an unhelpful one, between the suffering we are encountering and our perceived goodness as a person.  We are robbed of our sense of being a person of worth and value, and we are also robbed of our sense of invulnerability, and safety in the world.  Our very identity and sense of worth and purpose is put into question.

The person is left helpless and vulnerable by the side of the road robbed of his goods, his dignity, his self-perception and even his hope.

Now I do not want to dwell too long on the Priest and Levite who pass by yet a couple of points need noting. 

First, is that often the behaviour of these two men is explained by the need for ritual purity.  In her excellent reflection on this Amy-Jill Levine points out the imperative contained within the ancient Jewish tradition that would have required these men to act and absolved them from the ramifications.  Levine points out that after the 9/11 attack in New York Jewish people stood vigil until such a stage that all the dead and wounded had been removed such is their respect for those who are injured and have died. Levine goes on to described the sermon by Dr Martin Luther King who suggested that these two men passed by on the other side because they were afraid.  They possibly simply wondered would the same thing happen to them if they hung around.   

During the week after the  shootings that occurred in the US. I saw people interviewed who had been part of the rally at Dallas  where 5 police were shot.  One was asked what they did when they heard the shots fired.  His answer reflected his incredulity at the question “I ran”.  Not many of us will run towards a place where we think there is danger and it may simply be that these two mean were fearful.

The second point to make about these two passers-by is made in relation to the one who comes next. It is a point I have been making on this passage for about a dozen years now.  If Jesus was simply attacking the religious establishment the next person to turn up would have been another ‘regular’ Israelite.  But Jesus’ parable has a sharper edge than this for the lawyer because Jesus’ is trying to shift the lawyer’s perception of his own identity and worth.

The next person come down the hill from Jerusalem is a Samaritan.  Now the history of the relationship between the Jews and the Samaritans was one littered with animosity and violence.  In the previous chapter of Luke Jesus and his disciples were not welcomed into a Samaritan village as the passed through a region.  James and John suggested that they could ask God to reign down fire on the village and consume it as punishment.  To coin Levine’s phrase Jesus response is that you do not respond with bombs to a refusal of hospitality.  There is no doubt though that this person would have been perceived by the lawyer and anyone listening that the broken and bleeding person and the Samaritan were enemies.

As we know the Samaritan sees the person, he comes near to the person, and does everything that he can to restore the person to life.  The Samaritan transcends fear with compassion.

If we skip to the end of the story Jesus’ question of the lawyer is “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the person who fell into the hands of robbers?”   This question is the great reversal for the lawyer because the lawyer’s question of “Who is my neighbour?”  is taken out of his hands.  The lawyers neighbour is not the one who he has the power to choose but the one who comes to his aid.  What Jesus effectively does is identify the lawyer with the person who had travelled down from Jerusalem.

Now one of the ancient readings of this parable which has survived the test of time is to say that if the lawyer is the person who has attacked then Jesus is the Good Samaritan’.  The lawyer cannot do anything to inherit eternal life because he is helpless and bleeding and it is Christ who comes alongside us and picks us up from our broken and bleeding state and does whatever it takes that we might be healed.  This is a lesson we can hold on to.

But, today, I want to highlight three important lessons Jesus is teaching the lawyer about his own identity if he is connected to the person who was attacked.  The first: the lawyer is like every other person.  The generic anthropos, the person who travelled down from Jerusalem, could be anyone and the lawyer is an ‘anyone’ as well.  So often, as people, we like to create systems of importance and self-importance.  Jesus is saying to the lawyer you are like everybody else.

Second: when the person is attacked Jesus is suggesting to the lawyer that he is not as in control as he might think.  The lawyer is in need of mercy and help.  The lawyer’s own sense of self-righteousness and identity is challenged as his mortality.  At the beginning of the encounter Jesus had shifted the conversation away from life after death and the threat to the person’s mortality in this parable reminds us that life is valuable gift worthy of salvaging from the brink and living.

Third: when the person is helped by a Samaritan there is an interruption to the cycle of violence and the succession of hate and hurt perpetrated between Jewish and Samaritans.  In the act of compassion that transcends the ancient prejudices the possibility of reconciliation and renewal appears on earth as it is in heaven.

These three lessons are lessons for all of us: all of us share in a common humanity; every one of us is need of mercy and help as we struggle to find identity in our lives; and, the age old hatreds and prejudices can be overcome when enemies are willing to transcend their fear and help each other and restore each other to life.

When Jesus says to the lawyer go and do likewise we might hear his injunction to go and act with a compassion and mercy similar to that of the Samaritan but we should also hear the challenge for the lawyer to be changed in his self-perception.  Eternal life is a gift not his to control. Jesus invitation is for the lawyer to see himself as part of the hoi polloi alongside others, to understand that the lawyer himself is in need of mercy, and that we cannot choose our neighbours but need to come to understand that even our enemies are neighbours.

The truth of Jesus parable especially in terms of our tendency to define who our neighbours are not has played out in the last few days and weeks in terrible and tragic ways. 

This last week has been NAIDOC week in Australia and touring the Northern Territory I was reminded again of the ancient aboriginal culture that was robbed of its identity and place when Europeans arrived.  We are still on a journey towards reconciliation and reparation with our aboriginal and islander brothers and sisters.   

In the US the terrible shooting by police and of police highlight an ongoing cycle of violence that needs to be interrupted.  How can people cross the boundaries of race and culture to stand together to bind the wounds of that hurting nation?

In Baghdad, Iraq, 292 Muslims were killed in a suicide bombing.  This is on one level a confrontation between different strands of Islam. 

In our own election, and in the rhetoric around Brexit, as we see people struggle for identity the language of xenophobia and difference has emerge as a strong aspect of our discourse.  The fact that more than 1 in 10 Queenslanders voted for a party that has clearly racist policies is disappointing and reflects the confusion people have when we try to define who we are by saying who are our neighbours and who are not our neighbours.

These complex issues of humanity are contained within the lessons that Jesus is giving the lawyer and to understand the hope of this story means that we have to drive ourselves to read on in the gospel.  For it is only in reading on that come to see Jesus not only as the one who comes down to us, as Paul says in Philippians emptying himself to be one of us, but also as one who himself is lifted up on a cross broken and bleeding, fully identifying with the loss of identity and purpose in the helplessness of death.

If we are to be anything like the Samaritan, we must first understand that we are like the lawyer.  We learn that we are part of the common people, in need of mercy, and who must learn that even our enemy is our neighbour and as we do so we also learn the lesson from 1 John “We love because God first loved us.”

Yes, the lawyer, Jesus legal adversary, Satan, is not a bad bloke – he is just like you and I.  But in the story his enemy saves him and it is in this that we can find worth and identity and purpose and meaning – God’s message is a life-giving, life-restoring message as God offers to each one of us healing and hope.

A Centurion and Slave: Unpredictably Saved!

I think it is far easier for most of us to think that we are in control, that we have things in hand, that things are predictable.  But all of us know that when it comes down to it there are limits to what we can control and there is an unpredictability to life.

Today we heard a story from the gospel of Luke which reminds us that there is an unpredictability to being saved.  This notion of unpredictable salvation might be disconcerting yet I believe on deeper reflection the idea of being unpredictably saved could be a source of great hope for us all.

To understand the hope contained within this story of Jesus’ healing of the Centurion’s slave we need to dig a little deeper into the characters and the implications of Jesus’ actions.

Picture by Tomas Fano Creative Commons

So let us first contemplate the Centurion.

According to the commentaries I read on this passage it is unlikely this man was a Roman.  As the

Roman Empire expanded it drew soldiers into its army from the lands it conquered. 

Yet, whether or not a Roman it appears that he was not a Jew but was sympathetic to the Jewish community in which he lived.  We are told that he was a good man and had built a synagogue for the people and that he loved them.  Although not a Jew he may have even engaged in some form of belief and practice.

Despite this, as a Centurion with authority over a cohort of 100 soldiers, this man was still to be considered a part of the occupying enemy force.

He also had some understanding of Jewish practices as he did not approach Jesus directly but rather sent Jewish leaders from within his community to make contact.

It is unclear what this man knew about Jesus but this event appears to be relatively early in Jesus ministry.  So when it comes to consideration of the centurion’s faith it would be naïve of us to read too much into this.  He has faith in Jesus ability to heal the slave, even from afar, but we should not think of it as faith in Jesus in the way we might express faith in Jesus as the Messiah or the Son of God or as our Saviour.  Even his use of the title ‘Lord’ for Jesus should not be overplayed in a way that suggests he had an insight into Jesus identity that even Jesus followers did not.

Throughout the interaction between Jesus and the Centurion, which all occurs through messengers, the focus of the conversation is on the worthiness of the Centurion for the miracle not on the worthiness of the slave.

The sum result of the interaction is that without Jesus even arriving to see the slave or ever meeting the Centurion the slave is healed. 

The inference of the passage is that without the healing the slave will die yet even from afar Jesus can do the miracle - healing occurs. 

For those embedded in the story, living in the moment, there is an unpredictable edge about the way the healing occurs and even Jesus’ response to this outsider – Jesus is impressed or amazed at the faith of the Centurion!

If were to travel back into Jesus’ time the notion of salvation did not revolve around dying and going to heaven.  To be saved was a ‘this life’ experience.  I can’t but help think of a story we find later in Luke’s gospel, the story of Zacchaeus in which Jesus’ declares, “today salvation has come to your household.”

In the act of healing the slave no less should we think of the Centurion: “today salvation has been visited on your household!”  He has encountered salvation in the healing of his slave.

Could anyone predict that Jesus would reach out and help this foreign soldier, this centurion?

Could anyone predict that Jesus would hold up to his disciples and followers the faith of this gentile?

Could anyone predict that Jesus did not even have to visit the slave for the healing to occur?

But more than that could the slave himself predict or understand his fate?

Think about this slave for a moment.  Once again probably not a Jew and maybe someone bought in marketplace and brought to this foreign land.  A man viewed as a commodity but clearly more than that for the Centurion – he valued the slave more than the cost of simply replacing him.

The slave does not ask for healing.

It is possible that the slave knew nothing of Jesus.

It is possible that the slave was disconnected from his homeland and family.

It is possible that the slave did not feel that same connection with the Centurion as the Centurion felt to the slave.

This anonymous character is left mysteriously ambiguous and a step away from this miracle.  Yet the truth of the situation is that the salvation visited on the home of the Centurion is visited on him personally.

The slave is found to be in good health.

He is saved by Jesus.  He is just as much the recipient of grace.

So often, my experience of the Christian story is a domestication of salvation to those who confess Jesus as Lord and believe in Jesus in a particular way.  More than that so often being saved is only associated with what happens when die.

Yet this story has an unpredictable edge that shatters the domestication of what it means to be saved and reminds us that when Jesus healed and gave hope to people salvation visited in this life – the coming kingdom of God is glimpsed in these moments and maybe it is when people encounter salvation in this life, a miracle, that it is on earth as it is in heaven.

For the early Christian community that Jesus was writing for the story might have opened up the possibility of gentile converts being valued by the community of faith – maybe, like the Centurion, their faith could be an example to the followers of Jesus that were of Jewish background.  Remember, when Luke was writing his gospel that majority of followers were meeting still as part of the Jewish community.  Maybe the story addressed the unpredictable number of gentile converts after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension.

Yet as we listen to this story of the unpredictable nature of salvation in that ancient community and reconsider what it means for us I think there are words of hope grounded in the unpredictability of being saved.

When I think about the Centurion I think about all those people who are sympathetic to the church in our era, maybe they even work for the church.  People who seek out the help of Jesus, or maybe simply they co-operate with Jesus followers, to bring aid to others.

At Synod we heard about the work of UnitingCare and Wesley Mission Brisbane and the Schools commission and the Residential Colleges.  Whilst many of the people who work in the church may not yet have committed their life to Jesus in the way we have I wonder if their faith is a bit like the Centurion so long ago.  Like the Centurion they build synagogues of hope and they risk making contact with Jesus and his followers.  Trusting in Jesus mission, and trusting his followers to bring a better life to others now – a little bit of heaven on earth. 

When I think about the slave that was healed I consider all of the people that the church reaches out to in need.  People who are sick and dying, people who are frail and aged, people who call lifeline for a listening ear, people in remote locations and in the inner city.  Unpredictably saved, helped out, given hope by people in Jesus’ name – even though they may not realise it or have even sought it they receive from the wellsprings of the grace of God.

What this means in terms of their relationship with God beyond this life remains obscured from our view but the story indicates Jesus’ willingness to save a person in the midst of his life even without knowing that someone else had interceded.

As followers of Jesus, I would say that you and I are unpredictably saved – we have encountered the mystery of God which is beyond our domestication and comprehension yet closer to us than breathing.

As part of the crowd that follow we can only look upon the unpredictable nature of how God saves people and celebrate it and share it.  And maybe we too can become like the Jewish leaders and the friends of the centurion in the story, emissaries and messengers between people and their needs and Jesus, who we believe can bring healing and hope to any situation.

We become the storytellers of God’s grace: we latch our lives on to the hope that people we know and love will be saved in this life and the next; we also consider the possibilities of God’s love for our enemies; we gather together to listen to the stories, to be astounded as we celebrate the surprisingly unpredictable salvation of our God.

The cloaks that didn't make the road.

Palm Sunday has often been a celebration for churches as we recall the people long ago who went out to greet Jesus coming into Jerusalem.

I have been in many services and at events where the excitement of the moment has been highlighted by children waving palm branches, people holding signs or placards with words like “hosanna” and “rejoice” emblazoned across them.

We have drawn ourselves into the story.  We have explored our feelings and often we have been challenged with the notion that the crowd who yell “Hosanna!” at the beginning of the week also yell “crucify him!” at the end of the week.

And so we come this day and we celebrate again Palm Sunday and maybe we lay our cloaks on the ground as we witness the miracle once again.  Maybe we lift our hands in praise and shout “hosanna!”

Yet, as I thought about this scene again, and the people that came out by the roadside so long ago, I was left wondering about the cloaks that didn’t find their way onto the road that day as Jesus approached Jerusalem.  I wondered about the people who didn’t come down to welcome Jesus as he entered the city – the cloaks that stayed at home.

Who were these people? 

Was Jesus coming for them as well? 

For the ones who did not come out that day?

Maybe one of these cloaks belonged to a woman with small children, a mother who had the responsibility to put food on the table and to feed her young brood.  The religious festival may have just seemed a burden to her already busy life, even if her faith was strong.  To drag the children down to the roadside to see some so-called itinerant king coming into the city may have felt a foolish waste of time.  So many chores and jobs to do!  Her cloak remained in the house.  Does Jesus come for her as well?

Maybe one of these cloaks belong to a Roman soldier so far from his home and family.  He had to work in Pilate’s palace on that day.  He had to patrol the corridors of earthly power and protect the governor.  His cloak never made the ground before Jesus, it was with him at his daily work. Does Jesus come for him?

Maybe one of these cloaks was a child’s cloak.  A kid running in the street with his friends and just doing what the kids did.  He played and cajoled and drifted here and there and had no interest in the adults and their parades and processions.  His cloak stayed at home because when you run along the streets with your friends you don’t need a cloak on.  Does Jesus enter Jerusalem for this child?

Or, maybe one of the cloaks belonged to someone old, someone who was struggling with their health.  It was too hard to get out of the house on that day.  Who needed crowds anyway?  Life was hard and the toll of aging meant worries about attending religious festivals were not what they used to be.  Does Jesus enter Jerusalem for them as well?

You see more often than not we think about the story from the perspective of those who show up, even if we admit that the crowd is fickle, that each one of us is fickle.  But what about those who don’t show up, who don’t understand what is going on, who maybe don’t even care, those who don’t get involved.

Which leads me to a somewhat obvious question what about the ones who are not here today?

The parents who took their children and their sporting equipment off to the next event.  Who are busy all week and want to have some quality time letting their kids do what they want to do.  The parents who see Sunday as sacred family time. Does Jesus have space for them?

The people in the shopping centres working because so many of us are drawn to the shops on our day off and we are embedded in a deep culture of consumerism.  We are driven by the market.  Or maybe the people who are working in our hospitals, or as police or as firefighters who have to take a shift this day whilst we have privilege and opportunity to be here worshipping God.

Or maybe even more controversially we might think those who have rejected the Christian notion or understanding of God.  People from different religions or from none.  People for whom the church has not been there or even has caused distress and pain in their lives.

Does Jesus enter Jerusalem for them as well?

There is a clue to this perplexing issue in Jesus answer when the Pharisees say, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

“The stones would shout out!”

What is occurring as Jesus enters Jerusalem is not just for the benefit of the few gathered but is an event for the whole creation.  The event is not simply for the ones that turned up it has cosmic implications.  There are overtones in this of what Paul had written about Jesus to the Colossians – he is the cosmic Christ.  Or maybe at the beginning of John’s gospel in the beginning was the Word and all things came into being through him.

Does Jesus enter Jerusalem for the people who did not turn up? 

We can only hope so for if the very stones would cry out the extent of the grace in this moment is not within our spiritual or intellectual scope to judge.

What does this mean for those of who are here?  What does it mean for we who do lay our cloaks down or take up our branches to call our hosanna?

If Jesus entry into Jerusalem is for people who don’t come to church we could easily ask ourselves what is the point of us giving up this time in our mundane and our busy lives.

For me the answer is as simple and as complex as it was on that day – God loves us as we who have had a glimpse of Jesus power and authority are drawn to respond.  We are drawn into following and celebrating God’s love revealed in him.

In gathering here we lay the cloak of our lives before Jesus we offer ourselves to him and we sing out “Hosanna” and “Save us” not because we are the privilege few and that we can judge anyone else but simply because God is and God loves.

On this day when prophecies are fulfilled, when Jesus comes riding in on a donkey and a colt, our excitement is held in check by our knowledge that whilst we might yell “hosanna” today “crucify him” is just as easy on the next day.  And, more than this we are reminded of all the cloaks still at home, the people who are not with us here, the ones for whom God’s relationship and offering may remain a mystery to us and to them.

The good news is this, the stones themselves would cry out, for Jesus the Christ is coming.

We all thirst

A sermon on Isaiah 55:1 

“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters”

Everyone who thirsts, everyone thirsts, we all thirst.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to chat with a friend who is due to have a baby in around 3 month.  She thirsts.  She thirsts for change in the world because she fears for her child’s future.  She thirsts especially for action on climate change because she believes it is the biggest challenge her children will face.

We all thirst.

Last Sunday a young international student was found unconscious near the pool at Southbank.  He died a few days later.  On Wednesday his parents arrived.  One can only think that they thirst.  The thirst to see their son.  They thirst for meaning and understanding of what happened.  They thirst for healing of their broken hearts.

We all thirst.

Over the past week I have met dozens of students starting University for the first time.  They thirst. They thirst for knowledge, they thirst for friendship, they thirst for the opportunity show that they are adults, filled with life they thirst!

We all thirst.

During the week the Church Council met.  We thirst.  We thirst for God’s renewal of this congregation.  We thirst for God’s comfort for those among us who are facing death.  We thirst for new opportunities for the students who come here year by year.  We thirst for the energy and capacity to lead the congregation into a new future filled with God’s love and generosity.

We all thirst.

Take a moment thinking about the things for which you thirst.  Maybe it is a sign of God’s presence in your life.  Maybe it is for more time to do the things you want to do.  Maybe it is for comfort and peace as you face difficult health issues.  Maybe it is something for someone you love: your children, your spouse, your parents.

We all thirst.

Now turn and consider each other look at the people gathered here this day.  Do you know what they thirst for?  Have you asked?  Have you shared their journey?  As God’s people we are called to be here for each other. To uphold one another on a this journey through what at times seems such a  dry land.

We all thirst.

And now see, see with me and look at a man hanging discarded on a cross.  He is God’s son, he walked the earth, the dusty roads of Galilee and he shared the good news of God.  He healed people, he forgave them, the taught people of God’s presence and love! He opened the doors of hope for a relationship with God for all people.  But he was betrayed and left to die at the hands of the government of his time – the Roman Empire.  And the words that trickle from his dry lips “I thirst”.

Our God thirsts with us.

Jesus cries out.  “I thirst” and he is mocked and he is offered sour wine on a sponge but God, God hears, God hears Jesus cries as he descends into death and lies in the cold grave for three days.

But Isaiah’s prophesy is sure and true:

Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,

and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me;

listen, so that you may live.

Jesus is raised from the tomb.  The rich feast of God is coming.  A feast not of human hands but a feast of God’s love in which we are all satisfied.  This is our hope, our hope in an eternal feast of God’s love – celebrating as we enjoy:

a feast of rich foods,

a feast of well-aged wines,

of rich food filled with marrow,

of well-strained wines strained clear.

A feast for all nations.

This is our hope. This why we come.  This is why we share this journey.  We are not perfect and holy people.  We are a people who thirst.  And we are people who have heard that Jesus thirsts with us and that he has been raised form among the dead. 

We come to listen.  We come really listen.  We come to seek the Lord whilst he is near and in coming we become witnesses to each other of God’s love and generosity.

The temptation for us is satisfy the deep thirsts of our life at the well of consumption – where the 

buying a selling of goods has been sanctified and our happiness is equated to what we own and what we have.  But in the words of the great Mick Jagger “I can’t get no satisfaction.”  We can’t get no satisfaction but filling our lives with more and more things, cramming more and more into our time, to fill our empty lives.

The invitation is to come and to listen for God, to encounter God, to share God with one another and with anyone else that we encounter in our daily life, or who walks through the doors of this place. 

God has opened the doors wide, all arewelcome.

We may find that we continue to thirst.  We may feel that God is not alongside us.  We might bear little or no fruit.  But take heart for God’s message is that in Christ he has come not to tear down but to open up the possibilities and to be patient with us. 

The parable of the fig tree reminds us that God’s desire is not to cut down but to bring what need the manure of life itself, the food, the water that we need to sustain us and to make sense of who we are and where we are going.  Our place is not to judge God or one another but to nurture one another and to be patient as God tends the garden of our lives and the lives of others.  The fruit will come.

“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters”

Everyone who thirsts. Everyone thirsts. We all thirst.

Hear the good news, the one who thirsted has been raised from the dead.  All our thirsts can be satisfied and we can drink deeply from the well of living water – eternal life.

Psalm 63:2-15

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.

Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name.

My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips