It's not about the oil!

Jesus comes with all his grace

Comes to save a fallen race

Object of our glorious hope

Jesus comes to lift us

This wonderful hymn of Charles Wesley captures the central message of Christian hope – Jesus comes with all his grace.  It is God who acts and it is God alone who draws into deeper that relationship of divine eternity.  I often remind myself that the answer is Jesus, the answer is always Jesus.

But then Jesus tells his disciples a story, a parable, which leaves me bamboozled: the story told to us from Matthew’s gospel is one of those stories.  How do we hear this story as a story that is filled with God’s grace?

Let’s listen to the story a little more closely and consider what might be going here.

Now Jesus was teaching the disciples, he was critiquing the Pharisees and he was speaking about the return of the Son of Man.  The ideas seem to overlay one another as they coalesce in this parable of the 10 bridesmaids.

The story tell us about 10 bridesmaids who are waiting to meet the bridegroom.  It is my understanding that part of the Jewish tradition of the time that bridegroom would come to the house of the bride’s family where the party would continue and the marriage would be consummated.

The task of the bridesmaids was to welcome the bridegroom when he arrived.

So all 10 turn up, they have lamps which we can safely assuming are filled with oil and burning and they begin

their vigil waiting for the bridegroom to come.

Now Middle Eastern schedules of the ancient world were not unlike the schedules of some cultures that we can still encounter.  Unga and I sometimes speak about Tongan or Pacific time.  Basically it means you turn up when you turn up, which, of course, for some of us who are punctuality perfectionists can be more than a little aggravating.

So the bridesmaids wait... and they wait... and they wait... and they collectively doze off.  All 10 of to sleep!

Suddenly there is a fuss and a flutter as the figure of the bridegroom approaches.  Now is their moment, now is their time!

But the oil has run low and an issue arises and becomes somewhat ironically enflamed.

Five of the bridesmaids had brought extra oil whilst five had not – they were out and they needed more.  So the five who had run out turn to their sisters, their friends, their family and they say please share, give us oil for our lamps, keep them burning.

But the wise ones say no, there is not enough to go around.  No, we have ours and we are going to the party.

Now I have to say at this point on so many occasions I have heard this parable spoken about I have been told that I should be like one of these wise ones and have extra oil for my lamps, extra faith maybe, extra preparedness – whatever it means.

But I have to admit on reading the parable again I do not want to be associated with the wise ones in any way shape or form.

In Matthew 5:40-41 Jesus teaches, “If anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”

At the heart of Jesus messages lies a generous God who invites us to generosity even at great cost to ourselves.   I can’t but help think of Paul’s second letter to the Philippians in which we find the great kenosis hymn.  Kenosis is about self-emptying; Jesus empties himself of all to share in our existence.

The example and behaviour of the so-called wise ones to me is abhorrent.  There is almost an air of smug self-satisfaction as they go off to the party.  We got in because we are wise.  Do they not care about those left behind? Those outside? Those who are excluded? Their sisters? Their friends?

How often has your heart broken with the notion that someone that you love might be excluded from the loving kingdom of God because they did not have enough faith, knowledge, commitment?  Is this the God we encounter in the scriptures? In Jesus?

At this moment the wise ones appear to me more like the Pharisees that Jesus is often criticising.

What happens to those women left waiting outside?  They act.  They did not sit idly by and give up, they race off to the market in the middle night and somehow find someone to provide them with more oil.  In the middle of the night! Their lamps were already out so they find their way through dark streets to get what they need and they return.  What an effort!

They return to the house of the bride and they knock on the door equipped and ready to help the party arriving in their own time but the way is shut.  The interaction sounds so final, so condemning.

The other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’

But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’

How does this fit in any way, shape or form with what Jesus teaches in Matthew 7?

‘Ask, and it will be given to you;

search, and you will find;

knock, and the door will be opened for you.

For everyone who asks receives,

and everyone who searches finds,

and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

The way remains shut! 

Inside are a group who refused to do what Jesus taught – share generously, even if it means your own suffering.  Outside is a group who are experiencing rejection despite their last ditched efforts to knock on the door, which Jesus said would be opened.  How do we make sense of this situation?

Jesus sums up the parable with these perplexing words:

Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Were you listening carefully?  This hit me like brick this week.  Jesus does not mention oil nor the wisdom or folly of those who bring extra or those who fail to.

Jesus critique is for those who fall asleep. Remember verse 5, As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept.  I can just hear Paul saying to the Romans in his letter, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God!”

Jesus dire warning to the disciples is to stay awake – to be ready for what is hand, to be engaged with his presence, as the presence of the kingdom of heaven.

I wonder does anyone remember what happens in Matthew 26.  In the next Chapter of Matthew, Jesus shares the last supper with his disciples and then heads out to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray.  He takes Peter and James and John and asks them to wait for him and stay awake with him as he prays.  The disciples, who had not long before heard the story of the wise and foolish bridesmaids and the injunction to stay awake, go to sleep.

They go to sleep as their master struggle with his fate and prepares for the ending of his life.  Three times Jesus has to awaken the disciples, they were not ready, and the third time it is tell them that his betrayer is at hand.

What a perplexing scene we are left with.  Bridesmaids inside that seem selfish, bridesmaids outside excluded, disciples who fall asleep.

Where is hope?

In Matthew 27 we are told about another door that is shut, a stone rolled by Joseph of Arimathea across the tomb of Jesus.  A door closed; a barrier between life and death, between the incarnate God and the creation. This door is the most impenetrable of doors.  How can we rise above these perplexing questions?

Matthew reports that three days later Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go to the tomb and as they approach there was an earthquake and an angel descending from heaven who opens the tomb.  Inviting the women inside he tells them, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.’

We have been wise and we have been foolish, we have been asked to stay awake and we have slept yet the promise of God’s love remains:

Jesus comes with all his grace

Comes to save a fallen race

Object of our glorious hope

Jesus comes to lift us

It is not the extra oil, it is not running off into the night to get the oil, it is not knocking on the door and it is not even staying awake that makes the difference.  It Jesus himself who burst forth into new life, risen from the dead, the opens the doors and reawakens us – God is with us, God desires the best for us, God invites us to celebrate with the bridegroom as he shares his life with us.

Stay awake and be alert for the presence of the risen Lord is with us. Thanks be to God.

On a dusty hill in Caesarea Philippi.

Peter Lockhart

A sermon based on Matthew 16:13-20

See for a moment a group of dusty travellers on a Middle Eastern road, dressed in robes and sandals, wearing turbans on their heads to protect them from the sun and wind, they are trudging into the ancient region of Caesarea Philippi.

These are a group of men filled with hope.  They have seen miracles and heard teaching that has change their worlds.  They are simple men, ordinary people, fishermen, tax collectors and sinners who have captured a vision that maybe; just maybe, God’s intention is love and not judgement, healing and not retribution, forgiveness and not punishment.

Their leader has crossed boundaries of race and class and gender and caste.  He has even healed those whom he had called dogs. 

This ragtag group ascend a hill and come to a point that can see clearly for miles around: to the north and the south and the east and the west.

What can they see and what do they know of the lands they survey?  Imagine for a moment looking through their eyes: looking with eyes that can see beyond the horizons of space and time - look with them.

They look south and they see the Holy City Jerusalem an occupied territory overrun by Romans and a place of constant dispute and warfare.  They see Jews and Muslims and Christians fighting over a land which each claims as Holy in an exclusive and combative way.  They hear in the distance the sounds of rockets fired by Hamas and missiles raining down from the Israeli army.  How can a land of such bloodshed by a Holy place?  Is that what God desires from any religion?

They look to the west through Lebanon and across the Mediterranean Sea and they feel the presence of the centre of the empire looming large: Rome!  The Empire is reaching its tentacles into all the parts of the world that they know.  Since then, it has been an example for kings and empire builders through the ages, an example that conquering others is the way to establish peace – the pax Romana: an idea grounded in conquering and spilled blood.

Turning to the north they see through Turkey, the great seat of the Ottoman Empire and trading centre.  It was the home of the Orthodox Patriarchs, a reminder of the conglomerate that is the church.  And, looking further, beyond the black sea there is Ukraine another disputed territory of our time.  The world continues to lament the downing of a Malaysian passenger plane filled with a cargo of innocent lives.  Meanwhile, the combatant’s fire relentlessly hoping that their next bullet will make their lives better but the same question must be asked again and again, “Does another shot fired in anger ever make the world a better place?”

And now they turn to the east looking across the deserts and plains.  The see into Syria and witness a flood of refugees coming from a worn torn country as a country collapses into ruin.  Camps filled with the flotsam and jetsam of humanity desperately cling to their lives after their country descend into chaos. And, beyond Syria, there is Iraq where ISIS and ISIL now revert to the most barbarous behaviours to justify their religious claims for autonomy and privilege. Will the conflict ever end?

If these dusty tired men of ancient times could see all of history unfolding, all around the world would they be as deeply disheartened and disillusioned with humanity as I am.  Yet I remember that in the moment in which they lived they experienced life as a conquered and subjugated people – the cruelty of Rome was the peace they knew. 

Why hope?  Why go on?  In an enemy territory confronted by the complexity of politics and religion and power they stand on this hill and their master turns to them and asks:

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” “Who do you say that I am?”

One of them, a leader for the others, dares to answer with words which echo through the ages:

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

This man Jesus, a Jew by birth, claimed by Christians as God’s Son, honoured by Muslims as a prophet, recognised by historians as a man of great compassion and teaching makes this exclusive claim. A claim which rather than meant to divide was meant to open out the reality that the sectarianism and violence of our world and our decisions and our mistakes as human beings are not the end in sight for God.

The story goes on that instead of responding to violence with violence this ‘Son of God’, this ‘Messiah’, submits himself to death, even death on across, and he promises that when he is raised up all will be raised up with him.

It is these words which I have little doubt that inspired Paul to later write it was God’s will “through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

The hope for these tired men standing in this dusty hell of humanity, staring out into the tragedy of human history, is that the One whom they are standing with is going make everything different; that in him God will reconcile the world with its Creator and we as human beings will learn to love one another.  We hope in things we cannot see and that even those who walked on the road with him could not see, but let us continue to hope and to expose ourselves to God's love which conquers hate and refuse to respond to violence with more violence.

Jesus terrifies!

I think that like the disciples there is a part of us that is terrified of Jesus.

Most of the time we like to think of Jesus as a friend or comforter, maybe a guide or teacher. Yet in some stories, like this one, the idea of Jesus, a man walking across a stormy sea, is utterly strange and confronting. The disciple’s terror may not simply be the strangeness of the situation by the fear that can be generated from within when confronted by something we don’t understand and cannot control.

Now, whether or not the story happened in the way Matthew describes could be a point of contention but Matthew weaves a marvellous tale for his listeners packed with depth of meaning that reaches to the core of our existence.

I just want to make a three quick points about the story.

The first is to say that the image of the disciples in the boat was adopted by the early Christian community as a symbol for the church.

The disciples facing the storm as experienced fishermen worked together and battle the storm, they were in it together and the believed that they would sink or sail by their own efforts.

Sometimes I suspect that we in the church feel a bit the same. We sail the stormy seas of life, thinking we are guiding the ship, thinking that we are in control and that it is we alone who have the capacity to defeat the elements.

Jesus’ appearance ultimately calms the storm and reminds us that even thought we think we have things in hand there are forces greater than our efforts, powers that can even demonstrate a command over nature: God.

As the church we should take confidence in this, whilst we battle the storm, Jesus comes to us and we are not alone.

This brings me to a second point about Peter. Peter demonstrated more than a little faith, in my opinion, to step out of the boat. If we are going to follow Jesus, going to him can mean taking the risk of stepping out of the boat.

There are times when we see the walls of the church and our gathering as a kind of life vest, a security blanket. We are OK to own our faith in this setting but when we step out into the storms around us we can suppress our journey with God and so hide from others the hope we have found in following Jesus.

Today the footprints (footprints are being to each congregtaion member) that you take with you are a reminder to step out in faith every day. Step out with your little faith and take the confidence that where ever you find yourself Jesus is there ready to reach out and give you a hand.

The third and final point thing is to think a bit about the sea and the storm. If we go back to the story of creation in Genesis the image of the beginning is that of God moving over the waters.

The metaphor that is presented demonstrates God drawing back the waters of chaos to make a space in which to create. There are the waters above and the waters below.

This metaphor carries into this story. Jesus walking on the waters in the midst of the storm – the waters of chaos and uncreation above and below. The deep roiling waters and the lashing storm threaten life.

But Jesus stands in the midst of the storm as a beacon of hope, he is unassailable.

As I consider the waters above and the waters below I was struck by the things which threaten us, things which threaten to unravel the world as we know it.

Above us loom the storms of climate change and rapidly depleting resources, natural disasters and millions of starving people in the horn of Africa.

Below us the churning of the waters are like: plummeting markets and drought and war.

And whilst these mind bending and massive issues rage around us the winds that blow through our own lives distract and we become frightened. Winds of loneliness, of illness, of broken relationships. Winds of unemployment, of depression, of constant change.

Here in the midst of the storm Jesus calls to us come and reaches out to help us in the midst of our fears and our doubts and our questions.

This is the hope we find in this story – God has not left us alone to the ravages of the storm but comes to us in the midst of it.

This is the good news that we celebrate today. The good news we celebrate in being together, to remind each other that God is with us. The good news we celebrate as we baptise and as we share bread and wine. The good news we are not alone that God is with us, that Jesus is here reaching out his hand to lead us through our life’s journey.

By Peter Lockhart
(photo creative commons)

Baptism with Integrity

How do we recover a sense of the central importance of baptism?

Some churches have sought to do so by rejecting infant baptism in favour of adult baptism, yet whilst those adult baptisms I have done have been particularly meaningful, there is something to be said about the wonder of grace expressed in baptising an infant.

The words of the baptismal prayer from the French Reformed Church capture this wonderfully "for you, little child, event though you do not know it."

However, again and again the significance of the event appears lost on people and whilst grace may be proclaimed in that moment the ongoing witness of a life lived in Christ appears so often either obscured from view or simply neglected.

In his book Atheist Delusions David Bentley Hart provides a snapshot of anancient liturgy and the commitment involved in entering the waters of baptism (p111-113).

He describes how, in the ancient world, baptism and the inculsion in the Christian community of faith invovled a clear turning away from other gods, from the realm of darkness and the devil.

It meant turning towards Christ and living following his way.

Whilst I was baptised as an infant, Hart's words nonetheless reminded me of my own conviction that my baptism, is core to my life. Living as a person baptised into Christ's body is the determinative marker of my life.

This means that I view baptism as one of the most, if not the single most, significant events of my life. Through baptism my life has been drawn into Chirst's and the Spirit shapes my life now as a witness to God's love and grace.

Baptism, which signifies for me my life live in Christ and as a disciple of Jesus, shapes me and informs me in my vocation, my marriage, my role as a father and as a friend. The list could go on.

My memory of the event has little importance to me but my living of it is central to who I am, for now I am not simply my own, set adrfit in a universe alone, but I am Christ's.

I find great empathy for Hart's reminder of the central importance of baptism and all that it meant so long ago.

Similarly, I find a great connection to Ben Myer's parable about baptism, and ask are we clergy too ready to give a wink and a nod to those who come askign to have their child christened?

How do we proclaim that uncondiotional grace which has a necessary response without turning grace and faith into judgement and works?

Maybe it is in witness? So I give thanks for parents and for a church who in faith and in trust gave to me this gift of baptism and to the God who has been faithful to me in nurturing and guiding me.

Peter Lockhart

Ascension Day: The importance of names

I was blest on the morning of Ascension Day to attend Morning Prayer and to hear the passage of the ascension read from Acts as a living word from God. It is not always that we hear the scriptures read in such a way but occasionally the words are said with such deliberate love that the simply live for us.

What struck me was the way in which our worship leader, Gerda, named the list of disciples. Each name given the dignity of presence as the reader paused after each one, a moment to savour these people to whom Jesus had appeared and who went away to devote themselves in prayer.

Peter, and John, and James,
and Andrew, Philip and Thomas,
Bartholomew and Matthew,
James son of Alphaeus,
and Simon the Zealot,
and Judas son of James.

It may be that we don’t know these people but the recording of their names and their careful articulation in love continues the witness to Jesus, with which they were entrusted.

As I revelled in their faith the livingness of the scriptures continued in my mind to include the names of those with whom I worshipped and who had inspired me in the faith.

Faithful people like the ones who shared in the Morning Worship: Gerda, Mano, Lynne, Alan & Merle, Jason, Yvonne, Stephen, Harley.

And faithful friends and mentors who have and who continue to witness to Jesus love for me: my Dad, Sandra, Terry, Bob & Grace, David, Gordon & Geoff, Don & Pam, Alan, John, Andrew, Murray & Wendi, Ray, Shirley, Michael.

And people of Faith through the ages whom my contact has been only through texts and stories handed down: Halik, Zizioulas, McGrath, Moltmann, Bonhoeffer & Barth, Calvin & Luther & Zwingli, Gregory of Nazianzus.

Maybe at times we fail to name the influences because we might miss someone out. Maybe we are afraid of the intimacy of declaring our need of others. Maybe we are afraid of pirvacy laws and confidentialites. And maybe at times we simply forget to name those, whose witness shapes and support us, and remind us of the Jesus who ascended in mystery and for whose promised return we wait together in anticipation.

The way Gerda read the names reminded me of how tied our identity is to our own names and how it is important for our names to be said. Yet not only that, but that in hearing each others names in the context of the bigger story of God's love and of Jesus Christ, our faith is affirmed and the witness with which we have been entrusted is shared.

Modern Heroes of Faith: Dedication

Rev Peter Lockhart

One of the strangest aspects of congregational life that I have come across is how people who leave congregations to move into nursing homes, or have simply become to frail to attend, get quickly forgotten by the community. More often than not they get left as the business of the elders or minister, whose job it seems it is to visit the "shut-ins".

At one of the congregations I was part of the elders determined this was not to be the case. One particular elder, the 'communion' elder, orgainsed monthly home communions. When I first met her she was already 82 and month by month she would organise a day which involved doing visits with as many as 7 people located all over the city of Brisbane.

She herself had been a member of the congregation for her whole life but despite this some of the people we visited didn't really know her. I was always inspired by her dedication to the task, simply remembering those who had gone out of the sight of the rest of the congregation.

In her work, and the support she gave me to meet and know these people, I think of God's promise "I will not leave you or forsake you." As the church are we not called to those who find themsleves lost and lonely in the final years of their lives?

Her dedication continued for the 5 years I was with the congregation and despite reaching the age of 87 she continued to arrange the home communions so that these people would know that they were loved and that God still cared.

For me she remains an inspiration for dedication and love.

Modern Heroes of Faith: Patient & Kind

Rev Peter Lockhart

When I was a student minister there was a man in one of the congregations which I was attached to who has come to epitomise the example of Christian love, which so many hanker after when they use 1 Corinthians 13 at their wedding.

He was well into his eighties when I met him and his wife lived no more than 10 minutes drive by car in a nursing home facility, she suffered from dementia and no longer recognised him.

Because he could no longer drive the man caught 2 buses each day, taking over an hour each way, to go and visit with his wife, sitting with her talking to her her, feeding her, loving her despite the fact she no longer knew him.

As I look back on his commitment I feel privileged to have known him and to realise that there are everyday heroes of faithfulness and love who teach us the meaning of God's love.

These are people who rarely get recognised, nor mentioned for what they do, but people who inspire me to know that God is like this man who would, despite the frailty of age, catch multiple buses to sit with his wife in love and concern even though she failed to recognise him.

This the God who gives so much to come alongside us in Jesus even when we fail to recognise that God is closer to us than breathing.

Violence and the Bible

by Rev Peter Lockhart

In the story of the walk to Emmaus Jesus helps open the eyes of the disciples by explaining to them the scriptures and how they related to who Jesus was and what he did. As Jesus disciples we are called to share in this task, but this is not always an easy task.

I was teaching year 6 religious education this week and we are looking at the story of Cain and Abel. One of the students asked the question “Why is there so much violence in the Bible?”

In answer to the question I asked the students what the main story had been on the news the previous night. They knew it had been the death of Osama bin Laden. When asked to describe the scenes that they saw they told me that they had seen people cheering and partying and celebrating.

I suggested that whilst Osama bin Laden may have committed some terrible acts celebrating anyone’s death, or the need to kill anyone, reflected the kind of violent world in which we live and so the scriptures explore the kind of people that we are and expose that and challenge that.

I did not have an opportunity to continue the conversation with the children due to time but to interpret the scriptures a little more closely on the point. Maybe the celebration at someone’s death, even a so called bad person, reflects the kind jealousy and hate that occurs in Cain and causes him to kill his brother. But the violence has consequences and they are not good ones.

As mothers, as fathers, as uncles, as grandparents, or simply friends of children our attitudes and ideas about violence and war will be one of the defining building blocks in a child’s life and so reflecting on it spiritually is important.

The challenge for the disciples who were walking to Emmaus was that they had imagined for themselves a Messiah who would seize political and even military power. One who would throw down the corrupt leaders among the Jewish people but even more importantly defy the Roman imperialism.

It is the response of violence with more violence, power with greater power, and there is no doubt that there are parts of the Old Testament which seem to point in such a direction.

Yet Jesus interprets things differently for the disciples asking them, “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?”

Jesus, and God’s response, to the violence of the world is not to respond to the violence with more violence but to traverse the way of death and so make a new future for all humanity.

I don't want volunteers in my congregation! by Peter Lockhart

I continually strike the language of volunteers in the church. It usually runs alongside the differentiation between those 'paid' to do ministry and those who 'volunteer'. If we put aside the whole notion of what a stipend is actually meant to be there is a huge problem with talking about volunteers in the church.

Literally a volunteer is an 'unpaid helper'. It is the underlying definition of what it means to be a human being that is particularly disconcerting. So often when use the word volunteer we risk reducing human beings to commodities, as is done in our Western society.  Moreover, to speak of the idea that 'time is money' elevates the dollar over the a life well lived.  If we view people who give time to the church as volunteers, as noble as this may sound to some, we are reducing the church to an insitution and the value of gifts to how much money is given.

When Jesus invited people to follow him he was looking for disciples not volunteers. Morevover, when we are baptised we are drawn into Jesus Christ's ascended life and transformed to be his body in the world.

This means that as we engage in our 'works' for the church, our engagement is as people living out our baptism in the power of the Holy Spirit, not as volunteers doing work for nothing.

The prevalence of the idea that church members volunteer is yet another sign of the subordination of the gospel and following Jesus to our Western culture. Is it not time to recapture something of what it means to be baptised people not volunteers!