The Sacrifice of Isaac: Who can believe in such a God as this?

Genesis 12:1-14

Let me begin with a question for you all. You do not need to put your hand up but just think about how you would answer the question.

“As a lifelong follower of Christ do you think that you have biblical values?”

It would be my suspicion that most of you would say, “Yes, I do”. And if I asked then how do you view the scriptures you may even quote a Bible verse at me, 2 Timothy 3:16.

“All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16) NRSV

Or maybe you like the NIV translation.

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16) NIV

But here is the problem if you answer affirmative to those questions without any qualification you are possibly affirming ideas that you would find unconscionable.

There are stories within the scriptures like the one that we read today that present an image of a God who plays with human lives in horrifying, distasteful, and even abusive. What do we do with these hard bits of scripture and the apparent vacillations of a God who appears to be capricious. For when we look closely, we find that there are inconsistencies with the decisions made by God in this story and the scriptures are contradictory.

The story of the Binding of Isaac, as it is traditionally known, read in our modern context should cause any sane person to recoil in horror and asl themselves, “Should I, can I, love such a God as this?” There is no escaping the trauma that was caused for the child Isaac who is the innocent party in this story. It is nothing less than child abuse and we need to name it as such.

Stories like this one which are upheld as a sign of Abraham’s faithfulness can cause people to simply say, “I cannot believe in such a God like this”. Or “I cannot take the Bible seriously”. And there is part of me that would say to them I understand, that is a fair call. 

In his book on biblical values the Biblical scholar John J. Collins indicates that when think about biblical values they “must be sifted and evaluated” and they must be measured against the command to love your neighbour.

Recalling Robin Whittaker’s view that we should “take the Bible seriously not literally” I want to suggest that there are lessons that we might glean from this horrific story without leaving such a distaste in our mouth about a God who may have asked a man to commit infanticide.

In coming across this piece of scripture, we may be left asking can I really trust a God such as this. And, is this piece of scripture actually God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness?

In his reflections on his passage the Lutheran Scholar, Terence Fretheim, presents a nuanced understanding of this episode and suggests that what God is doing is testing whether Abraham will not kill Isaac?

Fretheim’s view is one that I have a lot of time for. Elsewhere in the first five books of the Bible known as the Pentateuch God’s command is to prohibit the sacrifice of children. This is found in Leviticus 20:18 and Deuteronomy 18:10. These decrees feel consistent with what we find in the Commandments that are handed down to Moses which include thou shalt not murder found in Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17.

Furthermore, the context of Isaac being the fulfilment of God's promise to Abraham to be the father of many nations also sits in stark contrast and contradiction to what God asked of Abraham in this story.

This seems consistent with Fretheim’s interpretation that what God is doing is testing whether Abraham will not kill Isaac.

Having said that and acknowledged the instruction that God gives elsewhere not to sacrifice children there is evidence within the Old Testament that at least three of the Israelite Kings practised child sacrifice. I am grateful to John Squires for his work on this passage. He notes that Molech, Ahaz and Mannesah all appear to have engaged with the of sacrificed children.

In Exodus 22 and Exodus 34 God demands animal sacrifices and the giving of the firstborn sons. It is unclear if this included sacrifices but as John J Collins says “God is the giver of life. One way of acknowledging this was to return the firstborn, and the first fruits, to God.”[1]

So, which is it? Are biblical values pointing at sacrificing children or not sacrificing them? Is God in favour or not? The Bible is not a simple consistent book that has a consistent story to tell us but raises for us difficult questions about the history of the people of God and their interpretation of what they believed God wanted them to do. 

To return to the conundrum of Abraham and his son Isaac one of the many troubling parts of this story is the blind faith with which Abraham acts. Abraham is understood to be the father of faith for the Jewish religion, the Christian religion and the Islamic religion. This story is upheld by all as a story of Abraham’s faithfulness, but I believe we should be questioning the blind faithfulness that is exhibited in this story.

Abraham appears to be willing to go through with God's command without question. And at least at two points in the narrative God appears to affirm Abraham’s willingness to do so. It could be argued that when Isaac asked the question “where is the lamb?” Abraham’s response that God will provide, alongside his indication to his servants that the two of them will return, do indicate that Abraham is trusting that God is going to allow this sacrifice to occur. Yet it appears that the faithfulness that is exhibited is precisely that Abaraham is prepared to go through with it.

Ultimately, the injunction that he is not to lay a hand on the boy, when the Angel speaks. However, the trauma inherent in this scene and this story do not sound like good news to me nor present a God who is easy to identify with and follow.

One of the things that Fretheim says about the story and the unquestioning obedience of Abraham is that it is inconsistent with Abraham’s previous willingness to question God. Just a few chapters earlier in the story God declares that he will destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham's response is to plead for these cities. In contrast to his innocent son. In the book of Ezekiel, we are taught that these cities were destroyed because “she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease but did not aid the poor and needy.” (Exodus 16:49) As an aside, even the notion that God has destroyed these cities can cause us to question whether God is a God of love.

The point is that Abraham questions God. Fretheim suggests that having already heard this story we as listeners should be willing to question what is happening in this story and question God's motives just as Abraham had done in the previous story. We should be asking the question can such a God be trusted?

As a follower of Jesus Christ, who is God's love Incarnate, this passage should draw us into critical reflection on our own blind faith and willingness to simply follow what we think might be God's command in the Bible. This is an uncomfortable teaching for many of us, but it is a Biblical teaching.

In digging into what lesson might come from this story, on the website my Jewish learning, James Goodman says, “I learned this story was God's way of proclaiming his opposition to human sacrifice”. This insight about the story is echoed by the ethicist and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. This learning is often presented as an alternative to the child sacrifice by many ancient cultures. It is a distinguishing feature of Judaism that they do not sacrifice children. However, even ironically, as already noted in other passages God does command the sacrifice of children.

The possible learnings that we might glean from this passage are accompanied by what many of us will find an even more uncomfortable lesson. Again, it is Terrence Fretheim who provides this insight. It is God who is learning something in this story. It is God who is placing Godself in a position of vulnerability. As Abraham continues to follow through on the potential horrific act God's response is to say, “now I know”.

These words suggest that prior to this point in the story God did not know what would occur that God did not understand how things would play out. This suggests that God is not omnipotent (all knowing) and that God is changeable but also more importantly that human beings have the freedom to act of their own accord. Abraham can make his own decisions, and the word of God can be resisted.

Further that in the context of this story once God has said something it doesn't mean it has become law for God and that can change God's mind. God commands a human sacrifice and then says do not do this. If God had known how things were going to work out in the way this story is told, then the story has no meaning apart from the psychological damage on Abraham and Isaac. But if God is the one putting the covenant at risk because God does not know what will occur then despite its atrocious plot the meaning of the story changes.

There is a mystery in this story that invites a questioning of what it means to listen to God, to question God, to trust God, and to expect that God may not know the outcome of all things.

We did not continue to read the interaction between Abraham and God after this section of the story. But in the following verses God says to Abraham “by your offspring shall all the nations gain blessing”. I think it is important to return to this message that pops up repeatedly through both the Old and the New Testament. God's desire is for the good for all peoples. This is continually evident. This may be the kernel of truth for us to grasp onto as we continue to grapple with this difficult story; the nations of the earth will gain God’s blessing.

Before I leave the story of Abraham and Isaac, I want to pay tribute to Elizabeth Raine who parallels this story with a story found in the book of Judges, chapter 11, verses 29-40. It is a story in which one of the Israelite commanders called Jephthah makes a rash promise to God. After being granted victory in battle he says on his return home whoever comes out of the doors of his home he will sacrifice.

On returning home Jephthah’s daughter walks out of the doors of the house joyously to greet her father's return and he is heartbroken for he is made this promise. On explaining what is going to occur and the promise he has made is Jephthah’s daughter encourages her father to continue with the sacrifice. There is no intervention by God, there is no ram in any bush, and after two months of preparing for the event, his daughter is put to death.

Raine questions whether this is because women were of less value than of a treasured son, like Isaac. As much as we should be horrified at the story of the binding of Isaac this other story and how it unfolds way and the religious violence that is condoned rather than condemned is difficult for us.

Collins in his book suggest that we must have criteria for the values that we draw from the scriptures. The values that we might have and the good that we might seek as Christians are shaped by the God that we encounter in Jesus Christ. If there is anything that I would draw from the story of Abraham and Isaac into Jesus story it is the capacity for human freedom.

I would argue that in Jesus the man from Nazareth there is the freedom of choice that a human can make to follow a particular pathway or not. If Jesus was not susceptible to saying no to what was occurring in and through him then what Jesus does is devalued and devoid of meaning. It becomes all a sham. But if Jesus has genuine freedom of choice, then God takes a real risk in becoming human.

As followers of Jesus, we should be attentive to how Jesus himself debates with the rabbis and the scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus critiques the words of the scriptures and the way they were being interpreted.

If we are being blind in our faithfulness as followers of Jesus then we're not probably following Jesus and his example. When we look at passages as difficult as the one that we have today then we should not simply be dismissing them but looking deeply into them and trying to make sense of how we might explain them.

It might seem strange to have chosen to preach this sermon as we prepare for our Community Open Day. But when people come face to face with a story like this there needs to be some explanation as to why it sits within the corpus of our scriptures. And each of us needs to be able to explain what the Bible means to us without unintentionally opening the door to all kinds of evil.

In my view, the key to unlocking any of the Biblical stories is to go back to Jesus’ command to love God and love one another and to listen for what is written in the book of 1 John “God is love and those who abide in love abide in God”.

If you are asked do you abide by Biblical Values the answer you might give could be “which ones?” And if you are asked your view of the Bible maybe acknowledge that it can be a difficult book, but you still seek to listen for its wisdom.

---

[1] Collins, John. What Are Biblical Values? (p. 45). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.

Called and Sent: Preparing for an Open Day

Romans 5:1-8, Matthew 9:35-10:8

Jesus said to his disciples,

“The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”

At harvest time in the ancient world, everyone got involved. Everyone mucked in. That image says something important about who we are as a congregation and how we share in the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ. This is something we do together! It is certainly not something that I can do alone!

Our congregation’s vision is Growing Lifelong Disciples of Christ. Let’s say those words together out loud: Growing Lifelong Disciples of Christ.

This is who we say that we are. But this vision raises some questions.

Why would anyone want to be a lifelong disciple of Christ?

Why do you follow Jesus?

What is the good news of Jesus Christ for you?

And why would anyone want to belong to the church?

These questions matter, because if we understand and can articulate our personal experience of the good news then we will have a reason why we might want to invite others to join us and for them grow lifelong as disciples of Christ.

Remember, though that one of the chief lessons from the last four weeks and The Stories that Shape Us was that each of us has a personal and unique experience of God’s love and faithfulness. Each of us will answer these questions differently. Our diverse experiences of God are a gift. We each carry our own story of God’s grace.

This morning, I want to pause and invite you to reflect on these questions. 

What is the good news of Jesus Christ for you?

What is so valuable about your experience of God that you keep coming, keep worshipping, and keep seeking to grow in faith as a disciple?

If we are Growing Lifelong Disciples of Christ, we should be able to explain to each other and those in the community why this is important for us. This is about learning to go out into the harvest and share the good news of the coming kingdom just as the disciples did: both in words and loving actions.

Let me model something of what I think. Personally, one of the things that I would point to when I share why I follow Christ and seek to continue to grow is found in the reading that we heard from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul says, “while we still were sinners Christ died for us”. And “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit”. Before we had done anything to earn it, God loved us. It is that love that renews us, draws into communion with God and each other, and sends us into the world to share that unconditional love with others. I find this message so compelling and hopeful for the world that I want to try to be part of it. What is it that you find compelling about your faith?

Thinking again, about Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus proclaims the good news of the kingdom. He cures every disease and sickness, and then he sends his disciples to heal, restore, and announce that the kingdom of heaven has come near. Following Jesus has always had practical, real-world implications. Yes, faith may give us hope in what comes after this life, but Jesus’ mission began by helping people in their earthly existence.

We should also remember that when Jesus sent the twelve, he sent ordinary people. Among their number were fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot, a carpenter, and others whose everyday lives were interrupted by his call. They were not perfect, polished, or powerful. They were people learning to trust Jesus, and through them God’s mission moved into the world.

William Loader in his commentary on Matthew reminds us that our context is different from Jesus’ context, but the mission remains: to proclaim hope, to share good news with the poor, and to help restore people to right relationship with God, with themselves, and with one another.  

The harvest is plentiful; the labourers are few. We are those labourers who share in the task of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom in this context. In The Gap and the surrounding suburbs in 2026.

Last week I announced that we are going to have a Congregation Community Open Day on Sunday July 19^th. The Strategic Plan of our congregation has many elements that can be drawn directly from this idea of the sending out of the disciples.

Our strategic plan names clearly that growing faith, growing worship, growing our congregation, and growing leadership are important. It also says that every member is encouraged to contribute to the life and growth of the church through serving and giving. This Community Open Day belongs to all of us.

This is not simply an event to organise. It is a small, practical step in the vision of our strategic plan to offer intentional invitations for people to begin or renew their faith journey, to discover worship, community, belonging, and service, and to see what God is doing among us and in their lives as well.

What can we do as the Community Open Day approaches? I want to suggest four simple actions: pray, reflect, invite, and serve.

First, pray. Pray for the Open Day, for our congregation, for the people who already gather here, and for those who may be looking for hope, community, or a place to belong. We know that loneliness and disconnection are big problems in our contemporary world. So, pray for the ones who the Bible story described as lost sheep. Pray with openness and be discerning las you listen for what might God be stirring in you.

Second, reflect. Think about how you would can speak about the good news of Jesus Christ in your own life. If someone asked why faith matters to you, what would you say? You do not need a perfect answer. You simply need an authentic one. Today I have asked you to reflect o this as part of the sermon so maybe this gives you an opportunity to practice with one another ways you can talk about your faith.

Third, invite. People are more likely to come when they receive a personal invitation from someone they know. This week, consider who you could invite. It might be just one person: a family member, a neighbour, a friend, or someone connected with one of our community groups. When you invite them you might say, “I’d love you to come with me. I’ll be there, and you can sit with me.”

Fourth, serve. Many groups and ministries are part of the life of this congregation, and the Open Day is a chance to help people see who we are and what we do. If you have an idea, an offer of help, or a way to make the day welcoming, please come forward. We cannot do everything, and this does not need to be bigger than Ben-Hur, but we can each take a small faithful step.

This week I suggest that you might think about doing two actions. First, we can all take the first simple step, which is to pray for the Community Open Day. And second, if you feel led to serve, contact me to join the group that is already involved. Next week, we will have invitations for you to be able to take and share with others.

I want us to pause in a reflective and prayerful moment and invite the Holy Spirit to implant a vision of how the day might look. Close your eyes. Imagine for a moment that every person here today brought just one other person, maybe a stranger, maybe a friend. Imagine double the number of people in the room. What would it look like? What would it sound like? What would it feel like? Capture this vision of the Holy Spirit and pray that God might be at work in what we are doing.

This idea of having a Community Open Day is something new. It involves taking a risk. Taking the risk of being involved may seem daunting but we should always remember that the church did not begin in strength, but in a locked room. A group of disciples who were afraid and uncertain because their teacher had been put to death. Yet, the risen Jesus came among them, God’s Spirit renewed them and God sent them into the world to proclaim the good news.

We are part of the heritage of a long, long story. You and I have received the good news passed down through 2000 years of history. For many of you this place here at The Gap has been your primary place of worship. So, we give thanks for the people who have worshipped, served, built, rebuilt, extended, taught, prayed, led, and loved in this place for generations. Their faithfulness and yours has brought us to this moment. For others of us our pilgrimage of faith may have included many places but wherever we have been God has been with us. In each of those place people of faith and helped us grow and formed us in our relationship with Jesus.

Pause and reflect about a person who has been an inspirational part of your faith story.

We have four more Sundays to be in this liminal space as we pray, reflect, invite, and serve this vision together in preparation for our first Open Day. Then we can celebrate what God has already done here: the people who have served before us, the gifts already among us, the life of this congregation, and those who may yet join us.

As a congregation we stand in a new season. We are seeking the renewal of life and faith that can come from God alone. The future may not look like the past, and that can be unsettling. The Basis of Union of the Uniting Church reminds us that we are a pilgrim people, always on the way towards God’s promised future. We are not asked to control that future. We are invited to wait on God, listen for the Spirit, and respond faithfully.

The harvest is plentiful. The labourers may feel few. But we are not alone. God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and Christ sends ordinary people like us to share that love in practical and hopeful ways. As we prepare for the Community Open Day, may we pray with faith, reflect honestly, invite bravely, serve generously, and celebrate joyfully. And may others discover among us a community where the kingdom of heaven has come near.

I invite you now to take a few moments in silence: to reflect on the good news of Jesus Christ in your own life, and to consider how God may be calling you to pray, invite, serve, or celebrate as part of our Open Day. After a few moments I will lead us in a prayer written by Jono Ingram and found in one of the new books for our library, Edge Walkers.

A Prayer for Walking the Edge (Edge Walkers)

Jono Ingram

 

God of the wild places,

of narrow paths, rocky ridges,

and deep forest valleys –

 

here I am

standing on top of a mountain looking out,

no longer in the centre fenced in by certainty,

but balanced on the edge,

where faith feels thin.

 

Standing on the margins of belief and belonging,

I discover that you are already here

not calling me back to safety,

but beckoning me forward,

an invitation to traverse with you further along the spur

 

teach me, O Creator, to listen

To the ground beneath my feet,

to the rhythm of breath and heartbeat,

to your quiet voice

that does not shout directions

but invites attention.

 

Shape me into one who trusts the edge itself

not because it is safe,

but because you meet me here.

In the name of Christ

Amen.

Disciples: Shaped by Jesus Story

Genesis 12:1-3, Matt 9:9-13, 18-26

Throughout our series, The Stories That Shape Us, we’ve reflected on my story, your story, and God’s story. Today listening to the stories of the Scriptures we continue to discern how those stories intersect with our stories.

The Gospel reading included the story of the calling of Matthew, a tax collector.
Tax collectors, like Matthew, would have been collecting taxes on behalf of the Roman Empire and so were not viewed in a positive light by the community around them.

So, we have this person who would have been possibly excluded, and kept on the margins of society, who is then invited into inner circle of Jesus’ followers. Matthew, a counter of money, who was possibly thought of as not being worthy of being counted himself, is now counted in. With all these things about counting, I was reminded a story about someone else who could count, and I’m going to read that story. It’s called Counting on Frank.

You might be wondering why I’ve read this story. How does Counting on Frank relate to Matthew, or to the Scriptures at all? As a congregation, we value discernment: prayerfully seeking God’s will and purpose in our lives. Part of that is learning to recognise God’s presence not only in Scripture, but also in the stories around us, even in a children’s story like Counting on Frank.

Here are a couple of things about this story that might be spiritual lessons for us. The first is fairly obvious: Frank has a particular ability to understand numbers in a way that most people don’t. This is a reminder that people have different capacities for different things. For Frank it’s maths, but it could be language, music, sport, cooking, or just about anything else. For some reason, these abilities become part of who we are, part of our human make-up.

As Christians, we often speak of those abilities as gifts. Frank’s gift happens to be with numbers, but the deeper lesson is that God gives each of us gifts of different kinds. They may come through the way our minds are formed, through the work of the Holy Spirit, or through the shaping influence of our environment. However they come to us, these skills and abilities can be received with gratitude and recognised as gifts from God.

Another lesson in Counting on Frank is how gifts are recognised and used. It’s not enough to say someone is gifted; we are also called to help those gifts flourish. As Frank’s father says, “If you’ve got a brain, then use it.” The lesson is twofold: to use the gifts we have been given, and to affirm and celebrate the gifts of others.

These lessons from Counting on Frank take us back to Matthew, who is counted in by Jesus’ choosing of him. Further, the idea of being chosen links to the Old Testament reading, where God promises Abram that he will become a great nation, that greatness was not for the sake of domination. Scripture goes on to say, “all families of the earth shall be blessed.” If Israel, or the Church, is to be great, then its greatness is measured by whether others are blessed through it. That remains a challenging idea in the news we see hear about out contemporary world.

The promise that all families of the earth shall be blessed is echoed by Jesus’ behaviour in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus sits with tax collectors and sinners. He includes those that others would exclude. He does not diminish or cast people aside; he welcomes those at the edge of community and restores them to belonging.

We also see Jesus’ concern for people’s healing and flourishing. In the stories of the bleeding woman and the little girl restored to life, Jesus shows that salvation is about the whole person. His concern is not only for what comes after this life, but also for healing and well-being here and now. That, too, shapes how we are called to live.

In the story of Jesus’ life there are those who are critical of Jesus’ ministry. They focus on the importance of ritual purity and of sacrifice. For Jesus though, the processes of the rituals of the synagogue and religion need to be understood in context. Jesus’ view is that compassion, mercy, healing, love, and inclusion are primary, not secondary to these rituals. Thus, the rituals should give rise to such values.

This morning, we’re going to participate in a ritual - sharing in communion. This ritual is meant to help us think about and live out our faith and our values, but it also does more than that.

In communion we begin with the story Jesus gave us at the Last Supper. As the liturgy unfolds, we remember God’s acts in history and join our voices with the worship of heaven.

We say these words from the book of Isaiah.

“Holy, holy, holy Lord,

God of power and might,

heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.”

We join words that are sung by the heavenly host before God’s throne in Isaiah’s vision and are drawn into sharing thin that worship. We also join with all other people who share in the Lord’s Supper.

Then we say this:

“Blessed is [he] or the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.”

These words from Psalm 118 were sung as the Ark of the Covenant was brought into the temple. They were shouted on Palm Sunday as Jesus entered Jerusalem, and for the Church they announce Christ’s presence coming among us in bread and wine.

We will pray for the Holy Spirit to come upon us and the bread and wine, trusting that God is present in the bread and wine. Our tradition often speaks of these elements as symbols, yet in communion they become, in a mysterious way, means by which Christ is truly present to us. At this table we open ourselves to the Spirit of God moving among us. We believe that communion transforms us because Christ meets us here.

At this table we are drawn more deeply into the story of Jesus—his life, death, resurrection, and ascension—and shaped to follow his way of love, mercy, and compassion. This bread and wine, sometimes called the medicine of immortality, strengthen us to love God and neighbour, including the outcast, the sinner, and those in need of healing and hope. As we live this way, the Church becomes a sign and foretaste of God’s coming kingdom, where all the families of the earth are blessed. Everyone counts.

This is the great story that we are part of and that we seek to live out as we continue Growing as Lifelong Disciples of Christ. Amen.

 

Isaiah and Isaiah: A Baptism Sermon

 Isaiah 6:1-8, Matthew 3:1-2, 12-17

It seemed appropriate tonight to choose the reading from the prophet Isaiah on the night in which we are baptising Isaiah. So why this reading, and what might it say to us about Isaiah’s baptism?

This reading from Isaiah plays an important part in the liturgical life of the church. The term liturgy is viewed a bit negatively by some Christians, but what it simply means is “the work of the people.” It is the thing that we do when we get together, regardless of whether we think about it in these terms or not. Here together we are doing the work of the people in response to God.

The work of the people—how we gather as community and worship God—has been shaped for centuries by this reading from Isaiah.

In this reading, we see a process unfold as the prophet Isaiah is gathered into the presence of God with the heavenly host, praising God.

Then, in God’s presence, Isaiah realises that he is not perfect. He confesses his unworthiness, and God shows mercy.

God speaks a word that invites Isaiah to be part of what God is about in the world. In response Isaiah says, “Here I am; send me.”

At the end of all that occurs—though we do not hear the whole story tonight—Isaiah is sent back into the world with a message to bear. This has been a basic form of how Christians have gathered and worshipped for centuries:

we gather in praise

we confess

we listen for God speaking we respond, and

we go out.

This is why the preaching happens before the baptism and communion, because baptism and communion are part of our response to God’s speaking to us through the Scriptures and the preaching.

Now, the reading helps explain what we are doing in worship, but it also helps us understand the importance of our worship—the work of the people—within the context of our daily lives.

The context of the reading is given as the year in which King Uzziah died.

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne.”

Why is this piece of information important?

What does it matter? What does it tell us?

It says to us that there were great and tumultuous events occurring in the world. There was a transition of a kingship. I am not going to go into the whole history of the end of Uzziah’s kingship but suffice it to say that it was an event of significance.

To get a contemporary sense, you could say, “In the year that Donald Trump became president,” or “the year COVID arrived”, or “the year Queen Elizabeth died,” or “the year JFK was assassinated,” or “the year Artemis 2 circled the moon.” Any of these events remind us of our earthly existence and of the historical moments that shape it.

As world events unfold, whether in the ancient world or the modern one, people’s lives are affected in all sorts of ways, from the great and powerful to the poor and lowly. And, as these tumultuous things occur in our earthly existence, the worship of God continues in the heavenly court, with seraphim and cherubim singing God’s praise.

Whatever our personal context or experience of life, wherever we are located in time and space, the praise of God goes on. Later in our communion liturgy, we will join the song of praise sung by the heavenly host:

Holy, holy, holy, Lord

God of power and might,

Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

When we say these words, we join the heavenly chorus. We humbly acknowledge that we too are coming into God’s presence with Isaiah.

And because these words are common to most communion liturgies, we join our voices with Christians through time and space. There is a kind of timelessness in this moment.

This brings me to the other reading set for this evening: the baptism of Jesus, found in Matthew’s Gospel. When we look at our baptism order of service—our baptism liturgy—we are saying that Isaiah will be baptised into the same baptism into which Jesus was baptised.

As the church has reflected on baptism, we have come to understand that baptism into Jesus’ life is baptism into his life, death, and resurrection. More than that, in Christ God was renewing the whole world, reconciling the whole world to himself. As it says in Colossians, “Christ is all, and Christ is in all”.

I read a helpful reflection during the week from Andrew Thayer. He says,

“Baptism does not manufacture God’s presence. It reveals the presence that was already there. It is the community standing before the world and saying: this person, too, bears the breath of God. This person, too, belongs within the circle of mutual care, forgiveness, and shared life.”

Baptism draws a person into the community of God’s family to participate in that shared communal life of witnessing to the love which God has for all people and for the whole creation. Baptism is a movement towards being united with God and in the community of God’s people. But as Thayer asserts:

“Baptism was never meant to function as a spiritual border checkpoint separating insiders from outsiders. It was the doorway of public commitment into a new way of life together — a community attempting, however imperfectly, to live as though every human being truly bears the image of God.”

I think this says something important about how we understand Isaiah’s baptism. God’s presence is already at work in Isaiah’s life before we come to the font tonight. Does something happen in baptism? Yes. In baptism, Isaiah is welcomed into the family of God and invited to share in the calling given to the prophet Isaiah, and indeed to all of us: to bear the image of God in our lives and to make God’s love and communion more deeply known in the world.

Prior to Isaiah’s baptism I had a conversation with the parents about when we baptise someone, and whether infant baptism is appropriate. We baptise infants because baptism is a sign of God’s grace and God’s love for all people. Baptism signifies that God is already at work in our lives. The words of the baptismal prayer from the French Reformed Church capture this wonderfully: “for you, little child, even though you do not know it.”

Remember what Paul wrote to the people in Rome: “Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.” Here is the message of the good news: grace comes before repentance. Mercy and forgiveness come before the prayer of confession.

Even though, in the vision of the prophet Isaiah, we see that process unfold in a different way, we also remember that God says in the Psalm, “I will remember your sins and iniquities no more.” Even in the Old Testament, God was saying to the people of God, “I do not hold your sins and iniquities against you. What I desire is that you come into communion and relationship with me.”

We have, then, an invitation and a challenge to live that gift of grace out as a community of faith. This is important for Isaiah’s sake and for all who are baptised. When we come to the baptism, a question is asked of the congregation.

I will say:

“Friends in Christ, will you promise to maintain a life of worship and teaching, witness and service, so that he [Isaiah] may grow to maturity in Christ?”

We have a vision of Isaiah growing as a lifelong disciple of Christ, which is the vision of this congregation. And this is what you will say:

“With God’s help, we will live out our baptism

as a loving community in Christ,

nurturing one another in faith,

upholding one another in prayer,

and encouraging one another in service until Christ comes.”

What defines us as the church community is our baptism. Our baptism draws us into a relationship with God and each other that transcend all other boundaries of relationship we might have.

First and foremost, our identity is as people who are baptised, people who have our lives hidden in Christ and Christ’s life in us. We are drawn into communion and community with God and with each other. Our baptism means our lives now transcend our biological boundaries.

Let me say that again: our lives now transcend our biological boundaries.

When we say yes to support Isaiah’s baptism, we make promises to one another and to all people: to learn each other’s names and value one another, to teach each other about Jesus, to walk together through joy and sorrow, to share meals, and to remain with one another long enough for our lives to become deeply intertwined, as they already are joined in Christ’s life.

We are called to be a sign of God’s love in the world. What is true of Isaiah is also true of every person: God’s presence is already at work before we ever come to the font.

So, we respond yes. The parents will make their promises, and we stand with them as a community of mutual care. We affirm that God’s love comes before our response. Grace is unconditional. Love is unconditional. God is present in all things.

Tonight we celebrate both sacraments: baptism and communion. We are also sustained at the table. As we eat the bread and drink the wine, we say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.” The one who comes is Jesus.

That Psalm, which we also hear on Palm Sunday, reminds us that Jesus comes to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. In bread and wine, and in Christ’s presence among us, we are sustained for the journey and called to show God’s love more deeply to one another.

It is a privilege to gather around this family tonight. We have remembered, since the time of the prophet Isaiah and long before, and we will remember in our own time and long after we are gone, that God loves us and desires us to come close.

So, as we hear the liturgies and make our response together, we remember this truth: we love because Christ first loved us. Tonight we celebrate that love at the font and at the table, with and for one another, and on Isaiah’s behalf. We come with joy and expectation. As the prophet said, so we too shall respond, “Here am I, send me.”

Trinity Sunday: Our Stories, God's Story

Matthew 28:16-20

When we began this series “The Stories that Shape Us” the puppets shared the story of the blind men and the elephant. This story is a helpful reminder that none of us has a full picture of who God is and what God is like. The story reminds us to be humble about what we believe about who God is and to be prepared to listen to the story of others and their experience of God, as we share our own experiences of God.

In the end we must admit for any of us our experience of God is not God but rather is our experience of God. Let me say that again, our experience of God is not God but rather is our experience of God. God cannot be domesticated to either your experience and understanding of God nor my experience and understanding of God. But sharing our personal stories and experiences of God with one another and the world around us is still important.

In the reading from the gospel of Matthew Jesus sent the disciples out with this message. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Here is the imperative that each one of us who has responded in faith to God’s love is to “go”. We are to “go” into the world and share the good news of Jesus in what say and do, and in so doing share our experience of God and Jesus with others who may not have yet understood their encounters with God.

As a congregation we are committed to “Growing lifelong disciples of Christ”. You may have heard me say before that there are two parts of this vision for us to grapple with. The first is to ask ourselves, “What am I doing to grow as a disciple of Christ?” Recalling the story of Peter the Fisherman we also hear the invitation to “follow me”. This means bending our hearts and minds to being discerning as prayerfully we listen for and seek to follow Jesus as seek to understand God’s presence and calling in our own lives. This involves being open to new learnings about Jesus, the scriptures, and the world that we live in, as seek to follow and serve Christ.

The second aspect of “Growing lifelong disciples of Christ” is about helping other people grow as disciples as well. This includes people who have not yet heard the story of Jesus or have become estranged in their relationships with God. As people who have already discovered our belonging to Christ and in the community of the coming kingdom of God it is our task to share this good news and invite us to share in the good news of their belonging in Christ. In a rapidly changing world this involves us being innovative and creative as we “go” and share our faith with others.

To be able to do this effectively means yes that we come here on a Sunday, but also, that we seek God in prayer throughout the week, that we read and reflect on the scriptures, that we listen for the traditions and teachings of the church, and that we engage with reasoned and rationale thought.

Just this week I have been reading a book by the theologian Kathryn Tanner called Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology. Sounds exciting doesn’t it. The word theology simply comes from the words theos which means God and logos which means words. So, theology is words about God. And theology is something we all do when we try to organise our thoughts about our experiences of God and our story of who God has been for us. Tanner puts it this way saying, “In order to witness to and be a disciple of Jesus, every Christian has to figure out for him or herself what Christianity is all about, what Christianity stands for in the world.” (p.1)

As a congregation we are all called to share in this task. Remember Jesus word to the disciples “go”. When I was called to be your minister I was called to share in the mission and ministry that you as a congregation were already doing and are continuing to do. All of us share in this task of trying to articulate the good news of Jesus to others in our daily lives.

But here are some aspects of being Christian that take us from simple places of understanding into complex mysteries. Remember what Paul wrote to the people in Corinth about the difference between being fed milk and meat. There are times that we too need to move to deeper reflections on the mystery of God’s life.

Last week in the sermon we shared some entry level conversations of faith with one another as part of remembering the conversations that people shared on the day of Pentecost. These were “milk” level conversations. Today we will wade into some deeper waters of understanding, so in Pauls’ language some meat.

The title of Kathryn Tanner’s book had within it the word Trinity. Today is Trinity Sunday. In the Gospel readings Jesus said to go out baptise people “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

Part of the story of the Christian faith is a complex understanding of God who is three in one and one in three. We use the words Trinity or Triune to describe God’s existence in this way. Now it is important to understand that whilst the Bible does not use the words Trinity or Triune, or a variation of this phrase there are moments like we heard today that group the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together.

In the first few centuries of the church as the canon of scripture was being drawn together people of faith tried to understand what God has been doing in and through Jesus. The acceptance of Jesus as divine was debated and the place of the Holy Spirit was unclear for many.

These issues came to a head after the Roman Emperor Constantine became a Christian and issued the Edict of Milan in 313 which gave freedom to Christians to worship God. In the years following this, leaders of the Church, the bishops, met at the Council of Nicaea and debated the nature of Jesus existence as the Son of God. It is from this Council in the year 325 C.E. that we get the first version of the Nicene Creed which was later adjusted in 381 C.E. at the Council of Constantinople into the wording which we still use today.

The story of the Nicene Creed is the story of people who were asking themselves who has God been for us in Jesus and through then Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed and the Apostle’s Creed, which was affirmed at the Council of Chalcedon in the year 451 C.E., are commonly accepted by most Christian churches as telling the story of who God has been for us in Christ and through the Holy Spirit.

When recited each section begins with the words either “I believe” or “We believe”. I want to focus on the second articulation “We believe”.  There are two observations that I would make here. First, the “we” is meant to be all Christians who are baptised into the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Second, the word “belief” means precisely that we believe it – it is something that we accept to be true, or is in our opinion true, or that we have confidence in. When we “believe” something we may not have absolute, physical proof rather we put our trust in it.

Over my years of ministry, I have noted that many people struggle with the language of the Creed and some of its assertions. Nevertheless, whilst you may struggle to believe every aspect of what the Creed contains the Creed invites each one of us to continue to grapple with what “I believe” as we try to make sense of the good news of Jesus Christ and our own experience of God.

This morning I am going to engage us with the beliefs expressed in the Nicene Creed by stepping through each section and making a few simple observations about God. In doing so I invite you to think about what you might be able to include in your story of who God is.

So here is the first bit:

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all things seen and unseen.

Three things to remember here. There is only one God. This God is powerful. And this God is the author of all things – the creator.

The second bit comes in two parts. This part A.

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made;

of one Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

This section was at the core of the debates at the Council of Nicaea. Who is Jesus? Relying on John Chapter 1 which describes Jesus as the eternal Word of God, alongside Jesus’ claim in John 17 that he and the Father are one, this section makes the claim that Jesus shares fully in God’s existence and has done so eternally. Jesus is divine, which leads to part B. of section 2.

For us and for our salvation

he came down from heaven;

by the Holy Spirit he became incarnate

from the virgin Mary,

and was made man.

For our sake

he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered and was buried.

On the third day he rose again,

in accordance with the Scriptures.

He ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory

to judge the living and the dead.

And his kingdom will have no end.

The key element of this section is that in Jesus God shares in created existence, he became incarnate. The reference to Pontius Pilate locates the era of history in which Jesus lived, died and rose again, then ascended into heaven. What appears most important in this section to me is that the claim that the eternal Word become human person. This is a completely radical idea and one that Christians continue to discuss. This leads to section 3.

We believe in the Holy Spirit,

the Lord, the giver of life.

Who proceeds from the Father [and the Son],

With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

Section 3 was added at the Council of Constantinople and asserted that the Holy Spirit was just as much God as the Son. The Creed concludes with a short section about the church.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.

We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look forward to the resurrection of the dead,

and to life in the world to come. Amen. 

The church exists as the unity of the baptised believers who are followers of Christ who look for the coming and life of the world to come.

Over the centuries people have reflected and debated on what the story of faith is and what the good news is. I suspect that there are not two people in this room who would stell the same story about who they think Jesus is and how they would explain the good news of God’s love.

Still, if we were to bring together all our different images and understandings of God, we might create a rich, kaleidoscopic picture of who God is. Even then, we would know that we do not yet see the whole picture. There is something exciting in that mystery, though it can also feel confronting or daunting. Yet Jesus’ call to Peter to “follow me” and fish for people, together with his command after the resurrection to “go into all the world,” does not depend on us having a perfect or complete understanding. Rather, we are called to share our own story of who God is, trusting that the Holy Spirit may use our witness to invite others into the same journey of faith.