All the world's a stage

Job 1:1; 2:1-10, Mark 10:2-16

The Kingdom of heaven is like a young child who has a big box of dress up outfits. Who comes out each day dressed as a different character to play its part in the day based on how it's feeling or what the child thinks the household might need.

As I contemplated the difficult readings set down for this Sunday, both in Job and in Mark, the phrase which stood out to me, as possibly the easiest to preach on, was this one: “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”  There is an innocence that is being suggested in the faith of a child, an innocence that we are all encouraged to learn from.

Yet Jesus is speaking to adults and as I thought about young children the image of a child playing dress-ups day by day stood out.  We start our acting career early, but the reality is that as we go through life our acting career continues. 

     We play the part of a school student in a uniform. 

    We play the part of an athlete as we participate in sport. 

    We play the part of a dutiful son or daughter to our parents, or maybe the rebellious one!

    We play the part of an employee sometimes dressed in a uniform for the job that we work. 

    We play the part of being a faithful husband or wife or a loyal friend. 

    We play the part of being a parent and then possibly even grandparent or great grandparent.

    And dare I say, we play the part of being a Christian.

It is as Shakespeare observed in his play “As you like it:

     “All the world’s a stage,

    And all the men and women merely players;

    They have their exits and their entrances;

    And one man in his time plays many parts.”

 Each person plays many parts through their life as they navigate life's complexities and seek to live a “good” life.  So, the innocence of the child, playing dress-ups and becoming different characters, helps form us for our daily existence.  And our childlike play prepares us for the kinds of complexities that we have struck in today's readings.

Today's sermon then is a preparation for you to go from this place to play-act your part and enter the world that is a stage.  There are three phases in this preparation.  The first phase is to understand the theatre of our existence and the stage on which we will tread the boards. The second phase is to consider the prompts and the cues that we will receive from side stage as we enter each act.  In the third phase, I will consider our freedom to improvise as we respond to those prompts. And finally, with these three phases of formation and preparation completed we will prepare ourselves to go from here as God's people into the world.

The first phase of our preparation and our formation is to consider the theatre of our existence.  To do this I take us back to the book of Job and the central character. He was a man from the land of Uz.  It has long fascinated me that Job is from this faraway land called Uz. In reading various commentaries about where this land of Uz actually is, there appears to be some agreement that wherever it is, it is not Israel.  Now there is a possibility that Job was a Jewish man living in the diaspora, but scholars seem to agree that by locating Job in this fictitious and faraway land the author was expanding our understanding of Job’s story as transcending the history of the Israelites.  The theatre of our existence is the cosmos created by God. The cosmos which unfolds in the stories of Genesis which transcends the limitations of our ethnicity, our politics, our religion, our race, and our gender.  It is a place in which we encounter blessings and a place in which we encounter suffering.

Thus, Job’s Story has implications for all people and for all time. This is the world in which we as characters will tread the boards. The stage itself has been set.  Below us, supporting us, is the story of Jesus Christ.  The very first words of Mark's gospel are this, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God.” The story of Jesus Christ is the story of God's grace and God's love en-fleshed and living among us.  The book of John begins with these words “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”   Paul in his letter to the Colossians wrote this, “For in him [that is to say Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”  Again, Paul writing to the Romans said this, “but God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” This is the stage on which we walk in the theatre of our existence - God's unconditional grace and love in and through Jesus.

This is vital for us to understand because the reality is that we all make mistakes as we walk on this stage. Not one of us lives a perfect life. In fact, far from it.  Kathryn Schulz Says this of human beings:

     A whole lot of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the time, about         basically everything: about our political and intellectual convictions, our religious and moral beliefs,     our assessment of other people, our memories, our grasp of facts. As absurd as it sounds, when we         stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously assuming that we are very         close to omniscient. (Schulz Wrongology)

I have much empathy for what Schulz is saying here. It is difficult for us to really know whether or not many of our decisions are right or wrong. So, what most of us assume is that we're right, most, if not all time. When we gather for worship, in the presence of God, prompted by the Holy Spiri,t we reflect on this reality when we say a prayer of confession. This prayer helps keep us humble and listening for the prompts from side stage as we act out our lives.

The prompts from side stage may come to us as the inspiration of the Holy Spirit or through the influence of the Scriptures.  When we gather for worship, we listen to words read from the Bible as prompts for us.  As I said at the beginning today's readings contain complex and difficult messages.  This means that the prompts we receive may not always be as clear cut and helpful for us as we might hope.  In the book of Job, we encounter a discussion around the origin of suffering and notions of determinism.  Job infers that what happens to us in life all comes from God, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”  In his commentary, David Hester says of Job, “The book of Job is God's word in its most enigmatic form, carried in an ancient tale and poetic dialogue, that raises questions yet shelters answers.”  Thus, the prompts we receive cause us to pause and consider how we are viewing our lives, God, and the world around us.  But the answers are not necessarily in plain sight.

The same is true of the reading in Mark.  Many Christians these days interpret Jesus’ words about marriage to support the concept of the 1950s idea of the nuclear family.  To view what Jesus was saying, when the Pharisees were testing him about divorce, is take the conversation out of its context and impose our modern concepts of marriage on them.  In Jesus’ time women were viewed as the property of men. Without a family structure to support her a woman may have been isolated or even ostracized.  Primarily Jesus seems to be trying to protect women against being hung out to dry by men.  The difficulty in listening to the ancient prompts is often that we bring our own layers of expectation to them without considering their context.  Even people in Jesus’ time struggled with his words.  In Mark 4, Jesus says to his disciples:

To you has been given the secret of the Kingdom of God,

but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that

they may indeed look, but not perceive

and may indeed listen, but not understand:

so that they may not turn and again be forgiven.”

We, as Jesus disciples, may also feel that we have been given the secret of the kingdom of heaven.  However, when we consider this, we should remember the context of the conversation Jesus was having.  It was precisely because the disciples as “insiders” did not understand Jesus’ parables that he said this.  In fact, throughout Mark’s gospels the disciples constantly get it wrong whilst outsiders recognise Jesus’ identity.  Ultimately, it is left to a Roman centurion at the end of Mark’s gospel to echo the words from Mark 1:1 when he declares as Jesus dies “Truly this Man was the Son of God.”

 

There is a reminder here to remain humble in our acting out of our part and listening to the prompts that we receive.  Pride and hubris can blind us to the mystery of faith, the boards beneath our feet that support us is Christ’s unconditional love, not the self-righteousness of how we interpret our part or interpret the complex prompts we are given.  This should also mean that we take a step back before we judge anyone else and their interpretation of life.

This brings us to the third phase of the refection our adaptation to the theatre, stage and prompts.  Shannon Craigo-Snell suggests that as actors playing our part as Christians the Scriptures acts like a script.  She says, “Scripture, like script, is both complete and incomplete.”  In other words, it still requires our interpretation.  She is asking, how should we live treading the boards of God’s grace as we interpret the script?  But what if there is actually no script!

In his book on Christian Ethics Samuel Wells pushes beyond Craigo-Snell suggesting that as actors it is more like the craft of improvisation.  We listen humbly to the prompts from the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit, and we walk onto the stage of Christ’s grace, in the theatre of our existence, in a cosmos and creation which is full of both joy and suffering.  You could say we are set free to live an improvised life with Christ.  We are set free from the mistakes we will inevitably make, our missteps and misinterpretations, and we are set free to celebrate the good, to seek out signs of God’s peace breaking into the world, to speak out for justice, and to advocate for those who are oppressed.

This brings me back full circle to the children playing dress up day by day.  There is an innocence of children at play, experimenting with life and how to live it.  There are costumes and props to choose from and ideas that they copy from other people to help them interpret their playfulness.  Sometimes they make mistakes, sometimes it gets silly, sometimes its serious or sad or celebratory.  There are usually boundaries to their playfulness, to keep them safe, and then there are boundaries which they create for themselves, limits beyond which even they are not prepared to go.  How similar is our daily life as Christians to this?

The stage of grace on which we walk with humility gives us freedom to be the best versions of who we can be.  As inspired by the prompts of scriptures, of the Holy Spirit, of each other we improvise our being Christians against the backdrop of a constantly changing and complex context.  The safety net of God’s grace is below us and the love of Spirit prompts us to live in freedom, free from our constant mistakes, and free to live gratefully towards the God who gave us our part for if all the world is a stage, then the theatre is and can only be, God’s.

Amen

Schulz, Kathryn. Being wrong: Adventures in the margin of error. Granta Books, 2011.

Wells, Samuel. Improvisation: The drama of Christian ethics. Baker Academic, 2018.

Love one another

It seems simple enough, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, abide in my love... love one another as I have loved you.”   


Seems simple enough to love one another, but what do we think love is.  When I shared about singing a new song one of the things that can become evident very quickly is how we have different tastes and preferences in our music choices.  Churches have split apart on what kind of music they should play.


Just as there is a great diversity of ideas on music so too when it comes to loving one another we have different ideas on what it means to love each other and how we define love seems to change through time.


So to love one another appears simple enough but love is complex in its simplicity.


If you will indulge me I would like to share a short video entitled “What is love?” from one of my favourite websites Soulpancake.

 

So what does love mean to you.  What does it mean for us to love one another?


Right at the beginning of the video a young boy says that “Love is a complicated thing” and I would agree with that.  And maybe you picked up on some of its complexity in listening to all the different answers.


So when it comes to Jesus commandment to love one another as I have loved you we already have our own ideas and biases about what love is.  I want to pick up on what one of the women in the video said in her answer.


“It is something you do on a day to day basis. Love is active.”


Now many of you would have heard that the word we translate into love from Greek has 4 different forms.  The ancient Greek language had 4 different ways of categorising love.


The word being used in this passage is the word agape.  This is generally understood to mean unconditional love – love that does not expect anything in return.  But I want us to push a little deeper into that idea.


How does God love us?  By sending Jesus into the world.  By Jesus proclaiming the good news of God’s love to us.  By Jesus dying for us.  By Jesus rising for us. By Jesus ascending for us to pray for us forever.  God loves us by doing something.


Love is not a feeling or an emotion love is what God does.  Or as John put in his letter “God is love.”  Love is what God does – so if we are to love one another it cannot stop at an emotion, an interior feeling or thought that I keep to myself.  No, love involves us acting, doing something.


Now in loving like God loves us we cannot make the same sacrifice that Jesus makes on the cross for us – that was a once and for all moment.  But we can act in love towards one another as a sign of this love.


Quite a few years ago a friend recommended a book to me that some of you may have also read.  It was written by a guy called Gary Chapman and was called The Five Languages of Love.  Have any of you read this book?


In the book Chapman outlines these 5 ways we express our love in action and as we think about loving one another in all its simple complexity these 5 ideas can be helpful.  Words of affirmation. Gifts. Physical touch.  Quality time. Acts of service.  I want to go through each of these and give some examples, or maybe more accurately some homework to you because as you listen to them I want you to be thinking about how you might express love to someone this week.


Words of Affirmation

• Write a letter or card to someone to express your thanks or congratulations.
• Ring an old friend and reminisce together
• Be grateful to someone who serves you in a shop 

Gifts

• Take your gift of flowers from the church today to someone special
• Give an extra gift of money to a charity
• Make a gift or card for a member of your family

 Physical touch

• Remember to hug a member of your family every day!
• Embrace a friend when you meet them this week
• Hold the hand of someone you love more often

 Quality time

• Put a person you love in your diary this week, listen to them and enjoy their company
• Take some extra time with God: express gratitude and pray for others
• Have a technology ‘fast’ and spend more face to face time with friends

 Acts of service

• Take on an extra chore around the house
• Commit yourself to do something for the church or a charity
• Ask a family member, friend or even a stranger what you can do to help them out

Now what is very interesting is that what Chapman emphasises is that each one of respond more strongly to a different expression of the giving and receiving of love.  A good example of this is that for some people a hug is important and for us well it is more like an invasion of their personal space.  We are all unique in what our preferred expression of love is and how we interpret loving actions towards us.  This is why I think we miss the mark so often in trying to love one another – because we are complex and unique individuals.

To jump back then into the passage and think about how Jesus loves his disciples.  His actions towards them which include his choice to call them friends, his choice to teacher them, his choice to entrust them to bear fruit on his behalf is all done in the context of knowing that these men are far from perfect people.  Jesus actions of love towards his disciples is not reliant on them getting everything right or understanding it but on the choice Jesus makes to go on loving them.

For me this is the hardest aspect of love.  To love another person whom we may find difficult to get along with.  To love another person who is not loving us back or not acknowledging our acts of love towards them.  To love others when are not feeling loved ourselves.

 

For me this is where God steps into the gap between our call to love one another and our ability to love another.  There are days I do not feel loved and also days I do not feel very loving – more often than not these days coincide!

It is in these moments that God’s ultimate action of love in Jesus’ death and resurrection transcends who we are not able to be for ourselves and joins us through God’s grace to Jesus’ very life through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Today we will celebrate that in remembering the great act of God’ love as we take bread and wine and receive again through word and action the presence of God into our life.  We share in communion in the faith and hope that as we act so to God will act within us.

So, we return to where we began: It seems simple enough, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you, abide in my love... love one another as I have loved you.” 

Today, we will share in that love of God in bread and wine.  God’s grace.  The fruit that we are given to share from our encounter God this day is to go from this table to act as loving people: through Words of affirmation. Gifts. Physical touch.  Quality time. Or, acts of service. 

Take a few moments of silence.  Consider what is God saying to you this day?  Who are you being called to love and what will you do about it?

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.”

Abundant Life!

John 10:1-10

What does it mean to have abundant life? 

What does it mean to have fullness in life? 

What does it mean to live?

These are fundamental questions that confront every one of us. 

What does it mean to have a full life?  What is that we should be pursuing?  What should we seek after?

These are the kinds of questions raised for us from today’s gospel reading.

When Jesus declares that he came that we might have abundant or full lives what does he mean?

In 1776, at the time of the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson wrote these famous words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

These words have shaped liberal democracy in the Western World and have played more than a small part in the rise of individualism.  For better or for worse, we now live in a society where each individual assumes that they have the right to pursue whatever makes them happy.

Ironically it would appear that this concept of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” is not playing out as well as we may have thought.  In our Australian culture depression and anxiety is rife and our disconnection from one another as we seek our individual rights and freedoms seems to leave us feeling isolated and lonely in an overpopulated, overly-connected world. 

As Clive Hamilton points out in his book Affluenza the abundance of our possessions and ease of our lifestyles has not necessarily made us happier.  Or to echo John Carroll’s words in Humanism the Wreck of Western Culture, “We are destitute in our plenty”.

What does mean to live an abundant life?  It would seem to me that neither the abundance of possessions nor individual independence from others would reflect what fullness of life is.  What is life’s purpose?

This search for life’s meaning and living truly and deeply was captured for me in my late teens when I discovered this quote from Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

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… 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.

These words were written 2 generations after the Declaration of Independence.  For me they reflect a search for meaning in life which moves beyond the material and into the spiritual and intellectual.  At the same time, even though Thoreau often welcomed guests and visitors to his cabin in the woods, they now reflect an individualism and even isolation from others that could be seen as a little self-indulgent.

To return to our passage from John Jesus describes himself as both the Shepherd and the Gate of the sheep, of the flock.  A short lesson in first century agricultural practices is helpful at this point.  Often a shepherd would find a natural enclosure or make an enclosure for his sheep with a gap on one side.  A natural ravine maybe.  The shepherd would then literally become the gate as he sat or slept in the gap.  He physically became the gate to protect the whole flock.

As the shepherd and the gate Jesus guides and leads and provides and protects the flock and each sheep within it.  It is the flock of the lost sheep, we are all the one who has gone astray, but we have all been found and drawn back together.

When Jesus speaks of abundant life it is not life your or my life alone but the life of the whole flock.  I think that what Thoreau was searching for in seeking to live and to put to rout that which was not life missed the depth of this vital aspect – we are part of the flock.

I have come to see that the search for fullness in life is not a solitary one but is a gift that we receive in community in being placed back into the flock.  Abundance in life is not abundance in life for me alone but for us together.  As Jesus prays later in John 17 for his disciples that they may be one as we are one.  Fullness in life is life together with God and each other.

This understanding of life is reflected in the confronting words of the Acts passage which describes the commitment to a common life and purpose within the first Christian communities.

They had all things in common, they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. They spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

These are challenging words and the kind of discipline and self-sacrifice described here seem almost unreal to us in our culture. They would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

Just as Thoreau went to the woods to live deliberately we discover in the first centuries of the church men and women of faith went to the desert to live. Often they began their spiritual journeys as hermits like Thoreau but they were led also into ascetic monastic communities together – to live closer to God and one another.

In the Life of Pachomius we read a description of the monastic life:

“According to what we have learned from those who went before us… We always spend half the night and often from evening to morning, in vigils and recitation of the words of God, also doing manual work with thread, hairs, and palm-fibres, lest we be overcome by sleep.  We do this work for our bodily subsistence also; and whatever is above and beyond our needs we give to the poor, following the words of the Apostle, only let us remember the poor.  Eating oil, drinking wine, eating cooked meats are something unknown among us.  We always fast until the evening”… and so it goes on.

Is this what Jesus intended? Is this life in its fullness? A life of simplicity; self-denial; asceticism? 

I have seen some contemporary attempts at living in community and living with simplicity and there is much for us to learn here in such devotion and dedication in faith.  Yet I feel that such extreme asceticism was not Jesus intent either.  What the actions of men like Thoreau and monks like Pachomiuos should challenge us with is the notion that this search for fullness in life, to discover that divine gift already promised in Christ, takes energy and commitment us we uncover God’s gracious gift of life already within us and within our community.

Maybe Jesus words of John 13 gives us a helpful glimpse of the notion of fullness in life - “Just as I have loved you so love one another”.  Life lived intentionally seeking God and seeking to love others is the fullness in life, the abundant life we are meant to encounter as we hear our shepherd’s voice.

What does it mean to have abundant life? 

What does it mean to have fullness in life? 

What does it mean to really live?

These are fundamental questions that confront every one of us. 

Jesus says that he came that we might have abundant life, to have full lives.  To live encountering the coming kingdom now in and through our loving relationships with God and with each other who are lost sheep who have been carried home by the Shepherd.  Let us celebrate in the presence of the one who leads us, who provides and protects, and who sleeps as our gate.

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.

Jesus Baptism, A Voice from the Heavens, & Silence

“Suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said.”

And a voice from heaven said?  I wonder if like me you have longed for, deeply desired, or craved for God to be saying something to you not simply through the scriptures or through another person, but God’s very voice.  The words of Matthew’s gospel are tantalising, they taunt us in the silence of our own lives.  A voice from heaven: what would it mean to hear a voice from heaven in your own life.  An audible word from God to you, not just a sense that God

As if to further tempt and tantalise us the two readings from the Old Testament tell of God’s speaking. It is in the reading from Isaiah who conveys what the voice of the Lord had told him.  And, it is in the Psalm, no less than seven times, “The voice of the Lord…” is over the waters, is powerful, is full of majesty, breaks the cedars, flashes forth, causes oaks to whirl and strips forests bare.  The voice of the Lord, a voice from heaven.  God’s powerful imposing voice is set before us, yet for many of us, I suspect most of us, the reality is that our experience of God is not the resounding voice but silence.

I am left wondering am I deaf?  Why cannot I hear this powerful and resounding voice?

In the last week a re-read Shusaku Endo’s brilliant novel “Silence”.  Written in 1966 Endo’s novel explores the silence of God in the face of the immeasurable suffering and persecution of Japanese Christians in the 17^th Century.  The key character, a Spanish Jesuit priest, cannot fathom God’s silence as he constantly prayers in the face of the brutal persecution and coercion by the Warlord to get him to denounce Christ.

What do we do we God’s silence?

Today I deliberately gathered in our church in the round surrounded by the prayers written on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that we have attached to the walls.  Expressions of our hope and faith in the face of problems that may, for many of us, seem insurmountable.  Will God be silent?  What answers will come?  Will God speak to us and answer these our prayers?

No doubt each of you has experienced God’s apparent silence in your life.  No doubt you to have felt the heart breaking reality of moments of feeling Godforsaken.  Where is the voice we long for? 

Returning to the scriptures and understanding why they were written can help us with this conundrum.  As always, I would note that when we pull a snippet of scripture from the Bible we don’t get a sense of the ebb and flow of the story that the author of a particular book is building.

Matthew opens his gospel by recounting the genealogy of Jesus back through David all the way to Abraham.  This is one of the reasons Matthew is the first of the gospels, despite not being written first.  Through his genealogy Matthew creates the bridge between the Old Testament and Jesus identity.  This was very important for Matthew’s first audience who were predominantly Jewish.  Jesus’ life is traced back through the Davidic line.

Following on from the genealogy Matthew tells us of the appearance of an angel to Joseph. The quotation of the words of the prophet and the birth of Jesus provide a further affirmation of Jesus importance.  There is the genetic connection and there is the prophetic connection.

The next story Matthew tells is somewhat unusual.  It is the story of the wise men from the East and Herod appears to give an importance to Jesus’ identity that breaks the barriers of the Israelite nation and implies Jesus’ coming is relevant to the whole world.

And, then, we come to the baptism of Jesus by John.  This is introduced with an explanation of John’s importance as the forerunner of Jesus and prophecies about their relationship.

Then in the baptism Matthew’s words witness to something that was beyond the common experience.  “And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’” In traditional jargon we might call this a theophany – an appearance of God – and this theophany sits alongside a series of assertions concerning Jesus identity.

So why does Matthew need to build this story about Jesus identity?  What does he retell the story in the way he does? Why does he write it down? What was he hoping to achieve?

I think Matthew is building this argument for his audience about Jesus’ identity because they too have neither seen nor heard Jesus or God’s voice.  Not everyone gets to hear God’s voice.  You and I do not necessarily hear that audible voice of God in our lifetime.  Though we might desire it, seek it, and crave it.  Though we might discipline ourselves to reading the scripture and being in worship and prayer and contemplation.  So often what we experience is silence.

It is helpful to be reminded that the scriptures only ever report a very small number of people that hear God’s voice or as having a theophany.  The people of Matthew’s community, so long ago, were relying on his witness to them in the absence of their own opportunity to hear God’s voice.

The same is true for us we rely on the witness of others to sustain us in our faith.

Of course, part of our Christian understanding is that God is present with us and that in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, as well as the out pouring of the Holy Spirit, the opportunity for relationship with God is opened out in a new way.  This may be true but it does not necessarily equate to everybody being doled out a special spiritual experience all of their own. 

Matthew knew this and was encouraging people and nurturing people to hold on to their faith that Jesus was indeed who Matthew claimed he was: “the Messiah, the son of David, the Son of Abraham”, “God is with us” “the Nazorean”, “the Beloved, Son of God”. 

In his witness to Jesus’ identity Matthew is nurturing and encouraging people of faith to follow the teachings and way of Jesus, even if they do not experience or encounter a direct divine revelation all of their own.

This is important for us to reflect deeply on in 2017.  To believe in Jesus. To believe in God.  What a strange and difficult thing to do this is becoming!  The silence of God is palpable and people are responding and turning away from faith.  This week I read statistics that indicate in Australia over the last 20 years belief in God has dropped by just over 20%, down to 55%.  Only 1 in 2 people you meet on the street believe that there is a God.  And among younger people the results show around a third believe in God.

There are significant questions raised for me as we reflect on the readings that speak so strongly about God’s voice when we struggle to hear it for ourselves. What will help us hold on?

In a culture filled with the noise of so many voices: the advertisers enticing us to buy and consume; politicians encouraging us to vote; sceptics challenging our belief; scientists warning us of disasters.  Can we hear God’s voice above this clamour?

It makes me think of Elijah on the mountain top waiting for God to pass as he sat in the cave.  Was God in the fire, or wind, or thunder no God was in the sheer silence!

I think we need to be honest in our faith about the challenge of the silence and how we rely on the witness of others but also to remember that silence may not mean absence, indeed it does not!   Our faith is built on the witness of others.  On the witness of Matthew:

And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus is worth listening to, he is worth following, he is God’s beloved. 

We may find that we do not have the miraculous encounters.  We might find that much of our faith is built on what others have taught us.  The silence of God or the lack of a miracle in my own life does not mean that God is any less real or any less present.  Living the faith involves patience and commitment and perseverance.  We wait in the cave alongside Elijah anticipating that God will pass.  And yes, we may be blessed enough to have a transformative encounter with God, but if we are not we can stay the course and hold our faith as we trust the message that has been handed down to us.

This kind of perseverance and patience is increasingly difficult in a world where everything is instantaneous.  We can have what we want tithe the click of a few buttons.  To be people of faith involves learning to be patient and to live differently in the world.

What do we do as we stand at the beginning of this New Year?  How do we be a community of faith? What is God asking of this little congregation?

At the beginning of the service I suggested that today we reflect on our own baptism and in the baptism service the congregation is invited to say these words:

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.

Essentially for instructions to help us follow Jesus in our lives and live out our own baptism.

Live as a loving community in Christ – that means caring for each other, and the community we are part of.

Nurture one another in faith – that means being prepared to talk openly about our faith and to commit ourselves to learn more.

Upholding one another in prayer is self-explanatory.

Encourage one another in service means to become each other’s supporters.

As I was preparing for today I read an ancient writing of the church.  Written by Gregory of Nyssa’s around 1600 years ago his “Life of Moses” begins with a description of himself as being like a supporter at a chariot race he calls out in encouragement.

I know some of us here struggle to engage deeply in the mission and ministry of the church.  We are tired, some of us are unwell, and some of us are aging.  But we can support one another and we can sheer on and encourage those who do the work.

In doing these simple things we sustain one another in the silence and presence of God and it would be my prayer that we can learn again to share our faith with people who have fallen away from believing in God at all.

“Suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said.”

A voice from heaven.  Do we hear it?  Does it matter?  We have heard the witness and we have believed and we are blessed.

It makes me think of Thomas’ encounter with the risen Christ when Jesus says to him, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  “Blessed are those who have not heard the voice of God and yet have come to believe.”

“Blessed are you who have not heard the voice of God and yet have come to believe.”