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?

Pentecost, Babel & Baptism

In his book “What is thePoint of Being a Christian?” Timothy Radcliffe critiques the notion that baptism brings us into being a part of God’s family in any sort of exclusive way.  He suggests that “In baptism we die to all that divides us from other human beings; we are pointed beyond the small confines of any lesser identity.  Our parents, perhaps unknowingly, having received us as a gift from God, give us away.”

It is true to say that there is a sense in which we are brought by baptism into the Church but being a part of the Church is fundamentally about being truly human.  In this way baptism does not enclose in an exclusive group it opens us to reality of our identity as human beings.  This was told to us today in the readings as we heard the stories from Babel to Pentecost.  These stories are two sides of one coin: they are the story of God’s faithfulness to an unfaithful people.  I want to pick up on the connecting thread that runs through the two stories concerning the transition in the relationship between God and humanity.

To begin with the story of the tower of Babel we are taken back to a time not too distant from the great flood of Noah described in chapters 6-9 of Genesis.  Noah’s sons and their descendants peopled the earth and in Genesis 11 we are given an insight into their growing pride.  What is notable about these people is that there is only one people and one language in all of humanity and as God indicates in their unity human beings are capable of great things. 

So, prior to the tower of Babel there is only one people that inhabit the earth and these are all God’s people.  In a manner, which has clear echoes of the story of Adam and Eve, these people begin to believe the notion that they can control their relationship with God, that they have a right to build a tower up to heaven.  This idea denies God’s presence and care for them as God’s people and could even be seen as them challenging God.

The story carries with it a mix of sin and grace.  The people act in a manner that can only be considered unfaithful to the truth of their relationship with God but God in his grace does not choose the way of destruction again, that is to say another flood, but offers a new way forward.  God confuses the language of the people and in so doing turns one people into many nations. 

In this way the many different languages and dialects of the world created by God at this point serve as a metaphor to remind humanity of its fallibility and our place in relationship with God.  So the story of the Tower of Babel is a transition from one people to many nations.  However, this does not mean that God abandons humanity because from these many nations arise the one people of God called Israel.  Following the story in Genesis 11 the Scriptures lead us to Abram and his calling and the promise of God to him concerning Israel.

Now, as an aside, whilst God chooses Israel to be his people, Israel is chosen to be a priestly people and a light among the nations.  In other words Israel’s relationship with God as God’s people still serve as a representative group for all humanity.

The important thing to remember here is that prior to Babel one people, God’s people, true humanity, is a common people on all the earth.  The evolution of different languages at Babel is given as a corrective by God for human pride.

This brings us forward to the day of Pentecost.  Pentecost occurs 50 days after Passover and was a Jewish festival but this event among the believers in Jerusalem redefines its significance for the church.

The believers had gathered together and the Spirit came upon them.  The gift of the Spirit on that day had many signs: rushing wind, tongues of fire, and the speaking in tongues.  Each has its own allusions to Old Testament scriptures, but picking up the thread of language from the Tower of Babel what we hear about is most significant.  People spoke in their own language, people from the divided nations, but others were able to understand despite the fact they did not know the other languages. 

This is not so much a gift of tongues as a gift of hearing.  Douglas Adams in his novel The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy captures the idea of this gift in the strange animal called the “Babel Fish”.  In the story the Babel fish is a small fish inserted in the ear of a person that enables them to understand every other language.  (It is now also an online translation site) The Holy Spirit comes into the gathering of believers and does just this – enables them to hear in their own language.

What happens is a reversal of what had occurred at the tower of Babel.  Human beings separated by language were drawn back together in their ability to understand one another.  A significant aspect of this reversal though is that God did not heal everyone so that they all spoke the same language but rather were given a gift of understanding one another which did not diminish the cultural differences established by language.

Taken to its logical end the two stories of the Tower of Babel and the Day of Pentecost combine to speak to us of the truth of our being human is about the unity of all humanity.  The Church as the first fruits of the new creation is called to live as people of that unity now.  This means understanding exactly what Timothy Radcliffe expressed that baptism does not isolate us in some select group but incorporates us into what it real means to exist as a human being.

This has important implications for all who are baptised.  Yes baptism makes us part of the church, God’s family, but understood through the lens of a reversal of the Tower of Babel being a part of the church is meant to break down barriers not create some sort of exclusive community. 

Being baptised establishes a person in their relationship with God as well as all other human beings.  Baptism brings us into a restored and reconciled humanity in which people of different languages are made to understand one another and live as one once again.  This is the scandal of the Christian faith.

This means that the expression used by Radcliffe, that in allowing a child to be baptised parents in a sense give the gift that God has given them away, rings true.  Baptism takes us beyond our biological ties of family, beyond our cultural and linguistic ties and into something deeper and greater: a truly shared and common humanity.  In the Uniting church we recognised just such a truth in a response to a baptism when a congregation promises the following:

            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.

On an internal level this is a commitment to care for and nurture all in our midst as brothers and sisters in Christ.  This has very practical implications in the way that we support parents and children, of whatever age, come to know of God’s love.  We all have responsibility for one another.

Yet on an external level this is also a commitment to live openly witnessing to the world around us that God has reconciled us with one another and all things.  The Church is not to exist as some sort of religious ghetto constrained by an exclusive language or piety and culture that shuts others out.  No we are to live as people reconciled with one another for the sake of the world.  The people who were enabled to hear and understand the good news were not simply the Christians gathered on that day but the observers as well.

Of course this does not mean that all will hear and respond and understand – in fact sometimes it means quite the opposite.  People will ridicule and question us – have they been drinking?  Are they filled with new wine?  Proclaiming the gospel is not guaranteed with a positive response but our call to live as the one people of God, which is the new humanity, is at the heart of our faith.

The witness of the scriptures is clear that it is only through Christ and in the Spirit that this new humanity is formed put the promise is that it has been formed and we who are the Church are called to respond in a way which gives honour to God’s faithfulness and our new existence as God’s people.  

Do not let you hearts be troubled

John 14:1-14

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

Choose Life

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

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

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

ised Land and gives his final instructions.

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

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

Choosing life then and now could sound very different.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We are called to choose life 

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

Moses words still ring true:

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

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

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.”

Paul's first words to Rome

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is why Paul then goes on to say:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tending Sycamore Trees

Where are the Sycamore trees?  Where are the opportunities for people to climb up and see Jesus?  Where in the world do you go to see Jesus now?  Will you see Jesus driving passed this church?  Will you see Jesus if you come into this church?  Will you see Jesus in the people that are here?

Maybe, but a church doesn’t seem like a Sycamore tree on the side of a road.  A Church doesn’t seem like the starting point for getting to know Jesus like Zacchaeus did.

Where are the Sycamore trees?  Where do people go to climb up and see Jesus?  Are there Sycamore trees in St Lucia?  Is there somewhere to climb up a tree at UQ? At Cromwell? At Kings? At Grace? At Raymont?  Is there a Sycamore tree in the shopping centre?  Or in AVEO?  Over the road at the school?  Or at Briki?  Where can a person climb up to see Jesus?  Where will a person climb up to see Jesus? 

God stirred in the heart of a short, less than popular, tax collector, to climb a tree so that he could see Jesus.  In the gospel of John Jesus says to his followers, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me.”  God is already at work in Zacchaeus.  God is drawing him in even though he does not yet understand it.

I think that it is highly doubtful that Zacchaeus really understood what was so special about Jesus.  We have no idea where he had heard the rumours.  All we know was that he did not want to miss out.  He wanted to see Jesus.  It is my thought that the stirrings in Zacchaeus’ heart are the stirrings of a man who is searching for meaning and purpose.  They are the stirrings of a man who has a sense there is more to life than he is experiencing and seeing.  I seriously don’t think that when he grabs hold of the branch of the Sycamore tree that he really knew what he would find.  But he knew he had to grab a hold of that branch and start his climb.  He was exploring.

All around us I believe God is stirring in people’s hearts.  I believe God is causing people to ruminate, to think, to contemplate, to cogitate, to ponder the meaning of life and to search for answers.  Like Zacchaeus I suspect that many people who have these questions within them do not even know what they are looking for, maybe they haven’t even worked out where a Sycamore tree is so that they can climb up to get a better view.  But God is stirring within them and they are searching.  Where are the Sycamore trees for them to climb?  Can we help them find the tree?  Can we give them a hand to reach the lower branches?

Zacchaeus experience, the experience of this short, less than popular, tax collector is where he is because the crowd won’t let him in.  It is because the crowd is ignoring him.  They are too busy trying to make themselves closer to Jesus and turning their backs on Zacchaeus.  Are we also blind to the people in whom God is stirring?  Are we so focussed on Jesus ourselves and our place nearby the roadway that we have turned our backs to their questions and searching?  Can we not see them and give them space or at least help them into the tree?

In defiance of his rejection and his lot in life Zacchaeus grasps those branches, he uses hands more suited to bookwork to clamber and climb up until he can see over the heads of the crowd.  He really does not want to miss out. He wants to see Jesus.

And here is the amazing thing.  Here is the astounding thing.  Here is the astonishing thing. 

Zacchaeus climbed the tree to see Jesus, but it is Jesus who sees Zacchaeus and calls his name. It is Jesus who sees Zacchaeus and calls his name. Jesus sees Zacchaeus and calls his name.

Here is grace.  Here is love.  Here is mercy.  Jesus sees and names the short, less than popular, tax collector Zacchaeus – this rich man, this despised man, this fringe dweller.

Jesus sees him and names.  More than anything this is what all of us want in life to know that we are not alone, that we, that you and I, are seen and that we are known, that we are not anonymous, but that we have a name.

In Luke’s gospel this is such a powerful story.  A balance to the story of the rich man and Lazarus that I preached on a couple of weeks ago.  In that story it was the rich man who remained anonymous but now Zacchaeus is named, no longer is the rich man left anonymous.  This story is a counterpoint to the encounter that Jesus has with the rich young ruler whom Jesus tells to sell all he has and give it to the poor.  Zacchaeus is the camel going through the needles eye, because as Jesus declared, “With God, all things are possible.” 

“With God, all things are possible.” And in Zacchaeus the possibility becomes reality not because of Zacchaeus response, not because Zacchaeus climbed the tree, but because God stirred in his heart and because Jesus saw him and named him.  Here is grace. Here is love.  Here is mercy.  God at work.

I have often heard the response of Zacchaeus emphasised in sermons.  The encounter with Jesus has changed him and his response has direct consequences for the choices he makes in life.  There are financial consequences in his decision to respond to his encounter with Jesus. 

We only get a glimpse here of Zacchaeus response and I have seen it questioned whether he actually follows through, or is he just boasting about what he will do.  Either way there can be no doubt that in Jesus interaction with Zacchaeus there is new hope for relationships to begin to unfold in his life and the lives of those with whom he shared community.  Responding to an encounter with Jesu changes us.

For me there is a reversal in this story of the way we often approach the notion of sharing our faith.  It would seem that in helping people to climb the Sycamore trees to see Jesus our prayer is that reverse is happening that Jesus will see and name them just as you and I believe we are seen and are known by name.

Which brings me back to the question “Where are the Sycamore trees?” Where do people go to climb up and see Jesus?  And what is our role in all of this.

Today we will commission Hayley to the work of Chaplaincy and to the work of Pastoral Assistant in the congregation. As I contemplated the work that she is involved with at Cromwell I had a strong sense that she will be tending the Sycamore trees.  She will be helping people to climb up with their questions about life and its meaning and growing up and purpose.  All the questions of hope and of failure and of passion and of anticipation and of dread that young adults feel.  And maybe occasionally Jesus will be looking from within Hayley and through Hayley see and name people in their questions and so affirm that they are loved by God and that they too can have hope.

But more than that I have a sense that her work is our work wherever we go day by day and if we are too tired and too busy to be doing the labour of tending the Sycamore trees that we might rest in God’s love and pray for the work she does and that others do to help people explore their questions of meaning that have been stirred up in them by God.

Where are the Sycamore trees? Where do people go to climb up and see Jesus? Do they even know that that’s who or what they are trying to see?  I wonder what it would mean to understand ourselves to be people who tend the Sycamore trees.  Who nurture the possibilities of people climbing into the branches?  Of even helping them up so that they might be seen by Jesus.  That they might be named by Jesus.  And having encountered the grace, love and mercy of God be transformed by that encounter just as you and I are continually transformed by that relationship.