Seeking a Better Country

by Rev Peter Lockhart 

A sermon on Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Chapter 11 of the letter to the Hebrews begins with that well known definition of ‘faith’.

“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” 

This definition of faith is a definition that reminds that having faith does not mean that we have arrived but I think unfortunately, especially in Churches like ours in the West, we have fallen into the trap of thinking exactly just that.

Our lives are very comfortable, we have great freedom in our culture, we can come to this property that we own and sit in our regular pews week by week to worship God.  All of these things point to the idea that we have settled down, we have made our home.  And to be frank the sentimentalism and over attachment that we have to our properties and bank balances is a sign of exactly this problem.

But when the author of the letter invites the Hebrews to reflect on Abraham he reminds them that these early proponents of faith “confessed they were strangers and foreigners on the earth” who were “seeking a homeland” and desired “a better country”.  These people were on a journey and so are we are.  As faith takes hold of us we are not being encouraged to settle down but to join the pilgrimage!

The question is then ‘what does it mean to be on this pilgrimage of faith?’  I want to address three aspects of this question for us to consider as a congregation that arise from the readings this morning.  The first is to do with the timing of our arrival.  The second and third are to do with what we are to be doing on the way.

In the readings that we heard from Luke’s gospel this morning spoke to us about our destination which is less about our destination and more about God’s will.  Jesus reminded his listeners that ‘the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.’ 

Our destination as Christians is not so much a place that we reach but the timing of the fulfilment of God’s coming kingdom and we won’t know when that is going to occur. 

It’s like we are a bunch of kids whose parents have gone out.  Left with the responsibility of looking after the house while mum and dad are out we have choices to make.

Will we order pizzas and get a video; will we break into the drinks cupboard and invite some friends around for a party; will we do the chores we were asked to do?  What are we going to get up to and what will happen when we hear the crunch of our parent’s tyres in the driveway?

Jesus’ challenge is there for people to contemplate because he is inviting people to be prepared for his return.  We don’t know when we will arrive at our destination so the imperative is to live as people who do what we were asked to do while we wait for Jesus return, for our waiting is an active waiting not a passive thing.

The brings me to speak about the second point I wanted to raise from the readings and it has to do with the church in the Western world in general and so specifically our congregation as well. 

Between the Psalm and Isaiah there was some tension about the life and worship practices of the Israelites.  In the Psalm God declares “Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you,” but then in Isaiah the Lord declares “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?... I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams… I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats… bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination.”

There is no doubt that we are called as God’s people to gather and offer worship to God, to offer our sacrifice of praise.  So why does God mount this tirade against the cultic practices of the Israelites.  The answer is that despite the worship practices there seems to be a disconnection between the worship and the daily life of the people.

Now I would point out that Christian worship is distinct in a number of ways to the worship that we find in the Old Testament.  Primarily in as much as we are now participants in God’s coming kingdom achieved in Jesus Christ. Despite this it is no less important that there is a connection between what we express in our gathered worship and our lived faith journey day by day.

So how the connection is going?  A few years ago I was at a breakfast with Tim Costello and Steve Chalke an English Baptist Pastor.  One of the things that Chalke said has stuck with me.

He told the gathered group that around 60 to 70 years ago in England the Church was very much the centre of the community.  The Church ran hospitals and schools and orphanages and helped the poor and basically provided much of the social infrastructure of the society.  Things changed though and the government started to develop welfare systems and provide the social infrastructure that had once been provided by the Church.  The consequence of which was that this task of the church in the community became either regulated or lost completely. Many Christians became detached from their sense of service.

The end result in Chalke’s opinion has been that Church people have become a bit like shut-ins who get together and sing songs that are largely irrelevant to most of the culture around them (modern ones or ancient ones!) and argue among themselves about things that no one else cares about.  Why? Because, he says, they have become bored.  Now whilst I think Chalke is probably overly harsh I believe he does have a bit of a point. 

When we lose the other out workings of our faith and disconnect the relationship with God that we celebrate on Sunday with our day to day life and the problems of the world we are missing the point.  What Chalke describes is not simply the problem that as congregations we have settled down but that in settling down we have ceased being interested in going out.

As congregations like ours struggle harder and harder to transform our worshipping life and make it more relevant, it has to be said that unless this is accompanied by a closer engagement with the world around us then I suspect we won’t get very far at all.  When we think about following Jesus and being the church and serving I believe we are called to think of our Christian service as far broader than greeting at the door or doing the readings or even leading a prayer.  Our pilgrimage of faith is a day by day thing and we are called to live our faith in every setting we find ourselves.

This brings me to make a third point about how we are to live on this pilgrimage of faith.  I want to raise for us a couple of issues here.

Firstly to say that at the beginning of Isaiah we hear that Isaiah saw the vision in the days of the kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah.  Isaiah then speaks the word of the Lord to the rulers.  In other words religion and politics do mix.

Going back to the reading from Hebrews if we are seeking a better country or if we are seeking to bring signs of the coming kingdom into reality in the world this means engaging seriously with the social and political issues.  This is particularly pertinent as e weigh up how to vote.  Whilst different church groups and individuals may have different agendas in their engagement with politicians the idea that our faith is lived politically is an important one.

Now as we are aware we are approaching a federal election and I am aware that many of you have particular political allegiances.  I do not believe it is the place of the church to support a particular party, despite some comments to the contrary, I do not believe that the Uniting Church has a particular political allegiance.  What we are called to do though is to weigh up what we are being told by any party with the good news of our faith.  This means remembering that our first allegiance as Christians is to Jesus Christ not the political party to which we may belong.  More than that as we listen for the prophets in our midst we should listen for what they might be saying to those in power.  Just as Isaiah spoke to the kings long ago so too there are people who bring the Christian message in confronting ways before our political leaders.

The second issue I want to raise here is that our pilgrimage of faith calls us to do what the Lord challenges the people with in Isaiah.  In the prophecy God is less concerned about sacrifices and more concerned that the people “learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow.”  These groupings come up often in the scripture and they represent to us all those in society who are disadvantaged and ostracised.  This is where the rubber hits the road – being the people of God means helping these people and this as Jesus points out is a personal thing.  Jesus said to his audience “See your possessions and give alms.”  The call to serve those who have less than us is a gospel imperative and just as much an expression of our faith as coming to worship on a Sunday.

As a congregation we do this in small ways and I am aware that many of you as individuals also engage in issues of social justice and serving others.  The question remains before us constantly as to how we might continually connect in relevant and real ways with the community around us and the world at large in our faith journey.

Ultimately we cannot see the fullness of God’s kingdom yet, we hope for something that is yet to come, this is what drives and inspires us.  As you consider God’s goodness in giving you a foretaste and share in the coming kingdom I want to invite you to think about your own faith and our faith as a congregation.  Are you feeling that you have arrived?  Have you settled in and become too comfortable in this building and in your favourite pew?  How is God calling us to be his people here and now and how will respond?

I think that there are exciting signs of God’s faithfulness in our midst and that rather than slowing down we are being challenged and called to do more. 

In the silence I want to invite you to listen for Gods challenging Word to you on this day.

Expanding the horizons of community.

“My sheep hear my voice

I know them and they follow me”

It could be easy to read these words of Jesus to the Jews in the Portico of Solomon in the Temple and read into them exclusion and separation. It would be easy to read these words with a sense of smug self-satisfaction that we have heard the Shepherds voice. It would be easy to read these words as a justification for treating others poorly. It would be easy to read these words as an affirmation of our goodness and to think of others as bad.

Yet as tempting as such readings might be I do not believe they would be either faithful to the context in which Jesus spoke the words or helpful to our own.

Jesus’ life is about breaking down barriers and expanding the parameters of the unity that he shares with the Father and, might I say, the Holy Spirit to include others.

To help gain an understanding I want to reflect on a glimpse from three Biblical texts we have heard this morning. First, the context of the question that the Jews ask, “Are you the Messiah?” Second is to consider the claim of Jesus to be the Good Shepherd and the connection that this has to the 23rd Psalm. And thirdly, to examine the trajectory that Jesus is heading towards revealed in the words of vision found in the book of Revelation.

So to the first issue! When the Jews come asking Jesus “are you the Messiah?” we should understand this is as much a political question as it is a spiritual one. The Jewish people were under foreign rule; their King Herod was merely a puppet of the Imperial might of the Roman Empire.

The prophecies surrounding the coming of the Messiah and certainly the expectations that sat alongside these prophecies were tied to the overthrow of foreign rule and re-establishment of the independence of Israel as a Kingdom.

The questioners may have seen Jesus miracles; they might have been challenged by his teaching; but, to actually throw themselves into a relationship of conflict with the might of Rome, that was a completely different matter. Was Jesus the Messiah? Would he restore Israel? Was God’s grace and faithfulness to the covenant about to be manifest in their time?

The Jewish people had a pretty clear idea that they were God’s chosen ones and this was expressed in the holiness codes and exclusion of various outcastes and gentiles from the community. It was all about insiders and outsiders.

The beginning of John’s gospel tells us that Jesus came to what his own and his own people did not accept him. This is being played in this interaction – the drawing of lines: ‘who is in?’ ‘who is out?’ For the Jews this was about ethnic identity which was tied to their religious conviction but Jesus challenges this suggesting it is not so much about identity or holiness but relationship: the ones who respond to his voice. The boundary between insiders and outsiders was being challenged.

Jesus’ claim at this point to be the Good Shepherd would have sounded blasphemous to those gathered. He was claiming to be God and he was claiming the role of the Shepherd found in Psalm 23. Jesus was not simply the Messiah, God’s chosen one he was far more than that.

David sang, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’, and now Jesus asserts he is that Shepherd. The Psalm was most likely written when David was at low ebb; it was a source of comfort in a time of distress. In the midst of persecution and challenges God accompanies people even setting them safely at meals where their perceived enemies sit.

In answer to the question that the Jews had asked, Jesus was expanding the horizon of his own identity for them. Jesus was not simply the Messiah, Jesus was the Good Shepherd. He was the Lord. He had authority and responsibilities further than they could perceive which lay even beyond the limits of life and death.

The expansion of the horizons for the Jews culminates in Jesus somewhat outlandish claim “I and the Father are one”.

This unity between Father and Son is further elucidated through John’s gospel but startlingly the relationship and unity that Jesus shares with God is to be opened out. There are ever expanding boundaries to the unity promised by Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus prayer of John 17 prays that the disciples share, not only a similar bond of unity with one another, but are drawn into the very relationship of Father and Son.

The vision of unity is also extended in other ways to those who sit outside the exclusiveness of the Jewish insiders. Jesus extends words of grace to those who have been ostracised and to those who are not even Jewish. His claim that all people would be drawn into his death, when the some Greeks came seeking him, must have been bamboozling for the crowds.

Just as Jesus was expanding who he was for the Jews who came seeking a political leader so too he was expanding the vision of who could be drawn into the unity of the Father and of the Son.

Rather than establish any sense of exclusivity Jesus is driving home new possibilities of who might be accepted when he makes the claim, “My sheep hear my voice!” The distinction is no longer tied to religious or ethnic affiliation.

The expanded possibilities are realised in the words of the prophecy in the book of Revelation:

“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

Gathered in the final visions of glory at the end of the New Testament the possibility and hope of salvation is for people from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. God’s grace and God’s love is forever expanding; it is ever incorporating others into the bond of Father and of Son and of Spirit.

It is my sense that when the Jews asked the question they wanted to limit God’s grace, to restore their nation, to reassert the exclusivity of who they were as God’s people: to be top of the heap.

Whilst Jesus words may sound exclusive when read in the context of John’s gospel they are a challenge to

such exclusivity and remind us that the relationship of Jesus with others was about new possibilities and new hope for all peoples.

I believe this is a vital message for us to hear in a world in which we already find ourselves divided on so many levels: political, racial, economic, spiritual and social. And in a world which continually encourages us to build select communities.

We are fed hate and hurt as reflected in the violence of the past week – in Boston, in Afghanistan, In Iraq and in every corner of the world where barriers were erected about people excluded: in refugee camps and detention centres; in prisons; in broken relationships; in racial and ethnic and religious tension.

Jesus response challenges our human tendency toward exclusion and opens out the life of God, dwelling always as community, and invites us in. This is the good news not just for a select few but for all peoples and the whole creation as God’s love and life expands to encompass all.

Who really counts?

A sermon on Luke 2:1-7 (Prepared for 96.5 Family FM)
By Peter Lockhart

In my experience one of the things that seems to be common amongst the people I meet is that they want their lives to mean something, to have a purpose. More than that many want to be remembered, they want to carve their niche on this world. People want to know that their life matters that it counts for something.

It’s interesting this idea that we want to make our lives count especially given that earlier this year we had a census in Australia in which we were all counted. For me this census was made far more impersonal than previous ones and made me think I counted even less because like many things these days I did it online.

I wonder how you felt being counted by the Australian government, did it make you feel like your life really mattered any more or less. Did you feel like your life counted for something?

Realistically the bureaucrats and powers that be of our day really can’t make our lives count anymore simply by counting us and nor could they in times past.

The opening words of the second chapter of Luke’s gospel tell us that a seemingly insignificant couple from Nazareth were about to be swept up in the bureaucracy of their age.

“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.”

The registration spoken of in this passage was of course a census, a census being conducted by the ruling power of Rome under its first Emperor, Augustus.

Now mentioning Emperor Augustus may not mean much to us but to Luke’s community this would have been really big. Luke wrote his gospel just over 30 years after Jesus’ death, which means it would have been nearly 50 years since Augustus’ death.

During his life Emperor Augustus had been understood to be the son of a god, in as much as his adopted father Julius Caesar was hailed as a god after his death. Whilst after his own death Emperor Augustus was also declared to be divine by the Roman Senate.

So, it was this god-like figure of Emperor Augustus who called the census. In doing so he had set Joseph and Mary travelling the road to Bethlehem and to a not insignificant event: the birth of their first son.

Now as I was thinking about Mary and Joseph and the census the question kept coming back to me, “what really makes a person count?” Mary and Joseph had gone off to be counted by the Romans. In terms of their lives did it make them count anymore as people to be counted by the Romans?

If their experience of a census was anything like ours simply an inconvenience then I would expect the answer would have been no. The contrast between the story of this seemingly insignificant couple and the story of the Roman Empire under possibly its most significant Emperor Augustus is immense. But what is interesting is that it is the story of Mary and Joseph that really should cause us to pause to consider what it is that makes a person count.

Does being counted by a government, Roman or Australian, really make you count any more in the big scheme of things? The answer is obviously no but as I suggested at the beginning we all like to be ‘counted’.

We would rather be counted in than counted out. But what does this mean? And how do we work out who is counted in and who is counted out? We all have our ways of thinking about this that we apply all the time. We count some people in and we count some people out. Every time we do this we draw a line around the community we are part of and in doing so try to make sure that we are counted in. In building our human communities we usually build them by excluding others as much as by including others.

But if we go back to Mary and Joseph and the story of the birth of Jesus the whole Christmas story revolves around not that the Romans, under Augustus reign, counted Mary and Joseph but that in God’s eyes Mary and Joseph, and might I say all people of all times and place, count because God loves us.

We know we count precisely because Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the reign of Emperor Augustus. Why? Because Jesus not Augustus is God among us and the historical backdrop that the Bible gives to us helps us to know and understand that Jesus was a real person at a real time in history.

The story of Jesus birth let all humanity and the whole creation into the good news that we count so much to God that Jesus, who is God’s Son, comes to be one of us so that we might have peace with God and live our lives knowing that we count.

In this one small child God shows to us that we all count.
In this one small child God counts us in rather than counts us out.
In this one small child a new future for all of us, and the whole creation, is born.

This is what really counts at Christmas time, remembering that no matter whom we are, regardless of whether the bureaucrats have counted us, regardless of what others might say, regardless even of whether we’ve been naughty or nice; God wants to count us in. God wants to include you and me in a life that matters and Jesus presence in the world points to a hope that we can all share in – we do count, we do matter to God, the one who made us.

This has implications for how we live: living with the knowledge that not only does my life count but so does everybody else’ life. This leads us to include others rather than exclude them, knowing despite any differences or faults or foibles we might with each other have we all matter to God.

I must admit that I find it somewhat ironic that our Christmas celebrations are filled with counting things other than this good news of how much we count to God.

For example, if you were to reflect on the past week I wonder how much counting you have done:

Counting the days left until Christmas;
Counting the hours in a day;
Counting the dollars in your wallet or purse;
Or more likely counting the dollars on the rising credit card bill;
Counting the Christmas cards that you have received;
And, counting people in as you send them a card in return or maybe counting people out because they did not send you a card this year.

And the counting won’t stop:

Counting the number of presents that you receive;
Counting the number of prawns or serves of turkey that you have eaten;
Counting how many drinks you have had;
Counting the calories that you have consumed;

And, so the counting goes on.

But this morning, in this moment, gathered together as we are, listening again to the story of Jesus’ birth we remember that what really counts at Christmas time is that this story of Jesus’ birth lets us know how much we count to God – that in this one small child Mary, Joseph, and all of us – and maybe even Augustus and Quirnius - count far more than any of us can fully comprehend.

The God who can count the very hairs on our heads took the time to visit with us on earth, to live among us and share in our life. And more than that by sharing in our life and our death as human beings Jesus carries us through from death into new life where we can know and celebrate forever just how much we really count to God.

So as we hear that good news again this Christmas let us celebrate that you and I really matter, that we count to God because once long ago for a woman named Mary:

the time came for her to deliver her child.
And she gave birth to her firstborn son
and wrapped him in bands of cloth,
and laid him in a manger,
because there was no place for them in the inn.

Ascension Day: The importance of names

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Modern Heroes of Faith: Dedication

Rev Peter Lockhart

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

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

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

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

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

For me she remains an inspiration for dedication and love.

Living Faithfully: Collaborative Consumption?!

Peter Lockhart

“We believe we will look back and see this epoch as a time when we took a leap and re-created a sustainable system built to serve basic human needs... a revolution, so to speak, when society, faced with grave challenges, started to make seismic shift from an unfettered zeal for individual getting and spending toward a rediscovery of collective good.” (p. 224-225 Botsman & Rogers What’s mine is yOURS: The rise of collaborative consumption 2010)

So ends Botsman & Roger's book about the rise of collaborative consumption. The book explore emerging new ways of exchanging and sharing goods and lives. Ways which raise questions about our current preoccupation with personal ownership.

On one level some of the stuff which they explore reminded me of meeting people who still lived in communes near Nimbin when I was growing up at Kyogle, people who had caught a Utopian dream for alternative living in the 1960s. The book also had echoes of some of the emerging church models.

What challenged me most in reading the book was the irony that many who have sought to live differently have done so departing from a culture in which Christian ideals were supposed to be dominant. A culture in which personal achievement and individual success appears to have come to outweight the so called common good.

However, reading the New Testament one gets a sense that the early Christian communities were places people sought to live sharing their lives and goods in a more intimate and intentional way. The question then is how did we lose sight of this aspect of faithful living in response to the good news. Whilst the vision shared in the book is not Christian I believe there are some thoughts about who we are and what our priorities may be that may need revisiting as we consider how to live as Christians.

Acts: All things in common

by Peter Lockhart

Late last year playing golf one of my playing partners discovered that I was minister and proceeded to criticise the church in general until finally declaring something along the lines, “All Christians are communists”.

My response was to suggest that in reality the Bible paints a far more radical vision of life.

Consider for a moment Luke’s words to Theophilus in the book of Acts:

“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

I have always read these words as some of the most profoundly confronting in the New Testament. I once received a letter from a friend who had become a missionary in India who wrote to me something similar, obviously alluding to Jesus words in Matthew chapter 6, he said “sell everything you have, come and join me, and build up treasures for yourself in heaven.”

Such visions of the Christian life are positively Franciscan in orientation and certainly far beyond any concepts of socialism or communism as I understand them. The idea of “sharing all things in common” is about a new way of living and being human community which is far more confronting than communism.

However, when Luke writes these words to Theophilus it may be that what Luke is doing is idealising the situation of the early Christian community as a new beginning for humanity.

Luke would have come across a similar idea of people sharing all things in common in the Greco-Roman philosophical world. For example, in Plato’s Critias, Plato ‘pictures the early days of Athens as a time when “none of its members possessed any private property, but they regarded all they had as the common property of all.” Whilst in the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses the description of the Golden Age contains similar themes of community.

So when Luke describes the early Christian community in the way he does to Theophilus one of the things he appears to be doing is capturing these ancient visions of utopian communities and declaring a new beginning for humanity, a new way of civilization.

In actuality the early Christian community, inspired by the Holy Spirit, may have lived a far more communal life although it may not have been quite as radical as Luke suggests. Nonetheless, the vision was for a different way of living based on a new beginning.

The new beginning was of course the advent of Jesus Christ in the world who claims a unique union with the Father in heaven and invites us into the peace and joy of that unity. The Christian community sought to live together in koinonia with each other in that new relationship established by God with human beings in and through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This concept of koinonia implies more than is often translated in the word ‘community’. I have often referred to our lives being intertwined in each other’s lives as we are drawn into God’s life in Jesus. My life in yours and your life in mine and ours in God: mutuality in existence.

As I suggested this implies far more than concepts of community and sometimes the word used to describe koinonia is communion, but that in itself can create some confusion as we also use the word communion in a variety of ways as well.

In the book of Acts by suggesting that the people held “all things in common” Luke is trying to help establish the understanding that Jesus Christ brings about a new way of human community and life. This way of life was clearly understand as a consequence of encountering God’s grace, a joyful response to what Jesus had done, as opposed to a way of earning God’s favour.

There can be no doubt it was counter cultural and a challenge to the accepted norms of life at the time – social, economic, religious and political.

Mother's Day

by Peter Lockhart

In some ways it is strange to have days like mothers day – a day that we remember and give thanks for the place of mothers in our lives. Why strange? Well one would think that if mothers constantly were given the respect and love as human beings we would not need a special day to remember what they have done for us. So maybe part of Mother’s Day is a kind of confession that we don’t always appreciate mothers as we should and maybe also a recognition that it is harder to thank some mothers than others.

This problem of how well we love one another is constantly before us as people and human communities have long invented days of celebration and thanksgiving to remember mothers, fathers, widows, war veterans and the list goes on. The church does this as well in its calendar in the rhythm of the liturgical year as we have celebrations at Christmas at Easter and Pentecost, along with the many other feasts days that we can have. All of these celebrations are about jogging our communal memory as we remember people and events in the history of our lives and of the church.

So, as we say Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers associated with our congregation today we remember that mothers everywhere are people with gifts and graces, as well as faults and foibles, and that as people loved by God mothers are to loved and valued and respected not simply this day but everyday of their lives.

Unity in God and in each other

"May they be one as we are one"

These 8 simple sounding words, of Jesus' prayer found in John 17, lead us into the depth and mystery of the Christian faith. They express that God's life is a communal life. Jesus indicates that he is in the Father and vice-versa. A relationship of indwelling that also incorporates the Holy Spirit. So in the prayer we get a glimpse of the one God who exist in an eternal communal relationship.

These bonds within the life of God are the bonds which prays believers will have - existing in one another. This complex relationship of existence is then further extended in the prayer when Jesus prayers that they (the believers) may be in us. Not only are our lives related to one another in an intimacy which reflects God's life but our lives are linked into God's own life.

These concepts are all a bit difficult and theoretical but have big implications for Christian people in our unity with God and one another.

As people living witnessing to God's love and existing in God and one another Jesus prayer is that through this oneness the world will believe.

Of course for most of us our experience of our Christan relationships does not coalesce with this prayer. There are many disruptions to our relationships with other Christians both personally and communally - our experience is that we are not one as God is one.

This has led many people to reject God and the message of grace carried within the church. So what can we do?

In a sense we can only do what we have always done. Turn to God week by week - coming to confess that we are sinners who are out of kilter with God and with each other and so acknowledging the brokenness of our lives. And as we come to pray that as we are sent into the world week by week we might find signs of that oneness to celebrate and name as hopeful signs to God's love and life within us.

Our unity in God's life and in one another's lives comes to us as a gift , yet it is a unity that we are called to live out and witness to. Living together is hard work, we are diverse people and sometimes difficult people, yet to be Christ's body in the world means constantly struggling with disruption between our experience of life and this gift of unity we have received in Jesus prayer:

"May they be one as we are one"

Social Isolation

by Peter Lockhart

I grew up in country towns where you walked down the street and for the most part got a nod and smile from people as you walked past. People you knew stopped to chat. Even driving on the roads people gave an acknowledgement lifting a hand or even simply a few fingers from the wheel as they drove past. Even if you didn't know people there was a basic acknowledgement of our shared existence.

Living in Brisbane I marvel at the notion that we are socially isolated beings in the city. Walking through a shopping centre which has 100s even 1000s of people you can feel totally alone. No one looks you in the eye and if you try to acknowledge another passing consumer more often than not their eyes dart away to some point of oblivion off in the distance. Even interactions with people on the check out in some stores is being taken away from us in the ever greater quest for expedience.

Yet God made us for community and relationships. God invites us to get to know the stranger and to help each other be all that we can be. God sends us out to share good news with others, but if we are not allowed to communicate apart from via electronic means like facebook how do we really grow in a relationship well enough to say what difference Jesus has made to my life.

As I look at my own interactions I wonder how well I am doing. How well are you doing? Do you know your neighbours names? Do you talk to strangers you see regularly and build a relationship? Or do you live in relationship ghettos which keep the curtains firmly closed and the security code on the door? What is an appropriate Christian response to this manufactured social isolation?

Thinking about the Lord's Prayer: "Our" Father

When we begin the Lord’s Prayer with the word ‘our’ it says automatically that it is about us, not me or you separately as disassociated beings but us together. In this our faith is not a private matter between you as an individual and God but is an engagement in communal life.

The prayer confronts us with our own relationships and the gift that we have from God that together we have been joined into one family. Just as Paul wrote to the Romans so long ago when we say ‘our’ we affirm that:

“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” (Romans 8:16-17)

Of course this why in early Christian communities and even now today Christians speak of each other as brothers and sisters. We have an intimate relationship – a relationship as siblings which has been given to us as a gift.

For just as we do not chose our biological brothers and sisters our brothers and sisters in Christ are given to us as a gift.

Take a moment to think how brothers and sisters behave towards one another. To pretend it is always good would be naïve but often the conflict arises out of that intimacy. Of course, I do not believe that God’s intention in binding us as brothers and sisters is to have us squabbling, but through acknowledging our intimacy to acknowledge our shared responsibility for one another in the context of our relationship with God – “Our Father”.

In this when we say ‘our’ we should hear a common bond with each other and responsibility to each other as people who share in God’s grace.