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.

Jesus saw the crowds

“When Jesus saw the crowds”

Did you feel the significance of that simple statement?

“Jesus saw the crowds.”

The eternal Word of God, present at the time of creation, at that moment enfleshed in Jesus saw the crowds.

The crowd is such an anonymous entity, an enormous entity – a place in which people can get lost and be ignored.  Yet Jesus saw the crowds.

People like you and I: the crowd searching for healing and hope and news of a better reality.  What did Jesus see in crowd?   Later in Matthew 9 we are told that Jesus saw within the crowd people who were like sheep without a shepherd.

Who did he see? People bearing the burdens of their lives.  People with ailments and problems.  People looking for hope.  People like you and I.

Jesus saw the crowds and Jesus responded.  Jesus ascended to the mountaintop and as was the custom of the rabbis he sat down and he began to teach.   Jesus began to teach his disciples.

Now I have little doubt that just as the disciples approached him many of the crowd leaned in as well.  Leaning in over the shoulders of the disciples the crowd was listening.

What would Jesus say?  What is Jesus response to seeing the crowd human beings going about their business with all their troubles, woes and joys?

The words that Jesus shares are well know to us, they are called the beatitudes but we who are hearing them again for the umpteenth time should remember those gathered on the side of the hill were hearing them for the first time.

If we were travel back to the time and hear them afresh I suspect 2 things would stand out.  Firstly, Jesus teaching appears to be encouraging something of a reversal or revolution of understanding what it means to be blessed.  And secondly, in the context of the reversal Jesus declares a hope which transcends the current experience.

Each of the first statements of Jesus Sermon on the Mount comes as a couplet, recognition of a blessing and an alternate reality to which that blessing is connected.

It is a reversal that we too need to hear:

Blessed are the poor? Those who mourn? The meek? Those who hunger and thirst? Really?

There is an old country song Count Your Blessings – I don’t think this is what they were thinking about when they wrote the song.

So why does Jesus say it?  In his book The Cost of Discipleship Bonhoeffer suggests that Jesus was first and foremost speaking to his disciples who had left their homes, their families, their livelihoods to follow Jesus.  They were poor, they mourned the loss of their nationhood, they were meek and no doubt they experienced days of hunger and thirst.

Jesus reversal reminds them, not just the disciples but crowd listening on and so us as well, that blessedness is not necessarily represented in an easy life with no hardship.  Blessedness, the knowledge of God’s care and concern for any is not necessarily equated to the momentary experience in which we find ourselves.

Jesus teaches his disciples that the parallel to the blessedness of life, whether it feels like a blessing or not, is that there is a coming kingdom of heaven, that there is comfort in store, and that mercy and that seeing God are in store.

Two sides of a story: we live life as a blessing, even in the tough times, and we live with hope that from the blessing of life we will encounter the fullness of God’s life and kingdom.

Of course as people hearing this story from where we sit we are hearing this story from the fringe of the crowd, not only looking over the shoulders of the crowds and disciples but hearing beyond on the moments of its speaking on the other side of Jesus death and resurrection.

In hearing this story post resurrection and having a fuller sense of Jesus identity there is more to it for us than for the disciples and the crowd which Jesus saw.

When God looks upon the world and sees humanity and the creation and the difficult experiences of our blessed lives God shares in the fullness of our humanity by joining us in it and experiencing the depth of blessedness himself.

Jesus is the poor in spirit, Jesus is one who mourns, Jesus is the meek, Jesus hungers and thirsts, Jesus is pure in heart, Jesus is a peacemaker and yes Jesus is persecuted.

Jesus blessedness in sharing our existence culminates in his sharing in our death as he dies on the cross and so he blesses us.

We know that by the power of the resurrection the kingdom of heaven has come; we know that he is comforted; that he inherits the earth; that he has been filled; that he has received mercy; that he is a child of God and that he rejoices.

Jesus teaching comes to us not telling us that we need to seek poverty of spirit and mourning and meekness and hunger and thirst out but that in and through him when we experience those things he is drawing us into the other side of that promise.

It will be on earth as it is in heaven, even if the blessed life we lead now seems to miss the mark.

Blessedness here is not about an easy life and having everything we want but rather is about knowing that God does not desert us even the darkest of places, that our predicament is not a measure of our blessedness and yes there is a kingdom coming.

Each week each of face the struggles and trials of life: sometimes you and I have to admit that we have got it wrong; sometimes you and I encounter confusion and mourning; sometimes we hunger and thirst ; sometimes you and are called on to be peacemakers; and sometimes we find ourselves being persecuted for our faith.

Yet, as people listening to Jesus teaching on the other side of the resurrection we are able to hang on to that tangible hope which we have seen in the resurrection: renewal and recreation is coming, suffering and death have been defeated.

Yes we do not experience these things in their fullness yet, we are on a journey to a future which has not yet arrived – but, as Paul declares, we hope in things not seen.

Why, because Jesus saw the crowds, because God sees us, because Jesus teaching becomes embodied in his own life and because Jesus promise is that through whatever blessings life brings we can hope in that future.

I wonder can you see Jesus on the hill teaching his disciples, teaching the crowd, teaching us, promising us because whether or not you can see him he has seen us! 

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven!

Imitators of Christ

Why is it that any of us do what we do?  Why do we bother?  What is the point?

No doubt all of us have our own motivations but as I reflected on the passages this week I was reminded that the reason I continue to do what I do because of the way I have understood my experiences of God’s presence.

For me this could be described as barely the glimpse of movement in the corner of my eye let alone a view of God’s retreating form as Moses was privileged with from the cleft in the rock in which God had placed him.  Nevertheless, my encounter of God has led me to a faith which speaks of a God who has created all things and who having seen that we human beings have a predilection to stuff things up came among us in Jesus and said I forgive you, I love you and I want to encourage you to continue to seek life in all its fullness.

I do not do what I do naively assuming that we will get things right as human beings or that the church is a place that is devoid of difficulties.  Rather, it is in response to a God who says to us, ‘even though you fail I will be beside you and I will you lead you home’.   It is promise of a better world. This is the promise of Jesus prayer your kingdom your will be done on earth as in heaven.

Whilst we do not live the realities of the coming kingdom perfectly as followers of Jesus, as his disciples, we are invited by Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live in anticipation of what is promised and to make it as visible and as real as we can so that others might encounter the God that has come to us with such great love and grace.

As we consider Paul’s letter to the first followers of Jesus in Thessalonica it would be easy to be lured into considering this as a purely historical document but its words are a living word to us and his words written to them echo down through the changes of time and space to demand our attention as well: be imitators of Jesus and of his servants!

Paul had experienced Jesus presence in a real and tangible way on the Damascus road and he had given his life to sharing the news of God’s goodness and love found in Jesus with others.  In his letter Paul gives thanks for the people at Thessalonica and their work and then he seeks to encourage them by encouraging them to be imitators of him and ultimately of Jesus.

In encouraging them to do this Paul is encouraging them to do something which I believe comes naturally to all of us – to be mimics of other people.  This is something that we do all the time even as we seek to exert our individuality and distinct personalities: we are copy cats!

For many years I thought my brother and I were very different as people.  We have a different body shape; he had brown hair I was a blonde; he spent 4 years leaving away from home through high school.  Yet, I know that when we are together and we sit and we talk, people around us comment how similar we are.  Our mannerisms, our turn phrase, our sense of humour and many of our interests collide.  Why? 

Well, I suspect, even with all the genetic predispositions we both mimic our parents and have learnt how to live and express ourselves by copying them.

Being a chip off the old block is more common than not.  Even when we rebel against our family of origin we carry so much of what we have learnt in that context into the rest of our lives.

Being imitators of other people comes naturally to all of us whether we are conscious of it or not.  So it is that Paul encourages the Thessalonians to do what comes naturally be imitators of him and of Jesus: be aware of whose example they are following and be intentional about their mimicking.

The same encouragement is true for us.

You are here this morning because somewhere in your life you have experienced a glimpse of God, possibly no more than a sense that God has passed by just as God passed by Moses, but in that fleeting glimpse, or in those deeper encounters that some of you may have had, God’s love has become real for you.

This revelation of God’s love and goodness is a gift given to you for the sake of others.  It is a gift that has been given to you so that through your imitation of Jesus and of the followers of Jesus others might come to experience and encounter God too.

As imitators of Christ and of Paul and of all those who have gone before us we are invited to be the church, which is not simply a Sunday morning event nor an institution, but a living community of people encouraging one another in faith and reaching out with God’s love to the whole world.

Imitations of Christ for one another and for the sake of the world!

Living in anticipation of the coming fullness of God’s reign, as imperfectly as we do, we are charged with the wonderful possibilities and privilege that others might come to know God through us.

It reminds me of the old song “They will know we are Christian by our love”.

Being the church, not simply coming to church, is about following Jesus everywhere we go and every moment of our lives – seeking to be imitators of Jesus.

When I was called to this congregation one of the things that drew me here was a commitment that the people here wanted to continue to share God’s love with others and invite others to be part of the journey of faith that we are on.  You said you wanted the church to grow.

As the minister here I believe my role is to encourage all of us to participate in making this happen.  When a new person walks into this building on a Sunday morning it will more likely be your reception of them that will encourage them to come back than it will be our choice of music, the style of worship or the quality of the preaching.  Yes, all these other things contribute but time and again it has been shown that a person will join a place that is welcoming and helps them belong.

More than that, your behaviour during the week, your words and actions, are constantly an example for others to see something of God’s love which you have encountered.  This is not to say we should wander around Bible bashing yet all of us should be able to give some account of our decisions and our actions to others as being inspired by our faith.

Each one of us who claims to follow Jesus is an ambassador for Jesus and for the promises of God revealed in him.  Our ability to imitate or mimic Jesus and those Christians who have an inspirational faith means that all of us are teaching others about God. 

This is important both for those beyond our community and those growing within our community.  Consider for instance the children in our midst; your every word and action is teaching them what it means to be a follower of Jesus.  For better or worse what each one of you does here may be the witness that helps or hinders the faith of others. 

When we as adults and those who may be more mature in our faith share our faith stories with one another we help each other to better imitate the life God intends for us, the coming kingdom, and become a better example of God’s love and promises for all people.  It is our job to do this together and it is our responsibility to help one another do it to be imitators of Christ!

Why?  To return to the beginning of the sermon because you and I have encountered God’s love.  God’s love shapes your life just as is does mine.  God’s love gives you and me hope.  God’s love gives you and I meaning and purpose.  God’s love is a gift that we have been given to share.

As we receive the good news so let us live it as imitators of Jesus, of Paul and of one another and so celebrate God’s gift to the world – the promise and hope of a coming Kingdom.

Give to God what is God's!

"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

What does it mean to give to Caesar and to God?  Does it mean separating religion from politics?  Does it mean we should pay our tax but not let our spirituality impact our political decisions?  Do religion and politics mix or not?  To glean a better understanding we need to travel back to the moment Jesus was telling the story. 

The first thing we have to understand about this story is that these two groups were not natural allies.  The Herodians supported the rule of Herod who cooperated with the Roman rulers and was given authority by them.  The Pharisees on the other hand were the legalists among the Jewish leaders who believed that their interpretation of the Law was the one to be obeyed.  When they spoke of the law they specifically meant Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

So effectively when these groups team up to confront Jesus they choose to set aside their own differences to attack a common enemy.  Jesus is the meat in their sandwich.

The aim of the question is not to get an answer but to trap Jesus.  Let’s think about the question about tax and the coin that Jesus asked to be produced – a Roman coin!

 

The Pharisees would have regarded these Roman coins as idolatrous.  The contained an image of Tiberius, Caesar, who would have been considered as divine by the Romans.  The point can be made by the group simply producing the coin in the temple they had shown themselves up as hypocrites.

On the other hand it is more than likely that the Herodians had no problem with the Roman coin, after all they had allied themselves with Rome.

So the question comes, should they pay tax?  I wonder if you can see the trap.  What will the Pharisees say if Jesus says ‘Yes’?  What will the Herodians say if Jesus says ‘No’? 

The question was intended to back Jesus into a corner so that whatever his answer Jesus would get in strife with the authorities.

Jesus answer cleverly avoids the trap yet at the same time confronts his adversaries with a conundrum in terms of their loyalties.

"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

I think that this is one of the better known quotes of Jesus and one of the worst understood.

In trying to see behind Jesus words what should be patently clear very quickly is that Jesus believed everything belong to God, all things were derived from God, even political power.

In the scriptures both the Old and New Testaments the intermingling of religion and politics is constant.  In the Old Testament again and again we read of how God ascribed political power to even the foreign rulers and enemies.  They ruled because God made it so. 

Jesus himself was incredibly immersed in challenging the political powers and the social structure of his day. In the book Intelligent Church Steve Chalke talks about how the New Testament scholar N.T.Wright says of Jesus whatever else he wasn’t, Jesus was a politician. 

I believe that this passage has been wrongly interpreted to mean that politics and religion don’t mix.  This assumption that is made by many in our post-enlightenment world has arisen out teachings and understandings that have emerged since the time of the Reformation. 

Around 500 years ago Martin Luther argued for a distinct line to be drawn between the spiritual and political realms.  In this I think has been wrongly understood as saying the two don’t mix.  Without going into too much of the history of the situation the issue for Luther was who and how that power was being exercised.

Despite this, I think Luther’s teaching, alongside the rejection of the spiritual in favour of a secular understanding through the enlightenment has served to deceive us into thinking that our faith somehow should not have a political edge.

If we consider that all things belong to God, including the way in which we structure our society then as Christian people the way we live, who we vote for, what issues we choose to fight for, are both the political and religious outworking of our faith.

Even what we choose to pray for, or even more importantly not pray for, in our prayers for the world indicates both a political and religious stance!  The words we use, the phrases indicate our alliances to God and to his coming kingdom.  After all when we pray ‘thy kingdom come thy will be done’ surely we are praying for political and social change as well as religious change.

Last time a preached on this topic in this congregation I pointed out that the implication of this is that whatever our political allegiance might be, and I know some of you are card carrying members of various parties, our first allegiance is to Jesus Christ and the coming kingdom.

Sometimes in parliament they have what is called a conscience vote.  This is a time when politicians are allowed by their parties to vote based on their personal moral, philosophical or religious stance on an issue because of its moral content.  In a sense this misses the point that every single decision made by any parliament is a decision that has moral content and has religious or faith implications. Dare I suggest that all decisions in parliament should be made in this way?

Sometimes the Uniting Church makes decisions and advocates in the community for particular issues.  Sometimes you may agree, sometimes not, sometimes you may get the impression that the Uniting Church is taking sides in politics.  Whilst this may appear to be the case I believe that in these situations men and women of faith like yourselves are seeking to discern what it might mean to proclaim ‘thy kingdom come’ in terms of specific issues confronting our Australian community.

As individuals and as a local community of faith I believe the challenge of being Jesus followers is to seek to discern how we might live out every aspect of our lives. 

To conclude I want to give two quick examples of the intersection of faith and politics from this week which I was confronted by.

The first has a personal element.  Some of you may remember that when I went to Jandowae I caught up with a friend who is a farmer at Durong.  She emailed me with information about the campaign called ‘You can’t eat coal for breakfast’.

Essentially the situation is this; the Queensland Government had granted Tarong Energy a mineral development licence over the Haystack Road coal deposit.  The implications could be that hundreds of square kilometres of prime farming land might be reclaimed for the purpose of coal mining.  According to the website once mined the land will never be able to produce crops again.  To give some idea of the scale of the impact this area produced enough wheat last year to make 68 million loaves of bread.  That’s not counting other crops and produce.

What is the Christian response to this issue?  What do we pray for?  Is it right to continue to mine non renewable energy resources, especially in such a way that destroys good farming land?  Is it appropriate to continue to burn fossil fuels when we know the impact they are having on our climate and the whole planet?  Or does our current need for the coal outstrip our need for food crops?  What part does the church play in this situation?  For what should we pray?

The second issue was from a story on ABC radio about the impending closure of the Ford factory in Melbourne.  This is occurring because of the lower demand for bigger cars.  The discussion on the radio centred on the tension between the ideas that for because of that we have our economy constant growth is necessary and the opposing tension of trying to reign in consumption because of the impact on the environment and the use of finite resources.  What do we pray for?  What kind of car should you and I buy? Do we pray for workers losing jobs?  For companies that need profits and not to be propped up by subsidies which come from our taxes?  Or for both?

Jesus comes heralding a new kingdom, when we pray 'thy kingdom come' we are making a political statement as much as a religious one.  As we follow Jesus and witness to God’s love let us not deceive ourselves: the political decisions that we make are faith decisions, our lifestyle choices are faith decisions; in fact all of our decisions are faith decisions.  Take a moment to consider the decisions you are making what does it mean for you ‘to give to God what belongs to God.”

Pentecost: Baptism, Lawn Mowing & Hope

This morning is a time of celebration, a time of renewal, a time of hope.  A time of hope in which we face the struggles we share as individuals and the struggles we face as a human race and we say there is more to life than this: there is God.

We do this by remembering the pouring out of the Holy Spirit which draws us home into relationship with God; we do this by remembering our own baptisms and as we baptise Wesley; and we do this by breaking bread and drinking from the cup of Christ.  In the act of our remembering God we believe and hope that God will transform us.

One of the most fundamental questions we can ask is, 'what is the purpose of my life?'  Today, in the context of our remembering we hear an answer to this question which as people who follow Jesus defines the purpose of our lives.  We who are baptised into the community of faith live out our baptisms: this is our purpose to be disciples of Jesus.

So how does this look?  In the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians he writes,

4Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

The gifts that we are given are for the building up of the whole, they are for the common good.  I want to show you an example of what it has meant for one person to live out their baptism here in this congregation.

I want to invite Vic to come and join me on this chair at the front. 

A couple of weeks ago I received a letter of resignation from Vic from the lawn mowing roster.  He was the only one left on it.  To give you an idea of the extent of this service Vic has been on the lawn roster in this church for around 50 years.  This is basically from when he and Jean moved up from Melbourne.

Vic has served in many other ways in the congregation.  He has been a Sunday school teacher and boys club teacher, he has been on the Property Management Committee, he has been an Elder and on Church Council.  Yet, his faithfulness to keeping our yard tidy has spanned more years than I have been breathing.

I'm not sure this is what Paul had in mind when he wrote to the Corinthians about a variety of gifts and services but I have no doubt that Vic has understood this is what it means to live out his baptism and in this it is precisely what Paul was writing about.

When I asked Vic about why he kept doing it for so long, at first, he joked that he was too dopey to get off the roster.  But I know Vic better than this so I pressed him a little further.  It has long been Vic's opinion that the worst witness a congregation can give to the local community is to have an untidy property.

For Vic, keeping the property tidy has always been about witness.  As a disciple of Christ, he has been living out his baptism to ensure that this congregation has a good reputation in the community and always looks welcoming and loved for those who come here.

We were discussing Vic's long and loving service to the congregation the other night at Bible Study and it lead us into a conversation about our rosters in the congregation.  Why do we have them? Why do we do them?  What purpose do they serve?

Very quickly John reflected into the conversation that the rosters are an expression of our love.  To push his comment a bit further I would suggest it is an expression of our love for God, our love for one another, and our love for others.  In this, it should and can become an expression of our hospitality as God’s people as we use our gifts for the common good, building up the whole!

Participating in these rosters can reflect our baptism, yet in our life as a congregation they are only one side of the story. I suggested the other evening at Bible Study that in the shifting sands of culture that maybe as we face the future new and different rosters will be needed.  Rosters which encourage us to think more deeply about the world and community around us.

I'd like to invite Naa to come and bring Wesley to the front and sit on this other chair.

This morning we will baptise Wesley.  The world and life into which Wesley is being baptised is, in so many ways, vastly different to the world that Vic was baptised into.

This is not simply because Wesley is being baptised in Australia and will go home and grow up in Ghana but because in the last 80 years the world has got a whole lot smaller and the big issues we face as humanity and also as the church are shared internationally.

So, the question for us this morning is what challenges lie ahead for Wesley as he, encouraged by Naa and Franklin, learns what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and to live out his baptism.

If we consider for a moment the world that Vic was born into.  He was born as the world headed into depression and he grew up during a time of war.  It was a time when the church in Australia and the Western world in general was pretty strong.  But the advances in technology from the time of his birth to now are absolutely mind blowing – transport, science, communication, education, health care, standards of living almost unrecognisable.

In this year that Wesley has come to us we face a sense of being a global community like no other time in history.  Religious sectarianism is strong, as is the growth of atheism.  As a global community we face the changing of the climate, sea level rises, world food shortages and wars fought over access to water and arable land.  Millions of refugees traverse the globe fleeing conflict whilst in wealthy countries the standard of living continues to rise as do the technological advances.

For Wesley to live as a witness to Christ’s love and hope in this world it will be different than it was for Vic.  Maybe, just maybe, he might mow a church lawn but maybe, just maybe, more will be asked of him as he discerns gifts of understanding and wisdom in the face a the great issues of his time.

The pouring of God’s Holy Spirit indicates that God is aware of the changing context of our lives as humanity.  The Spirit is dynamic and renewing and refreshing and leads us to new insights and new hope.   The Spirit inspires us with new gifts pertinent to our era.

Maybe church rosters will develop new emphases which not only create a place of welcome but a responsibility to be apostles: which means those who are sent out to share the good news. 

This morning is a time of celebration, a time of renewal, a time of hope.  A time of hope in which we face the struggles we share as individuals and the struggles we face as a human race and we say there is more to life than this: there is God.

We do this by remembering the pouring out of the Holy Spirit which draws us home into relationship with God; we do this by remembering our own baptisms and as we baptise Wesley; and we do this by breaking bread and drinking from the cup of Christ.  In the act of our remembering God we believe and hope that God transforms us and lead us to live out our baptisms as disciples, being living signs of the hope that we have for the whole world.

God expects maturity not perfection!

Leviticus 19:1-18

Matthew 5:38-48

                                          

If I were to graph my relationship with God through my life I suspect it would look something like this (red line).  At the beginning as a newborn infant I do not believe it was perfect and I certainly do not see that it has been a steady climb of getting closer and closer to God through trying to follow Jesus.

In fact I have probably been pretty generous with how well I have gone since there have been times for me of deep doubt and even depression.

Given this is how I perceive my relationship with God is going, a series of peaks and troughs, it is difficult to read this section of Jesus sermon of the mount from Matthew which ends with the words:

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

I know I am not perfect, I have a sense I am far from perfect, even though I had a colleague once who used to call me Perfect Flaming Peter. If we put a line on my graph that demonstrates perfection we can see just how far I might be from perfection.

And if we consider the readings from both Leviticus and Matthew this morning there are enough personal faith challenges in the teachings here to occupy a life time. “Turn the other check”, “Walk the extra mile”, “Love your enemies”.  Really, I think I struggle to do any of these with any level of competency let alone all of them perfectly!

So the gap between me and “being perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect” seems insurmountable.  As a young adult I was acutely aware of this gap and wondered what it might mean that I could not follow Jesus and God the way this passage appears to be suggestion.  The guilt I felt was immense, even though I knew about forgiveness.  Was I a good Christian or not?  Was I going to go to hell for my failures?  Was I a poor witness and follower of Jesus?  There can be a great deal of pressure applied to people when we begin to think this way about our faith.

So how do we deal with this conundrum? How do we reconcile this gap between my life and perfection?

For me there are two things that help deal with this issue and for each I have a simply saying..

The first is: My life is hidden in Christ!

Whilst the second is: God expects maturity not perfection.  That is what I believe God expects from me personally as a Christian: maturity.

If we go back to my life graph the straight line running across the top at 100 per cent is Christ’s life, and therefore my life hidden in Christ.

What is impossible for me has been made possible by God in Christ.   When God looks at me and you God sees us through the lens of the perfection of Christ’s life.  We do not have to be perfect because in Jesus incarnation, his life, his death, and his resurrection as well as in his ascended ministry Jesus has made us right with God.

As an aside when we share the peace in church this is part of what we are recognising, we have peace with God and other because God has made our relationships perfect in Christ.

If we look to Jesus life we do see Jesus turn the other check and go the extra mile and so on.

This gift of perfection though comes with an invitation to respond.  From right back to the beginning of the church the question has been asked, “If I have been made right with God then does it matter what I do?”

Put simply the answer is yes.  Unconditional grace is what it is unconditional, but the invitation of Jesus is to life life in its fullest by responding maturely to this gift.

Which brings me to the statement: God expects maturity not perfection!

When we trace this passage from Matthew to its original language the word which we translate as perfection could also mean something like “purpose” or “maturity”.

So whilst there is an expectation of perfection which is met in Jesus, Jesus challenges his followers to live maturely and to see God’s life as an example.  Of course, the life of God we interpret here is Jesus own life.

Looking back to the graph, despite all the troughs and peaks, there is a growth in the maturity of the relationship which I believe is occurring.  And this is pragmatically important for us in our life as Christians in the world and our participation in Christ’s mission.

You see in general when people judge God they generally do so through looking at the imperfect line of my life in relationship with God, or our life, or even our corporate life as the church.

Let me share some examples of how this works from the week that was.

This week I heard on the radio the unfolding drama of the Royal Commission into Child Abuse and the interview of a Principal from a Catholic school in which abuse occurred less than a decade ago.  If we consider the injunction to love the neighbour and care for children it is clear this is one of the troughs in the life of the church.

We might try to shrug it off and say that was the Catholics not us but such a response is naive on two levels.  Firstly, because for many who are not Christian we are one group so the brand name is irrelevant.  Secondly, because as I Uniting church minister I am aware we too will be going before the Royal Commission for things which occurred whilst children were in our care.

On my graph this is certainly a trough in our relationship with God and begs us ask the question what is a mature response of faith? Possibly confession and lament? Changing our own practices to protect children better?

If we look at other significant events unfolding in the Central Republic of Africa there has been a shift in power and the now ascendant Christians, linked tribally, are committing atrocities against Muslims in the country.  And I read in the gospel “love your enemies”. 

What is a mature Christian response to these events?  In neighbouring countries maybe we can pray it will be Christians who reach out to offer shelter to those Muslims fleeing for their lives.

Once again closer to home I found myself lamenting for the life of Reza Barati the Iranian Asylum seeker killed at the Manus Island detention centre.  Reza was in the care of our country, as were all those others who were injured.

The issue of asylum seeks impacts Indonesia just as much as it impacts Australia but what is a mature Christian response, how do we love our neighbour and our enemy in this situation? 

These issues may seem distant and far away but in the life of we who follow Jesus issues of justice and love are always before us.

No doubt if we look into our own lives and relationships we might be able to ask many questions of our own maturity in our relationship with our family, our friends, our colleagues and our community.

We will not be perfect in these things but I do believe as we follow Jesus God expects maturity not perfection!

This maturity involves honesty and seeing how Jesus loved.

Maturity is enough of a challenge in our imperfect spiritual journey and when confronted by our inadequacies we should not judge ourselves or others too harshly.

Consider for a moment a well worn saying “Love the sinner and hate the sin”.  This saying traces its roots back to St Augustine and is found in Ghandi’s autobiography.

The big problem I have this is which sins we like to name as hating whilst leaving others alone.  Moreover, it can seem we are implying that somehow our imperfect journey is less tainted than another person’s.  I recently heard an interview in which the American evangelical Tony Campolo suggested that at best we could infer from Jesus teaching “Love the sinner and hate your own sin.”

This is not an invitation to amorality but just a sober reminder that as Paul wrote all have fallen short of the glory of God, which, in my mind, is exactly where I started this sermon with the graph.

The idea of perfectionism within our spiritual journey can lead to guilt and depression internally and sometimes judgmentalism and exclusion externally.  In hearing Jesus words about perfection we should always remember My life is hidden in Christ!

But in receiving this gift of perfection we should also remember that as we respond and follow Jesus God expects maturity not perfection!

Take a moment of silence read again the passages from Leviticus and Matthew. Receive the gift of perfection and contemplate where are you being challenged for greater maturity.

All "saints" in the world

by Peter Lockhart

an interactive sermon

Today I have merged two themes within the liturgy.

The first is “life in the world” and second is a celebration of “all saints day”, two themes which are intrinsically linked together.

Over the past 3 weeks we have followed themes of the Christian life – prayer, scriptures, and community. Now we turn to contemplating our life in the world as Christian people.

When I spoke to the children before I emphasised the idea that our holiness comes to us from God as a gift, it is not something we can make for ourselves.

Yet as people who have been made holy we are called to holy living, living as if the kingdom of heaven has already come near.

When Jesus teaches the crowds on the mountainside, in those well loved words, often called the beatitudes, what he describes is not simply a future hope but a present blessedness in the lives of the disciples, and an invitation to share in the life of Christ.

The great German theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer, in his seminal work “The Cost of Discipleship, explores the meaning of the beatitudes and how living the beatitudes might shape our lives. He says:

“All are called to be what in the reality of God they are already. The disciples are called blessed because they have obeyed the call of Jesus, and the people as a whole because they are heirs of the promise.”

Yet as Bonheoffer points out a question remains unanswered. “Will they [the people] claim their heritage by believing in Jesus Christ and his word?” This is the question which lies before each one of us this day as well.

“Are we committed follows of Jesus Christ?” Or to borrow a phrase from the Basis of Union and put it into the context of the community of the church, “are we a fellowship of reconciliation bearing witness to Jesus Christ?”

Now whilst the Protestant tradition to which we belong does not make people “saints” like some other church traditions remembering great examples of the faith can help and inspire us to be what in the reality of God we are already.

I want us to take some time sharing the stories of the examples of faith for our own lives this morning. To do this I would like to encourage you to get into groups of no more than 4. Think about people whose faith inspires you and share what it is their faith that has helped you in your faith.

Sharing Time 1

This morning I opened the worship with the words of Psalm 34

I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

One of the things that I appreciate and I find challenging about the saints is that this is what they do – they speak of God continuously, in all kinds of places, always ready to articulate their faith in Jesus Christ. For me when the faith is articulated or witnessed in action the kingdom of God comes near.

There is a wonderful Butteflyfish song which captures the hope of the gospel in the words:

I ain't goin' up to heaven in the sky
I ain't flyin' with the angels when I die
I ain't gonna rise up in the clear
Cause I do believe my dear
Heaven's comin' down here

In your groups I want you to have a look at the following pictures and answer the questions

Where can you sense God’s presence might be in this picture?
And secondly, how might that presence be shared?

As people drawn by grace into the life of God in and through Jesus we have been made holy. The question as Bonheoffer so rightly points out is whether or not we will respond or turn our backs on this good news.

The saints, not just the chosen ones, but those faithful people throughout our lives who have taught us faith and drawn us closer to God have been God’s gift to us. We know from their lives following Jesus does not necessarily bring safety and comfort and an easy life, in fact it might be quite the contrary. But in living the beatitudes we live knowing that we truly are blessed people.

Photos Creative Commons

On the Road to Emmaus

by Peter Lockhart

When the disciples are talking to the stranger on the Emmaus road one of the things which they say to him is that they had hoped in Jesus. What goes unsaid is that now they are hopeless.

“We had hoped”, but now our hope is gone.

This hopelessness is not simply the sense of grief which overwhelms them as they mourn for their friend but a more engulfing hopelessness. For them the promised Messiah was to restore the fortunes of Israel, he would bring an utter and complete change in their lives giving meaning and purpose.

For the disciples Jesus’ death undoes hope, shatters meaning and confuses purpose in life. It means a massive change in perception for them.

Changes in life and the world around us can always have a big impact and when the fundamental building blocks shift, as they did with the disciples, there can be a loss of hope.

For me this means the kind foundation and the building blocks a person constructs their life around are vital.

Today is mother’s day and whilst it is a day to give thanks for mothers it is also always a day filled with ambiguity. Yes, some of us have great memories of our mothers but the reality is that for many people the relationship was strained. For some of you your mother is no longer with you or maybe your children are no longer with you. Whatever your situation the relationship and bond between a mother and child is an important one whether it is a good one or bad one and it certainly contributes to formation of person’s life.

This is a big responsibility thrust on mothers but not them alone, fathers, teachers and other significant role models also contribute to the formation of children into functioning members of our society.

Children come with curiosity and desire for understanding that can be quite blunt and open. They want to how and why and who because they are looking for meaning and purpose and hope.

The question for us on this day is what kind of foundation and building blocks are we to use to give them that meaning and purpose and hope.

Believing is Seeing!

Thomas’ doubt that Jesus had risen is the classic case of ‘seeing is believing’.

‘The other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”’

Now I have long thought that Thomas has received bad press being labelled ‘the doubter’ because the rest of the disciples did not believe until Jesus appeared to them. However, that anomaly in Christian tradition aside I want to explore with you this morning the interplay between belief, doubt and revelation.

To begin with whilst we have a tendency to think that seeing is believing I heard a sermon in January in which the minister asserted it is actually the other way around. What we believe determines what we see, or at least shapes our seeing.

To give an example of this, consider what you believe about people who live in poverty. You might believe that there are enough opportunities in this life so that if people work hard enough they should not live in a state of poverty. In other words some people believe that we make our own beds and therefore logically must lie in them. So if a poor person turns up whilst you might have some compassion for them there would also be a level of blame going on, most likely subconsciously. This person has gotten themselves into this mess.

On the other hand you might believe that people who live in poverty are victims of circumstance, which might include things like socio-economic surroundings, education opportunities or health issues. So when a poor person turns up when you look at them you see the person as a victim of the difficulties that life can throw at us. Once again there would probably be some compassion and maybe a sub-conscious thought like there but the grace of God goes I.

Now of course there would be a whole range of beliefs that people could have towards those who are poverty stricken and we might even find a blend of beliefs in the same person based on the idea that different situations mean different things. So we might find a belief which can accept a poor person in a developing country but not a first world country which has greater welfare and employment opportunities.

The point is that what we believe shapes how we see things, how we see events and people. If you listen carefully to each other most of us can hear what other peoples belief systems include because most of us have a tendency to sprout our beliefs somewhat unknowingly. Most of us have little sayings which are like our life rules – they are our beliefs and they shape how we see people and things and how we respond to them.

In the locked room!

The image of Jesus earthly followers huddled in a locked room denying the witness that had already been given them concerning Jesus resurrection should challenge every congregation as to whether we are being like the disciples - gathering in locked rooms.

As we gather for worship wach week despite the fact the doors are open and we are free to come and go is it possible that for some of us our experience is exactly this: an experience that is closed off from the world around us and locked in?

In coming into this space do we cloister our religious experience?

Do we shut it inside an uncomfortable hour of piety, in which we struggle with the notion that Jesus rose from the dead, let alone that he is God!

Do we close of this hour because we are not sure how to make connections between what is spoken here and what occurs day by day? At school, in our family, in our work place, social settings, Earth hours, economic downturns and the list goes on.

Do we do this because we fear being open about our faith we run the risk of being labelled a bible basher; a do gooder; a moral prig?

Do we do this because we fear being told we are nutters that science outstrips religion in terms of truth and knowledge?

Or have we been so socially conditioned by our culture which wants our spirituality to remain a ‘private matter’ that we feel we cannot cross those socially accepted boundaries of 21st century Australia?

The dangers of talking with Jesus

John 4

Consider for a moment the story of the woman at the well. The circumstance of her interaction with Jesus suggests she is a woman who might indeed have some significant questions for God about how her life has unfolded. Her conversation with Jesus certainly indicates that this is the case, but her questioning also involves a desire to listen and to find out more.

Jesus for his part thought speaks in cryptically symbolic language about living water and he names one of the key issues of her life:

“You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

There is a danger in listening for what Jesus might say to us, because it is more than likely he will name some home truths about who we are and what we have done in our lives, despite the fact we may see ourselves as faithful church attendees.

Jesus constantly had jibes for those who considered themselves to be the upstanding members of the Jewish community – the so called holy people of his day. We should be wary of thinking that Jesus’ jibes no longer apply to us.

Jesus raised serious questions about the distribution of wealth and power and given that everyone in this room is rich we must hear Jesus words to the rich young man as particularly confronting “Sell everything you have and give it to the poor.”

Jesus preserved his blessings for those who were poor, those who were hungry, those who were mourning and those who were in prison.

And Jesus injunction to those who follow him was that they should go and share the good news in word and deed teaching others so that the world might come to believe.

The Jesus that many of us would want to follow is an upright citizen who would not ruffle our feathers and cause us to question our position and place but the Jesus who the woman meets at the well is the same Jesus who turns over the tables in the temple and challenges but the religious, economic, social and political systems of his time.

Put bluntly we have sought to domestic Jesus so that following him does not cost us too much.

I think that John includes the questions that are not asked of Jesus and the woman by the disciples precisely because they were the questions on their minds “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?”

In short the disciples were offended. Part of the irony of the story is that it is the woman with whom Jesus has had this chance encounter that goes off the to share the good news of her experience with Jesus whilst Jesus is teaching the disciples that this is precisely what they are supposed to be doing, “see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.”

The Samaritans of Sychar believe the woman and up the ante proclaiming that Jesus is not only the Messiah but he is indeed the Saviour of the world. This is the hope that we cling to despite our inadequacies as Jesus disciples that, as Paul declared, “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

"What are you doing here?"

by Peter Lockhart

Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:11-13)

In the story of the prophet Elijah, Elijah decides that he has had enough and he runs away hoping to find a place to die. In this somewhat deserted place God shows up appearing in the sheer silence outside Elijah's cave.

For many people the interest in this story has been about lsitening for God in sheer silence and teaching the discipline of silence. Yet Elijah wasn't seeking God's presence, unless you can call asking to die seeking God's presence. So at the heart of the story is a more fundmanetal question "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

This is a far more confronting question for any of us "What are we doing where we are?" How did we come to be here? Were we running away from God? Were we seeking death, or life? Do we even know how we got to be where we are?

The discipline of answering this question that God asks of us "What are you doing here?" in an moment of our lives should not be about navel gazing but hearing the challenge of what God has asked of us in creating us for a purpose.

As people touched by God's grace in Jesus' life this question is not about justifying our own existence but celebrating God's love for us through living out our baptism in our discipleship.

I wonder if you heard God asking you now "What are you doing here?" how you would respond.