Jesus, the shepherd and the lost sheep

by Peter Lockhart

“The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

In these few words, that we hear nearly every week after the prayer of confession as part of the affirmation of forgiveness, is the heart of the gospel message.  Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

Christ Jesus did not come to give us a pat on the back about how we are good people.  Christ Jesus did not come simply to be an example of how to live our lives.  Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and that means you and me and everybody else.

Most of us do not want to hear this message. Most of us do want to be told that we sinners, that we are not righteous and holy people.  Most of us like to meditate on the first few verses on the Bible that asserts that when God created “it was good” and ignore the rest of the story about the corruption of that goodness.  Moreover I would say that speaking about sin is not that popular in many places and in many churches these days.

But to ignore sin is to ignore the reason for Jesus presence in the world.  Paul writes to Timothy that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the foremost.  Paul was under no illusion that he was a sinner, even after he had encountered Jesus Christ and become an apostle.  In his letter to the Romans he reflects his own predicament “I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.”  This is Paul the Christian who asserts his own inability to respond to God appropriately.

As Christians we cannot avoid the confrontation with God’s declaration concerning our estrangement and failure to be God’s people as God would have us be.  A failure that is captured in the words of Psalm 14:

Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”

They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;

there is no one who does good.

The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind

to see if there are any who are wise,

who seek after God.

They have all gone astray,

they are all alike perverse;

there is no one who does good,

no, not one.

When God looks upon human beings he does not see righteousness and goodness he sees that we have become corrupt, that we have gone astray, that none of us do good.

Regardless of how good we think we might be, regardless of how moral we think we might be God sees us as sinners.  Our relationship with God is broken.  On its own this Psalm does not comfort us it confronts us.  You are all sinners.

Once again in Romans Paul asserted that the law was given so that sin might be revealed.  The law is not given so that we can follow it and earn our way into heaven by what we do.  The law is given so that we would be confronted with the truth of our sin.  So for example, if we learn the Ten Commandments it is not affirm our righteousness in our following of them but to expose our inability to be God’s people because we cannot follow them.  Paul reminds us even if we can follow the law by our action in our hearts we resist the law and this is no different to breaking the law itself.

But are we left in this predicament of estrangement and sin?  Are we left to be abandoned to death and destruction and the hot winds that will lay waste?  We have all gone astray we are lost like sheep without a shepherd.

But listen to the good news of Jesus Christ as he speaks his parable to the tax collectors and sinners who had come near and to the Pharisees and Scribes who grumbled.

Creative Commons: Charles Roffey source Flickr

“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?”

Until he finds it!  Jesus is that shepherd who has come into the wilderness of human existence to find all of us who have gone astray.  He is looking for the lost sheep of all humanity and having found us in the midst of our sin and God-forsakenness he lifts us onto his shoulders and bears us in himself back into the presence of the Father.  He takes us home into relationship with God - into the fold of the Father’s love.

Notice the paradox of the telling of the parable that Jesus says that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than the 99 who do not need to repent.  The sheep did not seek the shepherd it had gone astray, like we who in our sin have gone astray from God.  The sheep was lost and it was found, it did not find itself through repenting.  The shepherd saves the sheep, the sheep does not save itself.

Here the parable echoes that wonderful Psalm, Psalm 23.  The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want he makes me to lie down in green pastures.  I do not choose to lie down but my Lord my Shepherd makes me to lie down.  It is the shepherd who acts in my and your best interest.

In this parable there is a sense that Jesus is not only the shepherd but the one sinner who repents, he is one with us, the lost sheep, and we are found in him as he seeks us in our lostness.

Grace is all the action of God, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.  And this is what baptism is all about. 

Baptism is not a naming ceremony.  Baptism is not simply the celebration of the birth of a child.  Baptism is the celebration of God’s unconditional loving grace.  As Christians we do not think of the innocent child rather we remember the words of Psalm 51:

Indeed, I was born guilty,

          a sinner when my mother conceived me.

The baptismal candidate does not repent but is drawn through the Holy Spirit into Christ’s own baptism by John the Baptist.  This is a baptism for the repentance of sin which he undertook for our sake.  The baptismal candidate is not required to know or understand but becomes a sign for us all of reconciling love and mercy of God.  This truth is summed up in the words of the prayer which I quote often:

Little child,

          for you Jesus Christ has come,

          has lived, has suffered;

          for you,

          he has endured the agony of Gethsemane

          and the darkness of Calvary;

          for you,

          he has uttered the cry “It is accomplished!”

          For you, he has triumphed over death;

          for you, he prays at God’s right hand;

          all for you little child,

          even though you do not know it.

Even though you do not know it!  Here in these readings today is the heart of the gospel.  Joy to the world the Lord is come, and he has come to bear us lost sheep, even if we don’t know we are lost, on his shoulders back into the presence of the heavenly kingdom.

So where does all of this leave us.  What are the implications for how we are to live?  To return for a moment to Paul’s words to Timothy, Paul says, “For that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost [sinner], Jesus Christ might displays the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life.”

We are called to live with patience and humility not thinking that we are no longer sinners but always remembering that we are forgiven sinners.  People who though we go on sinning God patiently goes on forgiving and loving. 

This humility means that we celebrate the repentance of Christ for us and our repentance in him with praise and thanksgiving.  We worship God, not only on Sunday but everyday, we meditate on his word to us, we pray, we celebrate baptism and communion. 

This humility means that we do judge one another or anyone else and that the doors of the church are open to any who would wish to be with us in God’s presence, for we forgiven sinners are not the ones who say who Christ can bear on his shoulders into the Father’s presence and whom he cannot.

This humility means remembering the truth of the gospel, “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” This is the good news of Jesus Christ to we who are the foremost among sinners.  Through God’s mercy we are set free to live our lives no longer burden by sin but in celebrating the steadfastness and the patience and the mercy and the great love of God.

Take a few moments to meditate on God’s love for you this day.

From hate to hope.

By Peter Lockhart

I wonder what you think it means to be a Christian. 

What does it mean to be a church goer? 

What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus: a disciple even?

I know that early in my life I believed very much that to be a Christian meant being a good member of society, upholding Christian values, which included family values.

It is interesting to note that one of the political parties with a religious leaning personify this commitment to family values in their name: Family First.

But is this really what the faith is about having family values and being good citizens.

On the dawn after our Australian election the lectionary give us the challenging gift of this reading from Luke 14:25-33:

25Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

Jesus said: Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.

Now I am not sure how well you know the Ten Commandments but honour thy father and mother is

To love or hate?
Creative commons: Kudaker

certainly one of them.  Is Jesus contradicting the law?  What does it mean for him to say that we should hate our families?  How do his words challenge the whole family values idea?

I know personally I hold to an idea that the message of Jesus is meant to be good news.  The first words of Mark’s gospel read “The good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  Hating family does not sound like good news!

A week ago the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd discussing marriage equality of Q&A said himself that at the heart of the New Testament is a message of universal love.  In 1 John we read “God is love”, if God is love from whence is this hate of family?

Where is the hope?  Where is the grace?  Where is the mercy?  Where is the good news?

How can we move from this message of hate into a message of hope?

The answer for me is that we must always take step back from a reading like this and look at it in the broader context.  We need to consider where it fits in the flow of the narrative of that particular book of the Bible and we also need to weigh it against the prevailing themes in scripture.  We also need to use our reason and intellect to consider it in light of revelation around the passage and in the world that has occurred through two millennia.

Looking at Luke’s gospel the preceding story is the story which we read last week.  To recap for those who were not here or may have forgotten Jesus was at a meal in the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees.  During the meal Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath, questioned the jockeying for hierarchical status at the table, and challenged the religious leaders to include those who were ostracised from the community.

In other words Jesus was challenging religious, social, economic and even political norms and standards of behaviour.  He was being counter cultural and in so doing was emphasising the tension that exist between God’s will and the society in which the Pharisees were operating and the underpinning assumptions within that society.

Jesus words about hating family and even life itself are a continuation of this confrontation between God’s will and the way people lived.

In the first century the life of any Jewish person was very much defined by their household.  The individualism of our society would be completely foreign to them culturally.

In Jesus time a man would be the head of a household and the household would usually be understood in a broader sense than the notion of the nuclear family of mum, dad and kids.

In this household of Jesus time the members of the household were intricately connected and the behaviour of one member could bring shame or honour to the whole group. 

Looking back to the passage for a moment at the end of the passage Jesus says “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” 

It may seem unusual for you that Jesus parallels hating family with possessions but in Jesus time viewing members of the family as possessions was more the norm.  Women in particular were viewed in this way.  Wives were in a sense owned as possessions by their husbands.  Daughters were married through arrangement as a point of trade that came with a dowry and could be used as a way of establishing or advancing social status and possible economic, political or religious power.

I must admit in terms of conversations around Christian marriage that are current I find it strange that much of this context is either lost or ignored as people redefine Christian marriage to reflect the relatively modern ideal of the nuclear family.

With such a strong tie between the individuals in the society and their families I have little doubt that Jesus confronting words to the crowd are about the costs of engaging with the transforming work of God.

It will cost in terms of social relationships, but it also had economic, political and religious implications.

Living as followers of Jesus, being proponents of God’s will in the world, would bring individuals in conflict with the society in which they lived.

This is more like the beginning of John’s gospel where John says of Jesus “He came to what was his own and his own people did not accept him.”

The good news of Jesus does not sit comfortably in the cultures of this world, Jesus was counter cultural and dare I say Jesus still is counter cultural.

Each week as a congregation we say pray the Lord’s Prayer which includes the words:

Your kingdom come, your will be done

On earth as is in heaven

I wonder whether we really consider how radical and subversive these words are as we pray them.

Jesus words suggest that being his follower is not about family values and being good citizens.  Rather it is about understanding that following Jesus is counter cultural.

In Paul’s letters he refers to us being like strangers in a strange land and citizens of a heavenly kingdom not yet arrived.  These words were a reminder then and I believe now also that the culture we find ourselves embedded in and are possessed by is not consistent with God’s vision for the creation and to seek to follow Jesus comes with tensions and costs for us as well.

Yesterday we voted and now we have a newly formed government with new representatives.  Regardless of whom you voted for, or whether you simply observed with interest as a visitor in our country, the reality is that the kind of core issues which drive our culture and society have not changed.

Our faith, if we are committed and honest about it, leaves us in tension with the culture in which we live.  The social, political, economic and religious tensions remain.  And whilst we might believe that the party we voted for may have best represented our values the reality is to vote for any party necessarily involves a level of compromise.

I have heard it said that liberal democracy is the best system of government from a list of inadequate choices and it may just be that it is the best we as humanity can do but Jesus words of hating the things we possess and which possess s are timely.

In Jesus time the question of hating family was as much about elevating God to a central place over and above the controls of the ancient household as it was literally about hating your parents, or wife or children.

I do not think Jesus is saying hating your parents is a good thing but that if we live in response to God’s love first we will love and honour parents appropriately ass the scripture suggests.  Not seeing other family members as possessions to be controlled.

If anything our problem is the opposite so highly have we elevated the rights and identity of the individual that communal relationships and commitment are being lost.  We would be very wary to rip Jesus words out of context suggest Jesus is any way encouraging and affirming the breakdown of families, divorce rates and the like within our community.

But Jesus words do challenge us on what it means to be his followers in the context of our culture.

In the midst of the election politicians played on our sense of individual entitlement, placing “me and my needs at the centre” of the decisions I make.  We were made to think about economic outcomes, and growth and wealth as priorities by both major parties as if these are the end goals.

We basically live in society which is grounded in teaching you to covet and consume.

Jesus challenge echoes down to us “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”  I am yet to meet a person who has taken this seriously and in all my study of Christian history only find very rare examples of such commitment to poverty of living.

Despite your generosity as individuals I suspect not one of us can claim we have done this and in our consumerist world obsessed with growth it is hard to fathom.

The character of Voldemorte in J.K. Rowling’s epic Harry Potter series is a parable for us of the dire consequences of locating our souls in objects as he does but we do not have to dwell too long in fantasy to be confronted by the consequences of our consumerist culture.

In the documentary “Surviving Progress” the consequences of our obsession with growth and consumerism are explored and message is we are on a course towards disaster if we do not change.

Returning to Jesus context by the time Jesus said these words he had already indicated his understanding that he was heading towards his betrayal, suffering and death.  Something even his closest disciples did not want to hear.

When he confronts the crowd he is telling it like it is.  Following Jesus was not about being in a fan club, it is not about pressing “like” on a Facebook page, it is about being prepared to go all the way.

Now before we get too despondent about where we are in relationship to this journey we know that whilst some followers left Jesus at this point by the time he falls into the hands of the Romans his own disciples have runaway or denied him.

Which brings me back to that question how do we move from hate to hope?

It is only in encountering the broader context of God’s story of pursuing us in love that we can find that hope.

We heard it in our readings today:

In the vision from Jeremiah that God’s will is like the potter at the will, continually reshaping the spoiled form into a new pot.  God’s love promises to reshape and remake not destroy.

In the words of intimacy in Psalm 139 which remind us God knits us in our mother’s womb, is with us through all of life, and when we breather our last is there.  What words of hope “I come to the end—I am still with you.”

In the words of encouragement from Paul to Philemon and the longing for God’s presence: “Refresh my heart!”

We are people who pray

Your kingdom come, your will be done

On earth as is in heaven

And as followers of Jesus we should be aware that there is a tension between the way we live now on earth and the coming of God’s kingdom and that there may and will be times that this tension is borne out in the relationships which we have with those around us and even amongst ourselves.

The good news of Jesus Christ and of God is the vision of a God who has pursued humanity and the whole creation in love from one generation to the next.  Governments, cultures and ways of life come and go but the promises of God and our hope in God flow from generation to generation.  Our experience of being good citizens or holding to family values may sit in tension with God’s will but God is always reaching to us.

As we pray for our newly elected government and for our Prime Minister and all of the elected representatives let us also hold on to our hope that spans decades and generations, and centuries and millennia unto the end of time and beginning of the new creation not simply the next 3 years.

Going to church?

by Peter Lockhart

As a minister I am regularly confronted with a question or a comment which is “You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian, do you?”

I wonder how you feel about that question.  I wonder what motivated you to be here this morning.  Was it because you felt you had to keep the fourth commandment to honour the Sabbath?  Was it because Sunday is church day and that’s what you always do?  Was it because you wanted to catch up with someone? Was it because you wanted to give thanks to God?  Was it because you thought it might be good for your children to go to Sunday School?  Or did you simply come with someone else because either you were made to or because you wanted to?

Luke tells a story about how one day Jesus was teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath when a woman crippled over for 18 years with what we are told is a spirit comes in.  Jesus invites the woman forward and heals her at which point pandemonium breaks loose.  The woman sings Gods praise, people are amazed and the synagogue leaders become irate about people doing inappropriate things on the Sabbath.

This little story opens up to us quite a few issues to do with the Sabbath and its implications of how we relate to God and each other.  I want to pick up on just three.

The first has to do with acceptance and healing.

The second has to do with legalism and criticisms.

The third is to do with freedom in thanksgiving.

Going back to Jesus time a woman who had an affliction like being bent double would likely have found herself ostracised in the community.  The very fact that we are told that her ailment is caused by a spirit, presumably an unfriendly one, indicates the kind of attitude the society had towards those who had illness or disability.

Despite the probability that she was very much seen as an outsider this woman goes to the synagogue to listen to the teaching.  As we know on seeing her enter Jesus invites her over and heals her.  The thing that is striking here is that Jesus notices her presence and respond to it not simply accepting her but bring her healing. 

There is something very basic here in terms of Jesus ability to comprehend the needs of a person and to meet those needs.  Jesus does not judge her; he does not indicate that she has great faith; there is nothing to indicate that she sought healing – Jesus simply sees her predicament and his heart goes out to her to give her what she needed most.  This indicates to me that Jesus and therefore God has concern for our human situations, the challenges and difficulties we all face.  Jesus sees not simply a bent over woman but sees a person to be loved and cherished.   

Now if the Church is to be a sign of Jesus love in the world I believe this has implications for us.  In the last 30 years there has been a continually shift in the way that we have spoken as a community about people with disabilities.   The word handicapped is not longer deemed appropriate, the word disabled has been superseded, to say someone is physically challenged is not in vogue.  I believe the current politically correct phrase is differently abled.  This all may seem like playing with words but at its heart is the search for affirming the humanity of people who are different. 

Unfortunately the moment we use any kind of label for a group of people there is a point of differentiation and even segregation.  It strikes me how often in the scriptures people like the bent over woman are left nameless.  In knowing a name we begin to know a person and as we get to know a person labels become less relevant.

Yet at the same time acknowledging the pain and difficulties that people face also seems paramount.  Jesus accepted the woman as he invited her to come near to him but Jesus met her deepest need as he healed her.  The church should be a place of healing and hope and whilst we cannot be Jesus I do believe it is important that we seek to meet those basic human needs of the people who come into our community as we are enabled to.  There may be miraculous healings, there may not, but either way as the church we are called to show compassion and caring.

This leads me into the second point I wanted to raise.  The incident occurs on the Sabbath and this causes quite a deal of consternation among the leaders of the synagogue.  In their view Jesus doing the healing is akin to working on the Sabbath and so they attack the woman for creating this situation.

At the heart of the attack by the synagogue leaders is a rigid approach to the law and morality.  The fourth commandment was to honour the Sabbath and this including not working but Jesus had worked.  To be good meant obedience to the law.

If we go back to the question I asked at the beginning it arises out a challenge to just such an understanding of going to church. ‘Do you have to go to church on Sunday to be a Christian?’  A legal moral approach to being a Christian must answer yes – it is our Sabbath keeping.  Even though Sunday is not actually the Sabbath it is the day we set aside to honour and worship God.

The question around the issue for us then is how we approach our faith.  ‘Is being a Christian about moral behaviours and obedience to the letter of the law or is it something else?’

Jesus answer to the legalists is to point out that the law makes provision for compassion to be shown to animals on the Sabbath.  A Jew was allowed to feed and water animals on the Sabbath if necessary so if compassion can be shown to an animal then why not to a person.  It is a good question and does not necessarily undermine the Sabbath law but prioritises it.

Elsewhere, when Jesus is challenged for his behaviours on the Sabbath, Jesus points out that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  What this simply means is that the Sabbath is a gift to humanity which grounds them in their relationship with God.  The observance of the Sabbath is for the benefit of people it is not meant to cripple them.

In asking the question or making the statement that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian I believe that the question of our participation in the community of faith has become conceptualised as a matter of law as opposed to a matter of faith, whereby we accept a gift from God.

This leads me into the third point which is about the freedom of giving thanks to God.  The healed woman stands straight and praise God.  The other people in the synagogue rejoice in what Jesus was doing, even though they personally may not have benefited from his actions.

In recognising that in Jesus God acts people praise God.  In coming to a point in our own lives where we want to praise God and give thanks our reasoning around coming to be the church on Sunday changes away from the legal imperative to observe the Sabbath.

Coming to church is about coming to a place with the people of God where we can give thanks for the real encounters we have had in our faith journey with Jesus healing and acceptance.  It is also in gathering together we share each others burdens and celebrate each others faith journeys.  In other words it’s not just about you.

I know as a minister that people come to church for all sorts of reasons and many people argue that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.  For me it is not so much a question of having to go to church, or having to keep the Sabbath, it is a question of what gifts God has given us to assist to know and honour God. 

Jesus was not undermining the Sabbath in his actions simply prioritising needs and honouring God in a different way.  The question of how you and I find acceptance and healing and freely express our thanksgiving in this day and age is just as important as it was back then.   As we are drawn into community to know each others names, to accept each other and bring healing and hope let us also remember to come together to give thanks to God who gave to us these gifts.

I invite you to take a few moments of silence to listen for God speaking to you on this day.

Fire & Division: Not peace?!

By Peter Lockhart: A sermon on Luke 12:49-56

Jesus said:

I came to bring fire to the earth... Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!

Really, Jesus said he came to bring fire and division.  I have to admit that this is one of those passages which are kind of uncomfortable.  A few months back I preached about God’s peace and this statement of Jesus on face value seems to be in direct conflict with what Is aid back then.

Is this what God’s will was in sending Jesus into the world?  Is it what we see at the heart of Jesus ministry?  If we read back a little further in Luke’s gospel these words do come at the end of a series of parables which do speak of judgement and the timing of the coming of God’s reign.

Despite this I do not believe that division is the end game for God or for Jesus for that matter.  So to make sense of Jesus words we need to take a look at the bigger picture, at least in shorthand.

If we look at the whole of Luke’s gospel we can find a few clues.  At the beginning of his account of Jesus’ life Luke records a story about shepherds and angels.  At the time of Jesus’ birth the angels sing of “Peace on earth and goodwill on earth”. 

Flipping through the gospel we find Jesus engaged in healing and restoring people to community.

Then after his resurrection when Jesus appears to his disciples and declares “Peace be with you!”

So from the beginning of Luke there is a declaration of God’s peace that was coming with Jesus by the angels whilst at the end of the gospel Jesus himself declares God’s peace to the disciples.

This peace is a pretty big concept for the Jewish people of the time and many of you would know the Jewish word for peace which is ‘shalom’.

God’s shalom, the ‘shalom’ declared by Jesus, was about an end to the division that lay between God and people and so was also about the end of division between people.  When we share the peace, God’s shalom, in church it is this reality we are meant to be remembering and encountering.

This brings me back to what Jesus may have been up to when he said:

Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!

I suspect what Jesus is doing is naming the reality that was occurring around him.  His presence in the world, God’s presence, was unsettling and the prophecies surrounding the coming of the Messiah emphasised it would be a time of disruption and division.  It was to be a time of upheaval.

By Jesus connecting his words about fire and division with the issue of reading the signs of the times Jesus is trying to drawn attention to the reality of the unrest that was caused by his presence.  He appears to be saying, “Now is the time of the coming of the Messiah and I am he!”

The end goal of God’s presence in the world in Jesus in not in the moments of division but in what the angels sang and what Jesus declared after his resurrection: Shalom!  Though he says he did not come to bring peace in the moment of his lifetime, the fulfilment of God’s promise in him is peace.

The imagery of ‘fire’ is used here by Jesus to hearken back to the Old Testament and the images of ‘fire’.  Some of these images point to a time of purification which was to come.  In this sense the image of ‘fire’ is not the hellfire of punishment but the fire of purification; the refiners fire.

If Jesus presence does bring the time of fire and purification and is the time of division prophesied it is because Jesus takes within himself this process of purification and through his life, through his death and through his resurrection he heals the division precipitated by his presence and the disruption in the relationship with God.

So it is that mingled within these words of Jesus he also speaks of his baptism to come.  This is clearly an allusion to his suffering and death.  The division that humanity constantly pursues in its relationship with God is ultimately played out as people hang God on a cross.  Paradoxically it is in this very act of violence that God pursues in love those who condemn God and provide for all people a reconciled relationship which is the way God establishes peace.

This is a vital story for us to hear in its fullness not just in isolation because it brings us to a place of better understanding of the verse we read today and points us forwards in how we are to behave as Christian people.

Sadly passages like this are easily abused.  During the week I heard the story of a Uni student who’s Pastor appears to be exerting unhealthy influence over.  The student is not fulfilling his study requirements because his Pastor is pressuring him to do more ‘Christian’ activities for the church and even more disturbingly the student is lying to his family about his involvement in the church.

Read out of context the passage can be manipulated to suggest Jesus affirms family breakdown and the disruption of relationships between children and their parents. 

Jesus is not affirming nor encouraging the division but naming the reality that was occurring around him.

We should not use Jesus words here to excuse poor behaviours toward one another in our families, our congregation, or across the universal church.  Yes, we may hear in Jesus words a statement of human fallibility and tendency to reject God but this is not God’s aim or will in Jesus presence in the world.

This leads me to make a further comment about the timing of Jesus coming.  I have this coffee mug which was given to me as a gift.  It has a picture of Jesus on it with the words, “Look busy, Jesus is coming.”

When Jesus was speaking about the signs of the time he was connecting what was happening 2000 years ago to his coming as the Messiah but there is constancy to these words as well.

Over the history of the church we have grown to understand that Jesus is present with us through the power of the Holy Spirit.  In Matthew’s gospel Jesus says that where two or three are gathered ‘I am there’.

The Uniting Church in its Basis of Union expresses the belief that Jesus is present when the Word is proclaimed.

We too can read the signs around us. Jesus is coming into the world, Jesus is always coming!  In his coming there may be an experience of fire and division but we remember that God’s peace is really the ultimate goal.

This is why Paul writing to the Hebrews encourages them with the words;  

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

As God’s people in this place we may experience the division borne of our human fallibility but as people renewed by the Holy Spirit we can also seek to run that race as people who seek to build bridges of hope and love in what we say and do.

During the week I read a good reflection by Stu Cameron the minister at New Life Uniting Church.  He reflected on the importance of honouring one another as Christians. 

Our honouring one another is one way of running the race and clinging to Christ rather than our sin.  It is a simply thing to say but a much more difficult thing to do. 

We honour one another as we weigh carefully the words we are about to say, or write in an email.  We honour one another as we act generously to each other in our thoughts and prayers and good deeds.  We honour one another as we thank the people each week who play our music, say our notices, work in St Lucy’s, come to prayer group or Bible Study, prepare morning tea or Sunday School prepare our notices, or work on the door.

In our acts of thanksgiving towards one another, as we honour each person, we help create a community of God’s peace which whilst not perfect pursues with ardour a faithful witness to God’s love.

I came to bring fire to the earth... Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!

The good news is that Jesus is the purifying fire and the division caused by his presence is also healed by his presence.  Let us hold fast to this message and live as people of God’s shalom, receiving gratefully forgiveness when we fall short and celebrating God’s grace when God’s love is seen, heard and experiences in our midst.

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.