Sermon preached at the Induction of Rev Eric Mattock in Maniototo Parish Sunday 26th May, 2013

Gospel Reading: Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Let us pray:  O God, may your word be spoken and received with open hearts and minds, that we may find your truth, your purpose in them for us.  Amen.

Rachel Remen, in her book Kitchen Table Wisdom tells the story of how, when she was just 3 or 4, her father began a family tradition of putting out a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle on a table and then hiding the box lid with the picture on it so that no-one knew what picture would eventually emerge. The child Rachel wanted to participate but wasn’t sure how – when she climbed up to look she noticed that some pieces were dark and shadowy and others brightly coloured and decided that the dark ones were like spiders or bugs, ugly and a little frightening.  So she gathered them up and hid them under a cushion – a few at a time until there were around a hundred pieces missing.  She eventually owned up to doing this and watched as her mother added them to the picture – and said that she was astounded as this amazing picture emerged of a peaceful beautiful deserted beach.  Without the bits she had taken, the dark pieces, the picture made no sense.

Its an analogy that could speak to many parts of our lives I suspect but the focus for today, the question I want to ask of every person here, minister, elder, congregational members is: what aspects of our ministry (remembering that we are all involved in ministry as the body of Christ) as individuals and as a community of faith are we holding back on, not allowing to emerge, because we think they are of no value, or even shadowy, scary, and unworthy, not relevant or needed in the building of the Kingdom of God here in this place. 

It seems to be to be a particularly relevant question today as we come together to celebrate the induction of Eric into this Parish and to welcome Eric and Kim to this community.  What could the ministry life of this parish – any of our parishes really – look like if we brought all our gifts, the bright shiny ones and the not so obviously polished ones to our ministry?

For this passage we heard read today has within it the realities of the life of ministry – and, in no particular order, we see Jesus teaching, all of them getting burnt out, working hard at spending time in worshipping community, all of them spending time in conversation and reflection with God, and responding to the needs of the wider world, often to the point of exhaustion, so that healing might take place.

And within those who participated in that ministry with Jesus, there would be many different skills, awkward moments of inadequacy, and amazing experiences in the power of God.  We are no different – all called to exercise our particular ministry through both our obvious gifts and also in our more shadowy, less obvious skills.  For if we bring only our bright shiny gifts we are not seeing the whole picture of the kingdom here in this place.  For I believe that it is in our moments of offering our vulnerable self, our uncertain, untested self in ministry that we most find God and others most know God in us. 

In parish ministry, for any community of faith, this means stepping beyond the easy, the comfortable into the place of trust in God and each other to support, care for and nurture each one of us not only in our strengths but in what we might see as inadequacies. 

My husband is a musician – and I’ve often heard him use a throwaway phrase like ‘I might as well cut off my fingers now’ when he sees a superlative guitarist or percussionist’ – in other words no way I could match them so I’ll stop.  I think we do that too – whilst I was on holiday there was a sermon preached at Opoho that had me thinking – this tongue has no business expounding the Gospel - it has got to go.....

Ministry is hard work for all of us, it feels like too much at times and we can so totally relate to this day in the life of Jesus and the Apostles.  Overwhelmed would not be too strong a word sometimes.  Wouldn’t it be easier if we could switch on and off a bit more, could just do say, the worship bit on Sunday and trust God with the rest of the week.  Or if we could only pick up on those things that we shine at, and not expose ourselves to new and uncertain experiences in case we stumble.  It might be, I suggest that this attitude is one of the reasons why some people find church life increasingly irrelevant as they can perceive a culture of accomplishment at odds with the ups and downs of ordinary life.  It’s hard to approach someone with your messy up and down life if see no such vulnerabilities in their life. 

So how do we live this life of immensely rewarding but also challenging, exhausting, vulnerable ministry that is the life Christ calls us to follow so that we might make Christ known in our communities?

Lets come back to the text. 

Jesus shows us that ministry is about teaching and learning of God through scripture, community and all that have gone before.  None of us have the whole truth, all of us have truths and stories and understandings to share with each other.  A minister of Word and Sacrament, as we call it in the Presbyterian Church, has a particular role as a teaching elder, but each one of us has a responsibility, if not a passionate need, to be able to articulate our faith, to ‘teach’ others, to develop our common understanding of God and the life that Christ calls us to.  When we are all willing to learn, share and explore the Gospel message together, that is when we make Jesus Christ known in our communities. 

Ministry is about time with God in rest and reflection – come away with me and rest awhile says Jesus. 

One part of the training that interns receive from Knox Centre, and that I think we all as people of faith well should well consider,  is about recovering the concept of the Sabbath – finding within your ministry time a space for reflection- for deliberate, personal, quality God time – and we are not solely here talking about daily devotions or words of prayer but rather of intentional listening and resting in the presence of God.  And it was the hardest teaching for almost everyone to grasp – or at least to translate into actual Parish life.  We all knew it would be the first thing to go in the busyness and commitment of being a Minister – or in fact of anyone with a busy life and too many things to juggle and so it was kind of ‘this would be lovely...’ rather than ‘this must be...’  It wasn’t that we thought it scary – rather that it was of lesser need than the obvious ‘doing’ roles ahead of us.  One of the pieces of our faith life that gets regularly shoved under the cushion, you might say. 

Ministry, says Jesus, is about spending time together – in worship and around the table – re-membering who and whose we are so that we minister from the heart of God, not just from duty or the law.   When we gather in joy and praise, when we come in prayer as the people of God, when we listen and respond to scripture, when we eat together and laugh together we are equipping ourselves, clothing ourselves in the love of Christ through the power of the Spirit so that we can effectively and compassionately  minister to others – within the church family we are part of and facing outwards – into community – where healing and justice and love is so desperately needed.  ‘And he had compassion for them...’ 

How might our compassion look if we not only bring the shiny pieces of the puzzle – our gifts, our sureties, our tried and tested ways, but also our unknown, less obviously valued pieces, our uncertainties, our vulnerabilities, our doubts and struggles and perceived failures?  When we each offer all that we are in our ministries, not just our ‘good’ gifts, then Jesus Christ can truly be made known in us and through us.

This is new jigsaw being laid out in the community of Middlemarch today –maybe it’s time to hide the lid of the puzzle box and see what will emerge as you bring all that you are and can be to the ministry of Jesus Christ in this parish.  Take care of one another, teach, rest, share and nurture and may we, each of us, together create a place of hope and compassion and justice and love in the name of the living Christ.  Amen

Margaret Garland

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 26th May 2013 Trinity Sunday

Readings: Romans 5: 1-5, John 16: 12-15

 Let us pray: O God, may your word be spoken and received with open hearts and minds, that we may find your truth, your purpose in them for us.  Amen.

Show youtube video:

St Patrick's bad analogies [1]    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw

So that’s the sermon taken care of for Trinity Sunday. 

To be serious though – like much else in our doctrine and our theology, our attempts to verbally explain and tie down what it is we believe so often lead us into places of incomprehensibility and confusion – and none more so over time than the Trinity – maybe that is why we make sure there always is a Trinity Sunday in the lectionary – so that we keep on plugging away in the hope we get it right one day? 

So I thought that today we might approach the three in one through a particular word – and that is ‘consistency’.

Both the Gospel and the Epistle reading for today beg the question – how is it that we, responding to Christ in the leading of the Spirit, avoid an almost carte blanche approach to what is right – where excessive and wayward claims are made in the name of God, and where power and rightness are counted above grace and love.  Where we get it wrong in other words.

In the Gospel reading we find John in chapter 16 has kind of broadened the promise of the Spirit from the earlier reading from last week – then it was that the Spirit would teach the disciples all things and remind them of everything Jesus had taught.  This time we hear that the Spirit will lead the disciples in all truth – speak what it will hear and announce to the disciples what will come.  In other words the disciples, and us, could claim almost anything  as warranted by the Spirit – the obvious link to the memory of the historical Jesus is missing.

Any one of us could think of some of those wayward claims: inner voices that lead people into destructive attitudes and behaviours, bizarre claims to truth and harmful deviances from community.  On a very practical level claims to Gospel truth and action that would make Jesus weep.  Add in the fact that for us, and for the early church, society and ethical and social choices were no longer directly spoken to by the historical Jesus experience and you have a Spirit presence open to very human interpretations.  But John was very aware of this  - if you look at the words again – its not a free for all, a loose and potentially mischievous Spirit with no controls – but a Spirit speaking what is heard of the risen Christ and declaring it to us – what is mine is yours says Jesus, through the Spirit.  The Spirit’ teaching and revelation is consistent with the teaching and revelation of Christ who is consistent with the purpose of God – Jesus completes the circle - saying that what is his is the Father’s and the Father’s is declared for us.  To be truth, it must be consistent with the entirety of the three in one.

William Loader puts it most succinctly: all claims to the Spiritual are measured by the image of God we see in Jesus. This totally applies, says Loader to the teachings of the Gospels – they were gathered and shared in the workings of the Spirit in the knowledge of God made known in the life and teachings of Jesus.  In the same way we, and Christians throughout time make our calls on the way of our faith within that circle of trinity, within the consistency of the three in one.  And where we don’t do this we inevitably go astray.  Its hard and rigourous work, this living a God facing life.

Paul too echoes these same concerns of a spirituality that seems to embrace a truth that was inconsistent with Christ – where impressiveness and power are valued over grace and compassion – you can find him in just such a debate in 2 Corinthians as he argues that adversity and not applauded success are a trademark of the Christian who lives within the Trinitarian consistency of God – the Jesus way is both  radical and counter cultural – so expect to be out of sync with what the world deems successful.

In Romans he is following this same theme – that there will be dangerous and disturbing consequences if we fail to base our relationship with God or the Spirit or Jesus without the consistency of the trinity.

But he goes further – he suggests that finding yourself out of step with what might be society’s prevailing definition of success and right living is in fact a good thing, because it encourages us to be in right relationship with God.  And in fact, rigourous thought it is to live it, figuring out what the Spirit is saying to us within in the consistency of the triune God becomes incredibly straightforward when we place it in the simplicity of our relationship with God – a relationship based wholly on unconditional love. 

We don’t have to bow to the pressures of what someone else says we should be because we are loved as we are. 

We don’t have to have a handle on truth or wisdom or works before we can be accepted into God’s embrace, we are loved as we are. 

We don’t have to worry that we are broken, hurting, bewildered, doubting because we are loved as we are.

We don’t need to worry that we will disappoint God with our backsliding and mistakes and wrong choices for God loves us despite all we can do and be. 

We, all we need to do is accept and live in that love that has been poured into our hearts. 

It does make us more vulnerable for we are always guided by love and love can hurt.

It does make us radical, for the Jesus way of love grace and mercy is definitely not the predominant culture in this world.  It does build character and endurance and hope - for living in the consistency of the three in one places us in a position of adversity with much of the world.  So be it.

The presence of and connection with the Spirit, through which and in which we know the mind of the living Christ and of the Father, Creator, Holy Mystery encourages us to live out the presence of God in our community, in our time, in a way consistent with the purpose of, and in the love of the triune God.  And for this we say thanks be to God.

Margaret Garland

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[1] St. Patrick's Bad Analogies

 TheLutheranSatire

Sermon Sunday 12th May 2013 Ascension Sunday

Readings: Ephesians 1:15-23, Luke 24: 44-53

Let us pray: May the God’s word speak to us, may the Spirit open our hearts and Christ guide us in the way.  Amen

I think it’s no great exaggeration to say this Sunday’s focus on the Ascension of Christ is one of the least helpful and most avoided teachings in the New Testament for many people. It’s just plain ‘difficult’! In our 21^st century world, being presented with a picture, whether visual or oral, of Jesus being lifted up into the clouds into some real-time place above us called heaven doesn’t exactly inspire or inform our faith. Just as a literal understanding of Adam and Eve is not helpful, so it is with this day. 

But what really surprised me (and should not have) is the extent to which our tradition and our culture continues to hold on to this picture of the cloud ascending Christ.   

As I am wont to do I started googling some of the imagery for ascension – modern and ancient depictions of this moment – and, apart from finding little change in the depiction over time,  I actually got hooked into some of the cartoons where the God in/on cloud imagery is used.  And it reinforced for me that this understanding of God above on cloud was firmly ensconced in our culture and society. I found a number by Garrick Tremain – from Muldoon arriving with Rob’s Mob to Winston looking for a coalition arrangement, having run out of options on earth – and this was 10 years ago!  Sometimes they can be quite funny – there was one online recently which pictures Jesus heading up into the clouds, all but one of the disciples with hands up watching him go and the one saying ‘Where, where? I can’t see him!’ And a little arrow pointing to him saying ‘Ascension Deficit Disorder’  or as Mike pointed out to me Ascension Disbelief Disorder might be more appropriate.

All fairly harmless really and unlikely to change easily.  The difficulty for us arises in how we approach Ascension and mostly we seem to avoid going there at all – just too difficult.   And that is a shame.  For there is a much deeper and meaningful point to this final separation of the historical Jesus from his earthly life than the somewhat one dimensional picture of ascension that our words, our art, some of our preaching and communication continue to offer. 

Let us look at what is happening at the time of the readings. 

The disciples, the followers of Jesus, after Jesus’ death are trying to make sense of how they understand what has happened.  The one they have known in an earthly life and experienced as the risen Christ with them is to leave.  How do they portray this verbally to those who come after  –it makes absolute sense that they draw on stories from their tradition – in this instance the story of the prophet Elijah who was swept up to heaven – a story that made perfect sense in a world where faith and the then world understanding sat side by side.  But today that same story stretches our credibility. I think our problem is getting caught up with the details of the troublesome time and space action at the end of the reading instead of looking to the teaching of Jesus that surrounds this time, this event.   And then we find that this otherwise fantastic episode of the ascension signals a much more practical and obvious message – that of the empowering or the commissioning of the disciples in the mission of Christ. This is a beginning, not a leaving.  It is a reassurance, not a withdrawal.  This is the end of Jesus’ personal ministry here on earth but, rather than a removal of God’s presence, a void, a period of divine absence, the Ascension is where both heaven and earth, the whole of creation, are filled by Christ’s presence, “the fullness of him who fills all in all.”  It is a transference of Christ’s mission to us in the power of the coming Holy Spirit and the presence of the living God in all creation. 

Let us look to the text to extend these thoughts:  first Jesus opened the minds of the disciples to the scriptures and then said “You are witnesses of these things.  And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”  And then he blessed them.  There is a sense of no panic, little surprise, high expectation and patience and trust.   They were ready for this moment, prepared for the leaving in the expectation of a greater coming.  And it was important that this moment happened!  Without it we would be left in limbo.

Fromm here I am going to borrow heavily from the writings of Rowan Williams (1) who offers a take on the ascension that certainly spoke to me.

The gist of his thinking is this - that the ascent of Jesus brings a closure to both his prophetic teaching ministry and to the mystical meaning of his death and resurrection by incorporating it back into the life from whence it came, to God.  Without it, he suggests, all the other events of Christ’s life dangle like unresolved plot lines in a poorly constructed novel, failing to reach a conclusive witness to the dwelling of God in creation. In other words there is an air of unfinished business if we just stay with the resurrection appearances – for if you think of them in this light, the appearances of the risen Christ to the various disciples have a somewhat elusive, unpredictable air to them – with his coming and going at will, appearing and reappearing quite unexpectedly.  The disciples are surprised and disorientated but, and this is a big but, they are also set on fire with the recognition of God’s power through the risen Christ.   The thing is though - imagine if we stopped in that place –that there was no ascension –Williams uses this analogy to illustrate his point:

Imagine what it’s like when you first wake up in a winter’s morning.  When you put on the light, all you are conscious of is the brightness of the light itself.  Only gradually do your eyes adjust sufficiently to the light that you are able to make out other objects.  After a few moments, however, you cease to be conscious of the light itself, and start to see what else is in the room, illumined by the light. The Gospel accounts of Jesus resurrection, says Williams, show him to have been like that initial morning light; at first Jesus’ resurrected self was so blinding that the disciples would be conscious only of him.  The Ascension, however, is that moment when the light itself recedes into the background, so that Jesus becomes the one through whom we see the rest of the world.  “He is the light we see by; we see the world in a new way because we see it through him, see it with his eyes.” 

Moreover, this new perspective works in two ways: not only do we see the world as the place where Jesus has promised to be but we also see it as the place where we are committed to be.

The ascension message for us is the passing of the mission of God onto us – and how do we respond to that?  How did the disciples respond?  With great joy they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem to wait for the coming of the Spirit who would empower them in the proclaiming of the Gospel – as we approach Pentecost Day, do we wait with eager anticipation, trust and great joy for the charge on our lives as the people of Christ in this 21^st century and in this land of Aotearoa NZ?

Margaret Garland

(1)

 Rowan Williams, “Ascension Day,” in A Ray of Darkness (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Press, 1995), 69 

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 5th May 2013 Easter 6

Bible Readings : Acts 16:9-15, John 14: 23-29

                                      

Let us pray:  may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts open us to your guiding for each of us this day in Jesus name.  Amen

In our liturgical year this is the last Saturday of the Easter season – next week is Ascension and the following Sunday Pentecost.  So it seems timely to ask this of ourselves as we lead into Pentecost (and what is called Ordinary time – where the work of the church is done ) – what significant thing are we to do in response to such a transformative event as Easter Sunday – the empty tomb?  Before we take down these banners around the church, what vision of being an Easter people do they inspire in us, what are we each and together going to take into our future of being church?

Many answers perhaps – but for me today, as we ponder the journey of Paul through to Philippi and his meeting with Lydia, it is this: that we are to be open to the possibilities of the Spirit – to those things beyond our control and not of our planning.  Now that may sound to you either exciting or scary or perhaps a bit of both.

I’m going to cautiously venture back into that analogy of the garden - if we rigorously allow only that which we have chosen and planted to grow in well prepared places that we have defined, we lay ourselves open to missing some special moments – like the miracle of the wind blown seed flowering in impossible places, the absolute perfection of the camellia on that one day before the wind and rain get to it, the beauty and intricacy of the flower of that which we always determined to be a weed because it was more prolific than we were comfortable with.....

Let me try and explain how I see this connecting with the story of Lydia and Paul.  Both of these transforming disciples of Christ had something in common – they were open to the Spirit in their lives.  Let’s take Paul first.  The few verses before today’s reading are important.  In them we place Paul back in Lystra and Iconium where he connects with Timothy, and from there they go through Phrygia and Galatia –but, and here is the interesting part, they are forbidden by the Spirit to head either northeast into Mysia or southwest into Asia but instead they are encouraged by the Spirit to travel onto Troas and, as we heard, a man in a dream convinces them to travel across the waters to Macedonia and in the end to Philippi.

Paul was open to the guidance of the Spirit – he had his own plans but was convinced to head in different directions.  And something happened that, in his own planning, would have been most unlikely.  He ended up sitting down on a river bank in Philippi talking to a bunch of woman who met regularly for prayer – women seeking God - and one of them was the Gentile Lydia -  identified particularly as a worshipper of God.  What a journey to get to this unexpected and unlooked for encounter that was to have an enormous impact on the spreading of the Gospel message.  For many people of the time, the strategic planners shall we say of the day, both Jewish and Gentile, this meeting of Paul and Lydia would be a weed in the garden experience – random and of dubious value, and certainly not the best use of their time and energy in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  For these were women, gentiles, outside the place of worship - and therefore the authority of worship we suspect – an unlikely patch of garden to be cultivated really. 

What we find in fact is that Lydia proved to be a rich and fruitful source for the Gospel of Christ Jesus – she was already established as a strong and resourceful woman in her community, a seller of purple cloth indicating her dealings with the elite in society, she was head of her own household in a male dominated society.    She was a strong woman and used to being in control and choosing what she might do and think.

But nothing would have happened that day on the river bank without Lydia’s heart being open to the possibilities of God – she was participating in worship, she was seeking answers and therefore she was open to the truth of the message that Paul brought – so ready and prepared that she responded immediately and generously with her heart and her hospitality.  One person described the moment beautifully “Longing and Grace met on the banks of the river that day”. 

What does this mean for us then – this being led by the Spirit?  Well I will tell you what it definitely does not mean - it does not mean gardens full of weeds and long grass and choked stunted peas and beans as we sit waiting for a word from the Spirit to tell us what to do next.  It is not a space of ‘do nothing’ until told otherwise.  Rather more it is a continuing to actively live our faith as we best know how and, at the same time, being open to the nudgings of the Spirit into other possibilities as well, being open of mind and heart to things we might not have planned for or that occur in ways we might not have pictured. 

I am reminded of a part of the Last Battle, the final book of the Narnia series by C S Lewis – where the transitory world of Narnia is imploding really, and the door of the stable is the opening into the eternal Narnia where all is reborn and beautiful  – and the dwarves are so intent on seeing only what they expect to see, the inside of a manky old stable, that even the most delectable food and drink tasted like mouldy hay and dirty trough water, the most glorious sunshine was pokey darkness and the sweetest smelling violet was stable litter.  They were not open to the possibilities of the new Narnia and were left behind snarling and arguing with each other. 

Don’t let us be like that – surrounded by possibilities and seeing none of them because we refused to look up from our rigidly held perceptions of the right way, not allowing that there can be possibilities of life and grace outside our experiences.  

For it is in this place of openness to the Spirit that great things can happen – we can only imagine how many heard the Good News of Jesus whilst gathered at Lydia’s home – how that improbable encounter became the catalyst for so much more.

But I would like to leave the final word today to Ronald Cole-Tuner[1] as he describes his insight into the openness and seeking nature of Lydia.

Lydia is able to be so decisive at this moment of meeting with Paul – within minutes of being baptised she turns her house into base for the spread of Christianity into Europe – she can be so decisive because she is open to discerning the deeper workings of God’s Spirit. And she gains this perception, this seeking because of her worship – she has come to worship hungering for something more in her life, something bigger and more real than the commercial and social success that she enjoys.  And in that hunger she is open to the restless Spirit, who is present in all of us before we even know it, open to the nudging of the one who sees ways that we cannot plan for and fruitful blessings in the most impossible places – is that how we might continue to be an Easter People into Pentecost and the year ahead do you think?

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[1] Feasting on the Word Year C vol.2 p.478

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 2nd June 2013 Pentecost 2

Readings:  Galatians 1:1-12, Luke 7:1-10

Let us pray:  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you O God, our rock and our sustainer.  Amen

I read a story earlier on about a mountain that wanted to come live in a house[1] – and it just wasn’t going to work – the mountain was an outsider who didn’t and couldn’t fit in the confines of the town life in the way we would expect – but there were other ways to do it.   Today I want to talk about ‘outsiders’ in the context of church life and community and faith.  Just as, in our Gospel passage, the centurion, a Gentile, was an outsider in the eyes of the Jewish Jesus-discipled community, who is it that is outside of us and what is our relationship with them?

It’s interesting on many fronts, this story of the centurion. 

-That the local Jewish leaders pleaded on behalf of this gentile soldier at all is unusual – but they have good reason because he had been more than sympathetic to them and their needs – a very supportive outsider and therefore a good man. 

-That Jesus didn’t actually come to the house for healing to happen when in most other stories of healing there was contact, laying on of hands, sharing of words, witnesses to the event.  

-That the Centurion had enough compassion and care for the ways of Jews (the other) as to not want to put Jesus in the difficult position of breaking the laws of his faith by having to come into the house of a Gentile. 

-That in this common courtesy Jesus found a faith so astounding – what was it that the solider said: “Jesus, you just need to say it will be so and so it will be” – that he compared it with sadness to the faith of Israel.  This ‘outsider’s’ faith was the yardstick by which all others could measure.  One of those on the margins had a better handle on faith than those within the circle.

There is much in this story to explore and not a little to challenge us as church today – and I don’t mean this in the sense that we should just demolish church as we know it, that we should just give up and go home – rather that we should see this story as an opportunity to re-explore how God works in this world and to remind ourselves that we, as Presbyterian, or Protestant or the Christian Church Catholic, don’t have the exclusive rights to faith or spiritual truth. For God loves the whole world, not just the church.

Some thoughts then on how we relate to those we could call outsiders – in this context I am speaking of good people of belief, or not, who choose to not come join with organised faith communities.

I wonder if we assume a degree of goodness within the baptised community of faith and look to those outside to prove themselves? The soldier had proven his care and compassion by his acts – without that would he have gained the same support and compassion from the local faith community to heal his dying servant?   Can we say that we love and recognise and accept the goodness in others without commitments or credentials or expectations of eventual membership?  Can we accept that others than us have a heart filled with love and right-living?  There is a story from Australia of some church people who were going around music festivals with an outreach bus.  At one rock festival, where there were plenty of Hell’s Angels present, their tyres were slashed.  There was one member of the gang, called believe it or not Ball Bearing, who, when he heard of this, strode up to the stage, grabbed the mike of the musicians and roared at the very large crowd: “those people in the church bus are good – they are here to help us – leave them alone – if I find the guy that slashed their tyres he’ll be history”.  And that wasn’t the end of the story – one of the people from the church asked Ball Bearing if he would come with him when he went to talk to some secondary schools – and he agreed to!  What did this ‘outsider’ do?  Well he didn’t pretend to be a Christian nor did he promote Hell’s Angels, in talk back time he pushed the speaker really hard on some issues, and he said this to the students – and believe me they took notice – he said: “Listen to this guy – he’s on the level.  He’s been praying for me for years – don’t know if its done any good but he’s worthwhile.  I respect him.  He won’t let you down.”  And at the end of the assembly Ball Bearing gave him a hug and said ‘I love you’.  God loves the world, not just the church.

I wonder if there is any truth that those on the margins, those not within the circle, have a better handle on truth sometimes, that they have eyes to see that which is real in a way that we can miss.  Putting it another way, those within with all the teaching and theology and doctrinal truths can get it wrong just as much if not more than those who are not part of the church – we do not have an exclusive hold on perfection here folks! Sometimes the perspective of those outside of the established church can teach us heaps about our beliefs and how we live them.  This is the issue that Paul was dealing with – when he discerned that the Church’s institutional authority was at odds with what he called the authority of God. 

The new missionaries who had come to Galatia were preaching a different Gospel to that which Paul had preached.  They were teaching that certain ceremonial practices were necessary for the New Testament faith community – in particular circumcision and following the law of the Hebrew Scriptures.  They perhaps wanted to make sense of the chaos, the open invitation to all people of the world that they felt Paul had laid down, and in doing so, were contradicting what Paul calls God’s gospel of grace. 

Now isn’t this something that continues to be a conundrum for us! I have to ask, ‘What’s new?  Why do we continue to, as a church, make rules and policies that are contrary to God’s purpose for this world, to Jesus teachings and his living and dying?  Why do we make rules that exclude not just people, outsiders, but actually, Jesus himself (if we exclude any one of his sheep are we not excluding Jesus)– either that or you could say that we end up converting Jesus to our best practice.   I would suggest that part of the solution comes from those not in this place - those people, the outsiders often, who ask us the hard questions, who are directly harmed, excluded, dehumanised by church policies – we have to listen and do something about it.  Paul preached a gospel of grace – the grace that is found in every act of kindness and justice and compassion in this world, inside and outside the church – in the bikie who yells at the tyre slasher, in the community that cares for the marginalised and the outsider without expectation or response or reward, in the church that continually listens for what the Spirit is saying in the person of Christ.

And lastly I wonder if we remember what astounding faith looks like.  Are there things we can identify with or should examine as a church community that water-down our hope and trust in Christ to make a difference in this world? Or do we have to look outside the church for the stories of hope and grace and deep faith?  Well yes there probably are things to identify – a discussion for another day – and, hear the good news, the stories of hope and grace and deep faith are everywhere – within the church and without.  Our task is not to dismiss or patronise or default to those who choose to be people of faith and goodness outside the walls of this church – our task is to be a audible and visible people of grace in our community – recognising the part that we have alongside others in the wide and intricate tapestry that is God’s purpose for the church and the world.  And together may we live and grow in love and grace now and always.  Amen

Margaret Garland

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[1] The Mountain who wanted to live in a house by Maurice Shadbolt; illustrated by Renee Haggo

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 21st April, Easter 4

Readings:  Acts 9:36-43, Revelation 7:9-17

Before the sermon proper, I invite you, for the span of four hundred words and a few aesthetic observations, to step into the strange world on the front of your order of service.  It’s the most famous panel of a twelve-panel altarpiece by the Flemish artist van Eyck.  Called “The Adoration of the Lamb”, it’s a fifteenth century take on the scene from Revelation 7.  Centre of the scene, the focus of every character’s line of sight, is the Lamb – standing proudly on a platform directly under the sharp shafts of light from above.  At ten o’clock and two o’clock respectively you have batteries of elegantly dressed clerics and colourful posh people arriving.  They’re painted with movement in the hems of their garments – they’re only just arriving on the scene.  The established crowd, those who have been there a while - and who have the best view of the Lamb - are in the foreground.  In the very front row (five o’clock, separated from the Lamb only by the angels) are a row of people in white robes.  They lack the pomp and ceremonial colour of the latecomers.  They’re barefoot, quite plain and kneeling – very humble, but really well positioned.

Who are they?

That’s the big question posed in Revelation chapter seven: who are they?  The question comes out of the blue to poor old John – who’s suffering this series of vivid visions.  It comes from someone “in the heavenly know”, and it goes like this: Who are the people in white robes?

In the narrative, John doesn’t even try to answer.  He merely says to the questioner “Sir, you are the one who knows”.  Whereupon, as if eager to share a secret, the elder speaks: “Who are they?  These are those who have come out of the great ordeal.”

For John, and for his audience, the great ordeal was the persecution of ordinary Christian people by the Roman Empire.  Ordinary men and women – my aunt, your brother, our parents, the woman at the Post Shop.  Barefoot, non-colourful, ordinary people whose attention had been caught by something in the new and fragile faith – and who because of it were run over by the great big crushing machine of Empire which demands exclusive loyalty.  These are people to whom the Empire said “who do you think you are”, before using execution to tell them that they were nothing.  Losers, victims, the powerless, the dead.

But now, in this scene from Revelation, who are they?  They are those who have come through the great ordeal.  Alive; front row; beholding the Lamb.  That is who they are.

-ooOoo-

Peter is called to the seaside town of Joppa to attend to religious duties at the house of someone who has died.  Who does he think he is?  In Israel, religious functions were the preserve of qualified people - the rabbis.  Rabbis had received training in theology, in community ritual, in pastoral care.  Peter was a fisherman.  Not that there’s anything wrong with being a fisherman – certainly, if you like eating fish.  But it wasn’t his role to be tending to the dead.  Every society, every community, every family exists within certain settled, fixed arrangements of who’s meant to do what.  Teachers teach, judges judge, cleaners clean, doctors heal.  Things work because people do what they’re trained for, what the community trusts them to do.  Peter’s stepping outside his proper role of fisherman and intruding in the work of the professional religious practitioners.  Who does he think he is?

Here, though, is an even more dramatic transgression.  Suddenly Peter has put the people out of the room with the body in it.  Now he’s talking to the body and telling it to get up.  If society has a whole lot of conventions about proper order, how much more ordered is nature!  In the natural order you don’t expect to be able to walk on water.  You don’t expect small amounts of bread to feed large groups of people.  You most certainly don’t order corpses to get up and walk around.  Does Peter think he’s bigger than the natural order?  Who does he think he is?

(Who were the people in white robes?  They were people who overcame the ordeal and behold the Lamb.)  Peter is someone who knows society, and who knows the natural order, but has seen the Lamb – who three years before had said to him “come and follow me, I’ll make you fish for people”.  Peter will never again merely be what the world, what the machine says he has to be.  Now he is someone who has been through the ordeal of being asked “who do you think you are”, but who knows who he is from the perspective of God’s love.  In this post-Easter dispensation people don’t stay put in the roles that society and nature require.  They become the free Easter creatures prefigured by the Lamb who died but lives again.  Essentially, first and foremost, Peter is someone who has seen the Lamb.

Tabitha.  Who does she think she is?  She’s introduced in the Book of Acts as a disciple.  It’s the only time in the whole New Testament where the word “disciple” is used of a woman.  In the gospels it’s always the “disciples and the women”.  But here we find Tabitha, a disciple in her own right, being the central person in what appears to be a lively social welfare system for widows.  This the kind of role which traditional societies of that time would have restricted to the men – but here she seems to be in charge of it.  Who does she think she is?  I’m reminded of the young nun, Mary McKillop, arguing with Bishop Lawrence Shiel and winning the argument until Shiel excommunicated her for insubordination.  (Why won’t you play the role assigned you?  Who do you think you are?)  I’m reminded of fourteen year old Pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai, arguing with the Taliban that girls ought to be allowed to go to school – and getting shot in the head.  (Why don’t you play the role assigned you?  Who do you think you are?)  Like Paul the fisherman, Tabitha the welfare officer isn’t staying put where the machine tells her she should.  Who does she think she is?

(Who were the people in white robes?  They were people who overcame the ordeal and behold the Lamb.)  Tabitha is someone who has seen the Lamb – the Lamb who has called her by her community to care for the poor – regardless of what the machine says about her sex.  Tabitha will never again merely be what the world says she has to be.  Now she’s someone who has been through the ordeal of being asked “who do you think you are”, and who knows anew who she is - from the perspective of God’s life.  In this post-Easter dispensation, she’s become the free Easter creature prefigured by the Lamb who died but lives again.  First and foremost, who is she?  She is someone who has seen the Lamb.

I guess, in his time too, they said to Jesus “who do you think you are?”  That’s the question behind Pontius Pilate’s questions during the sham trial: “are you a king”, “then you are a king”, “who are you?”  When you’re asked these questions in a counterfeit trial, when the machine is programmed towards your condemnation, it’s the same as saying “who do you think you are”.  And you would have to confess that this whole business of calling him the “Lamb of God”, naming him after a sacrificial animal, isn’t helping.  Maybe if he had an army or called fire and brimstone down, then he’d be someone in the eyes of the world.  (Please some show of power!!!)  What’s he doing, in a world of Kim Jong Un and Boston bombers, trying to woo the world with parables, with non-violence, and with letting himself win by losing?  The political laws of power and influence say he should stay in Galilee and be a carpenter.  What’s he doing, stepping into the role of Messiah?  Who does he think he is?

(Who were those people in white robes?  They were people who overcame the ordeal and beheld the Lamb.)  Jesus has come through the ordeal of the machine telling him that God is in the sky, and the earth belongs to unfriendly religious experts and the corrupt.  Jesus has come through the accusations that he is not loved by God, not called to live for others.  And having come through the ordeal, he has prevailed.  He is someone who, in understanding that he is to live for others, that he is not to kill for others, but to die for others, has seen the vocation of the Lamb – and become it.  In the Jesus universe, nobody stays in lifeless roles – they move away from death and into life.  First and foremost, Jesus has become the Lamb who welcomes those who’ve come through the ordeal.

It’s almost time for this sermon to end.  Just one last question.  Who do you think you are?  The world might tell you that you are skinny or fat.  It might tell you that you are ordinary, and won’t be able to do much with your life.  The world may tell you that any hope or faith you feel is silly.  (The world might tell you that you are deviant, strange and unlovable.)  Please stay, (it will say) for the sake of mechanistic order, in the shackled role that the world has assigned.

That’s what it will say.  But who are you - really?

You are someone who has seen the Lamb – seen that God is on the side of faith and life.  So don’t let the world crush you.  Don’t let it force you to be a smaller version of what you are called to be.  In seeing the Lamb, you have seen what is “small and sacrificed” become the living One to whom all people look – and receive life.

Who are you?  You are alive, in the front row, beholding the Lamb.

Amen.

Rev Dr Matthew Jack

Sermon Sunday 12th May 2013 Ascension Sunday

Readings: Ephesians 1:15-23, Luke 24: 44-53

Let us pray: May the God’s word speak to us, may the Spirit open our hearts and Christ guide us in the way.  Amen

I think it’s no great exaggeration to say this Sunday’s focus on the Ascension of Christ is one of the least helpful and most avoided teachings in the New Testament for many people. It’s just plain ‘difficult’! In our 21^st century world, being presented with a picture, whether visual or oral, of Jesus being lifted up into the clouds into some real-time place above us called heaven doesn’t exactly inspire or inform our faith. Just as a literal understanding of Adam and Eve is not helpful, so it is with this day. 

But what really surprised me (and should not have) is the extent to which our tradition and our culture continues to hold on to this picture of the cloud ascending Christ.   

As I am wont to do I started googling some of the imagery for ascension – modern and ancient depictions of this moment – and, apart from finding little change in the depiction over time,  I actually got hooked into some of the cartoons where the God in/on cloud imagery is used.  And it reinforced for me that this understanding of God above on cloud was firmly ensconced in our culture and society. I found a number by Garrick Tremain – from Muldoon arriving with Rob’s Mob to Winston looking for a coalition arrangement, having run out of options on earth – and this was 10 years ago!  Sometimes they can be quite funny – there was one online recently which pictures Jesus heading up into the clouds, all but one of the disciples with hands up watching him go and the one saying ‘Where, where? I can’t see him!’ And a little arrow pointing to him saying ‘Ascension Deficit Disorder’  or as Mike pointed out to me Ascension Disbelief Disorder might be more appropriate.

All fairly harmless really and unlikely to change easily.  The difficulty for us arises in how we approach Ascension and mostly we seem to avoid going there at all – just too difficult.   And that is a shame.  For there is a much deeper and meaningful point to this final separation of the historical Jesus from his earthly life than the somewhat one dimensional picture of ascension that our words, our art, some of our preaching and communication continue to offer. 

Let us look at what is happening at the time of the readings. 

The disciples, the followers of Jesus, after Jesus’ death are trying to make sense of how they understand what has happened.  The one they have known in an earthly life and experienced as the risen Christ with them is to leave.  How do they portray this verbally to those who come after  –it makes absolute sense that they draw on stories from their tradition – in this instance the story of the prophet Elijah who was swept up to heaven – a story that made perfect sense in a world where faith and the then world understanding sat side by side.  But today that same story stretches our credibility. I think our problem is getting caught up with the details of the troublesome time and space action at the end of the reading instead of looking to the teaching of Jesus that surrounds this time, this event.   And then we find that this otherwise fantastic episode of the ascension signals a much more practical and obvious message – that of the empowering or the commissioning of the disciples in the mission of Christ. This is a beginning, not a leaving.  It is a reassurance, not a withdrawal.  This is the end of Jesus’ personal ministry here on earth but, rather than a removal of God’s presence, a void, a period of divine absence, the Ascension is where both heaven and earth, the whole of creation, are filled by Christ’s presence, “the fullness of him who fills all in all.”  It is a transference of Christ’s mission to us in the power of the coming Holy Spirit and the presence of the living God in all creation. 

Let us look to the text to extend these thoughts:  first Jesus opened the minds of the disciples to the scriptures and then said “You are witnesses of these things.  And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”  And then he blessed them.  There is a sense of no panic, little surprise, high expectation and patience and trust.   They were ready for this moment, prepared for the leaving in the expectation of a greater coming.  And it was important that this moment happened!  Without it we would be left in limbo.

Fromm here I am going to borrow heavily from the writings of Rowan Williams (1) who offers a take on the ascension that certainly spoke to me.

The gist of his thinking is this - that the ascent of Jesus brings a closure to both his prophetic teaching ministry and to the mystical meaning of his death and resurrection by incorporating it back into the life from whence it came, to God.  Without it, he suggests, all the other events of Christ’s life dangle like unresolved plot lines in a poorly constructed novel, failing to reach a conclusive witness to the dwelling of God in creation. In other words there is an air of unfinished business if we just stay with the resurrection appearances – for if you think of them in this light, the appearances of the risen Christ to the various disciples have a somewhat elusive, unpredictable air to them – with his coming and going at will, appearing and reappearing quite unexpectedly.  The disciples are surprised and disorientated but, and this is a big but, they are also set on fire with the recognition of God’s power through the risen Christ.   The thing is though - imagine if we stopped in that place –that there was no ascension –Williams uses this analogy to illustrate his point:

Imagine what it’s like when you first wake up in a winter’s morning.  When you put on the light, all you are conscious of is the brightness of the light itself.  Only gradually do your eyes adjust sufficiently to the light that you are able to make out other objects.  After a few moments, however, you cease to be conscious of the light itself, and start to see what else is in the room, illumined by the light. The Gospel accounts of Jesus resurrection, says Williams, show him to have been like that initial morning light; at first Jesus’ resurrected self was so blinding that the disciples would be conscious only of him.  The Ascension, however, is that moment when the light itself recedes into the background, so that Jesus becomes the one through whom we see the rest of the world.  “He is the light we see by; we see the world in a new way because we see it through him, see it with his eyes.” 

Moreover, this new perspective works in two ways: not only do we see the world as the place where Jesus has promised to be but we also see it as the place where we are committed to be.

The ascension message for us is the passing of the mission of God onto us – and how do we respond to that?  How did the disciples respond?  With great joy they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem to wait for the coming of the Spirit who would empower them in the proclaiming of the Gospel – as we approach Pentecost Day, do we wait with eager anticipation, trust and great joy for the charge on our lives as the people of Christ in this 21^st century and in this land of Aotearoa NZ?

Margaret Garland

(1)

 Rowan Williams, “Ascension Day,” in A Ray of Darkness (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Press, 1995), 69 

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 5th May 2013 Easter 6

Bible Readings : Acts 16:9-15, John 14: 23-29

                                      

Let us pray:  may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts open us to your guiding for each of us this day in Jesus name.  Amen

In our liturgical year this is the last Saturday of the Easter season – next week is Ascension and the following Sunday Pentecost.  So it seems timely to ask this of ourselves as we lead into Pentecost (and what is called Ordinary time – where the work of the church is done ) – what significant thing are we to do in response to such a transformative event as Easter Sunday – the empty tomb?  Before we take down these banners around the church, what vision of being an Easter people do they inspire in us, what are we each and together going to take into our future of being church?

Many answers perhaps – but for me today, as we ponder the journey of Paul through to Philippi and his meeting with Lydia, it is this: that we are to be open to the possibilities of the Spirit – to those things beyond our control and not of our planning.  Now that may sound to you either exciting or scary or perhaps a bit of both.

I’m going to cautiously venture back into that analogy of the garden - if we rigorously allow only that which we have chosen and planted to grow in well prepared places that we have defined, we lay ourselves open to missing some special moments – like the miracle of the wind blown seed flowering in impossible places, the absolute perfection of the camellia on that one day before the wind and rain get to it, the beauty and intricacy of the flower of that which we always determined to be a weed because it was more prolific than we were comfortable with.....

Let me try and explain how I see this connecting with the story of Lydia and Paul.  Both of these transforming disciples of Christ had something in common – they were open to the Spirit in their lives.  Let’s take Paul first.  The few verses before today’s reading are important.  In them we place Paul back in Lystra and Iconium where he connects with Timothy, and from there they go through Phrygia and Galatia –but, and here is the interesting part, they are forbidden by the Spirit to head either northeast into Mysia or southwest into Asia but instead they are encouraged by the Spirit to travel onto Troas and, as we heard, a man in a dream convinces them to travel across the waters to Macedonia and in the end to Philippi.

Paul was open to the guidance of the Spirit – he had his own plans but was convinced to head in different directions.  And something happened that, in his own planning, would have been most unlikely.  He ended up sitting down on a river bank in Philippi talking to a bunch of woman who met regularly for prayer – women seeking God - and one of them was the Gentile Lydia -  identified particularly as a worshipper of God.  What a journey to get to this unexpected and unlooked for encounter that was to have an enormous impact on the spreading of the Gospel message.  For many people of the time, the strategic planners shall we say of the day, both Jewish and Gentile, this meeting of Paul and Lydia would be a weed in the garden experience – random and of dubious value, and certainly not the best use of their time and energy in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  For these were women, gentiles, outside the place of worship - and therefore the authority of worship we suspect – an unlikely patch of garden to be cultivated really. 

What we find in fact is that Lydia proved to be a rich and fruitful source for the Gospel of Christ Jesus – she was already established as a strong and resourceful woman in her community, a seller of purple cloth indicating her dealings with the elite in society, she was head of her own household in a male dominated society.    She was a strong woman and used to being in control and choosing what she might do and think.

But nothing would have happened that day on the river bank without Lydia’s heart being open to the possibilities of God – she was participating in worship, she was seeking answers and therefore she was open to the truth of the message that Paul brought – so ready and prepared that she responded immediately and generously with her heart and her hospitality.  One person described the moment beautifully “Longing and Grace met on the banks of the river that day”. 

What does this mean for us then – this being led by the Spirit?  Well I will tell you what it definitely does not mean - it does not mean gardens full of weeds and long grass and choked stunted peas and beans as we sit waiting for a word from the Spirit to tell us what to do next.  It is not a space of ‘do nothing’ until told otherwise.  Rather more it is a continuing to actively live our faith as we best know how and, at the same time, being open to the nudgings of the Spirit into other possibilities as well, being open of mind and heart to things we might not have planned for or that occur in ways we might not have pictured. 

I am reminded of a part of the Last Battle, the final book of the Narnia series by C S Lewis – where the transitory world of Narnia is imploding really, and the door of the stable is the opening into the eternal Narnia where all is reborn and beautiful  – and the dwarves are so intent on seeing only what they expect to see, the inside of a manky old stable, that even the most delectable food and drink tasted like mouldy hay and dirty trough water, the most glorious sunshine was pokey darkness and the sweetest smelling violet was stable litter.  They were not open to the possibilities of the new Narnia and were left behind snarling and arguing with each other. 

Don’t let us be like that – surrounded by possibilities and seeing none of them because we refused to look up from our rigidly held perceptions of the right way, not allowing that there can be possibilities of life and grace outside our experiences.   

For it is in this place of openness to the Spirit that great things can happen – we can only imagine how many heard the Good News of Jesus whilst gathered at Lydia’s home – how that improbable encounter became the catalyst for so much more.

But I would like to leave the final word today to Ronald Cole-Tuner[1] as he describes his insight into the openness and seeking nature of Lydia.

Lydia is able to be so decisive at this moment of meeting with Paul – within minutes of being baptised she turns her house into base for the spread of Christianity into Europe – she can be so decisive because she is open to discerning the deeper workings of God’s Spirit. And she gains this perception, this seeking because of her worship – she has come to worship hungering for something more in her life, something bigger and more real than the commercial and social success that she enjoys.  And in that hunger she is open to the restless Spirit, who is present in all of us before we even know it, open to the nudging of the one who sees ways that we cannot plan for and fruitful blessings in the most impossible places – is that how we might continue to be an Easter People into Pentecost and the year ahead do you think?

Margaret Garland

A sunflower growing at Terezin Concentration Camp 

outside Prague.

Photo copyright Tui Bevin 2013

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[1] Feasting on the Word Year C vol.2 p.478