Reflection from Cafe Church Sunday 5 February 2017 at Opoho Church

Bible Readings  

First Reading Isaiah 58: 6-12 various NRSV

Introduction:  The earlier verses of this chapter from Isaiah have God encouraging Isaiah to, in no uncertain terms, get their house in order.  God recognises their efforts to be humble, worshipful, seekers of truth, but also sees just how that evolves – into selfishness, quarrelling, oppression of the vulnerable and therefore, to God, they are rebellious hypocrites.  Then Isaiah paints a picture of what true relationship with God will mean in their, and our lives. Here is what God asks of us:

 

Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? 
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly;
….If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. 
The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. 
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. 

          Reader: Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church

People: Thanks be to God

Gospel Reading  Matthew 5: 13-16  The Voice translation

¹³ You, beloved, are the salt of the earth. But if salt becomes bland and loses its saltiness, can anything make it salty again? No. It is useless. It is tossed out, thrown away, or trampled.

¹⁴ And you, beloved, are the light of the world. A city built on a hilltop cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Similarly it would be silly to light a lamp and then hide it under a bowl. When someone lights a lamp, she puts it on a table or a desk or a chair, and the light illumines the entire house. ¹⁶ You are like that illuminating light. Let your light shine everywhere you go, that you may illumine creation, so men and women everywhere may see your good actions and may turn and praise your Father in heaven because of it.

Reader: This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ

People:  Praise to Christ the Word

The Listeners – adapted from an idea by Tom Gordon 'The Blessed' in Welcoming each wonder p.65

When Joyce Campbell walked to the lectern to read the Gospel lesson for that Sunday, her heart wasn’t in it.  It had been a busy week, and she hadn’t had her normal time to read it over and practice the difficult words if there were any – and she did want to do it well.  She was pleased to see there were no curly ones, in fact it was quite a familiar. 

But all the same she wasn’t sitting easy with it – she knew how important it was and felt she wasn’t up to scratch.

But anyway, here goes: ……Hear now the Gospel reading from Matthew Chapter 5 beginning at verse 13: she began:

 ‘You are the salt of the earth;

That was all Jeannie sitting over in the corner heard.  All she saw was her Dad – the one who had guided her through so many difficult times, who was always there for her especially when her world turned upside down – as it frequently did.  But the times she loved best was sitting down chewing the fat – talking about stuff, big stuff, little stuff, and the way his faith added a certain flavour to how he saw the world.  Salt of the earth – yup that was him. She was surprised when it was time for the hymn.

but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

And that was where Joyce lost the Minister.  Well not so much lost as paused.  That conversation with Sam a couple of days ago – it was like he had completely given up, that he had no taste left for life let alone for his faith.  You couldn’t help but wonder if you could have done better, found a way through, lit the spark again – but hang on – you keep on doing this – God is in this, in Sam, holding, loving, patient, waiting…..  if the salt has lost its taste – I don’t think it’s lost in Sam ….why is everyone looking at me? Reading finished? Hymn to be announced? Ok…

 ‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. 

That was Steve’s trigger.  He was part of the visioning group for the church – where to go, who to be, how to express our faith, to be missional, everyone had different words and ideas and they spent hours on the vision statement – it was all a jumble, a mess.  But those words – you are the light of the world, (what was that hymn) – I am the light of the world, you people come and follow me…..That’s it, simple, straightforward, to be the light of Christ in the world…..mm

No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 

Young Grace was getting a hard time at school – it wasn’t easy when people teased you about going to church, when they made fun of what they thought it was all about.  And you didn’t always have the words – and truth be told you were quite glad about that because silence and walking away was easier. But there was something that wouldn’t let her do that all the time – that kept her trying to reach out, to say what and why her faith was so important to her.  Yes that bit about not putting it under a bushel (whatever that was) – that helped, gave her courage! She would keep trying.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Jason almost made it through the reading – he really did.  But his mind wasn’t on the hymn that came next – he was too busy following a thought that came to him out of the blue – Why are we so good at saying we are no good at things.  Joan is just brilliant at encouraging and listening – but doesn’t feel she is good enough to pastoral carer,  Peter next to me – he can navigate the bible better than anyone I know – but won’t speak up in study groups in case he says the wrong thing – and actually the Rev has been at me to take a turn at doing the readings – maybe I should say I’ll give it a go – even though I’ll never be as good as Joyce…

And here ends the Gospel lesson says Joyce.  And when she walked back to her seat that Sunday, she knew her heart hadn’t been in it.  But then she wasn’t to know about the hearts of Jeannie and Steve and Jason and Grace – and the Minister too for that matter, was she?