Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 10th February, 2013

Readings: Exodus 34:29-35, Luke 9:28-36

We pray:

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

Moses, the shining glory of God and the veil.  It could be the title of a bestselling mystery novel, couldn’t it, designed to intrigue and to mystify – as all good mysteries should do.

And to be perfectly honest the reading of the story is somewhat mysterious.  We have Moses down from the mountain, the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, ready to share God’s glory, God’s word with the people but totally unaware that his transformation shines out through his face, blinding and scaring those around him.  And when they hang back - he beckons them to come near, speaks of his encounter with God, then and only then covers his face with a veil - which he takes off each time he goes to speak with the Lord.  It strikes me that there were some interesting analogies in this story around how we meet and respond to the glory of God.  For I think it’s fair to say that we tread lightly around ‘glory’ theology these days, somewhat ambivalent about how that fits in with the humility and self-denial that is emphasised in the theology of the cross – where love is the sacrifice for the sins of all.   

What is one to make of the brightness of God in this text from Hebrew Scriptures and in the Gospel reading of the Transfiguration?

Well for a start - it was scary!  Scary to the people of the Exodus, scary to the disciples on the mountain top, scary too to the Bethlehem shepherds when they were faced with the glory of God.  A powerful moment, terrifying in its beauty, a beauty that disconcerts and confuses and renders otherwise sensible people senseless. Why?  Is it a threat – behave or this is what I can do! Or is there something more? 

Maybe these are the moments that strip us down, silence our religious chatter and force us to remember that we are on holy ground, in the presence of the God who is glorious, more beautiful and loving and intricately part of this life than we can imagine. 

Can you take a moment to think of these glory moments in your experiences? The times when you felt the touch of the God who is more profoundly part of you than your ordinary moments would ever allow.  These moment are renewing, humbling, embracing, full of light and power, they are God moments.  They are the moments that strengthen you as you walk in the valley of the shadows, that allow you to minister in the midst of doubt and overwhelming odds, that bring the splendour of God  into the ordinary and routine.

This reading is also a reminder to us that we are to reflect this same glory – as people proclaiming God’s word we, like Moses, are to have the light shining from our faces. I don’t mean the fixed grin of fanaticism or the determinedly cheerful smile of duty but rather the light that shines from within.   I suspect many of you would recognise one or many in your circle of church, family and friends of whom you could say – their face shines out with love and compassion and surety of some transformation in their lives? I think of one person I know and just seeing her never ceases to remind me of the beauty of the presence of God in her life.  Too often we hide the joy of our faith under the cloak of modesty and humility (and dare I say decency and good order) – and by doing so we restrict and contain the holy mystery of God and our witness to that glory.  

Now this is not a call to dance ecstatically through Opoho streets (although if that be your wish who am I to stop you) but it is a reminder, shall we say, to allow the good news of Jesus Christ to be reflected in who we are and how we are perceived and received by others.  I remember once in a church in Christchurch preaching on the theme of joy: that Christ in our lives and our world is good news which we should celebrate and share – and then, confident that I had got the message across introduced the next hymn – ‘To God be the Glory’ and what did we get?  Toooo Goooood  beee theee gloooooory..... Awful!

But the glory of God is not just about our feeling good and letting others see it – that is too simplistic, too restrictive.  The glory of God brings us directly to the disturbing events of Easter – the humility and pain of betrayal on the cross making Easter morning almost unbearably bright for all of us: rendering us speechless and awestruck by a God whose love is so great as to dispel even death. 

Jesus, transfigured, changed forever in the power of God, came down from  the mountain to fulfil the promise of a gloriously loving God – to set his feet on the path to Jerusalem, to the cross and to the transforming moment of resurrection and new life.

A church in the US, aptly called Transfiguration Lutheran Church, kept its doors shut to the struggles in the community around, preferring the rarefied atmosphere of exclusivity, but then, in a transfiguring moment,  they too came down from the mountain, threw open the doors, stepped into the neighbourhood and cared for all in the midst of the pain and hunger, healing themselves as well.

A people, having crept closer to hear what God had to say to them, were transformed by the light of the one sent to bring the Good News and went out to be that light to all who lived in darkness

So – be astounded by the glory of God, be thrown off your foundations occasionally, be blinded by the light,  – so that you too might go and do likewise.  Amen

Margaret Garland

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 3rd February 2013

Readings: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 4:21-30

We pray: may all that is said, all that is heard, all that is understood be to your glory O God so that we might be your people in this place.  In Jesus name  Amen.

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ [1]

So we heard in the reading for last week, the words from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah that directly lead into the reading for today.   Jesus had been baptised by John, entered the wilderness for 40 days and nights, and began to teach in the synagogues to great praise.  And so he came to Nazareth, to speak in the synagogue there.  And then he preached from the text, (we don’t have the detail here, probably because there was nothing unfamiliar to the people of the day) - but what would have made them sit up was when he said that the scripture has been fulfilled this day. Yet they seemed not to have been phased - as we hear: “And they were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.  Is this not Joseph’s son?” [2]  they said. 

It is interesting to know that commentators today disagree over whether the phrase ‘Is this not Joseph’s son?’ is meant to be a put down,  said with derision, or an awakening, said in awe and wonder.  I go with the second – it seems to me that there is a sense of the listeners being blown away by what has been said, and from this a local boy. 

The response, whatever you deem it to be (and we will explore that a little bit more in a minute), illustrates an important thread in Luke’s gospel writings – one that emerges time and time again – that of acceptance to the unacceptable. 

Luke tells us that the mission of Jesus is to bring salvation to the people, that he comes fulfilling the promises of God made known through the prophets, he comes to convince us of the extravagance of God’s love and offers a timeless unconditional forgiving grace that allows us, in our very humanity, to walk with God and be part of building the kingdom here in this place. 

I am in the process of reading the Gospel of Luke, accompanied by a book called ‘The hospitality of God: a reading of Luke’s Gospel by Brendan Byrne who is a Catholic theologian from Australia.

Luke, suggests Byrne, sees Christ’s ministry as one of acceptance, hospitality rather than vengeance or judgement, and that then and now is a time when Christ offers God’s hospitality to all - the hand of Christ is held out to the afflicted, the trapped and the bound, accepting all into the hospitality of God.  Judgement is not to be forgotten and will come but for now we live in a space of salvation history which Luke calls ‘the acceptable year of the Lord’ - that is, God’s hospitality offered to all the world.[3]  And, says Byrne, do we accept or reject this acceptance of God?  It is worth noting that in just about all of the moments where Jesus offers this new way to people in this Gospel, there are those who are convicted and there are those who reject it. 

Holding those thoughts, let’s return to the passage for today.

“And the people were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth”.  Maybe today we would call this a building up sermon – no surprises, great rhetoric, inspirational hope and fulfilled promises. The people acclaimed him and his preaching and his claims to be the messiah.  Special moment.

What did Jesus do with it?  He deliberately and most provocatively broke the mood – he upset virtually everyone in the synagogue by challenging their assumption that this message was for them alone – he literally forced their faces to the world and suggested they open their eyes to see that the world was larger than them and God was greater than their understandings.

Jesus was not prepared to be boxed in – to be contained by anyone groups assumptions or needs – his way was bigger and bolder and less comfortable than that.  He talked of God’s accepting love for the heathen Gentiles – and this was just too much.  The mood changed dramatically – saying they became a lynch mob would not be stretching the truth at all - at such outrageous teaching.  They went to throw him off the cliff – an angry mob reacting to this threat to their very understanding of their God.  A choice was made – to reject.     There one more small but very important sentence at the end though that can kind of get lost – it is a word of endurance and hope in the midst of the rather violent human reaction to his uncomfortable message - the last verse says ‘But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.’[4]  He was rejected but the rejection was not the last word –the last word was Jesus continuing on his way despite all that was thrown at him, continuing on through what was to be the worst the world could throw at him - rejection of the cross - to the resurrection.

So here is, in Jesus, a new narrative for the Jews to consider –  where the old narrative became refreshed in Christ in a way that challenged and shook the very foundations of what they had thought was their exclusive story.

What capacity do we have for hearing the ‘new things’ of God in our midst?  When offered a new often challenging insight into what it means to be a people of faith, how do we respond, do we accept or reject? 

There are some obvious parallels that we can draw I suspect.

Firstly are there things we do that box God in? In our imagining of God do we allow that there are ways that we don’t know, purposes that we can only touch the edges of, mysteries beyond our comprehension?  I suspect that many of us do this in ways we don’t even realise, that we find it hard to, for  instance, reconcile in any meaningful way the immensity of God with the intimacy of the Spirit and absolute humanity of Christ – and that what we don’t understand we find difficult to accept?  

Do we hold God in Christ close to our chest so to speak?  Unwilling to share if it means our views might be challenged and we might be forced to rethink and realign who it is that we believe God to be.  One thing that usually happens when you allow other perspectives in is that your own changes and grows as well – either that or you go to your corners in the ring and come out fighting until one knocks the other out! 

Do we allow that there might be other ways to do church, to be a person of faith and to be with God – not that those ways would necessarily be for us but rather recognising that we don’t have an exclusive hold on what is truth?   Do we allow others to gather with us round the table accepting them as they are rather than feeling we have to integrate them into ‘the right way?’

And here is one – straight from my heart.  Do we feel uncomfortable with what God is asking of us – at least some of the time?  Because I reckon if we know only comfort in God’s call on our lives then we might need to have our understandings of faith and of Jesus way challenged just as Jesus did in the synagogue.  For, as Simeon said, Jesus would be a sign of contradiction and discomfort for many who were comfortable.  He would accept the  unacceptable – whether people or ideas or ways of living – in the name of love.

So when Jesus stretches our understanding of what it means to be a transformed people of God, tells us again that God’s hospitality is for all people, and that there are forever new ways of doing this which will surprise us, how are we going to respond?  With amazement at the grace of God or hostility and rejection. 

Amen

Margaret Garland

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[1] NRSV Luke 4:18-19

[2] NRSV Luke 4:22

[3] The Hospitality of God by Brendan Byrne.  Strathfield, NSW: St Paul’s Publications, 2000 p.50

[4] NRSV Luke 4:30

Sermon Sunday 6th January 2013 Epiphany

Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6, Matthew 2:1-12

Let us pray:  God today and every day we seek openness, challenge and promise as we hear your word for us.  Amen.

How many of us were, even slightly, on edge on 21^st December?  The end of the world as predicted by the Mayans and made large in our thoughts by the media frenzy.  The fact that the Mayan prophecy was about the end of their 5000+ years calendar cycle rather than the world necessarily imploding upon itself was fairly conveniently overlooked by many.  We these days mostly have a fairly light hearted approach to prophecies, predictions for the future – especially of this style (around 10% according to a Reuters poll were uneasy about the date) – they sit alongside horoscopes as bit of a laugh but you never know – actually I read on Friday on the top of my gmail page, where they flash up little ads, that if I went to a particular site I could access my horoscope for the year and know everything that was going to happen.  Whew, that’s a relief.  Oh and then I found out that ads are selected for my particular login based on the perceived content of the emails.  Scary and not sure of the connection there really! Maybe I like to talk about  hope for the future a bit?

Seriously though, in the time that Matthew was writing, prophecy based on astronomical events was a much more widespread and valued art (or science you might say).  Those who came from the east to visit the Christ child were thought to be skilled astronomers, scientists, probably of another faith - scholars who would have used all their predictive skills to determine the time and place of this coming great event – the birth of a King to the Jews, a shepherd for the people of Israel.  It was not unusual – many of the important old world events were said to be accompanied by particular astral phenomena – including the births of Abraham, Alexander the Great and Mithras.

As we turn to the Gospel reading today -it is interesting that the Christmas story we enact each year is a coming together of the two Gospel stories of the early years of Jesus.  We have Matthew who tells of the ‘men from the east’ and the ensuring horror of Herod’s directive to kill all the young children, and Luke who tells us of the coming to the inn, the birth and the shepherds and Simeon and Anna at the temple.  The Magi are generally agreed to have arrived at some time after the birth, not with the shepherds and not at the manger.  I read of a minister in the States who, each Christmas, in his home and in church, moves the Magi of the Nativity scene from windowsill to windowsill, and only brings them alongside the infant Jesus with his mother on Epiphany. 

So does it matter that, in some ways like our simplistic interpretation of the Mayan prophecy, we have created a Christmas story that is not an accurate depiction of the time and the facts known to us?  Well actually yes it does, not because it’s false or wrong or particularly misleading, but because, by doing so, we can often miss the fullness of God’s message to us in the incarnation.  If we leave the drama of the Christmas story as a standalone event, as a cute baby in a manger surrounded by the rough shepherds and the wise visitors from the east, we risk treating Christmas as an isolated one off event which is over on the 26^th December and only to be engaged with again next Advent.   We also miss the outrageousness of these visitors from other lands if we allow them only miraculous timing and extravagant gift giving.  They can bring much more to our understanding of God’s purpose for us and the world if we allow the Magi to come in Epiphany and give them some time and thought there. 

 The word itself – Epiphany – means manifestation or appearance – and, for the church over the centuries, the revelation of Christ in connection with the visit of the Magi.

In the early church Epiphany, the revealing of Jesus Christ to the world was a much more important part of the liturgical year, more so than Christmas, and joined Easter and Pentecost as one of the three major feasts of the faith communities.  Why?  Dirk Lange[1], a Lutheran theologian suggests that it was because the time of Epiphany was seen as God’s self revelation to the world, the beginning of Christ’s public ministry.  And that, whilst the birth was obviously important, it was the beginning only and this visit by the Magi held greater significance in the sense of revealing Christ to the whole of the world.

The story of the Magi actually speaks out of the prophetic stream of Hebrew Scriptures - which tells of peoples coming together in peace, beating their swords into ploughs and their spears into pruning hooks, of all sharing in the great feast as one people.  Those who stand in Israel’s tradition are to kneel alongside the others, the Gentile Magi, in acknowledgment that something recognisably divine is met in the Christ - and that it is meant for all people to share and to be part of.  The peoples coming together in peace was to be born in the Christ and revealed in this moment of the Magi. 

It was a powerful moment for me - to see myself as part of that kneeling throng, to be one with so many different peoples in the presence of Christ – it somehow made more real for me those words that we use each communion service

“So now, in gratitude, we join our voices with those from all times and all places who love you, have loved you and will love you.

Holy, holy, holy God,

Heaven and earth are full of your glory.”

This story of the revelation of the Christ to both the shepherds and the Magi is a celebration of the inclusiveness of God’s world, and that is why it is helpful to look at them separately, – of rich and poor, wise and foolish, confident and scared – and perhaps above all of all peoples no matter their race, their culture and yes even their faith.  This is big picture stuff, this is God telling us in no uncertain terms that Christ is not to be contained, not to be owned by a particular group, even when  the prophecies of the coming Messiah have been steeped in that peoples holy scriptures for all time.  Christ is taken firmly out from just the Jewish world and into the beyond, into a place where there are different world views, alternative approaches to life.  God will do whatever it takes to reach out and embrace all people - in Christ Jesus, no one is beyond God’s embrace – this realisation can, for us, be a little overwhelming and perhaps frightening – when we realise what that means.   It means we have to expand our understanding of the ways God reaches out to people to announce good news in and through Christ.  It means we have to expand our understanding on what it means for individuals to have faith and for gatherings of the faithful to be church.  There is no one right way, no formulae that is appropriate to all, no human mind that can anticipate how God in Christ works in this world.   This is totally illustrated by the Christmas story - God announces the birth of the Messiah not in the temple and through its priests but to shepherds through angels on Christmas, to Magi via a star on Epiphany, and to the political and religious authorities of God’s own people in and through foreigners, visitors from the East. 

Who could have predicted that?  It was so outside the authorities views of coming of the Messiah that at best it was fanciful and at worst a threat to all that was sacred.  Do we too reject ways of coming to faith that are outside our formulaic approach, or as Craig Satterlee [2]writes, “feel jealous when visitors show up seeking Christ due to experiences outside of our understanding.” Or when they express their faith in ways outside our experiences and traditions?

How might we shake our thinking to genuinely embrace the Magi, the strangers, the different whom we might encounter and how might we meet Christ in unexpected ways in and through them? Where is our containment of the mystery and unknown ways of God blinding us to the amazingly diverse company that we join at table with, and from whom we are continually opened to the glory and mystery of a God that gifted to us Jesus Christ in such an unpredictable, unexpected way?

It’s a fitting start to this new year, I believe to consider this:

From a manger, where a child lies wrapped in bands of cloth, God’s reach, God’s embrace in Christ Jesus, gets bigger and bolder and broader.  Jesus hosts lowly shepherds and high status magi, eats with outcasts and sinners, chats with the forsaken and the unknown, and through the cross reaches out to all humanity over all time and all space.

How is it that we can live this ever expanding embrace in our lives and our community of faith today?  Amen.

Margaret Garland

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[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?tab=1&alt=1

[2] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?tab=4&alt=1

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 30th December 2012 Christmas 1.

Bible Readings : Colossians 3:12-17, Luke 2:41-52

Let us pray:

Grant us understanding, challenge, trust and hope in your word for us today O God.  Amen.

Just five days ago, Tuesday in fact, some of us were gathered here celebrating the coming of the Christ child – talking of nativity scenes and family gatherings and singing carols and looking forward to some down time.  And today its seems, to me any way, rather longer than five days ago because family has come together and separated again, it’s almost a new year and I’ve watch movies and read books and walked beaches and eaten too much all packed into a few days off.

Today we hear in the readings that Jesus is 12 years old and causing his parents some angst.  That was a bit sudden you think.  And then next week when we hear of the visit of the Magi, we go ‘what’s going on here?’  When things get out of order we get a little perturbed sometimes – thinking that all is not right.  But all is very right.   This jumping of time is a great way to get ourselves out of the sweetness, the joyfulness that we have sometimes overly immersed ourselves in at Christmas time and into the reality of family life with Mary, Joseph, Jesus and the rest of the family. 

This reading we heard this morning is unique to Luke among the Gospels and offers a link between the stories of the infant Jesus, and his emergence at around thirty years old to be baptized by John.  This reading offers some small insight into life for the family and relationships within it – in fact it’s a story of reassuring normality.  Extended family go to Jerusalem for festival of the Passover, set out on their journey home thinking Jesus is safely with others and only discover his absence after some time.  Reaction: horror and fear, guilt and adrenaline pumped action searching for him – anything could have happened.  Most of us know that feeling at some time as parents or carers of someone we are responsible for.

But Jesus is ok – he’s cool – he’s doing what he wanted to do and can’t see why the parents don’t get that.  Parents employ excellent parenting skills, breathe deeply, count to ten and try to explain so he will understand and not do it again.  One thing I think that this reading can do for us – encourage us to dislodge that unfortunate image of Jesus as a perfect, non-crying, always obedient, never grumpy child and youth.  Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us – and did so in all muckiness of human relationships and family as this glimpse into his young life shows.

But there is more, much more to be found in this story of the encounter of Jesus with the teachers in the temple.  A poem by Bruce Prewer ‘Coming of Age’ speaks to depth of this story.

COMING OF AGE

 He was not thoughtless,

            but in the year

            of his bar mitzvah

he went missing,

            while parents with fear

            went anxiously looking.

He was not thoughtless;

            a greater kin

            had caught him up;

his search was on

            among the big questions

            priests founder in.

He was not thoughtless,

            but was on track

            for that Divine

Friday of squander

            when all heaven

            would weep in wonder.

From ‘Beyond Words’ ©  B D Prewer 

I believe there are a number of thoughts to be found in reading this story.  One is that it is an important moment in the relationship between parents and child.  It is a moment of transition from childhood to maturity, from the carefree to the beginnings of responsibility – responsibility to his Father in heaven.  It was a shock to the parents at least if not to the child – this was a new face they were seeing of their darling child and a beginning maybe of the letting go.

You know it’s interesting - I heard on the radio recently of a group in Golden Bay I think it was who were offering an opportunity for ‘rites of passage’ for young girls from childhood to the beginnings of adulthood. It struck me as both bizarre and interesting at the same time.  Bizarre in that someone offers a course on something that ought to be integral to life, and interesting that there was the obvious need for it judging by the comments of those attending.  I wonder how good we are at letting go of those we feel responsible for.  I wonder if, not just with our children, our dependents, but also with our faith we are reluctant, a bit like Mary and Joseph, to let our relationship with God move past the place where we are in control, calling the shots and on into a place of growing maturity where we hear God speaking to us in new ways, showing us different priorities and establishing new relationship boundaries that might not be so comfortable because it’s not on our terms? 

Another thread to draw from this story is that Jesus is making a statement to his parents - that there was more to life than just fulfilling their expectations.  He was saying to us all that the business that his Father had called him to was greater than anything we might require of him for our peace of mind, that there would be times when we would not know what was happening, where we were going, how the future would pan out – that life would be uncertain and untidy.  His response to the anxiousness and, I guess, relieved anger of his parents was to say so very calmly and with absolute assurance and not a little teenage challenge ‘Why were you searching for me?  Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  Jesus response to our anxiety, our uncertainty, worry and fear, is to gently chide us for not trusting that when we are with God we are also in God and God is in us. He is telling us how important it is to respond to the call of God in our lives and for us and others to trust that call over and above the worries of our heads and hearts.  But we note that Jesus went home with Mary and Joseph and was obedient to them, that he increased in divine and human favour.  So he wasn’t about trampling over everything that his parents held dear but rather asking them to trust God with their precious son.  That trust was stretched to its limits on the cross!

And the final thought from this passage: “Mary went away and treasured these things in her heart.”  It was a changing moment for all involved, a time of growing and understanding out of the confusion and the lack of understanding.  There is a sense of releasing not just the son from the confines of childhood but bringing new maturity and understanding to the parents too.  When we release the control we are freed to bear more fruit.  Imagine some of the conversations that might have started to happen between Jesus and Mary especially after this event.  Something had changed in their relationship and we are left to imagine, in the light of the adult Jesus, just what that might have looked like for the family and the community they lived in. 

When we are challenged with a rebellious truth, we have two choices: we hold our ground and reject it out of hand or we are encouraged to see new ways of doing and being that will change and grow our understanding.  Christ encourages this maturing in faith, this continual examining of our own responses to challenging happenings and asks us to open ourselves to growing in faith and understanding.  As the letter to the Colossians says “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom”. and thank God for everything you

Jesus, in this small insight into his youth, is teaching us not only about his coming of age but about ours as well.  Thanks be to God for the child come among us, Jesus Christ.  Amen

Margaret Garland

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 9th December 2012.

Readings: Philippians 1:3-11, Luke 3: 1-14,18

 

Let us pray: Open our hearts and minds, our ears and our eyes to your word for each of us this day O God.  May our listening and our response be held in the presence of your Spirit, in Jesus name.  Amen.

What on earth are we doing with the uncompromising blunt message of John the Baptist in the middle of the Advent season?  Hearing John’s words of insult and insinuation, of discomfort and judgement is strong stuff in the midst of the coming of love to the world.  The joy and hope of the nativity alongside the vehement judgemental words of John calling those who have come to hear him“ a brood of vipers” and speaking of axes chopping down unfruitful trees and the wood being thrown into the fire.  Uncompromising and blunt indeed: there was a suggestion that John must have skipped the course on pastoral counselling at theological college when he went through!

I wonder what it would have been like for those people at that time – was John the Baptist a incongruent, jarring note in a otherwise smoothly functioning faith journey, an out of the blue attack on their faith?  Other things may have caused them sleepless nights: for sure there would have been disquiet regarding their political situation with the Romans in charge and some worries about how their future as a nation might pan out but, and maybe because of that, did they hold their faith, their relationship with God as pretty healthy, on track?  Were they then a bit taken aback at this message of judgement and truth from a man who, from our reading anyway, seeded to be a no frills sort of guy popping up out of nowhere and going straight for the jugular, refusing to couch his message in dazzling rhetoric or gentle persuasion. 

I remember going to a meeting once in my library career – just another meeting with an agenda and business to discuss – and being on the receiving end of someone who said it as she saw it and it wasn’t pretty and it was so completely at odds with how I thought things were going that I was gobsmacked and unable to respond – for the moment anyway.  Was it like that for John’s listeners do you think?  But then they, and I, seemed to react in the same way – wanted to know what was behind this – what was the cause of this outburst, these accusations and how might it be fixed, even if they weren’t sure what was wrong.

And so they asked “What then should we do?

Ray Gaston in a sermon on this passage suggests that the first thing we need to do is to listen to John the Baptist, over and over and over again.  And that his message can be summed up in three acknowledgements by us: the world is a mess, a place of sin, we need to know this is not the way it should be and we are required to make it different.  In other words he suggests that before we can welcome the love that is the Christ Child we need to go through the pain that is  John the Baptist’s message to us.  To welcome the light of the world, we have to acknowledge the darkness into which it shines.  And then we can turn round to the darkness and say: this light is a protest: a refusal to conform.  It says to the darkness: ‘I beg to differ’

And, you know something, the people listened, they had respect for him and they took the verbal attack on the chin.  ‘What can we do’ they asked and were given some incredibly practical advice.

To those who have accumulated wealth: if you have two coats give away one of them – (that is a sobering definition of wealth to us today isn’t it?)  To the tax collectors, those who are living and working in a corrupt system – do not be part of that corruptness.  To the soldiers: do not bully others from your position of power.

That is what was said to the people of John’s time.  What might the advice be to us in our time do you think? 

To those who come to John today because they are feeling empty despite their accumulated wealth, their comfortable life style and their secure assets, John says: stop trying to bolster up your own sense of worth with possessions – try giving things away instead and see where it takes you.  You might be surprised.

Who are the tax collectors of our time – who carries the mantle of greed and exploitation in the name of legitimate business these days: well there are many examples are there not but just to put out one or two.  Loan sharks spring to mind especially at this Christmas time creating a hopeless cycle of borrowing, high interest, larger loans to those who can least afford it.  What about shops offering easy credit hand in hand with ‘you know you want it’ advertising, putting pressure on people to equate happiness and love with big price tags – the bigger the better in fact.  What of enormous profits, obscene salaries in the same society that needs to form a protest movement to try to get some earners a wage they can live on?

What of national and big business, any sort of business really, whose wealth is built on exploitation of people and land – isn’t that what the fair trade movement is trying to do – encouraging us to recognise the corruption and remove ourselves from supporting it?

This is what John the Baptist is saying to us: where the system is corrupt – get out.

And what of the increasing militarisation of our world, our so-called war on terror and the scaremongering that justifies torture, assassinations, where young, old and innocent lives are the accepted price of ‘greater good’! What of the ones who follow orders knowing that what they are being asked to do is wrong, abusive, inhumane?  John says – you are bigger and better than this, do not blindly do what is asked of you – stop, do not torture, do not abuse, you are worth more than that. Walk away from it.  And we can take this scenario outside of the military, the battlefield and think of all the places where we have power in the world and abuse it.  It can be in the family circle, at work, socially, in our sport and our media, and you don’t have to go far over the last couple of days to find examples, especially in the online news stories, of people who have abused their power just because they can or in the interests of a ‘breaking’ news story.

So John is asking us to clean up our act, to recognise and step away from that which we know is not right in order that we might be better prepared for the coming of Jesus.   It’s a hard message in the midst of the Advent season – but it is needs to be heard again and again as we prepare for the arrival of the Christ child. 

Because in this moment, in this act of birth, God is saying to us that the kingdom will come, but not in worldly power or in mighty acts, not in violent control nor self-promotion –but rather in vulnerability and in love.  The kingdom will be found in the act of the widow who put her coin in the box, in the child who sits at your knee, in the outcast welcomed home and the unclean made well.  This is the new up-side-down way that calls us away from a world of power and influence and into a place of love and grace.  This is the new relationship with God made known in Christ Jesus who says ‘welcome me in the stable, be with me on the cross, meet me in the resurrection, be filled with my grace, choose my way, reject the way that you know is wrong and change the world, let my kingdom come.  In our acts of love and justice and compassion may we, filled with God’s grace, choose live the way of truth, to acknowledge the pain of this world, know that this is not the way it needs to be and that we can make a difference in the light and love of Christ.  Thanks be to God.

Margaret Garland

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 2nd December, 2012.

Readings: 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13, Luke 21: 25-36

Let us pray: Open our hearts and minds, our ears and our eyes to your word for each of us this day O God.  May our listening and our response be held in the presence of your Spirit, in Jesus name.  Amen.

“And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.” Thessalonians 3:12

We have a rather abrupt beginning to the reading today from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians and it is worth going back a little to pick up the strands of the story so far.  Paul had founded a new congregation after leaving Philippi, then has left and been quite frustrated in his inability to get back.  So he had sent Timothy to find out how they are and report back.  And they are well.  More than well really, Paul is overjoyed to hear they are thriving and writes back to tell them so.  And he emphasises two things in particular that he is thrilled about.  One is their continuing faith in adverse conditions.  Paul knows, more than most, about how difficult it can be to walk in faith when all around you are intent on dissing you and bringing you down - and he had foreseen that this would be a big issue for this fledgling congregation.  So he congratulated them on their faith: ‘constancy and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ’[1] were the actual words.  And along with their hope in Christ, Paul, as we heard today, emphasises that they continue to love one another, ‘to increase and abound in love for one another and for all’[2] are the words used in my bible translation.  These are the two things, their faith, their hope in Christ, and the love they have for each other, that the congregation is strong on and that he applauds them in.    But it is interesting in his choice of comparison that he then uses to inspire them: it is not God’s love for them he quotes but rather his own love for them – ‘to increase and abound in love for one another and for all: just as we abound in love for you.’   Paul is firmly and quite extravagantly reassuring them of his love, almost going overboard in his need to reaffirm to the readers of his letter that he really cares about them and wants to be with them. He is relationship building - and with good reason: he is aware that things have been a bit tricky so far –that people have accused him of lacking integrity, of being a manipulator and a bludger, of usurping authority that is not his to have, or pushing them too hard.  He realises that people easily believe this kind of stuff and, because of it, damage their relationship not just with him but with Christ.  At the same time Paul doesn’t really get how people can say that they love God and be so downright mean to him - because for him hope in Christ translated instantaneously, unequivocally into love and care for others.  Responding to Christ, for Paul, means passing on his generosity and openness to others and he gets quite cross when people withhold that gifting from himself and others.  For this is Paul’s understanding of mission – the expansion of love to all – being one with a God of love and each other.

So yet again Paul is drawing a picture of the absolute reality of life in Christ, as he exemplifies the pain and the joy of being big-hearted in love – pain because you are more vulnerable to hurtful rejection when you give fully of yourself - and joy because you see the amazing fruits of love given freely and openly.

So is big hearted love the way to go?  Should we all be like Paul, larger than life, absolutely focussed, boundless energy and answers for everything?  It is what he seems like sometimes, isn’t it?  Well I think he would be horrified at at any suggestion of cloning in that way.  He would say ‘stop looking to me but look to Christ – look to Jesus example and teaching’.  What would he say and do, do you think?

The Gospel reading for today comes at this concept of gifted unconditional love in a slightly different way – we hear words like ‘be on guard’ and ‘be alert’ for that which prevents you living in the light of Christ’s example and teaching.  In the passage from Luke we are drawn into what the kingdom of God here on earth is to be and our place in it – we are called to hold up our heads so that when the signs of the kingdom begin to show we can know that we have our place in that kingdom.  It seems to me there is a very real prod here for us to examine our choices, evaluate our past, present and future in the light of this coming kingdom of peace and justice and hope for all.  And I think that this too is what Paul is talking about – that we can’t segment our lives, apply love to just some people and some things and not to others.  Paul too is asking us to be able to hold up our heads and be counted for the love of the world in every part of our lives.  Not to save it for the easy and the familiar but also to lay it out there in situations where it might just mean huge impact on our lives, might affect who we are, might even make us unpopular and the object of ridicule. 

How about, right at this time, each one of us were to lose some equity in our land/our houses in order that others might know the security of being a property owner, gifting a bit of your backyard to someone who is homeless.  That is out there!   How about we buy only free or fair trade goods, always, or own only what is locally and/or seasonally produced - that means we lose a whole bunch of useful gadgets and tasty foods from our lives. Might not go down too well in the house?  How about we seriously challenge this economic system we live under - that applauds individual and corporate greed, encourages debt and equates poverty with failure? Might not do much for our status in our community?  How about we go down to the night shelter to help out or invite strangers to our long-anticipated family Christmas dinner or give half our clothing to those who have none?  Because the coming of the kingdom will only happen here in this world if we invest in this big-hearted love in a big way, if we decide in ourselves that the gifting of the Christ child is a gift of new beginnings not just for ourselves but for all people everywhere, that fair treatment, justice and compassion is not just something we enjoy but that all people are entitled to.  It is then that we will be able to say that we have ‘increased and abounded in our love for one another and for all’ so that the kingdom of God might be known. 

As we gather at the table Christ has prepared for us today, may we remember the costly gift to the world of the Christ child, and let us be reminded of all others who stand in need of the tangible gifting of costly love in their lives.  Amen.

Margaret Garland

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[1] 1Thessalonians 1:3

[2] 1 Thessalonians 3:12

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 11th November, 2012.

Readings: Psalm 127, Mark 12:38-44

We pray:  may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen

There is a hymn that is used quite regularly in Scotland on Remembrance day written by a group of people from Carnwadric Parish Church in Glasgow in conjunction with John L Bell –[1] a well known Scottish hymn writer.  This hymn has an absolute simplicity about it and for me summed up my somewhat mixed emotions around Remembrance Day.  And I wondered if I might walk with you through the hymn today as we together explore some of the difficulties of holding in tension the reality of war and the love and peace of Christ.  It’s a big ask, but maybe we can find some answers and in the end I believe the gospel passage shows us a way.

The first verse of the hymn:

The first verse of the hymn:

What shall we pray for those who died,

those on whose death our lives relied?

Silenced by war but not denied,

God give them peace.

The reality of war – without the sacrifice of those who fought against the evil that the Hitler led Nazi Government became – what would have happened to us? Without the bravery of those who protect family, freedom and justice with their lives, what would this world look like?  That is a totally valid question and offers several horrific answers.  And yet there are those who say that any violence, any war is unacceptable – should Christians be among that voice?

Augustine is often identified as the theologian who set the stage for a Christian viewpoint that says a just war to secure tolerable order is acceptable.  Martin Luther King also accepted that the savage wild beast that is the underbelly of humanity needs to be restrained and vanquished.  He accepted that war was a plague, but that it was invoked to contain a greater evil.  Other theologians include such caveats as a just war needing to serve justice: they differentiate between conflict for a greater good and conflict that is amoral.  But who is to decide what is just and what is unjust and can we be sure that justice will not turn into injustice or create greater harm?  What do we do with Syria for instance – where at the moment it seems that political rightness has more weight than humanitarian needs?  All of

Rightness has more weight than humanitarian needs but where ploughing in with armed force seem only to add to the misery.  All of which still leaves us pondering  the rights and wrongs of war.  Few of us would disagree that Hitler needed to be halted and few would justify a war based purely on economic greed.  But there are many stories in between.

The next verse reminds us of the cost of war:

What shall we pray for those who mourn

friendship and love, their fruit unborn?

Though years have passed, hearts still are torn:

God give them peace.

Because there is a cost to war – an enormous cost of pain and death, of lost dreams, of futures not to be, of those left behind, loneliness, emptiness, heartache.  This verse demands answers –  and yet we are almost helpless to give them.  Christ asks us to offer compassion and tenderness to those who suffer – but what if the cause of that suffering is our safety, our rights?  Is that what sometimes makes us a little impatient with those who seem forever marked by the consequences of war – that or the somewhat guilty awareness that it wasn’t us thank God.

And then there were those that survive wars – the hymn speaks of praying for them too:

What shall we pray for those who live

tied to the past they can’t forgive,

haunted by terrors they relive?

God give them peace.

 We remember the hidden terrors, the inward struggles of those who lived for years, until their death, with the horrors of war and the nightmare of death and pain we who have not been there can ever imagine.   All this in a society that seemed to them to demand chin up and brave face.  There was a book written a few years ago – one that collected the memories and stories of war veterans - where they expressed, many for the first time, the demons that they had carried inside whilst living a seemingly normal life to those around – it was a shocking read to someone like me who had known one or two of these people for some time and had never seen below the surface.

But then I thought that there was a verse missing from this hymn for me anyway – and so I have written this:

What shall we pray for those who said

no to war, called coward instead.

They too were brave, hurt and afraid:

God give them peace.

 The experience of many to those who chose to say no to fighting was, I suspect, no easier than those who were in the midst of battle – there are some truly horrific stories told of their treatment and the scars were deep.  In the midst of the culture of the time it was no easy thing to be a conscientious objector – even on religious grounds.  There were many who would have called themselves Christian who made the lives of these people absolute hell.  Yet if the whole Christian world – or any faith for whom peace, love and care for others  was a core value had said no – what might have been the outcome?  Could the Church in Europe have prevented these world wars, with a different response?

What shall we pray for those who fear

war, in some guise, shall reappear

looking attractive and sincere?

God give them peace.

What is to stop us doing this again – because if you could talk to any of those soldiers from the war who gave their lives to stop injustice and anarchy the cry, I am sure,  would be ‘never again! Never again can there be such slaughter, such carnage – that is what we fought for, that is our plea!’

The need to restrain and stop violence and injustice and the horror that is something like the rise of Nazism or any other extreme movement will I suspect be with us for some time to come but we must pray that never again will we see throwing the lives of people into the maelstrom of war, the bloody lines of people killing and maiming as a means to hoped for peace and justice

God give us peace and, more than this,

show us the path where justice is;

and let us never be remiss

working for peace that lasts.

 Can we make a difference?  Can we be the peace of Christ in this world, realistically?  How can we avoid the spilling of courageous blood, the horrors of surviving war, the losses of young vibrant lives and futures yet to be written. 

I think that many make the mistaken assumption that being a people of peace means doing  nothing, that we do not aggravate or challenge anyone, that we do not stand up against evil. I am suggesting that there are other ways to contain evil and take on injustices: that it is our attitude to injustice that determines how we might respond to it.  In the Gospel reading from today the priests, the rich people and the poor woman were all doing the same thing – they were giving to the temple much as we all might want to stop injustice and terror.  The priests were giving of their presence and conferring honour, the rich were giving ostentatiously and from their surplus, the woman was giving from her daily need, putting her whole life into her giving for she trusted God to be in her every need. In some ways today and maybe in the past, you could say that the use of war to subdue threats is a bit like those who gave of their surplus – the decision makers are rarely the ones who put their lives on the line, who are deeply and personally impacted by the horror of war – sweeping and slightly biased statement I know but I am leaving it in there.   If we take that call for a just and fair world seriously it cannot be detached from our everyday reality, be taken from our surplus so to speak, but needs to be, like the giving of the poor woman,  in every single thing we do and say, so firmly part of who we are that we spread Christ’s radical love and justice in the simplest of acts, in our everyday life so that a call to arms is who we are and how we live.  We challenge the governments that call for war to keep access to oil fields, we speak out about the injustices that lead people into violence as the only way out, we make our voice heard in forums that make decisions and we showcase alternative ways to confrontation in our everyday choices.

For us, the call to arms is paradoxically a call to peace and love and justice that is the right of all people and the path of walking with the risen Christ.

Margaret Garland

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[1] Carnwadric Parish Church, (Glasgow) Worship Group and John L. Bell  CH4 712