Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 25th February, 2018 Lent 2

Readings:  Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16     Mark 8: 31-38

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 sustainer.  Amen.

‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’ 

How would it be if each Sunday, as we leave this service, this church, we were to pick up a cross at the door and carry it very obviously with us through the week?  What would it do to our sense of peace and community as we leave to have a rough hewn cross shoved into our hand, a reminder that our walk of faith involves personal discipleship to a man who died on a cross that we might find ours.  This second week of lent is a hard week – the journey has begun to Jerusalem, the words of recognition have been spoken – yes Jesus, you are the Messiah – the teaching about betrayal and suffering and death has begun with a new intensity, the drama of Holy Week is still a long way away and the joy of Easter Sunday not really on anyone’s radar at all.  And in the midst of it all is the knowledge that something crucial has changed -for them, for us. 

It is no longer ok to just be the bystanders, the students at the knee of the master, the followers who stand back and let Jesus be the one who preaches, who heals, who feeds the hungry, who forges unlikely relationships and challenges and disrupts in the name of love.  Step up, Jesus says – this is your journey as well – your life is to be put on the line too and I am asking you to walk this way with purpose and belief. 

This was indeed a difficult time for the disciples who were with Jesus – not that life had been easy or predictable before but suddenly the reality of the words of Jesus begin to take hold.

‘To be my follower, take up the cross and follow me.’  After the euphoria of naming Jesus as the Messiah, this message of suffering and death must have seemed full of doom and gloom - and Peter was having none of it.  It didn’t fit in with his understanding of the way in which Jesus would be the Messiah – Martin Luther calls it the theology of glory versus the theology of the cross.  For Luther, the theology of glory anticipates what people want in their God, sees what ‘should be’ based on what seems self evident – power rather than a cross, accomplishment rather than  helpless suffering.  The theology of the cross is the path Jesus is taking – God’s self revelation found in the weakness of suffering and death – Luther believes that to know God truly is to know God in Christ, which means to know God revealed in the suffering of the cross.

This theology of the cross is a counter intuitive approach for many of us including Peter.  He was looking for wisdom and strength in this newly declared Messiah – Jesus was telling him it involved what the world saw as foolishness and weakness.  Imagine being those disciples, without the assurance of the resurrected Christ, grappling with the concept of death and suffering being the ‘good news’. 

Do we do much better, understanding the cross to be the good news of Jesus Christ and does the knowledge of resurrection invite us to skip lightly over the moment of absolute grace that is the cross?  Perhaps we can find some guidance in the story of Abram and Sarai and the covenant God made with them.

For it was a covenant of grace – a promise for Abram and Sarai to receive and it was on God’s terms – asking no response. ‘I will be their God’ - there is no rejoinder of ‘and they shall be my people.’

We can recognise their faithfulness as the fruit of the covenant but God’s promise was not dependant on their faithfulness.  And it is the same with the cross - we are on the receiving end of God’s movement to bring life and freedom – found in the unlikeliest of places - the cross of suffering and offered for all of humankind.  Open and unconditional extravagant grace – the good news indeed.

And as Sarai and Abram committed to the covenant with God, they received not only promise but the recognition that, in becoming the faithful people of God, there was a new beginning, a clear sense of purpose, a new path to walk with God.  And to write that on their hearts they were given new names – they became Abraham (father of a multitude) and Sarah meaning princess.

And for us, through the extravagant grace of God, our life in the church and the waters of baptism, the covenant established with Abraham and Sarah and brought to fullness on the cross has been opened to us too. And when we too choose to respond to the grace of God we also gain a new name – we become a ‘disciple of Jesus’ signalling our new purpose as people of faith.

We think of others in the bible and in life who choose to take a new name – and why they might do it.

Jacob was renamed Israel, Hoshea became Joshua, the mute Zechariah writing his son John’s name on a tablet - and we continue in our contemporary world – birth, circumcision, baptism, kings and queens and popes, entry into monastic life, gender change, marriage, immigrants and settlers alike.

A new start, an acceptance of new direction or responsibility, a desire to lay aside that which was not fruitful or safe or healing and begin again.  A new name for a new purpose.

What might that mean for us, and how might reflecting on our ‘new name’ be significant for us this Lenten time?

One of the things we encounter in a new name is that people see us differently.  When I began the journey of becoming a minister one of the most difficult things for me was realising that people approached me with expectations, that there was an assumption of some wisdom, of compassion, of knowledge, of certain behaviour.  As Christians, newly named or long committed, how are we perceived by others?  Does our behaviour reflect the good news of Jesus Christ or is there very little change in the direction of our lives to others?

And we see ourselves differently - a decision has been made, a commitment embarked upon that has changed our lives.  No longer are we our own person but walk the path that Christ has walked – much of it needing a great deal of trust and faith.  We embrace servanthood and forgiveness and vulnerability, we enter into the pain of the world so that we might transform the world – a far cry from being in control or persuasion from a position of power.

And we see each other differently – we build relationships based on selflessness and hope, we engage with those we would not normally approach and discover Christ in the least and the different.  We hear the voice of Jesus in those whom we discuss faith and scripture and theology with.  We see the hands of Jesus in the people who we minister with and who minister to us.  We know the love of Jesus in the saints that surround us and the stranger we encounter in the strangest of places.

I want to finish with some lines from the poem by Andrew Norton called ‘Hello’ that we shared at Wednesday worship.  For me it gathers together all the threads of what it means to respond to the faithfulness of God, the new journey that we embark upon when we become disciples of Christ.  At this Easter time we remind ourselves of what we greet when we choose to follow Christ.

Hello by Andrew Norton

I search the horizon but cannot see beyond today’s unfolding
Hello to the unknown.

My bones ache, my breath is short, my feet and hands hurt – Hello to pain.

The grace of tears – Hello to love.

Light painting an azure sky with puffs of white clouds – Hello to wonder.

A pathway into the mist – Hello to mystery.

Now you have it, now you don’t – Hello to loss.

A hand written card, pure gift – Hello to kindness.

Thicker than blood because it is a choice – Hello to friendship.

Stories of endings – Hello to grief.

As champagne to a weary heart – Hello to laughter.

“Hosanna” fades as the crowd turns – Hello to forsaken.

I ask God “why?” so I may gain wisdom – Hello to silence.

In the shadows I’m at home in the womb of creation – Hello to darkness.

Sunlight through the rain – Hello to hope.

Hello to life, yes, to all of it!

Hello!

Margaret Garland

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 18 February 2018 Lent 1

Readings:  Genesis 9:8-17    Mark 1:9-15

I have recently taken up classes in weaving – it is a pleasure and something I have long wanted to learn to do properly.  Our teacher, Christine, is very patient and has much knowledge which she is keen to share.  And every now and then during a session we hear the words ‘teaching moment!’ when someone forgets to add a different colour to the warp winding, when the very fine fabric gets tangled, when someone is lost in the middle of a pattern – and we gather round and learn something new or remind ourselves of a way to be a better weaver.

A teaching moment arose at the Leadership Sub Committee meeting I was at on Friday too – we were presenting the completed report on Women in Ministry, we had a very positive response but I wasn’t  sure of the take-up when I said that it’s not enough to just agree with the principle of gender equity (that in itself a loaded term) but also to educate everyone as to how to live it out.  It was immediately after this discussion that one person, talking generally about ministers,  said something like ‘….but as a minister he needs to….’ And there were two people in the room who said immediately ‘he or she’ and I added the option of ‘they’ – a teaching moment if ever there was one – and the learning was impactful on a person who was still learning the living out required from a principle.

Maybe this is an approach that we can take to the reading for today from Mark - what are the teaching moments that help guide us on our faith journey in the midst of a world that desperately needs us to be knowledgeable in and committed to the way of Jesus.  That needs us to understand the teachings of Jesus and live them out in a way that transforms the world.

The poet Caitlin Curtice[1] puts it like this:

O God, this morning when we woke to your presence in and around us, we also woke to a heavy world,
and in this world, we can’t make sense of all the things
that are wrong and should be made right.
We cannot fathom that people are judged on the colour of their skin,
that lives are worth less because their pockets are empty,
that violence is an everyday occurrence, and it seems that no place is safe.
So when we wake to the sunrise and know that you are still good, teach us what it means to seek goodness when the world is dark.

O God, teach us what it means to live in grace — not just for ourselves, but for the collective whole.

Teach us.
Teach us because the future depends on it.
Remind us, we pray. 

The world that Noah lived in was dark, and it was out of a few people’s faithfulness to God that a re-creation of the relationship between the world and God emerged – a rainbow the symbol of God’s desire to for reconciliation with a broken world and a promise to never give up on us, ever. 

The world that Jesus came to was dark – the people had lost their way, the religious leaders were mostly blind and deaf to the teachings of God, the promised land was in thrall again, this time to the Romans.  Jesus came to teach us that we might again be reconciled to God.

He came as Messiah – to once and for all exemplify the meaning of grace and love and righteousness and truth.  He came to teach us with his very life that we are the beloved of God.  A principal the people might have grasped but not remembered how to live it out.

In a sense, the abruptness of Mark’s gospel encourages this sense of an explosion of Jesus into our world – in the baptism there is no small talk about who should baptise who for instance.  Nor is there a confession of sin or a call to repentance – rather we are straight in to the baptism as something that simply had to happen – a given.  Jesus is signalling that his former life has ended and that, in this new beginning, his living out of God’s rule, he is most definitely turning his face to the cross, to death.  For he knew that in the teaching us how to live in love and justice and grace, he would be violating just about every political, social, economic and faith principal that the world held dear.  And what happened at this moment - the heavens split asunder, the boundaries between heaven and earth dissolved at this moment.  Teaching moment – baptism places us in that same relationship with God through Jesus and on the same path of radical disruption in the name of Jesus.  Our old life is put aside and our new is begun. 

Mark likewise gives barely two sentences to the wilderness experience, leaving us to read other accounts of the temptations and hardships that 40 days of desert living could bring.  Instead we hear that the same Spirit that has come into him at his baptism now drives him immediately into the desert for forty days.  And the early Christians who read these words would have understood perhaps more than we do the symbolism of Jesus retracing Israel’s journey into the wilderness with Moses where, to be honest, they pretty much stumbled and staggered and rebelled and deviated from the path that God had set them on.  Jesus on the other hand – Jesus withstands whatever the wilderness throws, Satan and all – and rewrites the story of God’s people as that of victory over all that is evil.

He emerges to proclaim that the kingdom has come near – God’s rule in here, the old ways are gone and the good news is being lived out now and in this way. Another teaching moment for us here perhaps – everything that is good comes from God, and Jesus, as God’s son, is the teacher and exemplar of all that living in the good news means.

The world that we live in is a dark place.  Wherever we look we see senseless killing and violence and war, desperate need in the shadow of bloated excesses, ethnic and religious and cultural arrogance and deep grief at the way we are destroying this world we live in.

The words from Curtice again: ‘Teach us how to seek goodness when the world is dark, O God.  Teach us because the future depends on us.’

Perhaps the first teaching is to remind us that we cannot be bystanders – our baptism puts us on a path to revealing the good news of Jesus Christ not only in our declaration of faith and our attendance at church but in our daily everyday  lives.  Have we taken that on with the determination and understanding and focus that Jesus showed when he rose from those waters and began his ministry? Might we take some time in Lent to consider our participation in the life of faith and whether we might find some new beginnings that God is asking us to step out into.

And the second teaching might be that our wilderness experiences are our best learnings – for when it is on God alone we depend then that distance between heaven and earth is at its thinnest.  Could we spend some time over the next few weeks reminding ourselves of the times when we have encountered the living God in our silences and our difficulties and our temptations and how that continues to shape us as the people of God.

And finally the teaching of trust – Jesus fully and completely entrusted the direction of his life to his Father.  He knew that everything came from God and everything he did and said and lived was for God.  He came, he taught, he suffered and he died, trusting in God to make good that which was evil, to bring new life out of the darkness that is our world.  Might we take time this lent to learn to trust again that we live in the light of a faithful God, a rainbow God, so that in confident faith we can be the grace and the truth that is Jesus Christ in this dark world.

Margaret Garland

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[1] https://sojo.net/articles/prayer-heavy-world

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 4 February 2018 Epiphany 5

Readings:  1 Corinthians 9:16-23  Mark 1:29-39

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 sustainer.  Amen

Today I would like us to think about what it means to serve God.  To explore the ways in which firstly Paul, and then Mark understand Jesus’ commission to us to proclaim the Gospel, to share the good news.

In the reading from Corinthians it will be helpful if we first remind ourselves of the words that precede the ones we heard today.  In the previous chapter Paul refers to the knowledgeable converts who quite correctly argue their right to eat the meat given to idols because they are aware that the idols have no power or status. It is just food.  But the difficulty comes from those without that clarity of understanding who see and copy, still thinking that the idols have some ability to impact their souls.  At this point you are not serving God but leading others astray – best to give up meat, says Paul.  And then, in today’s reading, Paul tackles the same question of how we best serve God but from a different perspective.   He argues that to be effective in service to God you actually need to put yourselves into other people’s shoes; to share in the blessings of the gospel, you must share in the cost of the vulnerabilities of those you serve.  Can I put that a different way?  It may well be our natural bent to want to deliver the message of the Gospel in and through the strength of our conviction and our blessing.  Whether it is preaching from the pulpit, leading study groups, hanging out with young people we find it easier to pray that our certainty, standing where we are, inviting others into our well organised space, will draw people to the church and to God. That our understanding of truth is sufficient, in itself, for everyone else. Apart from being somewhat arrogant, Paul is telling us that this is not being a serving church nor is proclaiming the freedom that Christ brings us into.  

‘Freedom in Christ’ says Bruce Rigdon, ‘means the radical freedom to identify with others in their otherness – the way in which Christ did by giving his life for the poor and the weak on the cross.’[1]

In the story of the eating of the idols food, Paul expressed the responsibility that the strong have for the weak – in this passage he insists on the responsibility that the weak have for the strong and that in serving relationship, transformation is for server and served.  That bears some thinking about does it not.

Christ came to serve, his disciples also must serve.

And so we come to the mother-in law of Simon (another nameless woman) who, in the Mark reading, illustrates exactly the point Paul makes.

An initial reaction is to wonder why the men couldn’t feed themselves but I want you put aside your outrage that she leapt off her sickbed so that the men would be properly looked after – and think about this. 

She is not commanded to do what she does, she is not doing it from any sense of a woman’s place but rather she has understood intuitively that the gospel message is one of service.  This is the Sabbath remember.  Jesus has healed in the synagogue – on the Sabbath.  He has healed in the home – on the Sabbath.  And she – on the Sabbath – overcame all the selfishness and restrictive teaching– and chose service to the people who had gathered in her house over the sacredness of the Sabbath – no matter the consequences.  She is not a menial – she is Jesus first deacon and, as Ophelia Ortega suggests, she joins Jesus as his first servant in the radical announcement of what the kingdom of God will look like. The healed mother in law and Jesus share the same liturgy!

But the disciples do not do so well.  Nor do the vast majority of the people.  Despite the desperate need there would have been for healing, they do not turn up until the sun had gone down and the restrictions are lifted.  And then they flood in.

Simon, in his turn, - well he should have taken notice of his mother in law – then he and the disciples might have figured out the servant path a great deal earlier.  But instead they see responding to the crowd as Jesus role, not theirs and their astonishment at his leaving while there is still work to be done is barely held in check. 

Can I connect this idea of servanthood this Waitangi weekend with the fact that it was just over three years ago when we celebrated the 200^th anniversary of the initial contact of Maori and Missionary on the beach at Hohi (Oihi) in the Bay of Islands - where Samuel Marsden led worship and preached the Gospel to Maori and Pakeha alike. And I wondered how the bringers of the good news of Jesus Christ approached those important first encounters – with servanthood or with compulsion.  Almost certainly much of this relationship between church, settler and tangata whenua would have been characterised by not putting self in others shoes and seeking rather to command.    

But rather than dwell on the mistakes can I share some thoughts that give us hope here in Aotearoa.

For sure, we have not served God well in much that is associated with bi-cultural relationships in this country.  Even with the best of intentions all participants in the living document that is the Treaty of Waitangi can dominate, frighten, incense, and cause seemingly unrecoverable divisions.  And yet there is hope - and reconciliation – and where do we find it?  In the stories of the people!  I have a longtime friend called Dave who I have known since university days and Dave’s mother was Helen Jackman – a deaconess in the Presbyterian Church and a tireless and compassionate leader in education – she was principle of Turakina Maori Girls school among other things.  She is in the book out in the Morrison Lounge called “A Braided River of Faith” along with many other woman whose lives of service are a light to us all.

The story of Sister Annie Henry and her discerning and compassionate ministry of reconciliation to the people of Ruatahuna is nothing less than inspiring.  With her presence to guide, and in the light of her unselfish devotion to the welfare of the people, her care of them in sickness and in need, the most unlikely covenant was reached between the Presbyterian church and the Ringatu Church under their leader Te Kooti – where Christian mission schools would be set up for the children of the Tuhoe.  The co-existance of two faiths respecting and caring for each other still today could teach us a great deal about how to live in a reconciled and loving community.   I think of people like Rod Madill who succeeded Sister Annie in Ruatahuna, ministering within the tension of a pakeha dominated church in a Maori community and who, with vision and compassion, built a strong and remembered relationship with the people.  Many, many people have served God in this place of cultural reconciliation and restorative justice.

And finally I would speak of the work of Te Ako Puaho  When, as an intern I and others were invited, with some apprehension I might say, onto the marae in Ohope it was like no other experience of marae that I have had.  The sense of embrace and welcome was palatable, the conviction that God calls us all to serve each other was lived out in the teaching and the sharing of stories of faith and action, and, you know what, I got really excited about the ways in which we can grow in faith through the contributing lenses that each of our cultural journeys brings.  It was a moment of epiphany for many of us. 

There is much to hope for, I believe.

May we always seek to know how we might too serve God in bringing reconciliation, restoration and hope to the lives of all people in this wonderful country – working for a world that lives into the hope of all peoples, in all times. “He iwi tahi tatou” – we are one people .   Around this table of welcome as we share in the bread and wine “He iwi tahi tatou” – we are one people  And for this we say - thanks be to God.

Margaret Garland

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[1] Feasting on the Word Year B Volume 1, p.328

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 11 February, 2018 Transfiguration

Opoho Presbyterian Church               Mark 9.2-9                              February 11^th 2018

The year seems hardly to have begun, but we find ourselves already on the verge of Lent, and thus today in the last week of the segment of our calendar we call Epiphany.  And our Gospel reading today, relating what we call the Transfiguration of Jesus, is surely an ‘epiphany moment’ par excellence.  Epiphany means revelation, the visual appearing of something not normally seen, and during the season of epiphany we read a number of stories about the visual and social impact of Jesus: the journey of the magi, the baptism of Jesus, the call of the disciples, all of these announce Jesus and reveal his identity to the world.  But none of those do so in such a striking and mysterious way as our transfiguration story this morning.  Here Jesus takes his disciples up a mountain (a place of revelation, like Mt. Sinai), and here he is suddenly changed – metamorphosed – in front of their eyes, gleaming with dazzlingly white clothes.  He is then joined by Moses and Elijah – two figures from way-back in Israel’s past – before they are all overshadowed by a cloud (another echo of Sinai and Moses), and a voice from God declares: ‘This is my beloved Son; listen to him.’

            There is something about this story that we find hard to get our heads around: it all seems a bit dream-like, unreal, otherworldly, and somehow out of kilter with the plainer, down-to-earth stories in the gospels that we find easier to handle, stories of normal human interactions, parables, and moral instructions.  We are used to a Jesus who teaches, eats, prays, and heals; but a Jesus suddenly transformed, suddenly shining with a blinding light, suddenly glorious and – frankly – supernatural, all that is a bit hard for us to wrap our rational minds around.  (When I told a friend I was preaching today on the lectionary reading, on the Transfiguration, he said ‘Oh no, poor you: that is almost as bad as having to preach about the Trinity!’).  So what is this story about?  What is it doing here in our gospels?  And why is it here, slap bang in the middle of Mark’s gospel, at a pivotal moment in the narrative?  In the transfiguration story, a voice from heaven says ‘listen to him’ (that is, to Jesus).  By placing this story here, Mark’s Gospel seems to be saying to us: ‘listen very carefully to this’. 

            What is happening here is not a meaningless blip in an otherwise straightforward story, but a glimpse through the veil, a sudden break in the clouds, a moment that reveals what is really going on, and what the narrative is truly about.  Living in Opoho, these last few months, when I read of a cloud coming down on the top of a mountain, it makes me think of Mount Cargill, with its frequent cloud-hat.  But this story as a whole and its place in Mark’s Gospel is more like one of those days when you wake up and the whole sky is covered with low, thick, grey cloud, from end to end, and you wonder for a moment how there is any light at all and where it is coming from; and then suddenly, about midday, a break appears to the north, over Flagstaff, and through a tiny slit in the clouds you see blue and then, through the slit, a shaft of brilliant sunlight falls direct onto Dunedin, and now you know what gives the day light.  The disciples have been with Jesus, day in and day out, in normal every-day activities, though he has an unusual authority and an extraordinary power to heal.  They could think – and we could think – that this is the life of a good and holy man, a prophet (like Elijah, perhaps), or a lawgiver like Moses, with a radical moral twist; but all of a sudden, to the eyes of his closest disciples, the clouds part and the truth is revealed.  All of a sudden, and with a light that both illumines and half-blinds, we see who Jesus really is.  The categories of our rational minds won’t fit, not because what we see here is untrue, but because it is more true than we can adequately grasp.

            This is a story rich in symbolism.  The mountain and the cloud remind us of Sinai, where Moses, also after a wait of 6 days, ascends into the cloud, and hears a voice from the cloud that reveals and imparts Israel’s constitution; he came down out of the cloud, you may remember, with his face glowing so brightly that the Israelites could not look at him directly.  No-one can be that near to the light of God and remain the same.  But here is Jesus not as the reflection of that light, but as the light source himself, the truth of his identity suddenly breaking out.  Elijah and Moses appear in this story, as figures of authority from the past who pointed forward to one greater than themselves.  Moses had spoken, famously, of a future prophet like himself, and he was recorded in Deuteronomy as saying of this prophet: ‘listen to him’ – words echoed here but now spoken by God from the cloud.  Elijah, whose mysterious removal to heaven in a fiery chariot we heard about in our reading just now, was also associated with a mountain and a voice from heaven (‘the still, small voice’).  More importantly, ever since the days of Malachi it had been thought that Elijah would return to usher in the last days, the time of the Messiah or the day of the Lord.  In Jesus’ day that expectation was certainly alive and well, and there was speculation about whether John the Baptist, or Jesus himself, was that reappearance of Elijah from heaven as the sign of the impending end.  But here is Jesus, not as Elijah, or as a Moses-like prophet, but as one they speak with, and, as it were, point towards:  Jesus, in other words, as the final, definitive embodiment of all the hopes of history.  And the voice from the cloud, which echoes the voice at Jesus’ baptism, puts us in no doubt about the special identity of Jesus: not, ‘this is my prophet’, nor ‘this is my lawgiver’, nor even ‘this is my friend’: but ‘this is my beloved Son’ (that is my unique, my only Son).  What we are dealing with here is no Galilean guru, but the Son of God.

            So right at the centre of this very early Christian text, and in the letters of Paul written even before this, stands the conviction that has been at the heart of the Christian faith all the way through history: that Jesus is the final, definitive, irreplaceable, and incomparable revelation of God.  The Son of God, the Word of God, the Wisdom of God, the Alpha and Omega, the Lord of the cosmos, these and many other terms have been the properly exalted language in which the Christian faith has tried to express a reality that breaks open all our language about God.  You will notice how Peter fumbles about in this story, not quite knowing what to say or how to say it, and we feel much the same.  There is a sense in which the truth about Christ will always be beyond our ability to capture, because it is simply too great for us to get our minds, and thus our words, around it.  But one thing is clear.  We cannot speak about God without speaking about Jesus as God the Son; we cannot speak about creation without speaking of Christ as the one through whom and for whom everything that is came into existence; we cannot speak about ourselves as human beings without speaking of Christ as the Image of God, after whom we are modelled and for whom we are made; and we cannot speak about history without bearing testimony to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, as the hinge point of all time.  Everything in our texts, our creeds, our liturgies, and our prayers is marked, inescapably, with this absolutely massive claim about Christ. The transfiguration reminds us not to whittle our language down: precisely in the very human life of Jesus is breaking through to us a unique light and truth that we can only name as the presence of God, in the unique person of God’s beloved Son.

            I was fascinated by the debate that has arisen recently about the prayer used at the start of each day in the NZ Parliament, which the Speaker altered, before much consultation, to remove reference to the Queen and to omit the clause, ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord’.  The Queen: well, we won’t go into that here! That’s another whole topic! ‘Through Jesus Christ our Lord’: that raises interesting questions about what you do when many members of Parliament do not believe that Jesus is any kind of Lord, and certainly not theirs, and when, according to at least some surveys, the majority of New Zealanders no longer self-identify as Christians.  Far be it from me (as an Englishman) to comment on what New Zealand MPs should do with their prayer, but the larger question concerns us all: what does it mean to be a Christian when an increasing percentage of our contemporaries do not share our beliefs?  That may feel like a new question, but of course it is hardly new in the history of Christianity.  For its first three centuries Christians were a very small percentage of their communities, and being a minority is the context in which very many Christians find themselves around the world today.  What do we do in that situation?  The answer is not to lapse into a postmodern, ‘well, what I believe is true is true for me, but of course if you believe something else, that can be true for you, too’.  The Christian stance is to affirm, with all due gentleness, that Jesus Christ is Lord, whether people recognise that or not: Lord of all the reality that they and we inhabit, whether they see him there or not; Lord of all history, ours and theirs, whether they acknowledge him there or not.  Some MPs might not be able to say with any honesty ‘Jesus Christ our Lord’, but he is their Lord – in the sense that he is Lord of all – whether they know it or not.  Our task is not of course to force people to believe this or say it – as if we had to capacity to do that anyway; our task is to bear humble, but consistent testimony, to those of other faiths and none, that the reality we are all trying to grasp, and the truth we are all attempting to understand, is definitively, uniquely, and unsurpassably revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  The voice on the Mount of Transfiguration says, ‘listen to him’.   

            Jesus Christ is Lord: but how and where?  The story of the Transfiguration comes, as I have said, at a pivotal moment in the gospel of Mark.  We might expect that after this revelation of Jesus’ true identity to the innermost circle of disciples, the rest of the story would be the progressive revelation of Jesus’ glory and power to wider and wider circles of people until all Jerusalem, and all the world, bowled over by his glory, came to honour him as Son of God.  What we get, instead, is a story of increasing rejection and suffering, a road that leads from this mountain top to mockery, betrayal, arrest, false accusations, brutal flogging, and an infinitely cruel, lingering and shameful death by crucifixion. What an extraordinary story!  The Jesus revealed on the mount of Transfiguration in his true glory, with shining clothes, will be crucified on Golgotha, stripped naked and shrouded in darkness.  The Jesus revealed here as Son of God, creator of life, will die, giving his life as a ransom for all.  The Jesus to whom Moses and Elijah point as the climax of history will be tried, mocked and executed by the Roman authorities as a failed political insurgent.  So is what is said on the mountain only true for a while, or only partly true?  Not at all.  The voice from heaven says, ‘This is my beloved Son’.  The centurion who watches him die blurts out the very same truth: ‘Truly, this man was the Son of God’ (15.39).  So is this the story of the Son of God who was finally crushed and defeated on the cross?  No – and this is where the story of the gospel blows our minds – the Son of God reveals himself to the world as the Son of God precisely on the cross, in giving himself for others, in the self-emptying love which is the very nature of God.  If Jesus were no more than a Galilean guru, his death would be a sad end to a good life.  But if he is who we discover he is on the Mount of Transfiguration, he is the Son of God, taking on our sin, our degradation, and our weakness, God in love drinking our cup to the very depths – and in the process changing the very condition of the cosmos. 

            Because what is seen on the Mount of Transfiguration is not a temporary or a limited truth.  When the one who is there acclaimed as God’s beloved Son then cries out from the cross in that piercing cry, ‘My God, my God, have you forsaken me?’, we might be tempted to think that the Transfiguration vision was a dream, a piece of wishful thinking in which everyone was deluded.  But, whisper it quietly, say it with a trembling voice: there is a rumour at the end of Mark’s story, a claim that seems unbelievable, but suddenly makes sense: that God is not defeated by death, that the darkness that envelops Jesus and us at Golgotha is not the end of the story, that the light and the love of God is finally, inexplicably, but truly stronger than death.  Mark’s Gospel, in its original form, does not show us much of the resurrection of Jesus, but what it says points back to our transfiguration story.  It is as if we are given here, at the transfiguration, a glimpse of a reality that is true right through the story and will finally win out both in and beyond the degradation of death.  The Jesus we see here as the glorious Son is both present everywhere to the very depths of our human suffering, and finally triumphant beyond death, shimmering with the very life of God.

 I turn 60 this year, and I take that as a happy but also a sobering moment, as I know that whether I live now for many years or for few, there will be increasing moments in the years ahead of sorrow, of pain, frustration, limitation, and perhaps the steady loss of all I prize most about myself (just to look at the bright side of things!).  What we learn from the gospel is that God accompanies us, in Jesus, to all those dark places, right down to their very depth; that there is nowhere so desperate that God cannot be there.  But what we also learn, from the transfiguration and the resurrection, is that the Jesus who accompanies us in and through our suffering is the Lord of light and life, who has grasped hold of us and will never let us go.  So let this strange and wonderful story be our anchor: the Jesus whom we glimpse here transformed, metamorphosed into his true identity as beloved Son, the expression of God’s unquenchable love, is the Jesus who, as Paul says, will one day transform our weak and failing bodies to be like his glorious body according to the power by which all things are subject to him (Philippians 3.21).  In other words, strange to say, what we see here of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration gives us just a glimpse of what God has in mind one day for us as well.    Thanks be to God.

John Barclay

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 19 November 2017 Pentecost 24

Readings:  1 Thessalonians 5:1-11    Matthew 25:14-30

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. 

‘Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.’[1]

Words of affirmation by Paul to the church in Thessalonica.  Words of confidence and encouragement to a congregation in need of some reassurance, perhaps tired, perhaps finding the time of waiting for the coming of Jesus difficult, perhaps uncertain about their future, perhaps tempted to wander off course enticed by that which they can touch and engage with in real time.

We don’t know exactly what was going on in this conversation of faith 2000 years ago but we can recognise some of the same issues that we face today as we too wait and live in that waiting.

Paul exudes confidence: of course you are prepared, he says to a wondering people, because you live in the light, the faith, the life of the resurrection.  Don’t be anxious – trust in the sustaining love of Jesus present within us and work out our preparedness in everyday acts of love and service.  Be patient and be awake for we know it will happen just not when.  Straightforward really.  And yet not.  If these people were struggling with uncertainty and anxiety for their future after just a generation distant from Jesus death and resurrection, how do we, 2000 years later, find certainty and hope in a time when it’s no longer about how we do faith but whether we bother at all.

Maybe it is even harder for us.  But I don’t think so.  Perhaps different in its context but not in the need.  For in the end there are times when we all need reassurance of our purpose, our pathway and Jesus offers the same answer then as now – that he is present now and working in us and through us to bring moments of the kingdom alive now and here.  That is the sustaining truth that Paul is expressing, is it not – that we are a people of the light, always prepared to exercise our gifts and our faith in our living and service to God and others. Living in a state of readiness – for we know not where and when we shall meet the living Christ. 

For all people, communities of faith, who wonder what difference they are making, who can feel lost, helpless among the overwhelming dreadfulness of life, who retreat into their shells of anxiety and fear, personal or corporate, perhaps a helpful analogy is to live as if we are everyday opening the gifts that we are to God and to each other.  Imagine that – a present every day, an anticipation of what the day might bring, a fresh Alleluia when we realise the depth of love that has gone into that gift for us, a careful or careless unwrapping so that we can get to the thing that makes us spend the rest of the day with a grin on our face, the repeated realisation that we are loved, valued and gifted by God. 

How we open it will be different for each of us – some in prayer, others in grounding ourselves in creation, others impatient to see what the day will bring – but the important thing is that we acknowledge the gift of Jesus Christ, light in our lives.

Then the question is ‘what shall we do with it today’?  How will we use the talents we are given, fresh every morning, to encourage each other, build each other up, to live in the light of love and service that is Jesus Christ here and now?

Gifts, talents, whatever we call them are a tricky thing.  Sometimes they abound with possibilities, fit with who we know ourselves to be and our confidences, other times they are perturbing, challenging, confounding. Not an unexpected tension when we consider the ways in which Jesus encouraged, confounded and challenged and perturbed.  It’s called living in the Gospel message is it? And confident or perturbed, it is incredibly important that we place Jesus at the centre of their use.  For a confident gift can easily turn into thinking you know best for everyone and the troubling gift can cause grief if we try to ignore it.

Time for a story: it’s a once upon a time story – a king and queen needing to leave their kingdom and entrusting the needs of their country to three people: outstanding exponents of the three most important values of justice, love and peace.  Having scoured the kingdom the three were found.  When the queen and king returned the three were called to make an account – sound familiar?  The woman of justice said she had spent her time asking for people of wealth to share with the poor and people with power to listen to the powerless.  Well done and continue in this way, she was told.  The woman of love told of looking for the lonely and the unloved to share her love, of warming cold hearts and freeing people from their hurts and angers.  She too was thanked and asked to go on loving – and the king and queen would support her in her work. 

Finally the man of peace came: perplexed and troubled.  For he had tried to guard the peace within him so when he heard angry voices, he turned away, when he saw quarrels he closed his eyes to keep his peace intact.  But it didn’t work for the anger and the quarrels penetrated his heart and his peace was lost – a deep sense of failure troubled him deeply.

And the Queen and King replied:   ‘So it will ever be.  Until you use your gift, it will be lost to you.’

A retelling of the parable of today that speaks all too clearly of the perils of shutting ourselves off from exercising our gifts as people of the way.

For gifts are to be shared are they not?  Held close for a little while perhaps but then shared in service and love. 

Sometimes we are not good at sharing – perhaps scared that our gift might be tarnished in some way or that others will ridicule it as too small or unimportant.  But then we remember: its God’s gift to us – valued and valuable and to be used in God’s service.

But here is another thing – not every gift is to our liking.  Not at first anyway.  Think on the gift of the Christ child – totally unexpected, couldn’t see how that would work, not the expected parcel at all.  But for those who trust in the wisdom of God, the baby Jesus was a revelation of hope and deliverance.   We might ponder the talent that we have been given, think it more suited to someone else, but then we remember: God works in ways we do not always understand, God knows us before we are born and sees possibilities in us that we do not see in ourselves – perhaps a little trust here would be useful!

Gifts are not to be envied or given a place on the status ladder.  Personal story here.  I have often regretted that I am not a competent singer or musician, but also been in awe of those who can stand up and sing and play before others.  I tried it once and completely froze.  I felt inadequate – less than whole – but then I realised that I had a skill that others were intimidated by and that was the ability to stand up and talk before others, both in this ministry role and my previous life as a librarian. I am also in awe of those who can arrange flowers, run a marathon, or build a house.  We can’t all do everything but we can stop envying other’s gifts and begin appreciating our own.

And so, people of God, are we aware of the talents we have been gifted, are we eager to use them the building of the kingdom, today and the time to come, and is the driving force for how we live our lives Jesus Christ, made new every morning? 

May we continue to encourage one another and build each other up in the faith so that we are the undeniable light of Christ for our time.  Blessed be God who has given to us Jesus Christ in our lives.  Amen

Margaret Garland

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[1] 1 Thessalonians 5: 11  NRSV

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 12 November 2017 Pentecost 23

Readings:  Wisdom of Solomon 6: 12 – 20    Matthew 25: 1-13

We pray:  Gracious God, give us ears to hear, minds to reflect and hearts to respond to your word for us today.  In Jesus name.  Amen,

Peace, remembrance and wisdom and foolishness.  Quite the cauldron of meaningful and yet quite contradictory concepts for our consideration today, none of which line up in any kind of obvious harmony. 

On the 11^th  hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month in 1918 all hostilities ceased on the western front – the beginning of the  end to the great war and all wars, they hoped.   We do remember all those caught up in the chaos, the willing, unwilling, the naïve, callous, passionate, implacable, deeply uncertain, or following orders – we do remember them.

But we live for peace – as Christians we stand up against violence and war and everyone pretty much understands the futility of war. But they still happen – whether it’s country against country or ideologies or ethnicities – wars continue.

And then there is wisdom and foolishness – probably everyone has a different interpretation of those words.  It is foolish to think that this government will make a difference

The only wise thing to do is to look after yourself.  She is wise to sell her house now.  He’s a fool, he doesn’t take anything seriously.

Today’s readings look at foolishness and wisdom – firstly from Song of Solomon where we meet Sophia, the personification of wisdom essentially being marketed to the people.  Seek and follow wisdom, easily recognisable by her radiance and faithfulness.  She is found in instruction and law, she is the path to God.

And then we have Jesus using the then as now turbulent and emotionally charged wedding scenario to explore the meaning of living in wisdom or foolishness as we wait to the end of the age.

Think back to those people in the early church – sure and certain that Jesus would come again in the near future, probably within their lifetime.  Soon to be realised anticipation was a focus and a reality in their lives in a way that it is not in ours.  And when they realised that perhaps the grooms arrival might be later than expected, the teaching turned rather more to how to wait expectantly and hopefully for what might be a longer time.  It changed the focus and challenges our understandings of what Christ asks of us as we wait – and I think that it is something that we as a church have struggled with throughout time. 

Because Jesus, in this parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids (standing for us as members of the church), is wanting to make something quite clear.  He wants us a avoid assuming that we have enough in our lamps right now.  He challenges our assumption that it is enough to simply be here, that turning up with what we think is adequate oil for the lamp is as good as it gets and that only minor lamp trimming is required.

He’s trying to shock us into realising that rather than sitting and waiting, sure of our entrance credentials for when they are needed, this parable is about how we do our living in the time of not yet.  It is an important distinction.

And so the question for us is not about just believing that Christ will come again but how we live into that time as we wait. How we shine the light of Christ in the world now when it is desperately needed – for, as a commentator pointed out, there will be no need for lamps when the banquet (however that might look) begins.

What are the struggles then, for us?

One of them relates to back where we began the sermon, where something like violence (whether officially sanctioned or not) is still so pervasive in our world.  It requires of us a stand, a voice in the market place that wisdom so powerfully occupies in our first reading.  It demands of us that we offer radically peaceful alternatives to war, that we live in ways of peace and reconciliation, not just preach it.  It is not enough that we keep silent and wait.  And it is certainly not right that we justify God on our side as we beat the opposition to a pulp.  All those who in the name of ‘God on their side’ justify violence on the weak and the vulnerable may find that their oil has not only run out but what they had has turned putrid in the waiting.

I notice some thought is now being given to the correlation in the States between those carrying out these mass shootings and their histories of domestic violence – it seems there is a strong connection.  Are we surprised? Our continuing sometimes tacit acceptance of putting one part of our society onto the top of the status heap and the rest underfoot feeds directly into this kind of behaviour.  We have churches who practice exactly this kind of dominating behaviour – to women, to children, to the different, to other cultures or colours.  They are of the belief that not all human beings, in all our wonderful diversity, are equal before God. 

How we live into the time of not yet also had impact on the way we live as church community.  I think that over time the western Christian church has played around with the belief that an act of commitment is what is needed and then you are sorted for the end time.  That was a good part of what the reformation was about – a desire to put living in the way of Christ a priority rather than paying for entry into the kingdom. 

There is a sense also that people see the singular act of baptism as all that is needed rather than understanding that we renew our baptismal promise every day.  Or that church is an attendance habit well-formed over the years or a cultural imperative.  I do think that we see a great deal less of that these days – people who are part of the church family in NZ these days are here against the odds not because it is socially expected of them – but it is still a challenge to, in the midst of all else in our busy lives, give our focus to a life lived every day in faithful community.

And then there is the doing, the engaging with the present and the future in a useful and relevant way that honours the past yet is right for the needs of now – again we talked about this last week. 

Actually during the week I came across this brilliant cartoon in of all places a ‘Self Help Cookbook’ from the 1930’s. If you can’t read the words it is ‘Hat’s off to the past’ and ‘Coats off to the future’.  Says it all really.

The other thing that this week has given me serious food for thought is the way in which some of the world is getting to grips with just and ethical ways of living perhaps better that the church is.  If any of you get the Listener you might have seen in the current one the article titled ‘Greater Good’ which explored the growth in business’s that are intent on benefitting community rather than maximising profit.  They are taking off as people come up with ideas that tackle social, cultural or environmental issues, provide work for the marginalised and value justice and sustainability and equal opportunity.  I’m not saying we should suddenly go into business but where is that energy, whatever it might look like in our communities, that speaks of our commitment to shine the light of Christ into the needs of our world now.

It provides some challenging thoughts that we at Opoho will continue to explore and delight in.

I want to finish with words of hope from a rewriting of the 23^rd Psalm for us for today by Thom Shuman. One of the psalms of wisdom.  It is a psalm that has sustained and comforted and encouraged for centuries – may it do so now for us.

Sinking in a sea of stress and success, you buoy me with your living waters until I am at peace;

running down endless corridors to never-ending meetings

you detour me to the pathways leading to your joy;

stumbling through the thorn bushes of a culture which seeks to tear my soul to shreds;

you prepare a picnic in the garden of grace;

famished and peckish from wandering the shadow of sin and death you fill me with sweet tasting hope;

fleeing the very life I convince myself I am seeking

you slow me down so goodness and mercy can catch up with me

and push me into your heart.

Margaret Garland

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 5 November, 2017 Pentecost 22 All Saints.

Readings:  1 John 3:1-3,   Matthew 23:1-12

Prayer: 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.

This is the story as Gospel of Matthew tells it. 

When Jesus got to Jerusalem, after his triumphal entry into the holy city, he went to the temple, saw and dealt with the horror of the den of robbers and stayed to heal the blind and the lame.  He had a small verbal skirmish with the temple authorities before heading out to Bethany for the night and then the next day he was back in the temple.  He told barely veiled parables against the establishment: the wedding banquet, the wicked tenants, the work ethic of the two sons -  and had thrown back at him baited traps designed to expose him for the charlatan he was by the priests – paying taxes, resurrection marriage, the greatest commandment – and on it went.  And then, suddenly, Jesus has had enough!  Enough of the tricky questions and not so subtle put downs and the lack of understandings, enough of the attempts at point scoring around the intricacies of law by the Sadducees and Pharisees. Enough. 

Chapter 23 of Matthew could quite easily be described as a rant!  And today’s reading is the beginning of it.  See these teachers and lawyers – they may well preach and teach what is the father’s will but do they practice what they teach – no way!

They are vain, arrogant and hypocritical – they misuse their authority and need to be called out on it. 

The leaders of the synagogue in Jesus time were not alone in this dislocation of behaviour and teaching.  We can see it all around us now and throughout history.  Faithfulness to God stumbles and instead becomes self interest, comfort, and authority for its own sake.  The preachers, teachers at the temple in Jerusalem are expounding the doctrine and not hearing their own teaching. 

Pious and authoritative words convictions do not a faithful person make!  Delegating the living faithfully to others does not equate to being faithful. 

Faithfulness is in the orientation of one’s heart and life – to God.  And true faithfulness to God demands of us a form of radical egalitarianism that sees all people, despite our many inequalities of abilities, skill and status, as absolutely equal before God.  This quote from Richard Niebuhr says it beautifully: ‘God is the common centre, to which all humanity is related: it is by reference to and in respect of our relation to that creative centre that we are equal’.  That is what we do every time we gather round the table – one body unified and equal before God.

Where am I going with this? Well, it strikes me that this has some real challenges for us today – as we look at what it means to be the saints for our day, as we use our skills and capacities in God’s service and how that might look in our future as a church body here in Opoho.

One thing to recognise is that our failure to grasp faithful living in God’s way for all of us is not confined to church leadership alone.  While power lends itself to abuse, no less so in the church, it is the thinking that has grown out of the contemporary liberation and feminist theology that there equally can be a form of withdrawal from faithful action by those who consider themselves further down the pecking order.  Here the unwillingness to act or live faithfully is manifested in a denial of ability, of a belief that we have nothing to offer and so do not need to contribute.  Both pride and humility can equally encourage denial of human responsibility to live as God’s people.

I was walking down to church on Sunday pondering the phrase ‘All care and no responsibility’.  It’s quite commonly used in our world now – mostly to stave off any suggestions of culpability when things go wrong – but I would suggest it that for us it needs to be all care and all responsibility for all of us. 

Because aren’t we family – isn’t that our strength as the faithful here in Opoho and in the wider church – family that accepts responsibility to not just hear the word of God but to live it and in doing so to share the joy of Christ with positivity, action and enthusiasm. This church body will not survive without all of us actively being the hands, feet and heart of Christian living and action in whatever way we can.  We can’t leave the vibrancy of this heritage of faith we have received from the saints that have gone before resting on a few shoulders – it needs all of us to listen and to live out the teachings we hold as the basis of our faith.  And we all have something to offer – prayer, engagement, practical skills, time, energy, teaching, listening, pastoral, hospitality.  Not just occasionally but bursting out from the core of our faith – God within us.

Furthermore we are at a bit of a crunch time – at our Parish Council retreat it would be safe to say we were all a bit discombobulated by the news that our church building now has an A listing. We were prepared for having to make decisions based on bad news – do we give up on the building, do we spend all our reserves making fixes so we can stay – and suddenly that we have a different question in front of us.  Sure there are still questions and challenges about our building but let us concentrate on our living for today.  What does it look like for a faith community look like when our hearts and life are orientated towards God in faithful living.

Some thoughts – not to blame but to encourage, not to demand but to see opportunity.

How many of us deep down think that the only time we come alive as a church body is Sunday morning.  That worship not on Sunday and not in the format of Sunday is an optional extra.  That gathering and exploring and fellowship is best left to Sunday.  The doors remain closed the rest of the time.  How can we be alive during the week?  It doesn’t always have to be our energy or our time – but sometimes it does.

We have just had a working bee – fantastic turnout and much work done.  But guess what we didn’t get to the bit of garden that people walk by every day on Signal Hill Rd – two working bees a year are needed but so is a regular commitment throughout the year – and when that happens we see  when we look at the Farquharson frontage – thank you to those who do that but we need more people to join in.

Who among us has reviewed, wondered if our giving to the church can increase for this financial year?  Do we wait for the prodding or do we take responsibility for meeting the increase in costs that each year brings.

How do we turn to face the world, how do we not just build our faith but also serve the community we live in a way that is faithful to Jesus teachings – grab the reins of mission and run with it, knowing that it will demand all of those things we bring - prayer, engagement, practical skills, time, energy, teaching, listening, pastoral, hospitality. 

So for the people of God, the  commitment to the continuing of the journey of faith of those who have gone before into our future is the responsibility of us all.  It will look different, seem difficult at times but so it was for them. 

And here is the good news in which we put our trust and hope.  We heard the words of 1 John.

For those who have gone before and we walk in the way of Jesus as the children of God: that is what we are.  And as part of God’s creation we are not only held in love but also given renewing strength to be a faithful people in the midst of all that life throws at us.  God within us enables us to live in the example of Jesus despite our uncertainties and doubts and difficulties.  God within us allows us to live as Christ followers uncertain of the future but trusting in the promise that is a time of complete reconciliation, justice and peace before us.  Faithfulness demands of us that we work for the transformation of the world we live in now. 

We are the beloved of God and, as such, are the saints of body of Jesus in this place and this time.  Praise be to God for the faithfulness of the people of God in the time past, in our time and in the time to come. Amen.

Margaret Garland