Sermon. Opoho Church Sunday 12th August, 2012.

Readings:  2 Samuel 18:5-9, 14b-15, 33, Ephesians 4:25-5:2, John 6:35,41-51

Let us pray.  May our minds be alert, our hearts open and our ears attentive to all that you gift to us this day in and through your word.  Amen

Last week we talked somewhat about the ways that we use words and stories to both learn and teach about God through Jesus and the challenges and dangers that lurk in isolating those teachings from the love and life of Christ.  Today, I would like to take that those teachings and explore our responses, our place in the story of the shaping of the kingdom.  Actually kingdom is another one of those words isn’t it that can conjure up negative responses for some of us – pictures of hierarchy, of haves and have nots, of hereditary power and servitude – not always helpful.  I have come across one reshaping of the word to more aptly describe what it is that we are aiming to say – and that is kin-dom – hard to say but perhaps more meaningful.  So when we use the word  kingdom we remind ourselves that it is not as the world means it but as God in Jesus Christ has taught us – a place of reconciliation, justice, equality, compassion and mercy – a here and now world where the driving force is love, the love of God revealed in the people of God. 

Today as well as concentrating on the reading from Ephesian, I want to draw on the thoughts and words of Miroslav Volf, whose book I have just begun reading.  It’s called “Free of Charge: giving and forgiving in a culture stripped of grace.” [1]

For both have the same unequivocally blunt message – that we receive the gifts of God not to hug them to ourselves but in order to gift others.

Volf uses the phrase ‘God’s gifts oblige us into something further’.  And he is quick to point out that the ‘something further’ is not about reciprocal gifting or negotiated bargaining with God.  He tells the story from the film Amadeus where the composer Salieri tries to cut a deal with God – if God will give him fame and glory and musical immortality then he in return will offer God “his chastity, his industry, his deepest humility, every hour of his life, his philanthropy.”  His negotiating with God never even got off the ground. Why?  Because God needs nothing from us, and nothing we could offer of ourselves would impact on God.  God gives unconditionally and there is nothing we can do that changes that.  But says Volf, there are what he calls obligations surrounding the giving of gifts that we can neither negotiate or earn.  The first is the obligation of receiving and he names this faith – the first part of the bridge he says from self-centredness to generosity.  The second is that we are obliged to gratitude – to not only receive the gifts but to receive them well.  Thirdly we are obliged into ourselves being generous givers and fourthly we are obliged to flourish and grow so that the gifts flow unconditionally and freely from us.

A final quote from Volf: “God gives so that we can exist and flourish but not only for that.  God gives so that we can help others exist and flourish as well.”  In other words, we face God and receive the gifts of love and life with faith and gratitude, we grow in the experience and teaching of the risen Christ and we turn and face our neighbours, giving with the same generosity of love and life and grace that has flowed into us.  That is what we actually do in a service of worship isn’t it – in praise and confession we acknowledge God’s gifts to us, in the reading and opening up of the Word we are drawn into the way of Christ and our responses of affirmation, gifting and intercession we turn ourselves and our gifts to our neighbours and to the world.  

In the letter to the Ephesians, we find a similar exhortation – to make the connection between receiving a new life in Christ and the transforming of the life we live in the real everyday world.  That the gift of the cross obligates us to generous and loving gifting to others.  Yes we can pretty much agree - that is the lesson taught.  But here is the rub – it isn’t easy being generous and onflowing with our gifts to others, no matter how much we want to, it takes a lifetime of learning and it requires serious effort.  And we learn too that a changed way of life is more than just stopping doing something bad that might hurt others, it is about replacing that with ways which build up and actively care for others – it requires stepping into new places and ways.  What do I mean?   Let’s look at some of the suggestions from the reading and, as we do, keep that in mind - that we are to do more than just stop doing something wrong but also are to be generous in new way with others. .

And so the first teaching - let us speak truth to our neighbours – not just as a rule but for a reason – we are members of each other.  We are all of the one body and we are inflicting self harm if we lie, promote untruth.  It is more than stopping deliberate lying – that is relatively identifiable- it’s also about being truthful with yourself and each other and God about who you are, and letting go of any falsehoods that prevent us gifting honesty and openness to ourselves and our neighbour. 

Then there is the instruction on not letting the sun go down on our anger.  Note that it not about never getting angry – I think sometimes we believe that to be Christian means to swallow any thoughts of anger and always be ‘nice’  - but rather about not allowing anger to enrage us or to fester or to be buried or to be vindictive, about dealing with our anger truthfully with ourselves and with others.  It’s more than swallowing our anger – it requires compassion and care in how we express and deal with our anger.

And then stealing – that we are not just to stop thieving but to actually contribute and work to share with the needy.  And what is really interesting here is that there are two only  opposing positions discussed – theft or generosity toward people in need.  There is no middle position of ‘goodness’ – there is only love or theft – and that love necessitates our taking a good hard look at what we do to support theft of equality, justice, sustenance and doing something active to stop it.

And the last one we will look at is that of how we communicate, especially in our use of words – and that is particularly applicable to us at the moment as we explore our use, our understanding of words in our church, in our faith  and in this community.  Again we hear the message – it’s not enough to stop using words that hurt and wound, we are instead to use words to build up and make known the gift of grace to others.  Now this does not mean that you are all now obligated to tell me that my sermon was nice even if it was abysmal – but you know what I mean.

Can you see the connection with Volf’s concept of obligation?  That we are to receive the gifts of God in faith and gratitude, not trying to negotiate or earn them and turn, in the grace and love of Christ Jesus, to flow those same gifts on to our neighbours, our world, Christ’s kingdom come.   Not easy, not passive, not automatic, but in the love of God, the grace of Jesus Christ and the community of the Spirit we are obliged to be Christ’s purpose to the world.  Thanks be to God.

Wise and faithful guide, you lovingly abide in our depths and graciously guide our every step.   You lead us to ever stronger growth and draw us more fully towards inner freedom.  We thank you this day for the awesome ways in which you constantly enter our lives.  We renew now our life’s purpose of being faithful to our relationship with you.  We give you our openness, trusting that you will lead us on paths that are meant to help us grow.  We re-commit our intention to listen to you in all of life, to love each other and the world, seeking peace, justice, reconciliation as Jesus taught us.

We re-commit ourselves to you, Oh God of grace and truth, trusting in your promise of everlasting love.

                                                            Joyce Rupp in ‘Prayers to Sophia’

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[1] Zondervan 2005

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 5th August 2012

Readings: 2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, Ephesians 4:1-6,  John 6:24-35

 Let us pray:

May our hearts and minds be open to your word O God in Jesus name.  Amen.

Its been an brain overload week for me – some of you might say fair enough when I’ve had a weekend off!  Or maybe I should call it an inspiration overload.  From going to lectures by William Willamon[1], to beginning our August study series on Wednesday night, to reading a truly inspiring book to talking faith with old friends, it’s been hectic.  Small wonder then that on Friday afternoon, ie sermon time there were just so many thoughts and words clamouring to be heard in my head.  Add in the fact that it is Peace Sunday - and there are some really powerful bible readings set down for today – and I was truly at a loss as to where to start.

So I didn’t – I stopped instead.  I prayed, I sat quiet, sought a place of peace you might say – and then things began to sort themselves.

I realised that one phrase of visiting Thomas Burns lecturer, William Willimon, was playing itself over and over in my head – and that was that we are people of the word – that Christianity, more than any other faith, uses the word to find the truth of God.  He tells the story of being asked to help some students create a ‘garden of spirituality’ – a place where people can come and sit in solitude and peace and find God – and he realised that it was really outside his experience as a Methodist minister, that his faith was not primarily about an inner private spiritual awakening but rather was focussed and grown in hearing, discussing, discerning the truth through story and word.   And that word is ultimately and completely revealed in the person of Jesus Christ whom we know as the word made flesh, God among us.  So, says Willimon,  it is in teaching and preaching and discussing and questioning in community that we find ourselves discerning what it means to be a people of God here in this place.   Faith comes through hearing, he posits, and doesn’t just surface up in the power of the spirit by sitting in isolation no matter how beautiful the spiritual garden you have found for yourself.  Now this is not to suggest that meditation, silent contemplative time with God is not absolutely crucial to our faith but it is not enough by itself.  And to know the truth of that we only have to look to Christ and how he sought to bring people to a richer and deeper understanding of his Father.  He used words as he taught, preached, debated.  But he used them in a very distinct way – he didn’t so much speak out precise instruction, exact rules for living so much as he told stories, used metaphors, offered multiple perspectives and challenging scenarios.  Why was that - when it is just so much easier for us to follow instructions for right living? Maybe because Jesus was aware that words alone, without the story, can easily trip us up.  Firstly they can become confined in meaning, either by time, our varying perspectives or our culture, persuaded into new meanings completely detached from the original intent.  They can also be forgotten – stories are so much more easily remembered- and they usually remain distant concepts of rule rather than something that we can easily connect our lives with.  But when you hear a story you not only tend to remember it better but you also are invited to step into that story and find our own place in it, we are encouraged to find the ‘truth’ of the story for ourselves and our community. Stories, metaphor, unexpected twists encourage our involvement and invite us to see Christ in the daily life and ordinary time that is both then and now. Without the stories I suspect we often lose Christ from the teachings  Let me illustrate the difference.  On Wednesday night we were discussing how each of us understands the word discipline within the church – for a number of us the word immediately was associated with punishment, retribution, for others it meant being as good as you could be in the field you were working in, for others it meant setting boundaries of care as in bringing up children.  The point is that without telling stories and discussing and questioning and always, always anchoring it all in the life of Christ, we can either go well astray from or severely limit our understanding of how it is that God calls us to be as Christ followers - when it comes to the concept of discipline or any other word we might try to live by.  It was interesting that it was in telling the stories we had to offer of our own experiences that the complexities and nuances of what discipline might mean in a church and Christian setting began to emerge.  

Might I suggest that it can be the same as the word peace.  For many peace is the absence of violence rather than a way of life.  When we talk of the peace of Christ how easy it is to translate those words into a peaceful lifestyle, a goal of serenity or inward calm, when in fact, in the life of Christ, we are offered anything but.  Peace is not about moving away, disassociating from violence but rather of embracing a way of life where all that hurts and harms is actively challenged.  If you want that zone free kind of peace – try a desert island – if you want to experience and share the peace of Christ go live a life like he did, that challenges, not avoids violence and conflicts with all that is evil in this world. 

So we should be suspicious of words that are isolated from their context and their intention but actually stories aren’t all they are cracked up to be either – there is a danger here too – and King David illustrated it superbly in his response to Nathan’s story of the lamb taken from the poor man by the one who had plenty -   David was rightly angry at the story – but he didn’t see himself in it.  He said to Nathan, ‘As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.’ But he didn’t see it coming when Nathan said to him, ‘You are the man!  Ouch it hurts when you realise the person in the story, the person who show up in a less than nice light, turns out to be you.

So if we keep ourselves outside the stories, confine them to other time or other people or other circumstances then we miss the teaching altogether.  When we hear the stories and parables of Christ we need to do more that see them just as a ‘good’ story detached from ourselves – and think instead of what they are saying to us here and now as we seek to live as Christ’s in this world.

So it seems to me, that whether the teaching of Christ is from words or stories, rules or metaphors there exists the option for us to keep them a little at arm’s length, contained, misinterpreted, detached in some way.  How do we recover the fullness of meaning of Christ’s teachings – how do we keep Christ at the centre - of our understandings and faith and lives?  Perhaps we need the reminder of Jesus’ words - I am the bread of life – listen to me, know me and believe in me – and you will never again be hungry or thirsty.  If we believe that Christ is the embodiment of the living God and we choose to live in the light of that Word, then the teachings and stories will continue to guide and empower us, feed and nourish us in truth and light.  Thanks be to God.

 Margaret

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[1] The Revd Dr William Willimon, Bishop of the United Methodist Church in Alabama

Sermon from Opoho Church Sunday 22nd July, 2012

Readings:   2 Samuel 7:1-14a, Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Let us pray:  Open our hearts, our minds, our very souls to your word for us O God, that we may be both challenged and affirmed in Jesus name.  Amen. 

Rachel Remen, in her book Kitchen Table Wisdom[1] tells the story of how, when she was just 3 or 4, her father began a family tradition of putting out a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle on a table and then hiding the box lid with the picture on it so that no-one knew what picture would eventually emerge. The child Rachel wanted to participate but wasn’t sure how – when she climbed up to look she noticed that some pieces were dark and shadowy and others brightly coloured and decided that the dark ones were like spiders or bugs, ugly and a little frightening.  So she gathered them up and hid them under a cushion – a few at a time until there were around a hundred pieces missing.  She eventually owned up to doing this and watched as her mother added them to the picture – and said that she was astounded as this amazing picture emerged of a peaceful beautiful deserted beach.  Without the bits she had taken, the dark pieces, the picture made no sense.

And the question has to be asked – what are the bits of our lives that we might be hiding under our particular cushions because we think they are of no value or perhaps, as the young Rachel did, think that they are dark or scary.  Now there are many conversations that could come out of that analogy for each of us and I encourage you to think and pray about how that picture might speak to you.  But today, I want to pursue one particular aspect that we as a society have tended to devalue and what that might have on our impact as church as we look to make Jesus Christ known.

And that is the concept of rest, of taking time to be quiet and of listening to God.  And why we might want to value this more than perhaps we do and how it might empower our ministries.

One part of the training that interns receive from Knox Centre is about recovering the concept of the Sabbath – finding within your ministry time a space for reflection- for deliberate, personal, quality God time – and we are not talking daily devotions here or Sunday worship really but intentional listening and resting in the presences of God.  And it was the hardest teaching for almost everyone to grasp – or at least to translate into actual Parish life.  We all knew it would be the first thing to go in the busyness and commitment of being a Parish Minister – and so it was kind of ‘this would be lovely...’ rather than ‘this must be...’  It wasn’t that we thought it scary – rather that it was of lesser need than the obvious ‘doing’ roles ahead of us.

How many times do we read of Jesus trying to get away to a place where he, or he and the apostles, can rest for a while, spend time with God, recharge batteries.  In today’s reading he is trying to do just that, for the twelve have returned from successful ministries and are tired and played out – but Jesus is overwhelmed by the needs of the people and his compassion for them means he can’t turn them away.  Now you might think – Well wouldn’t that be all our dreams come true – people banging on the door for our help and us rushed off our feet in ministry, unable to keep up with demand.  Well actually – that is the way it is out there.  So many people, so much need, so much to do, that it is actually overwhelming. 

But I am getting a little ahead of myself.  How might a time of reflection, of rest help equip us for ministry?  And how do we hold that against the pressing needs around us?  Two big questions.  And in some way you can see the beginnings of a way forward in David’s story –where he at last seems to feel able to rest for a while, when the urgency of conflict and the web of political intrigue seem to have faded somewhat and he can settle in one place, take some time for reflection after  constant action.  And into that time of rest comes an incredibly important moment for David – where God through the prophet Nathan speaks of unequivocal hope in the future, of promise and faithfulness and steadfast love, of the building of a house, a family that will never fail or cease.  David in his time of ‘rest’ was open to new visions and the strengthening of his relationship with God in a way he could never be when constantly on the go.

Do we have such a busy life, however that might show itself, that we find it difficult to stop and listen, pause and reflect with God?  And busyness can be defined many ways, including only holding a one-way conversation all the time!  You know I can clearly remember the time I realised that my prayers were a monologue – all me! No place of listening for response or just even sitting quiet.  I told God what I wanted and then hung up.  How rude!  And how blind! 

For when we stop and listen, we can only grow in our understandings and our faith, be encouraged in our mission and ministry and be open to new visions of what it is we are called as a church to be and do.

How might that sit alongside what I talked of earlier – of being surrounded by the needy, the vulnerable, the seekers after truth and justice who are literally banging on our door asking for help? 

First I believe that in this time of rest, be it in worship, in Sabbath taking, in listening to what it is that God is saying to us, that we are strengthened and empowered to go out into difficult, awkward, challenging places of ministry.  We do not feed our souls just for our own satisfaction but so that we can then go out and feed the souls of others – what we receive we are also to give.  And receiving the blessings of rest with God enables us to be more courageous, more open and unashamedly vulnerable in our relationships with others, knowing that Christ is present in the tricky places we might find ourselves.  Trust and growing faith comes from relationships that take time to listen with each other.   

Secondly I believe that out of the quality of time spent in the presence of God we are more able to give of our whole selves not just our surplus.  It’s been a common understanding in certainly my experience of church that we can somehow compartmentalise our church lives and responsibilities into a separate box that gets our leftovers, generous leftovers often but still surplus to our needs.  Now before you start throwing rotten tomatoes at me I do not mean that we should give all our assets and money and time and energy to Bishop Margaret up here, but I do want to try and say that there are probably places in our lives where we are give only what we will not miss and maybe its timely to examine those places.  Quiet time encourages us to remembers God’s generosity and thus re-examine ours.

Thirdly the compassion and care that we offer in our lives and our ministry requires our strength and our best and we cannot do that if we are empty – I use the image of a dry well to describe when I am feeling played out or just plain tired.  As we are called to be givers we also need to give time to care for ourselves – and we are often the last priority on our life agenda.  We cannot fix the world in one hit, we are not called to exhaust ourselves, to be superhuman in our endeavours, but to love and care for ourselves when we need to because we and our health are important too. Take a break when you can so that you can be the best you can in the service of Jesus Christ.

I believe that the whole picture of what a reconciled and just world might look like will only emerge when we take time to place all the pieces on the table – when alongside mission and ministry, worship and governance, compassion and love and hospitality, we add in those pieces which are our continuing reflection, rest, our renewal in the presence of God that we may together create a picture of hope and  service in the name of the risen Christ.    Amen

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[1] Remen, Rachel: Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal.  Riverback Books, 2006

Short Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 15th July 2012

Readings: 2 Samuel 6:1-2, 12b-19, Mark 6:14-29

The Ark of the Covenant, whether the Indiana Jones version, or a 21^st century  impression by He Qi of China or this thirteenth century rendition from the Morgan Bible, has fascinated people throughout the centuries and across cultures.  Where did it go?  Did Jeremiah retrieve it and seal it up high in the mountains before the destruction of the Temple, or did the Babylonians take it with all the other treasure when they sacked the Temple?  Others say it is in the care of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, that the Knights Templar have it in France or the UK, or that it has been destroyed somehow.  Whilst we could speculate a great deal on the fate of the physical Ark, (and some people have spent their lives doing just that) it seems to me that it would be more useful for us to ask what this text might say to us of God.  Samuel Giere[1], a US theologian suggests this text provides a dynamic portrait of God's presence and power with the people of Israel and speaks strongly of the danger and joy of being in God's presence.

The ark for David and the people of Israel was not a benign presence, a safe harbour – anything but – ask Uzzah who, the passage says, simply touched the Ark to stop it falling when the oxen stumbled and he was dead – nothing fair or just or deserving about that.  It goes on to say “David was afraid of the Lord that day”[2] and he only came back to escort the Ark into Jerusalem three months later.  Being in the presence of God, he discovered, is both a danger and a joy.

How do we do that sort of tension? How do we welcome the presence of God into our lives with great joy knowing that it can also bring an increased potential for danger –because we are called to speak out about those things that are unjust and unfair and unloving –in a culture that does not necessarily hold justice and love and compassion as the number one priorities.  When we challenge the status quo, we are inviting trouble, failure, put downs, retribution and it happens – more often than not.  Perhaps not quite the trouble that John the Baptist got into by speaking out against the household arrangements of King Herod but trouble none-the-less. And it’s not just about our intentional stands for social and political and economic justice that place us in relative danger – it is also about the ordinary hand that life deals us, the Uzzah moments in our lives where stuff happens – not because we deserve it or don’t deserve it – it just is.   Inviting the presence of God into our lives is neither a ticket to safety nor to immunity from the sometimes harsh realities of life for us.  As it was for John – he not only spoke out but he was also in the wrong place at the wrong time – a feast, the largesse, a spontaneous generous oath taken literally, an opportunity taken – all contributed to his untimely death. 

So we have increased danger from our speaking out and no less danger for being in the presence of God – where do we find the will to dance with joy in celebration of God’s presence? We can dance because we, like David, know that there is a bigger story, a greater truth to be found in the presence of God. For us that truth is found in Jesus Christ who came among us not only to heal and reconcile but also to invite us into that bigger story, a life greater than we on our own can perceive, where our lives and life of the world can be transformed way beyond our imaginings or our individual realities, where in the power of the risen Christ we are able to not only confront the powers that abuse and exploit way and make a difference, but that we can also hold on to a hope, a love that will not let us go in the midst of all that life throws our way.  That indeed is cause for celebration and joy even in the midst of danger.  Thanks be to God.

Margaret Garland

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[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org

[2] 2 Samuel 6:9a

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 1st July 2012 Pentecost 5

First Reading: 2 Samuel 1:1,17-27,   Gospel Reading: Mark 5:25-34

Let us pray:   May your word for us and our response to your word be a place, in your Spirit, of renewal, commitment and hope for us and for the world O God.  Amen.

So, how has your week been?  Has it been same old, or has something completely new happened, something that has seriously impacted your life?  Has it been a happy week, or one of great sadness or a bit of a mixture?  Because that is the reality for us isn’t it?  That our lives are a mix of good and bad, ups and downs.  And sometimes the downs seem to take over, pulling us into places of great pain and heartache, shutting off the light and extinguishing hope – the deep dark pit that Psalm 130 talks about.

And in many ways the part of David’s life that we heard about today was in that deep valley.  Just to remind us, last week we talked about the young somewhat bullet proof David – willing to do anything in the hope, the knowledge of God with him and in him. And he succeeded in defeating Goliath and going on to great victories in other battles.  He was Saul’s right hand man, both soothing his pain with his music and delivering him from his enemies with his sword – and in the process developing a deep and caring friendship with Saul’s son Jonathan.  It was never easy and there was quite a bit of eggshell walking I am sure – but by standards of the day he was blessed and lauded.

And then it all changed - David went from the heights to the depths.  He has had to run literally for his life from Saul, with the help of Jonathan, he had to abandon the high honours and the relatively luxurious living and is now sheltering in a cave, earning his crust by fighting the foes (as long as they weren’t Israelites) of the Philistines, those who he had so eloquently and physically dismissed on the battlefield in what must have seemed a lifetime ago were now his employers.  David’s ‘I can do anything with God’ attitude that we talked about last week had taken rather a beating. 

What was it, do you think, that kept his hope alive?   What sustained his walk with God despite all the curve balls that life had thrown at him – I mean did he ask to be chosen for this life of intrigue and politicking – he could have been living a very happy and fulfilled life back on the family farm doing what he did best – protecting the livestock and being part of a God fearing and loving family.  But he was plucked out into this new life by Samuel, by God – a life of danger and high stakes and politics.

So there he was now – surviving.  And there was yet another body blow to come.  Jonathan, his dearest friend, his most trustworthy ally was dead - along with his father and his brothers.  David’s lament is passionate in its sense of grief and loss, his acute pain is there for all to see.  There is a really interesting point here in this magnificent piece of Hebrew poetry – David chose to eulogize the two men, the friend and the king, side by side.  Despite all that Saul had done to him, plotting his death, hounding him out of the country, despite all of that, David is honoured his king alongside his soulmate Jonathan.

This past week I attended the funeral of a twenty year old young woman Alex: she had been a member of our Rendez-vous group at Knox Church.  She had died unexpectedly, suddenly, from liver failure – with a 12 hour window of opportunity for a transplant – and a family praying for a miracle by her bedside as she lay in a coma.   That is a depth of pain for her family that few of us are called on to experience – where on earth do you find hope for a future in a situation like that?

Yet as I listened to the words of the liturgy at All Saints Church and as I contemplated the service of celebration and farewell that we had here on Monday for the life of Joan Madill, I knew a sense of hope stronger and more powerful that I have ever felt – that in both the timely and the untimely deaths of our loved ones there is a hope that encompasses all our pain, all our suffering, all our anger, all our sweet memories and sense of irreplaceable loss – a hope that nothing on this earth or beyond, neither time nor space nor anything in creation can ever separate us from God’s love.  And that hope holds us through the celebrations and tragedies that are almost inevitably part of all our lives and living.

In a sermon recently posted on his blog, Jason Goroncy suggests that this hope – the hope that seems cruelly shattered in the times of tragedy and hopelessness is the place we sit on Easter Saturday when we often as not find little to live for – all that we seem to have held safe and dependable and hopeful is no more.  He posits that what holds us together in that Saturday silence of hopelessness is what he calls the divine memory.  When all seems lost, he says, “It is God’s memory of us which makes possible for us to neither abandon our sorrow nor to surrender the horizon of hope. It is the memory of God which places a boundary to our hopelessness and our dislocation”[1] The promise that we are held forever in God’s love is what allows us to reach blindly into the Easter Sunday hope - God’s memory of us holds us before we are born, in our life and in our death – and it is this that we hold desperately to when disaster engulfs us, robbing us of peace and happiness and all that we hold dear.  When all that is hopeful disappears from our lives we are held close in the divine memory that is the love of God. 

What kept David hope in God alive through all his trials, what will keep Alex’s family from sinking forever into the pits of despair at the cruel loss of such a beautiful young woman from their lives – it is the knowledge that we are not lost to God, even in the worst of moments when all seems hopeless, pointless we are held in the divine memory of the crucified Christ whose scarred hands and body proclaims our names before the living God who loves us.

Jason concludes his writing with some powerful words of hopefulness which I too would like to finish with:

“And, in the crucified God, we hope together with those who do not share our hopes, and with those whose hopes for this life remain unfulfilled, and with those who are disappointed and indifferent, and with those who despair of life, and with those who have been the enemies of life, and with those who for whatever reason have abandoned all hope. In and with Christ, we hope and we remember them before God. In the crucified God, we hope together with the God who remembers us and who, in remembering us, is our hopeful end.”[2]

Margaret Garland with thanks to Jason Goroncy

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[1]Rev Dr Jason Goroncy   http://cruciality.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/hope-and-memory-job-14-1-14-a-sermon/

[2] ibid

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 24th June, 2012. Pentecost 4 Matariki.

Readings: 1 Samuel 17:32-49, Mark 4:35-41

Let us pray:  O Christ, open our minds to understand more clearly your word to us. May we know you as a God who never leaves us nor forsakes us but walks with us through the up and downs of life that we may grow and learn in the freedom of life in you.  Amen.

The streets of Dunedin are hilly on the whole.  Had you noticed?  I did when I came here after 20 odd years of walking on the flattish lands of North Canterbury.  I was determined to get fit for them but so often I would look up to the top of where I had to go and would be overwhelmed – I am never going to make that I would think.  And then I was given a wee hint.  Keep your eyes lowered, place one foot before the other and you will get there before you know it.  And it worked.  I would get to the top and marvel at how relatively easy it had been to get there in contrast to the perception of difficulty from the bottom.  Now there is several ways that little anecdote could take us but I would like to lead us in this direction.  I wondered if it might be that we keep our heads down just a bit too often.  I wondered if we too often try to contain scary and challenging spaces into something that is manageable and containable as I did just to get to the goal and miss out on some spectacular scenery on the way.  Hey, don’t get me wrong, it is a great technique to get us up some particular hills, in fact it’s the only way sometimes, because that is all we can cope with at the time, but I do wonder if that can become a bit of a bad habit. 

Sometimes the enormity of things can overwhelm us, mystery can be threatening, beauty can be just too much of a contrast to our particular reality of the time, that which we can’t see clearly can seem dangerous, full of unpredictable possibilities, and so we look to our feet.  

I love that the stories of Matariki are all about the stars in the sky – that, if anything is, is a place of mystery: of inconceivable distance and glorious beauty and yet dependable constancy.  You can understand why stories were found to kind of explain that vastness, to connect with it in a meaningful way, the stories of the sisters or the smashed star or the seven eyes.  And I guess in the same way we try to understand the mystery and wonder of a God who is beyond anything we try to define by sometimes containing God in stories and words and yes doctrine and dogma.  And that is understandable and actually required, for we need the stories to reach understandings, to teach and share the gospel message.  But the problem comes when we do not temper that understanding, hold it in tension with a sense of wonder and awe of a God who cannot be explained, contained, or predicted.  That’s a pretty steep hill for many – one where it can be easier to keep our sights lowered with plodding to the top of the hill our only goal. I hope it’s not too tenuous a connection for you to see that Peter was kind of doing that in the boat.  He was overwhelmed by the moment, thinking he wasn’t going to make it out of the storm.  He couldn’t see any other possibilities than drowning or the storm being stopped – his view of God made known in Christ was limited by his own understandings of the power of the storm and the frailty of the vessel.  He didn’t get that there was a third possibility, riding out the storm, safe in the unexplainable, uncontainable power of the love of God.  And he didn’t get that in doing so he would experience a God that was greater and just more than he could ever imagine.  He was amazed at the stilling of the storm – but had he shut himself off from the greater experience of riding out the storm with God, I wonder?

David, on the other hand, in facing Goliath, seemed to almost have his eyes fixed on a too huge a horizon.  He came to the outer circle of the battlefield simply to bring provisions from his father to his three elder brothers who were part of the army.  But like all young brothers he wanted to see what was going on and went to find his siblings.  And yet when he got there he found the Israelites cowering from the taunts and challenges of the champion of the Philistines, Goliath.  They too could see no way of victory with such undefeatable odds before them.  But David, almost musingly we read, asked “who was this man that he should be greater than the armies of the living God?”  His brothers questioned his motives, seeing only that he had come to gawk at the battle, but Saul heard the truth of those words and invited David to his side.  Even then it was still about girding David in all the possible armour to protect him, still eyes down you might say, and when that failed you almost get a sense of ‘Well this is a young life chucked away but you have to admire the bravery’.  But David I think had his eyes wide open to the possibilities of God in our human situations. He seemed rather more prepared than Peter to trust that God was with him in every step, especially the difficult, beyond belief, places he found himself – the places where others views were contained by their own limitations.

Is that what faith is do you think?  Knowing that there is way more under the sun than what you and I or the whole of creation can ever perceive or know. I suspect that is a rather fragile definition and is open to some serious criticism but hey I’ve been brave and left it in.  It will give you something to redefine over morning tea?

But back to the conundrum we face – how to pause in our walk through life, which can be a plod sometimes, to stop and lift our eyes to the possibilities of a God beyond our individual or communal imaginations, to embrace mystery and grow in new and challenging experiences when they present themselves. 

It is at times like this, at mid-winter, when we are often forced to slow down, to stop trying to race through life at a million miles an hour, maybe this is the time to listen to the voice of God speaking to us, encouraging us into new possibilities, new visions for the transformation of this world we live in.

It’s at times like this, at Matariki, that we have time and opportunity to catch a glimpse of the vastness and wonder of a God in the patterns of the stars and the life of the world beyond.  And within that is the sense of constancy that the Maori people know in the rising of a constellation faithfully each year – an anchor in a turbulent life. 

It is at times like this, in worship together as the people of God, that we can be open to the possibilities that living in Christ Jesus will open up for us, if we can be bold and brave enough to raise our eyes and trust that Christ will still get us to the top of our respective hills, but with some slightly scary but enormously fulfilling experiences on the way.  Let us be open to the possibilities of the Spirit in this place.  Thanks be to God.

Margaret Garland

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 17th June 2012 Pentecost 3

Readings: 1 Samuel 15:34 – 16:13, Mark 4:26-34

Let us pray:

O God, open our hearts and minds that your word for us be heard.  In Jesus name.  Amen.

Today and over the next few weeks we are going to follow the story of David from the Hebrew Scriptures.  David, shepherd boy, giant killer, king, musician, husband and father: a man who by all accounts was very human -fallible, courageous, vindictive, humble, one who valued loyalty but betrayed those who trusted him, who asked God’s forgiveness more than once.  The story is an amazing tale of intrigue and political agility, of palatial living and life on the run, of David and his walk with God.

This is a time when the concept of lectionary passages for Sunday service is woefully inadequate.  Over the next few weeks, that approach picks out certain parts of the rich and long life of David including the David and Goliath fight, David made King over a united Israel, the promise of eternal dynasty and the sad, rather salacious tale of Bathsheba. Yet there is so much more to this man’s life – much as we cannot pick out four or five episodes in our lives and be completely known by them, so we should not do this to David.  So I am going to suggest that over these next few weeks we all do some extra reading – some filling in of the gaps before the next week’s passage.  And for some of you this might be a good excuse to get together for a cuppa and share in the reading together – chapters 16 and 17 of 1 Samuel will take you through to the Goliath story of next week.

And so in this vein, let me develop the context and detail of the reading we heard today –you could say that the beginnings of story of David were way back when the Israeli people exercised what we would call today their democratic right – (you can read about this in 1 Samuel 8) When they realised that Samuel was getting old and his sons did not walk the way of God, they decided they would be much safer from invasion and enemies if they had a ‘real’ earthly king appointed to rule over them and lead them in battle rather that trusting in the rule of God alone.  Samuel tried to argue them out of it with stories of how they would end up giving all they had to this king, their incomes, their children, and their lives – but was basically outvoted.  Saul was that first King then –of the tribes of Israel who were scattered from Tyre in the north the southern point of the Dead Sea.  And as you heard his reign was long and by the standards of the day fairly successful, winning battles and holding authority over a large area.  But it is in the latter half of his rule that things started to turn to custard – where we get the sense of Saul moving away from total obedience to God and choosing to walk in his own way.  This is amply demonstrated by the story that led into today’s reading.  We are told that after brutal and bloody battle victory against the Amalekites in the south, Saul disobeyed the command of God to destroy all the livestock and kept the best to bring back.  As you read the passage you can almost hear the blustering defensiveness – Saul first of all blames those with him: ‘They have brought them back...’ he says, and then he goes to plan B when he see that is not gaining much traction with Samuel – ‘we have brought the best for sacrifice to God’ he says.  ‘Surely that is the right thing to do’.  And again Samuel rejects his actions – God is wanting you to hear and obey, he says, that is way more important than sacrifices and burnt offerings.  And Samuel and Saul parted ways, because, we are told, God turned away from Saul.  And it is at this point, whilst Saul is still King, that Samuel is sent by God to seek out a replacement leader from amongst the sons of Jesse from the town of Bethlehem.  But this is neither a safe nor wise thing for Samuel to do.  Saul is not going to just let Samuel replace him – no way.   And Samuel is no fool – he knows that now, in his rejection of Saul, his own life is of little value – the slightest misstep and he is toast.  So it’s time for bit of political deviousness  – take a heifer to offer as  a sacrifice in Bethlehem, make sure Jesse and his sons come along and then you can, under cover, make contact with the one who will be king.  And when this is done, Samuel, ever judicious, heads even further north to Ramah and keeps his head well down for some time.

I want to pick up on a couple of things that have stood out for me in this story so far. 

The first is that nothing changes under the sun and there is much of this ancient tale that speaks to us today.  The more we immerse ourselves in the story the more we can relate to the emotions and decisions and conundrums that Samuel and Saul and David faced, the more we can see very human figures who loved God and each other yet turned away in arrogance and fear from God and each other.  When we read of Saul making his own decisions on what is right, not hearing the wisdom of others or the voice of God, we can totally relate.  Much as I value my own thoughts and interpretations, I value equally the ability of the community of faith to moderate and input into those opinions and understandings – and from that discussion in the power of the Spirit comes a common wisdom and a caring approach to decisions and choices. Part of what we mean by community isn’t it?

Another interesting thought from this story is that living in God’s way doesn’t make life safe for you – in fact it is quite likely to make things much more dangerous because it often involves words and actions that are countercultural, anti-establishment.  Take David for instance.  I doubt that there would have been much celebration on his anointing as a future king – he was not presented with a crown and an invitation to move into a sumptuous palace – quite the opposite – he was entering a world of intrigue and danger.  Picture the next step – Saul, we read, is afflicted by evil spirits and he calls upon David and his skill with the lyre to play music for him – music that relieved his demons and made him calm.  But what would that have been like for David?  It would be like walking on eggshells – does he know, how will he react, am I going to wake up tomorrow?  And sure enough in time, his fears are realised and he is running for his life– but that is for later in the story.  Here too we think on the times when we make safe decisions when we are really needing to rattle the cages of social practices that are unjust, hurtful, unloving, even if it means some discomfort to ourselves.

And lastly what intrigues me most about the story of David, and particularly in contrast to Saul – is the seeming lack of physical, social and family stature in this one chosen by God.

When Samuel seeks out Saul we read that he was not only a handsome (or more exactly a good) man, not a boy, but that he stood head and shoulders above everyone else, was from a wealthy family – an obvious candidate for strong leadership.   David on the other hand was an innocent abroad, young of years and small of stature and laughed at when he offered his skills in battle.  A very ordinary young man who accepted a calling on his life that was to prove extraordinarily dangerous and uncertain.  It was his heart rather than his stature that proved to be big enough in accepting this challenge from God on his life.  We can all think of ordinary people with huge hearts who have stepped out in extraordinary acts of courage when called to make a choice – the Corrie Ten Booms and the Rosa Parks and Martin Luthers, the William Wilberforces and the Kate Shepherds of this world –and I invite you for a moment to consider those people who you know who have chosen to respond to God’s dangerous call for justice and equality and compassion for all people with courageous, often difficult decisions and who do make a difference in this world.  And remember – it may be you, and the person sitting next to you who has, in any number of ways, chosen to do what their heart calls them to over what is expedient and safe.  And for this we say thanks be to God.

Margaret Garland