Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 10 August 2014 Pentecost 9

Readings:  Psalm 85: 8-13, Matthew 14:22-33

Let us pray:  Gracious God, as we enter into your Word, may we all be assured of your love, challenged in our living and renewed in our faith, in the name of Christ.  Amen.

I want to begin with a quote from Ernest Campbell, who was Pastor of Riverside Church in New York:  ‘The reason that we seem to lack faith in our time is that we are not doing anything that requires it.’[1]

Is that true?  William Willimon believes it is so.  In a sermon from 2007[2] he said this:

“If Peter had not ventured forth, had not obeyed the call to walk on the water, then Peter would never have had this great opportunity for recognition of Jesus and rescue by Jesus.  I wonder if too many of us are merely splashing about in the safe shallows and therefore have too few opportunities to test and deepen our faith.  The story today implies if you want to be close to Jesus, you have to venture forth out on the sea, you have to prove his promises through trusting his promises, through risk and venture.”

What exactly does that mean?  What is risk and venture, especially in our context?  What are the ‘safe’ shallows and the ‘deep’ waters of the sea of faith for our lives and what are the fears that hold us back?

For the disciples in this familiar story we can discern some of the fears that held them paralysed, afraid to move.  Sure they were out in a boat on the lake (something that might be a scary place for some of us)– but it was a familiar space, something they did often – it was their livelihood after all and they probably felt pretty much in control.  Even with the storm and high seas, they were in familiar territory!   No it wasn’t the storm that scared them – it was the appearance of Jesus that terrified them to the depths of their being.  He was where he shouldn’t be, in the middle of the lake, doing what he shouldn’t be able to do, walking towards them over the water, and it wasn’t until they heard his voice that they realised it wasn’t a ghost – it actually was Jesus.  But the fear remained, holding them to the shallows – only Peter stepped out of the boat towards Jesus, big hearted impetuous faithful Peter.  But even then fear was not far away – he got distracted by the storm raging, he faltered, he stumbled, he cried out in despair ‘Lord save me’ and Jesus reached out to him and took his hand.

There is much we can talk about with this passage – the significance fact that Peter’s risk brought high reward and understanding for those who stayed behind, the fact that this was a moment similar to the transfiguration where the disciples gain a pivotal moment of understanding and insight into Jesus identity and mission, that prayer preceded and upheld Jesus in this moment and the power of God to bring calm to the worst of the storms in our lives.  At least an hour of sermon coming up!

But today I want to talk about the fear that holds us back in faith, keeps us in the shallows, using Willimon’s words.

I don’t think our fear in our faith is as obviously labelled as some people would make out.

For each of us it is different.  I had more fear for instance of flying in a big plane than a four seater or a glider.  Why?  Because I didn’t understand the science that kept such a big piece of metal in the air but when I was in the smaller propeller plane or the glider I could get a sense of the aerodynamics that kept us airborne. 

 I would be a paralysed wreck if I tried to play some music before you but some of you would be just that if you were asked to step up here and speak, something that is relatively ok for me (and I hope for you).

Others of us fear being with those who we might not be able to predict the behaviour of or those who bring conflict into our lives or who threaten our family, our security, our freedom.  We fear boredom, aging, change, lack of change, John Key, David Cunliffe, ....... the list goes on.

There are people who are fearless about standing on a street corner preaching the gospel, of ministering in unknown and uncertain communities, but whose fears emerge in other ways - who refuse to allow that there could be differing faith views to theirs, presumably because they are scared it might shake the foundations of their certainties.  A couple of weeks ago I fell into conversation with a Presbyterian Minister who I knew had different ideas to mine on the subject of gay leadership and marriage in the church.  We both agreed on the diversity of opinion within the church.  The difference was that I said I respected their right to their view whereas they said that the church needed to correct my view.  Is the need to be right a fear of the immensity of God I wonder?

There is the fear of the unknown, the unexpected – maybe that is what held the disciples back in the boat.  Jesus appeared to them in such an unexpected way that they thought him a ghost!  When Christ comes to us in the guise of a rough and ready, the displaced, the angry, the culturally or generationally different, do we have the eyes to see the hand stretched out and the heart and courage to respond?

There is the fear of failure – as Peter failed – yet did he?  Willimon words again: ‘“If Peter had not ventured forth, had not obeyed the call to walk on the water, then Peter would never have had this great opportunity for recognition of Jesus and rescue by Jesus.”  If fear keeps us from stepping out on our faith journey we will be the poorer in our experience and knowledge of Christ. Jesus expects us to walk that difficult path in some confidence and trust.  Sure we will be distracted, there will be times when other things seem to overwhelm our lives but this story tells us that it is exactly then that Christ comes to us- when we are sinking, when we have need of him the most.

It seems that, on one hand, fear as we have been talking about it here is a powerful and invasive emotion that can stultify, paralyse, limit us in who we could be.  And, on the other, Jesus is the constant enemy of fear, calling us to risk all in trust and commitment.  Which do we choose?  Stay in the boat or step out into the water. Trust in the promise of Christ to be with us in our venturing forth or allow fear of the unknown, the different, the unexpected to stunt our growing in faith and experience of God.

We could really sum this up in the words of the last verse of the hymn that we sang at Alan’s funeral on Saturday – a new hymn to many of us by Father Frank Anderson:

As I gaze into the night down the future of my years,
I’m not sure I want to walk past horizons that I know!
But I feel my spirit called like a stirring deep within,
restless, ’til I live again beyond the fears that close me in!
So I leave my boats behind! Leave them on familiar shores!
Set my heart upon the deep! Follow you again, my Lord!

I would like to finish with the words of the Psalm for today: for me a rather powerful reassurance of God’s promise to us of right relationship, of faithful presence and of peace in the midst of the storms of life.  Listen again to these words that the singer of the Psalm uses to imagine the salvation of the world - “

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;

righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.
The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.[3]

Jesus hand is held out to us – let us respond each in our own way, let’s be doing something that requires our faith and overcomes our fears – for the sake of the healing of the world.  Amen.

Margaret Garland

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[1] Ernest Campbell, Pastor Riverside Church New York

[2] ‘How will you know if it’s Jesus’August 7, 2005

[3] Psalm 85:10-13

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 3rd August 2014 Pentecost 8

Readings:  Romans 9: 1-5, Matthew 14: 13-21

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

I wonder how today’s online media would have reported on the story of the feeding of the 5000.  Would the headlines have shouted out ‘Miracle feeding reported on Galilean hills’ or more likely ‘Outrageous claims from extremist sect’ or even more likely ‘Reported gathering of terrorists in Galilean hills? tweets roving reporter’.  Interesting thought – we would have a whole bunch of blurry quickly snapped photos, a selfie or two with at least a disciple in the background and lots of comments on what it was all about from rather opinionated non-engagers.

And whilst I know without doubt that the ODT would have sought to place this gathering in its context and talked to some key people, I am not sure that many of the roving paparazzi would have been bothered.

For you see, it’s all about context.  Jesus is hurting – deeply disturbed and needing the peace of the hills to mourn, to remember and to pray.  His cousin has been murdered by Herod, his head chopped off - on a whim you might say. And all day they have been surrounded by people, unable to get away from the demands of teaching and healing and caring.  I have no doubt the well had pretty much run dry for Jesus and to hear that there was a huge crowd needing his attention again.  Well, enough, we might have said – as the disciples did!

Paul too is in despair - in the passage we heard from Romans– he is devastated, heartbroken at the closed ears and the division of the Jews, that his own people are refusing to receive God’s gift of the Gospel, to accept the reconciliation with God offered through Christ.    He is so distressed that he even says something he knows is silly – he tries to solve it himself; offering up his own relationship with Christ, bargaining with God as if that will make a difference. 

And then Paul reminds himself and the people that God’s mercy and compassion in the person of Jesus are greatest in our heartbreak, that in the midst of this pain ‘Christ is over all, God blessed forever.’  The compassion and love of Christ will triumph over the hard hearts of the unhearing

There is a special was of putting this found in Jeremiah where the Rabbis note that God writes the Word, the Law on our hearts rather than in our hearts, so that when he heart breaks the word falls into it.[1] We come to know God more fully when we come to share in the heartbreak of God’s love rejected.  A powerful analogy.

So Jesus, battered and bruised, hunting sanctuary, heartbroken at the death of John, pursued by people who have need of him – contrary to our expectation, he overrides the disciples who try to turn the people away and turns in mercy and compassion to the needs of the people.  He shows us the miracle of plenty that comes from compassion, in the midst of heartbreak.

And the early church must have thought this a powerfully important message – it is the only miracle story found in all four Gospels and it pointed to the very heart of the Gospel message – God love and compassion for the world.

We find this story in three strong messages for us today:

Firstly God is love.  Jesus, despite incredible pressures to the contrary, showed us that compassion for the people was his prime motivation.  And it was a compassion that cares deeply about the most basic needs of all of us.  Here it was food for the hungry, but it equally could be shelter, equality, justice, peace, spiritual wholeness – all the things that the needy of the world, have a basic right to.  In the midst of all the strife of our lives, compassion for others is the gift most needed and the gift most valued by Jesus.

Secondly Jesus teaches us what it means to be a disciple.  Jesus did not feed the five thousand – he fed the twelve and they fed the five thousand.  He gave it to the disciples to do.  God has entrusted us to be the body of Christ – to express our faith in concrete acts of love, justice and compassion towards others, to reach out to the least of our brothers and sisters – the hungry, the thirsty, the imprisoned.  We have been nourished – how are we passing that on?  Are we with the disciples before Jesus blessed the food, refusing to see how what they had could feed such a multitude, or are with them after, hands and baskets full to overflowing with the generosity of Christ in our lives?

Thirdly this Gospel story reminds us that God will provide.  Not necessarily in the things that we think we need before we start, but rather in what we need as we are on the journey.  It is as if we are asked to plant that small seed of beginning and see the power of love and compassion that will make it grow beyond our wildest imaginings.  Too often we use that excuse don’t we?  I do anyway!  My small contribution isn’t going to make a difference so I will just pass on.  A story – a few weeks ago I was walking along George St – probably a Sunday evening I think.  And I passed a young man who got as far as saying ‘excuse me’ before I had passed out of hearing.  I walked two blocks of the street in debate – probably just begging, spent it all on booze or games or drugs, I have money, I am called to give, to be generous to those who have need, and not count the cost, silly to go back, don’t be a wally, but...but...I turned back, I talked with the young man, discovered he wanted $4 for the bus back to Mosgiel but was only asking for $2 so he wouldn’t put too much on one person.  I gave him $4, asked him to use it well and continued on my way.  I don’t know what he did with it – and you know I don’t care.  It was an incredibly small thing to do, as was my refusal to engage, but the act of giving was one of the most rewarding and special God moments I have had.  I smiled all the way to wherever I was going.

And the last point to make today from this story of the miracle of compassion.

Special things will happen when we do this in community – as the body of Christ working together for the healing of the world. When the disciples worked together and followed Jesus urgings, something happened, something bigger and more powerful than their individual efforts.  If we work together, in all of our diversity, as the one body seeking to bring Christ’s abundance to the world, then miracles can happen.  It is not a promise for the absence of pain or struggle but it is a promise that God is with us and that the love of God will prevail against the closed ears and the hardened hearts of the world and that the compassion of Christ Jesus is known most deeply in the pain and the suffering of the world. 

The story of the loaves and fishes set on a hillside in Galilee is indeed at the very heart of the Gospel message – a story of compassionate love, trusting discipleship and the power of ministry anchored together in the promise of Jesus.  For this we say thanks be to God.

Margaret Garland

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[1] Jeremiah 31:33

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 27th July, 2014 Pentecost 7

Readings:  Romans 8:31-39,  Matthew 13:31-35

Let us pray.  O God open our hearts and minds to your Word.  May we find assurance, challenge and guidance for our lives lived in Christ and may we be renewed and strengthened in our faith we pray.  Amen

Last week Jason began his sermon with a list of horrors happening in our world.  The Ukraine, Gaza, abuse of Nepalese workers in Quatar, ISIS persecutions of Christians.  This week the death toll in Gaza has risen from 339 to, at last count, over 750; the stories of deception, disrespect and exploitation continue in the Ukraine, and at least 500 people have died from the virulent ebola virus in West Africa where medical facilities are few and far between – and it doesn’t really make the front page any more.  

Nothing seems to have changed, maybe it is worse.  Are we still able to, as in Jason’s analogy, do a ‘van Gogh’ and refuse to allow the pain of our surroundings to dictate how it is that we express ourselves in our lives, our work, our faith, to create things of beauty despite the hopelessness of our world?   And the answer, says Paul, is an unequivocal yes.

We talk today again of the hope found in the promise of Christ Jesus, the hope that sustains when all else is crumbling, that refuses to allow us to be separated from God, that is found in the small and the undervalued and the overlooked. 

Paul, as we continue through his letter to the Romans, has some more penetrating questions and indisputable facts to lay before us – ‘if God is for us who then is against us?’[1]  ‘Who will separate us from the love of Christ? ‘[2]The one who gave up a son for us will surely not withhold love from us – ....nothing can separate us from the love of God.[3]  Powerful sustaining words, hope in the midst of the reality of life.  For Paul has no illusions about the stuff that will go on in our lives: hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril and sword.  We might in this day have some other words to use but we all have our own lists of that which overwhelms, presses us down into hard places and dark hopelessness.  Paul tells the people of Rome not that these things will cease to happen to them but that within them, and through them the love of Christ will sustain us and the light of Christ will shine! He states with all the passion he is capable of that nothing can separate us from the love of God, not height nor depth nor anything in all creation. 

A small aside:  last week after the service I spoke with a person who found difficulty saying the modern Lord’s prayer – they realised that the problem was in the translation of  ‘lead us not into temptation’ into ‘save us from the time of trial’ - we seemed to be suddenly saying that we prayed for the removal of all things difficult, sad, unfortunate in our lives – no trials, please God for your good and faithful servants.  I don’t for one moment think we mean that but that is what it seems to say.  So what do they do –change ‘from’ to ‘in’  – and now pray ‘save us in the time of trial’ Now there is a good topic for discussion over our cuppa, yes?

Back to Paul – in our living there is much that will try to separate us from God – hardship, distress, persecution, but the love of Christ for us and in us will be stronger than the darkness that envelops the world – God will not be denied. 

How so? How do we stand against the horrors of our world? How do we make a difference?

The two parables we heard from the Gospel of Matthew today have rightly been called subversive, counter-cultural,  taking our understandings of the world and turning them upsidedown.  What symbols did he use but two tiny, insignificant and very unwelcome objects from daily life.  The mustard seed and the yeast were not just so small as to be overlooked, they were also both considered something of a disease.  In Jesus day the mustard tree or bush was a noxious weed, to be removed so that the good seed could flourish.  And like all weeds it seemed to grow inches overnight and pop up in the least appropriate places and have to be constantly pulled out.  And yeast for them was reviled as a symbol of bodily corruption and impurity, something to be cleansed from the house before Passover.

So Jesus was choosing some rather intriguing symbols to talk of the kingdom of heaven? 

What was the sub text?  What layers of meaning can be found in these parables.

Maybe Jesus thought we needed some help in our categorisation of what was an unwelcome weed, – that we wanted a harvest of our choice, our predictable planting but actually spectacular faith can come from disruptive, uncontrollable, unpredictable and very little seeds not under our control.

I just love this interpretation of the mustard tree by Denise Hoe[4] – wildly beautiful and filled with colour and life!  She had read this passage and imagined the love of God starting in our hearts as a seed and growing to be so large as to provide shelter to all creation in its branches. 

And maybe the same thought with the yeast - that often from minscule beginnings, irrepressible  growth can just emerge to create new shapes,  transform the very fabric of our being and bring new life to that which lay dormant or seemed dark.

Joy Cowley sees yeast as the light which transforms our lives, in her poem ‘The Leaven in the Day’. 

The thing about yeast is we need so little of it

to put some lightness into a stodgy day.

There’s the man at the newspaper stand

who’s always ready to throw us the smile

that we carry away.   We toss it in the air,

see the way it bounces off other faces.

One smile can lift an entire street.

...We can find yeast in something as small

as a butterfly or a pumpkin flower,

or the purr of a well-tuned engine,

or the crunch of fresh shortbread,

or the way the light falls across

the feathers of a pukeko in a paddock.

Yeast is everywhere, my friend,

yes, everywhere, little bits waiting

to be scooped up by our senses.

It doesn’t take much to fill a heavy world

with the lightness of God.[5]

Small things, ordinary things that we do and say and be are the mustards seeds and the yeast of the world.  Sure we tackle the big issues in whatever way we can and where we can, online campaigns, making our opinions heard, joining in marches, voting and readings and supporting, sometimes even spearheading but it is our quiet prayers, our careful choice of words and actions, our generous forgiveness and warm hospitality that says that we are a people of God living out the love of Jesus Christ here in this place. 

Here is a something to take into our week – can we image this faith community as a bunch of tiny seeds of hope and faithfulness, love and grace which, in the power of that same love becoming a tree of safety and rest, of nurture and shelter which is just the best soil for many unexpected things to thrive and grow.

And so we continue to live out the promise of the unbridled power of love that Jesus is for us here in this community, small seeds bringing new light and life in ways we can’t imagine, and have faith, with Paul, that in all the ups and downs, good times and difficult, nothing in all creation, past present or to come,  can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.    Thanks be to God

Margaret Garland

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[1] Romans 8:31b

[2] Ibid :35

[3] Ibid: 32, 38

[4] http://inhisteps.weebly.com/blog.html

[5] The Parable of the Yeast.  The leaven in the day by Joy Cowley from Come and See, p.80

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 13th July, 2014 Pentecost 5

Readings:  Isaiah 55:10-13, Matthew 13: 1-9,18-23

Let us pray.  O God, may your word teach, challenge and assure us as we gather to hear your hope for us.  Amen.

We have come to a time in the Church year that you might call the season of the parables – the teachings of Jesus told in story, many very familiar, some troubling, always challenging. The parable of the sower is the first of seven gathered in this chapter of Matthew, and the first of three Sundays of parables as the lectionary Gospel reading. 

So what about parables!  Do we agree with the writer who says “Explaining a parable is a bit like explaining a joke – the more we talk about it the more we lose the point of it.”  Do we try to explain them to death?  And do the parables of  Jesus have a singular point or are there many layers, multiple threads to follow?  I’m going to go with the layered complex approach, suggesting that the more we delve into the parables the more we can find new and fresh meanings.  Time will tell if I am right on this won’t it? 

And now to turn to this very familiar parable.  Our natural tendency is to concentrate on the soil in this story, is it not?  To wonder which of the soils we might be, to figure out how it is that we respond to the word of God – do we misunderstand God’s word, are we shallow in our response, or easily tempted away by worldly pleasures,  or are we the good soil, well nourished, deep and fruitful beyond all measure, looking ourselves to sow in that same obviously well prepared soil. Immediately C.S. Lewis’s ‘The Screwtape Letters’ springs to mind as the junior devil uses all those techniques to entice the new Christian away from God into misunderstanding, shallowness and worldly pleasures.  And Jesus has experienced all of these measures in his ministry too.  The disciples lose faith when a storm hits, the Pharisees want to choke out the Word of God, his hometown of Nazareth exemplifies the hard soil of rejection.  This parable comes from direct experience. 

But, today, can we focus on the sower instead of the soil?  Can we think about a God who chooses to sow not just in the well prepared, deep, nourished soil but also scatter the seed to the winds, letting it fall where it may.  Let’s face it, in my last Parish of many retired farmers, this technique of chucking the seed over the ground, letting it all over the place and, as they did in those days, then ploughing the paddock, would have not gone down well.  What a waste, how inefficient, the returns would be minimal!

Not so, says Jesus.   He reminds us that the gospel is bigger than our limited strategic planning, has way more possibilities than just investing in the good soil, the place where we hope for the best rate of return.  The seed is good, wherever it might fall, powerful enough to break through the crustiest soil or the most barren of wastelands.  A friend told me of going up to the demolished Christchurch and seeing all the wild flowers growing in the most inhospitable places – cracks and gravel and piles of broken masonry and the sense of hope that that gave.  Good seed found homes in the midst of disaster.

We live with an optimistic God, folks.  One who indiscriminately throws seed on all soil – believing in possibilities where we see none.  Jesus reminds us that God’s redemptive care is for all people, and that there are times where we might have to trust to God to provide the conditions for a blossoming, a taking root in the unlikeliest of places.  A seed might lay dormant for seasons before the conditions change, the thorns and stones and hard packed earth are weathered away and life bursts forth. 

And so we have this struggle you might say: the abundance of God against the hard ways of the world.    The flowering of new life in the midst of death.

It would be no surprise to find that sometimes we feel that the hard ways of the world have the advantage, that there are way more stony and thorny places than there are fruitful and healing.

Where is the healing reconciling love of God in Israel and Palestine at the moment?  Where are the fruits of justice and compassion when we cut off aid to the most needy, turn away refugees, entrench the violence of offenders with punitive prison terms, struggle to get support for restorative programmes? 

Where is the assurance that the reconciling abundance of God is come to heal the world, all the world? 

Well Mark mentioned one last week – the mother of one of the three Jewish teenager’s killed speaking out against retribution, against further violence. 

And elements in Israel seeking to deal with its own extremists, condemning the act and arresting the people who horribly killed Palestinian youth Mohammad Abu Khieder

The many people who work within and around the justice system in this country, seeking to restore and heal rather than purely punish.

The people that continue to sow the seed  of mercy and justice and freedom with grace and courage into the most desolate places in our world and our societies, often never knowing if their word or act of care will bear fruit in any way at all. 

We can trust in the abundance of God – one who takes the most unusual approaches to living, who is hugely optimistic of the power of good to overcome evil, who expects, nay demands that we will live in that same optimism, that same abundant hope in our lives.

Listen again to the words from Isaiah

‘For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. 

For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.[1] ‘

The parable’s end, the vision of fruitfulness,  is the greatest challenge for us.  It is more than asking us to keep on keeping on in the face of rejection.  It is more than us trying to keep from being inhospitable soil or sowing only in well established soil.  It is more than a seven fold harvest from the good soil.  It is about the miracle of hope, extravagantly optimistic hope in Jesus promise of the thousandfold.  Amen

Margaret Garland

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[1] Isaiah 55:10-13

Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 6th July, 2014 Pentecost 4

Readings:  Psalm 145: 8-14, Zechariah 9:9-12, Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30

Let us pray:  O God, by your Holy Spirit open our minds and hearts, and lead us in your truth we pray.  Amen.

 ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’[1]

Jesus says: Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." [2] 

Two renditions of Verses 28 – 30 from the Matthew reading for today, the last from the Message.

Whenever I encounter familiar words of scripture, when I struggle to find a way in to a text, I find it helpful to read other Bible versions, translations that might put it in a slightly different way; that might hopefully open up some new meaning.

We are all probably familiar with the words  ‘Come to me all that are weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest... my yoke is easy and my burden is light’ 

Yet we might, at first look, be troubled by the use of words like yoke and burden, seeing them as loss of freedom, being under someone else’s capricious control, as awkward and heavy and burdensome.  In fact if we had expanded our Hebrew Scripture reading from last week to the verses before and after the debate between Hananiah and Jeremiah – we would have heard talk of the heavy yoke of conquering Babylonians, with Jeremiah wearing a yoke to the debate to make his point – a yoke that, in response to his call for peaceful action, Hananiah shattered off his back.   Alternatively the imagery can be incredibly welcoming – come to me and I will give you rest.  It is easy to understand these verses as a place of refuge, an inn that you might stop at for a rest in the midst of a long and weary patch of your life journey – before you move on. So it can be hard to get beyond that imagery of a well known passage, whatever it might mean to you which is again why other translations can encourage new eyes for the text.   

So when I read this particular passage in the Message Bible, it seemed somehow more hopeful, less onerous and more challenging. 

Why more hopeful?  Well there is the sense that the welcome of Christ is not something temporary, something we have to seek when we have run out of puff.  ‘I will give you rest’ opens up to ‘I will show you how to recover your life – to rest in a way that sustains and nurtures and give a peace that this world does not understand and that will be with you in all your journeying.  There was one line in particular that really jumped out at me – and that was ‘Learn the unforced rhythms of grace’.  Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it.  Learn the unforced rhythms of grace...’

What might that mean?  In an interesting way it sits alongside some of the discussion we had at our first Wednesday Worship service – where we talked about how to nourish a strong spiritual fitness (almost) so that the things we do and the decisions we make are anchored in our understanding of God and the way of Christ.  We talked about regular prayer and reading and conversation in community feeding our souls and growing our faith – not for its own sake but to help us discern where the choices we make and the behaviour we exhibit are contrary to the way of Jesus, the way of love and mercy and justice.  That when anger arises it does not turn in to violence, when we want something, we can figure out if we need or others need or our need is fueling injustice to others.

Why less onerous?  ‘Walk with me and work with me....keep company with me’  The welcome of Jesus, the ‘come unto me...’ is an invitation for us to enter into a way of life that is in the company of Christ, not left to do it alone.  He and we look to live out a life that is focussed and obedient to the way of love and mercy and justice – not a yoke of disempowerment or a burden of complex and indecipherable law but rather that ‘unforced rhythm of grace’ that is just who we are, that enables us to discern with almost a childlike simplicity the path of Christ in each and every facet of our lives.  Jesus is kind of warning us in this passage that it doesn’t do to get all tied up in trying to figure out how to behave by using our wisdom to create and interpret human or even biblical law – we just get deeper and deeper into a pit of increasingly contradictory  rules where to follow one is to break another or compromise both.  We as a country (and I am sure many others) seem to think that the best way to deal with injustice is to add more words to the laws!  Unfair perhaps but an inkling of truth.    Jesus says instead – actually it is quite simple – love and care for your neighbour, and walk with me – I will show you how. 

And more challenging?  ...watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace, learn to live freely and lightly.

Christians do not have the monopoly on trying to live their lives in love and compassion.  Other faiths seek the same right living from their followers and those who choose to call themselves non-believers can live guided by conscience (usually firmly based on the tenets of faith), and teachings for social good.  But for us who follow Christ, there is a particular challenge for there is no sense that we have ever arrived, that we have got it all together and, through our wisdom or our laws, are sufficiently mature enough to go it alone.  We need the welcome of Jesus, the unforced rhythm of his grace in our lives in the way that a child constantly needs the love and nurturing of parents to grow and reach their potential.  For there are ways of love that we struggle to understand on our own.   Take the example of the man who penned the words to the hymn we will sing after the sermon – ‘What a Friend we have in Jesus’ – Joseph Scriven.  I read about his life and leapt to a conclusion.  He was born in Ireland in 1819 – a reasonably well to do family – and was ready to settle down when his fiancé died by accidental drowning the night before the wedding.  Full of grief he emigrated to Canada where he met and was about to marry another woman when she fell ill with pneumonia and died.  He then, unsurprisingly, decided to go it alone and devoted the rest of his life helping others even though he himself suffered severe depression – and may have ended his own life.  So, I thought, this hymn he must have written to get him through a life that no one person should ever have to live.  This is his expression of hope in God for himself.  But no –he wrote it as a poem for his mother who was very ill back in Ireland – originally called ‘Pray without ceasing’. He lived in the unforced rhythms of grace that was Christ welcome and home for him, a grace that allowed him rest and assurance in his very difficult life and a hope that nurtured him on a life’s journey of service to others and his God.

I will finish with the words of this passage from the King James version.

 “Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”[3]

Margaret Garland

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[1] NRSV Matthew 11:28-30

[2] Message Bible Matthew 11: 28-30

[3] Matthew 11:28-3021st Century King James Version (KJ21)

Prayers of Intercession from Opoho Church 2014

Prayer of thanksgiving and intercession 27 April 2014

Lord God,

our rock of refuge,

we give thanks for the beauty and fruitfulness of autumn,

for seedtime and harvest,

and for all that we have:

our homes, food and clean water,

gardens and beaches, bush and mountains,

family and friends, help and support,

this church and community,

and the freedom to worship you in peace and security.

Lord God,

our rock of refuge,

we pray for your world.

In the wake of Anzac Day,

we remember the defeat of tyranny,

the defence of peace,

and the death and misery and destruction of war.

We remember that war has not ceased,

that tyrants still rule,

and that justice and security are still denied to many.

Lord God,

our rock of refuge,

we pray for your Church.

We call to mind the needs and hopes of this parish,

of congregations throughout this land,

and of your worldwide Church in all its diversity and division.

Lord God,

our rock of refuge,

we pray for our friends and families and colleagues.

In silence we remember before you their particular needs …

Lord God,

our rock of refuge,

we pray for ourselves –

we who dare to call ourselves your own people.

Grant that we may find answers to our prayers,

not merely in our expectations of you and of others,

but in the kindness and active concern

that we ourselves can show to friend and stranger,

and that in friend and stranger we may find the One

in whose name we pray, Prince of Peace and sure foundation,

who has taught us the prayer we sing …

Sermon Opoho Church, Sunday 29th June, 2014 Pentecost 3

Readings:  Jeremiah 28: 5-9,  Matthew 10:40-42

Let us 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.

A debating chamber – two worthy opponents – the prophets Jeremiah and Hananiah – the moot is ‘Should Judah rebel against the Babylonians?   And Jeremiah takes the negative.  Seems that he often gets on to that less than popular side of the subject.  Hananiah, arguing for the positive and supporting the view of his King, passionately believes that he is in the right, is representing the way of God and the nation, sure of the timing and that right is on their side.  Jeremiah, also passionate and articulate, begins his response with a wee touch of sarcasm (as all good debaters do) and says that he hopes and prays that what Hananiah says is true and that they could welcome back the exiles and all the vessels of the House of the Lord.  But no he says we must submit to the yoke of the Babylonians if we want to stay alive.  Wait instead for the prophet of peace. 

And when the vote was cast, Hananiah took the day –war was declared - and Jerusalem was destroyed and the people killed and scattered.

Both men believed they knew the truth of God, and yet the way taken was, with hindsight, devastating in its consequences. 

How do we decide when we are faced with those situations, where both options seem to have wisdom and faith and integrity, where we respect the speakers and can see the possibilities of both?  Is it always the conservative ‘do nothing’ approach that should win (the Jeremiah way on this occasion), or should we always step out into adventure sure that God is with us and will protect and guide us.

God’s people, then and now, called to discern the truth and act accordingly – yet faced with differing visions of God and God’s plan for them.

If we dig a bit deeper into the different approaches of Hananiah and Jeremiah – it becomes a little clearer.  Hananiah, and his King Zedekiah, have a strong focus on the covenantal tie with God, a tie that they believe will release the people from a yoke that they despise, that they are discomforted by.    You could say they expect deliverance as a matter of course, prosperity as a direct result of their established relationship with God. 

Jeremiah, on the other hand, sees this covenantal faithfulness of Jahweh not as an automatic insurance policy but rather rooted in an ongoing living relationship that requires the question each day ‘What is it that you ask of us today, O Lord?  What is it that we must discern from your many teachings and your deep wisdom and your spirit in our hearts – for this day?

On Wednesday night the first of our Winter Worship series looks at the question of spiritual carelessness or lack of spiritual discipline in our lives.  It will raise the question of being spiritually fit for making discerning responses to God’s word for us and challenge us for the times that we make decisions without thinking through the ramifications for God’s people and God’s world. 

Might I say then that Jeremiah was not as spiritually careless than Hananiah?  He went deeper that just past relationship – he discerned God’s way by listening with all his considerable heart, soul and mind to the word of God for this moment.  And that word centred on the coming of the prophet who would bring peace, not war, love not hatred, compassion not vengeance.  And so he prophesied – be still and do not rebel.

Decisions face us as a congregation over the next year or so – the future of the ordained ministry, building issues, commitments to community and to mission, sustainability -  both financial and energy-wise, and others not yet known. We even need to make decisions about whether we need to make decisions!  Options are always plentiful, some safe, some scary, some clear whilst others are exceedingly cloudy and we, as God’s people in this community are to discern God’s voice in our choosing.  We will all have varying opinions, we all would approach things in different ways – by nature some of us are risk takers, others change adverse, some have a long vision, some a ‘today is enough’ approach.  Without the benefit of hindsight, how do we know what is the ‘right’ thing to do. In fact, is there a ‘right way’ or just different ways?   And how do we creatively and hopefully and usefully sit in that space between what is and what could be?

Some thoughts.  Real discernment begins with silencing our own voice, being still in the presence of God – as one commentator puts it, when we are needing to choose a way, the first thing we are to do is “to invite God into our discernment, to listen more deeply than we have ever listened before, to pray that we may get far enough out of the way that God’s will may find its way in.”[1]

Times of prayer, of silent reflection, of recognising our oneness and shared community in Christ and setting aside, just for the moment, our own opinions and solutions are the beginnings of discerning the answer to that question ‘What is it that you ask of us today, God?’ 

In those times when we put aside personal agendas and rest quietly in the vision that God has for this world unexpected and often unwelcome possibilities can arise, can have a voice.  Whether it is adventurous or continuing without change it will be scary and uncomfortable for some of us.  But how we be sure that our discernment is faithful to God? 

We examine our vision against our understanding of God!  Are we expecting some future surety against past faithfulness as Hananiah seemed to?  Or do we believe in the living God who asks us that tricky question each day – what do you want us to do?   We believe not because we are owed but because we love and are loved.

Can we hold our vision up against the teachings of Christ – where love, mercy, justice, compassion, peace are preached and lived – and are worth disturbing our comfort for?  If the answer is in any way ‘no’ then we should be concerned, aware of the danger signs.

We all have our special words of teaching that speak deeply to us.  I constantly anchor in the words from Micah : ‘What does your Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.’[2]  These words are one of my measures if you like, a teaching that is so deeply embedded I can and do hold my choices and actions up to its light.  The words from the Gospel of Matthew that we heard today may well be the ones for you “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me...[3]”  And how do they all sit within Jesus’ commandment to us to love God, and our neighbours as ourselves.

So we are quiet in the presence of God, we discern our way in the knowledge of our understanding of God’s love and justice and mercy is for all, we look to the teachings and life of Jesus to bring light to our path and we walk that path in faith.

I want to finish with a story from today of a decision for action that is being formed.  Last week I talked about the persecutions and horrors within Iraq and Syria – today I invite us to consider the choice of response that the world has and could make to this.  Jim Wallis, in his regular blog called ‘God’s Politics[4]’ talks of the situation in Iraq:  First he talks about what I would call the ‘Hananiah’ decision of the US to respond to 9/11 by declaring a war of invasion and occupation, a decision that with hindsight is patently arrogant, wrong and incredibly devastating for so many people.  Then he suggests that there has been no moment of reflection on the ‘absolute wrongness’ of this, of some admission of mistakes made.  Then he asks what is the way of Jesus – what does scripture point us to?  He quotes from both Matthew “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God[5]” and then from Romans where  Paul says: “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good”.[6]

And his conclusion:  As Paul suggests, we surprise our ‘enemies’ in ways that cause them to reconsider their actions and their attitudes.  Rather that engaging in warfare, making the people angrier and hungrier, why don’t we engage in giving them something to drink – give food and medicine, flooding those countries with the things they desperately need with a generosity that would make them stop and think that maybe there is another way.  Imagine if the billions spent on war had been spent on feeding the hungry, water to the thirsty instead.  Naive, maybe – but discerning and practicing the way of Christ? ‘Oh yes!  Amen

Margaret Garland

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[1] Tracy Haythorn in Feasting on the Word Year A, Volume 3 p.174

[2] Micah 6:8

[3] Matthew 10: 40

[4] http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/06/27/iraq-humility-best-option

[5] Matthew 5:9

[6] Romans 12:20-21