Sermons

Take up your Cross Exodus 3: 1 – 15; Matthew 16: 21 – 28 “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” [Mt 16: 24-26] I don’t know how we hear these words of Jesus recorded in Matthew and Mark. We have transformed the notion of a ‘cross’ from being a symbol of cruel execution to a symbol of Christianity. In that process the cross has become a piece of jewellery, a symbol of valour or figuratively speaking something we must endure. We speak of someone having a ‘cross to bear’. When Jesus said, ‘take up your cross’ he wasn’t thinking of a badge, a piece of jewellery or a medal of valour. He was thinking of the cruel Roman implement of execution reserved for the enemies of Rome. I don’t know how the disciples heard this call to ‘take up one’s cross’, but I do know they were prepared to suffer and die for their faith in Christ Jesus. What was it that inspired them to join a group that had a high death factor? Their leader was cruelly put to death and one of the first followers, Stephen, was stoned to death. Stephen died with the words of his Lord on his lips – words of forgiveness to his persecutors. Paul who witnessed and managed Stephen’s death later became a Christian. Paul the Christian apostle was jailed, whipped and finally executed for his faith in Christ Jesus. Many Christian experienced the same, as many do today. Why be a Christian? When I became a Christian at 17 years and 11 months Christ Jesus meant everything to me. Belief in Jesus changed my life from ordinariness to meaningfulness. My perspective changed and I felt life was so much better with Jesus. Then I received a call to be a minister – a preacher. It frightened me. I felt so inadequate to take on such a role. It took three months to work through this ‘call to ministry’ and say ‘yes’ to God. One of the most memorable conversations at that time was with my minister. My mother and I attended the local Methodist Church where he was the minister. My connections with Methodism were convenient. In answering the call to ministry I felt led to the Methodist Church rather than the Anglican. Therefore I went to this minister. I knew him to be a good man who had stood against the political doctrine of racial segregation in South Africa called Apartheid. He had suffered some criticism for his stance. He was not popular. I went into his office and told my story. He looked at me, paused and then said; “Peter, if you can possibly avoid being a minister do so. However it is a wonderful work.” It is an interesting way to respond to someone called to the ministry. These days we get all excited when someone expresses an interest. However, ministry is never easy, whether ordained or un-ordained ministry. Ministry means you are God’s servant first. This is a real challenge. It is a challenge in a society, which opposes Christianity and intentionally persecutes Christians. Today the Church is viable in countries that actively imprison and persecute Christians. This week I received an email about Ebrahim Firouzi of Iran. He is on a hunger strike in protest at the Government’s persecution of Christians. He has been moved to a secure section of the Rajaei Shahr Prison in Karaj with a number of other Christians charge with crimes against the State of Iran because of their faith. They have removed from him his Bible and all other Christian resources. In our society Christians have some form of recognition. We’re not persecuted. However we face the not so subtle pressure to conform to our culture’s values of acquisition, materialism, pleasure-seeking and self-interest. Remember the teaching of Jesus about not serving two leaders at the same time [Mt 6:24]. That’s straightforward common sense. Yet we try and serve both our culture and our Church. Jesus gave us the two parables of the Priceless Pearl and the Hidden Treasure, which respectively illustrate that the great treasure of the Kingdom of God comes to us when we sell all to gain it, or give up all to secure it [Mt 13: 44-46]. When I entered the ministry I knew that ‘Apartheid’ was wrong. I had heard about the persecution and rejection of clergy who stood up for the rights and dignity of black people. I knew that in doing so there was a cost. I tried to warn my loved ones, but I don’t think they understood at all. During my time in South Africa part of my ministry was committed to building relations with black and mixed race congregations. I joined a Christian organisation that fostered such relationships. I related to banned black people, one of whom had been imprisoned on Robin Island. I recognised that my actions and connections meant I would be on the Special Branch Police Force’s list of suspicious persons. I recall my four Society Stewards meeting with me and asking me politely not to say or do too much as they were concerned for me. I believe they were sympathetic and genuinely concerned for me, but they were not willing to challenge the status quo. My actions were relatively mild and focussed on building relationships, understanding and respect. But I always felt uncomfortable around police and with the public. This challenge ‘to take up one’s cross’, still echoes in the Church today. It comes up regularly in the liturgical calendar. What does Jesus’ statement mean for us in our world where we are

Marriage Yesterday and Today. Matthew 22: 23 -33; 1 Timothy 3: 1 – 13 Is gr.. A bishop must be above reproach and the husband of one wife. [1 Tim 3:2] A curious saying isn’t it? When I first came across this text I read it from my experience of the time. To me it was an affirmation of marriage as I knew it: one man and one woman come together in a loving relationship and commit to live with each other for better or worse. I did not hear it with any critical faculties, but as an affirmation of marriage as we understood it 47 years ago. I never asked why was it necessary for Timothy to say this? But then I was young with so much to learn about the Bible and Christian history. Today I want to address the issue of same sex-marriage. I want to approach it from the perspective of the concept of marriage then and now. I want to share something of my journey with regard to homosexuality and the concept of marriage. There was a time that I thought the term ‘marriage’ described only the coming together of a man and a woman to form that unit of family. Such was my thinking that I could not think how it could apply to Gays. In fact for the first thirty-five years of my life I lived in regions that treated homosexuality as a criminal offence! How in the world could I contemplate same-sex marriage when I was still wrestling with the concept of decriminalising homosexuality? Of course my experience of life and society’s changing attitude has caused serious reflection on the matter. If homosexuality appalled me, homosexuals did not. I knew some and I have a family member as one. They’re just people like me who have a different sexual orientation. And I know they no more chose to be homosexual than I chose to be heterosexual. Think about that too. Did you choose to be a heterosexual? In recent times I have thought about same-sex marriage. It hasn’t been an easy choice, because I was still working through this notion that the term ‘marriage’ only had one meaning. One of the things I did – this is the way I work out things – was to define marriage. I looked at dictionaries and came to see that the term is used in some industries to describe the joining of things in a state of permanency. I was a little surprised to see that the metal industry used the term to describe the joining of sections of metal. Of course that makes sense. The inherent sense of marriage is bringing together two elements into one. Why not use it to describe the joining of different metals joined into one? A couple of years ago I attended a conference on the Freedom of Religion. In practice it was all about protecting Christian marriage from being undermined by same-sex marriage. The argumentation was not all that convincing. A lot of ignorance of both language and Bible arose. During the conversation I happened to mention to a young lawyer heading up the anti-same-sex marriage lobby that the word ‘marriage’ also was used to describe the joining of metals. She was visibly taken back. This very intelligent young person – possibly in her early 40s – took this as something entirely new. You see the conference had been arguing that marriage only meant one thing: the union of a man and a woman to form a family. I guess if you hold that marriage only defines the mating of a man and a woman then it logically cannot apply to anything else, even metal work! Some define marriage as being about the getting of children. Now I am not trying to get you to support same-sex marriage. That is your decision. However I want to share my understanding that the concept of marriage has always been adjusted to the social historical context. We were brought up to understand and believe that marriage simply meant that a man and woman enter equally into a permanent relationship to form a family and most probably raise children. I am confident that we would agree with that. We in fact may be working with those same sole elements in our definition of marriage of male, female, equal persons, entering a sexual relation for the formation of a family. Because we are Christians we should start with the Bible. So I am going to take look at the Biblical experience of marriage and in the Western world. Naturally this looking at the concept of marriage does not include homosexuals for the obvious reason they were persona non grata. Let us begin with Abraham and Sarah. We take them to be ‘married’ – husband and wife. When they couldn’t have children they decided to use the method appropriate to their culture. Sarah’s handmaiden became a surrogate mother for Abraham and Sarah. Abraham impregnated Hagar, her servant, and she most likely gave birth to Ishmael across Sarah’s thighs. This action symbolised that the child was Abraham’s and Sarah’s. Sarah’s handmaiden was their servant. They owned her. Her child was theirs. If God chastised them it was because Abraham and Sarah had failed to trust God for an heir, not because Abraham, according to our values, had committed adultery. Turn the pages of history over to Abraham’s grandson Jacob. God named Jacob, Israel, which means he has striven with God and prevailed [Gen 32: 28]. Israel had 12 sons who Israel fathered through his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and their handmaidens, Bilhah and Zilpah. [Gen 29-30] The 12 tribes of Israel descended from these 12 sons. In the ancient world it was not uncommon for a man to have more than one wife. By the way polygamy, as we call it, is never condemned in the Bible. The rules about marriage were inevitably tied up with property in ancient Israel. Marriage was not

What’s Jesus saying? Romans 11: 1 – 2, 28 -32; Matthew 15: (10-20) 21 – 28 If ever we needed perspective we need it today when we read this story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman. Both Matthew and Mark in their accounts of the Gospel record it. It is a troubling story. Taken literally it is appalling, especially to our sensitivities regarding racism. The 19th and 20th Centuries brought home to the Western world the shocking nature of racism. The anti-slavery movement, the Ku Klux Clan, the Nazi Holocaust, Apartheid and the Pol Pot killing fields stand out as prime examples of the awfulness of racism. And here we have Jesus implying that this woman who comes for help is a dog! I tell you many people read this text and put it down. Ministers too pass it by. It is a story that demands we look at both the historical and literary context to get any perspective on it. Firstly, the reason Jesus gives provides us with an important clue to his attitude. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Secondly, what Jesus says to the woman needs to be unpacked in the light of the culture and the very words he uses. We always lose something in translation and here we lose something important. We need to catch his tone of voice. But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” [Mt 15:24-26] What if it read like this; He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the puppies.” What difference does the word ‘puppies’ instead of ‘dogs’ make to the meaning? Let’s recall what is happening. Matthew and Mark tell us that there is conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders about what is clean and unclean. Jesus said early in his ministry that you couldn’t put new wine into old wineskins because the new wine might burst the old skins. But that is exactly what the religious leaders and conservative people wanted. The Jewish leaders wanted to contain Jesus’ message within the structures of Judaism. People have always wanted to contain the teachings of God within their culture. We like to be in control. The Jewish leaders wanted Jesus and his disciples to conform to the Jewish laws of cleanliness, but they didn’t. Hence Jesus is saying that what really makes us unclean is not the food or drink that enter our mouths, but the words and the thoughts that come out of our mouths. From this situation of conflict Jesus moves off into a Gentile region. The move into a Gentile region is strange for two reasons. Firstly the Jews regarded the Gentiles as unclean and generally referred to the Gentiles as dogs. (Remember when ‘aussies’ called certain people ‘wogs’!) By moving into a Gentile region Jesus is risking becoming unclean. (That may seem strange to us but that is what they understood.) So what is he doing there? The other thing that is striking is that Jesus makes it clear to the woman that he has come first to Israel. Israel is the people who are the chosen instruments of God’s plan of salvation. Israel is the recipient and holder of the promises of God. Paul makes the same point in Romans. Friends what would we think if Jesus came to earth again and he chose to go to those outside the Church first. Surely we would be miffed? Surely our Lord would come to us first? By Jesus coming first to the Jews God honours those promises. So it seems Jesus is not going to minister to the Gentiles when he goes north into the Gentile region. He is not looking for a new field of ministry. The text bears this out. In Mark’s account of this story the point is made more sharply. Jesus goes to a house and wants to hide. Jesus wants a low profile in the Gentile region. We can only conclude that Jesus went to a Gentile region to get away from this conflict and reduce the looming tension between himself and the Jewish leaders. This wasn’t the time for a major confrontation between Jesus and the religious authorities. There was more to do. After Easter the ministry to the Gentiles will really begin. Now let us turn to this Syrophoenician woman. She is a person in need, but she is informed. She hears of Jesus and recognises him. In her need and understanding she comes to Jesus for help. She addresses Jesus as the ‘Son of David’ – a messianic title. So this woman is informed. She knows something of the Jewish faith. This woman has faith too. She believes in Jesus. Like the Roman centurion she comes to Jesus and leaves her child at home. She believes that Jesus can heal her child by a command. His word and command is sufficient. This is faith. Notice too her response to Jesus’ use of the Jewish colloquialism that Gentiles are dogs. Notice too that Jesus does not call her a dog but speaks generally. The woman doesn’t take offence. She rather cleverly reminds Jesus that dogs do lick up the crumbs or anything that falls off the table. (We all know that!) Now if we could read Greek we would notice that the reference to dogs is in the diminutive. That is, it should read ‘puppies’. The way Jesus had used this Jewish colloquial saying is softened by the use of diminutive. Both Matthew and Mark use the term ‘little dog’ or puppies. The woman uses the same term. The image then is the domestic scene of our children around the table and our pets near. That is, both children and pets are loved, but differently loved. And Jesus says; “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take

Sight, Perspective & Focus Romans 8:12 – 25; Matthew 13: 24 – 30, 36 – 43 Last Monday night at the Taizé service I entered the time of silent meditation. I closed my eyes as usual, but my concentration wavered. I opened my eyes and focussed on the wooden cross on the floor, which has tea-light candles at its four corners. It helped me meditate. Then I focussed on the candlelight. The rays of light changed as I changed from wide-open eyes to nearly closed eyes. It was fascinating. Squinting through my eyelids the candle flames diffused into shafts of light. I lost some clarity of vision but the shafts of light were pretty. They altered in length. Then I returned to wide-open eyes focussing on the flame. It was clear and well defined. It danced. I wondered, is this a little lesson God is giving me? With eyes half closed or almost closed we see the candlelight differently. It looks pretty, but our perspective is limited. We don’t see clearly. I realised that with semi-shut eyelids the light is diffused and scattered, but with wide-open eyes the light is concentrated and CLEAR I reflected on that and on one’s life. Are the semi-closed eyes something akin to when we’re tired, troubled, anxious, overwhelmed, sad and distracted? We don’t see life too well when there’s a lot going on and we’re stressed. Our perspective on what’s happening is unclear and diffused. When we are rested, confident, less pressured by cares and concerns we both see and hear more clearly. I realised how the physical diffusion of light is symbolic of perspective on life when we’re stressed and vice versa. I thought on Monday night at Taizé, that God was giving me something for a sermon. I didn’t know then what the set text was for the week. I just knew I had two funeral services to conduct and it would be a full week. There were other important items on the agenda too. I wondered what the text was, but my third funeral the next day had occupied my thoughts and sermons and texts were far from me. Well on Tuesday evening I came to the lectionary text and there it was. The text was about sight, perspective and focus. I felt God had prepared me. Jesus’ walking on the water is a story that encompasses the experiences of sight, perspective and focus, each seem like the same thing but they are not. Sight is the physical action of seeing Perspective is seeing something in its right proportion, in relation to other things, and from a particular point of view. Focus involves concentration and establishing a clear definition. The disciples saw Jesus walking on water. We are told that they were terrified. Let’s recognise they were already ‘battered’ by waves. They were close to survival sailing. It would be something they had encountered on the water before. They would have been fearful but not paralysed by fear. Fear generates a rush of adrenaline, the heart rate quickens and the sense of flight or fight increases. Scripture tells us they cried out in fear at the sight of Jesus. They thought they were seeing a ghost. They were in danger and seeing a ghost! Did they think it was an omen of their own misfortune? Such thoughts may have rushed through their minds. Their state of mind was not easily disposed to a healthy perspective. What gave them perspective was the voice of Jesus. We read that immediately following their cry of fear Jesus spoke and said, Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” [Mt 14:27] They only regained perspective when they heard the voice of Jesus. His familiar voice gave them perspective. We can talk about perspective in a number of ways. For example when reading a text one needs literary perspective to understand it. Literary perspective is about seeing the text in the context of the characters, the larger life situation and maybe the historical setting. Perspective is like looking through a camera lens. One can zoom in and see the small detail or zoom out to see the bigger picture. Theoretical perspective is about establishing one’s assumptions about life. Theological perspective is like that too. One can read the Bible with the firm conviction – assumption – that God is an angry God or the Bible is a book of rules, or the Bible is literally true, or the Bible is a love story. Each of these assumptions will skew what we read. The important thing is to evaluate our assumptions and broaden our outlook. When it comes to personal perspective the state of our emotions, our health and our environment all play a vital part in determining our perspective. It falls to us to manage our emotions and health. It is very hard when things about us are not quite right, when we don’t feel well, and we feel threatened. Then our perspective shifts. We imagine the worst. In the latter part of this week a personal matter struck us and I was very stressed. I stopped to pray and to practise deep breathing to try and get balance and perspective, and to a large extent it worked. Once the disciples this image of Jesus into perspective, impetuous Peter asks Jesus to call him. That was an act of utter faith in Jesus on Peter’s part. Jesus calls Peter, “Come”. Peter steps out of the boat and he too walks on water “towards Jesus” [Mt 14: 29]. Peter is focussed. His is looking at Jesus. He is walking on water. Then his focus shifts. Peter noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” [Mt 14: 30]. Jesus reaches out to Peter saying to him, “Why did you doubt?” While Peter focused on Jesus he did amazing things. When his focus wavered he sank beneath the water. This story tells us that when we control our

He had compassion for them. Romans 8:12 – 25; Matthew 13: 24 – 30, 36 – 43   The minister described the deceased as a ‘Christian Gentleman’! I sat up and I listened. The deceased, no doubt an honourable person of faith, continued to be described in these terms of social status. I was amazed. This was poor theology. The concept of ‘gentleman’ in the UK has a particular history. Over the centuries a ‘gentleman’ was the lowest ranked aristocrat. It was clear that he was not saying this is a gentleman who is a Christian. Even so it’s not a proper way to describe a Christian. The minister taking the funeral service had recently retired from the church after 30 years service. I was the new minister at the church and had happily agreed to him presiding as he knew the man. My disappointment with my retired colleagues theology was unfortunately affirmed many months later. A couple times people implied I visited everyone. One day a person said directly to me: “You visit everyone.” I shrugged my shoulders. I mean that’s what a minister does. The minister is there for everyone. S/he makes no distinction. I said, “What do you mean, I visit everyone?” The reply came that the retired minister only visited the well to do – the gentlefolk. What saddened me more is that the minister had been raised in the humblest of homes and becoming a minister enjoyed some upliftment in his social status. He became enmeshed in it. He was trapped in a system that gave status to a clergyperson. I tell this story for two reasons. Firstly, it illustrates the teaching I have been offering from this pulpit that we get caught in systems and they control us. It is the demonic power of evil. But I also tell this story because it illustrates how the church from time to time has described the Christian in very human and cultural terms. You see this minister’s theology was in that camp that saw a good Christian as a ‘good citizen’. Sometimes we have reduced the description of Christianity to our cultural norms. Good citizenship, a morality of hard work, upholding society’s values have all been ways of describing what a Christian is or should be. I sense in our denomination an implied definition of a good Christian as a person involved in justice. All I know that such definitions are not Biblical. And I also know that this kind of definition of a‘ Christian gentleman’, ‘good citizen’ and upholder of society’s values would have failed to define many of the white and black South African Christians whom I deemed to be faithful followers of Christ. Many stood against the government, were imprisoned, banned, even tortured, regarded as Communists, and if white, seen as traitors. I suppose they were revolutionaries. They followed a hallowed tradition. It goes right back to Jesus. Our Lord Jesus Christ was executed as a revolutionary. In a particular sense he was guilty of that. I don’t think one would have described Jesus of Nazareth as a ‘Christian gentleman’ or ‘good citizen’. Christ Jesus challenged societies values structures. Today I want to offer you an important defining characteristic of a Christian. I not saying it’s the only one, but it seems to be a very important defining characteristic. The significant 20th Century German theologian and activist, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, said; “We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer”. What precisely Bonhoeffer is saying I am not sure, but I do get it that the Christian life is awareness of others’ suffering. When we speak of ‘others’ I think of everything other than ourselves – every living thing. Bonhoeffer seems to be saying that the Christian life responds to the suffering in the world. That is, the Christian feels with and for those who suffer. That is, the Christian is compassionate. Compassion is synonymous with Christianity. Compassion is that feeling that arises when you are confronted by another’s suffering and desires to help them. Compassion has its roots in Greek and Latin. The Greek word ‘pathos’, to suffer, combined with the Latin preposition ‘cum’ meaning ‘with’ gives us the word compassion. Compassion means to suffer with. So in reality compassion is part and parcel of loving one’s neighbour. Compassion is what we see in Jesus. Jesus suffered with and for us. The Cross essentially symbolised the altruistic love and compassion of God for all of life. The 18th Century German writer and statesman, Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, know to us as Goethe, made many insightful statements among which he said; “Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together”. Substitute compassion for kindness and ask is that the ‘golden chain by which society is bound together’? It does make sense, doesn’t it? Take Charles Darwin who is seen as the author of the evolutionary theory. In the 19th Century Charles Darwin wrote on evolution in creation and humanity. The statement, ‘the survival of the fittest’ is attributed to him. It is meant to describe how evolution works. That is, it is the fittest and strongest forms of a species that survive and develop. That sounds reasonable. However Darwin did not coin that phrase but Spencer. Darwin merely was quoting Spencer. In Darwin’s book, ‘The Descent of Man’ Darwin argues that the survival of the species is due to the presence of compassion. He sees compassion and altruism evident in the animal world. Indeed there is a group today of psychologists whose research is showing that the compassionate instinct in human nature is one of the most important instincts in our survival. Maybe we need to stop and reflect on how animals will defend their owners even against stronger animals. And we might reflect how we humans care for our young. Humans are most vulnerable in their first 4 years. Compassion for the

Why doesn’t God do something? Romans 8:12 – 25; Matthew 13: 24 – 30, 36 – 43 Why doesn’t God do something? Possibly the most frequent question asked of religious leaders and teachers. The tragedies and sufferings of life generate such a question. Our sense of helplessness in the face of forces larger than life triggers the cry. Why doesn’t God do something? There are answers to this question, but we are blind to God’s answers by our anxiety and pain and the overwhelming nature of evil forces. The only answer we want to hear is that God has ‘stopped’ whatever it is that is troubling us. When we can’t rescue ourselves we expect God to step in. But God doesn’t respond in the way we want. Why? Our readings give us some clues as to why? And they give us some clues as to what God is actually doing. But first let us recognise that if God was going to rescue us from every suffering, tragedy and destructive force, God would also have to direct the rest of our lives. Then we would be puppets and lose our humanity. Humanity is defined by its freedom and choice. Humanity is characterised by responsibility and responsiveness. Let us see how our texts can help us. Jesus’ parable of the wheat and weeds is simple to understand. Good things and bad things are mixed. Be wary of separating them before the time is right in case you destroy the good with the bad. I see something else here. The parables are all about waiting. We wait for the mustard seed to grow; the leaven to raise the dough; and, the farmers wait for the harvest. Waiting is not wasted time, but time in which we prepare ourselves. Waiting helps us grow strong and wise. Waiting is an active and positive character building exercise. But we are impatient. We are far too quick to act. This parable is about letting the weeds grow with the wheat. We would wrench them out. We are like that. We have been far too ready to exercise judgement and condemnation on things. We’ve done well with doing that. We’ve decided the fate of women for centuries, have sent homosexuals to the gallows, we too quickly resort to arms and treat unwanted desperate refugees as enemies. Oh! You say I am exaggerating. Maybe so, but history speaks for itself. Jesus importantly tells us to wait. Let the judgement be God’s. Let the condemnation be God’s. Indeed why not? How can we compare our impaired judgment with God’s gracious judgment? ‘Let them mingle,’ says Jesus as the harvest is at the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire. [Mt 13: 39,41,42] It’s not the fiery furnace that is important here. It is that God will weed out sin, because God alone can identify sin. The phrase, all causes of sin and all evildoers, suggests that along with evildoers there are causes of sin. Jesus sees Sin as more than selfish and immoral people. Sin is a power. Sin causes us to sin. Sin is a power that God alone can deal with. Here is another piece of evidence that Christ died to break the power of sin and not to take our punishment. On the cross Christ destroyed sin’s power by confronting and combatting Sin with love and forgiveness. In the face of ultimate love and absolute forgiveness evil has no lasting power. Christ, for our sakes, confronted evil on the Cross and died to save us. This is the first thing God has already done for us. Sin’s power is broken. Surrender to Christ Jesus and you will experience freedom If the parable reminds us that God’s kingdom is breaking out in the world, it also reminds us that sin is still present. However Sin’s power has been dealt a mortal blow by the Cross of Christ Jesus. So how shall we live now? Paul tells us how to live responsibly in this time before God completes all things. Paul shows us how to live in this time of waiting for the harvest. Paul also recognises that the ‘weeds’ are growing amongst the ‘wheat’. He uses different images such as living in the Spirit and living according to Sin. Paul writes; So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh; for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. [Rom 8:12,13] In this passage from Romans chapter 8 we understand that we have an obligation to God; we are led by the Spirit; we are not slaves to Sin; we have assurance that we are God’s children; united with Creation; and, we will inherit God’s kingdom. The Obligation we have is captured in that single image of being debtors. It is a powerful image. We all understand what debt is and what it means. Debt obligates us to honour the repayments. Our debts have a high priority in our lives. Paul is saying that we owe God. We’re in debt to God, doubly so. God created us giving us life and God has rescued us. Like the alcoholic and drug addict in recovery we need to be radically honest about our situation and radically dependent on the solution. We need to acknowledge who and whose we are. We need to lean on God to rise above the things that drag us down and away from the good things of life. The gravitational power of Sin is countered by the gracious love of God. God has given us a duty to fulfill and with it responsibility. Spirit Led. We are faced with the choice of

Gravity versus Grace Romans 8:1- 11; Matthew 13:1 – 9, 18 – 23 Is gravity pulling you or is grace lifting you? The French philosopher, Albert Camus, described Simone Weil as “the only great spirit of our times”. Simone Weil was a significant French Jewish Christian thinker, mystic and political activist. She was born into an agnostic Jewish home. From an early age she identified with the disadvantaged and suffering. At the age of 6 she refused to eat sugar in solidarity with the troops entrenched along the Western Front in WW II. She graduated from university in France having majored in philosophy. She was seen as a French intellectual who, in her identification with the poor and workers, chose to take leave of absence from teaching to work on farms, in factories and join the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. Although she identified with Communism, she was critical of both capitalism and socialism. And she wrote many articles on work, peace and mysticism. She became a Christian being attracted to the principle of ‘love your neighbour,’ and she was moved by the suffering of Christ. She noted that she was first touched by God when she heard a choir sing hymns in a village square and later had a moving spiritual experience in the Basilica of Saint Maria of the Angels in Assisi, where St Francis also had prayed. “When Hitler’s armies rolled into France in June 1940, she escaped to join the Free French in London, and there she died. She developed tuberculosis, which was complicated by malnourishment. In solidarity with her French nationals in occupied France she chose to eat the diet she presumed they were reduced to by the Nazis. Her literary legacy of her pilgrimage toward God and thinking was contained in scattered notes and journals. Weil concluded that two great forces ruled the universe: Gravity and Grace. Gravity causes one body to attract other bodies so that it continually enlarges by absorbing more and more of the universe into itself. Something like this same force operates in human beings, she said. We too want to expand, to acquire and to swell in significance. The desire to ‘be as gods’ after all led Adam and Eve to rebel. Emotionally, Weil, concluded, we humans operate by laws as fixed as Newton’s. Most of us remain trapped in the gravitational field of self-love and thus we ‘fill up all the fissures through which grace might pass.” [Philip Yancey, What’s so amazing about Grace? (1997) pp. 271f] Weil wrote, ‘All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception.’ Grace causes one body to love others and thereby enlarges others’ lives. Grace calls us to the field of service. About the same time Weil was writing another refugee from Nazi Germany, Karl Barth, made the comment that Jesus’ gift of forgiveness and grace, was to him more astonishing than Jesus’ miracles. Miracles broke the physical laws of the universe; forgiveness broke the moral rules. It is interesting to reflect, all so briefly, on two great influential persons, Barth and Weil: Weil the mystical Christian activist and French intellectual, and Barth the great German theologian of the 20th Century. For both, God’s Grace – the unconditional gift of love, forgiveness and acceptance of us – is revolutionary. Weil in her book, Gravity and Grace, compiled from her notes she had given to Gustavo Thibon, a French Catholic, articulates this struggle between Gravity’s pull of self-interest and Grace setting free the human spirit through the love and forgiveness of God. I was immediately reminded of Paul’s writing in Romans when I read about Simone Weil in Philip Yancey’s book, What’s so amazing about Grace? Paul in Romans chapters 7 and 8, speaks about the struggle between the life under the Law and life in the Spirit in chapter 8. Last week the sermon focussed on the revolutionary nature of God’s grace. Paul shows that it is through the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross that the power of sin is broken, and it is through the power of the Resurrection that we can enter the life in the Spirit. This is God’s gift to the world. It is a gracious gift that sets us free as forgiven people being restored in God’s image. I think it might be helpful to see our lives as being like a mirror. A mirror reflects light. Likewise our lives reflect what we value most and what or whom we worship. The light of our worship leaks through the cracks in the way we live life. By the cracks in our life I mean the habitual way of social intercourse. The way we communicate with each other has patterns that we have learnt from our families and they from the culture. Our macro and micro cultures help us relate to each other. Customs and habits underpin our behaviour and relationships. But what leaks through the cracks of our way of relating are the very values and things we worship. That leakage reflects what is our treasure. If ‘the self’ is our treasure we will reflect that. If God is our treasure we will reflect that too. Just in the little things we say or do our values and beliefs emerge. So the thought that our lives could be pulled by the gravitational forces of acquisition, self-interest and the importance of who we are is very real. In fact we identify with Paul’s words of being pulled by forces by which we don’t want to be pulled. Grace helps us counter the gravitational pull of the self. But the occasional experience of Grace is not sufficient. We need to nurture Grace in our lives. We need to let it grow. Jesus’ image of God’s gracious word being like the seed sown and how it grows well in some conditions and is stifled in others conditions is relevant. The parable of

God Punishes Sin not the Sinner! Romans 7:15-8:4; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 Whose place did Jesus take on the Cross: Gods or ours? I came back from my study week quite stimulated. Amongst other reading I read N T Wright’s, 400pp The Day the Revolution Began. The subtitle of Wright’s book is ‘Reconsidering the meaning of Jesus’ Crucifixion’. By reading I mean studying. I took notes, reflected and cross-referenced the book. Much of what Wright was saying I had picked up over the years, but Wright put the jigsaw pieces together and presented a powerful picture which was so helpful. The Easter event, I mean the Crucifixion and Resurrection, is not easily understood, but the Easter event revolutionised the followers of Jesus. That’s why it is so important. Those first followers didn’t feel that Jesus was just another way to understand life and God. It wasn’t the friendship and fellowship of the church that mattered. Neither was it the ethical standard of loving your neighbour with selfless love. It was a revolution. They realised that this Jesus of Nazareth had dealt the Roman Empire a mortal blow. The Cross of Jesus had destroyed the power of sin. If these seem absurd statements then remember the powerful political and military forces of Rome finally dissipated, but Christ’s influence and self-giving love grew and spread in the hearts and minds of an ever-growing number of influential people. Yes, we Christians behave badly at times when we forget our Lord and look elsewhere, but the Holy Spirit brings the transforming love of Christ to the surface from time to time. When that happens the revolutionary love of God in Christ transforms and empowers. I believe we need to put ourselves in the place where God can begin to work afresh with us. We might do that by understanding afresh the Cross of Jesus. I turned to the Lectionary readings for this Sunday. The Matthew reading described people in the shopping centre who heard the music but couldn’t dance to it, and who were unable to see the needs of others. Jesus says, “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ I wondered what has changed. We are still busy feeding our enslavement to capitalism and other isms. We use the panacea of ‘retail therapy’ to dull the pains of life. In the background then and now is the invitation of Jesus to share our burdens and give us a real purpose for living. 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; says Jesus. But we ignore the offer. If our first reading reminds us of our superficiality and inability to understand like those in Jesus’ day, the second reading from Romans tells us how God dealt with Sin. We would say that we know how God deals with sin. Jesus died for our sins. Jesus paid the price and took our place. We deserved the punishment, but Jesus took our place. We call that the substitutionary theory of atonement. And the result is that we, if we accept Jesus, will go to heaven? Right? … No! Wrong! Those who have followed my preaching know that salvation is not about going to heaven, but being set free to live out the Kingdom of God in this world? And this notion that Jesus died in our place is not what the Bible is saying. Jesus was not our substitute. It’s not what Paul is saying in Romans 7 and 8 where we read; Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! There is … no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. … For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin … . [Rom 7:25; 8:1, 3] There are texts like Mark 10:45 that speak of Jesus being a ransom and Romans 3: 25 that speak of Jesus as a sacrificial atonement. But we are never told to whom the ransom is paid; and the Biblical writers don’t spell out how Jesus is an atonement for our sins. They just make statements like that. It is true that Jesus died ‘for us’, but ‘dying for us’ does not mean that Jesus died ‘in our place’. Neither does the notion that Jesus died ‘for us’ mean that Jesus took our punishment to satisfy an angry God. If you are saying that God needed to punish the sinner then you are talking about ‘a god’ who is angry and desires to punish the wrong doer. There are big problems with such a view. We end up with an angry God who believes in punitive justice and who is willing to place a substitute for us just to satisfy some concept of justice. Such logic flies in the face of the Bible. The Bible presents God as patient, merciful and loving. So what does it say? Let us go back to Romans and let me add a few words that I left out. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! There is … no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. … For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. [Rom 8:3] God does not condemn Jesus but condemns Sin. Paul uses a phrase ‘sinful flesh’. The Greek word for flesh is best translated as humanity. But Paul talks about ‘sinful flesh’ a number of times in his writings. In these instances ‘sinful flesh’ means that sin has mingled with our humanity to form a

Salvation by Faith. Romans 3: 21-26; Ephesians 2: 1-10; Matthew 9: 20-22 There is no ticket to heaven and no heaven bound train. I guess most of us are going to a medical practitioner on a regular basis, even if it is only to get an annual check up.  Our health is important. We know it is. Certainly we hear about it a lot. The good thing today is that our health is looked at from many perspectives  – diet, attitude and exercise matter.  I see that the MindBodySpirit Festival is claimed to be Australia’s largest health and wellbeing event. Our health is important and we do take a holistic approach to it. Though today the term ‘spirit’ tends to exclude the notion of religion. The woman who touched the hem of Jesus’s outer garment was healed of the issue of blood. She had said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” [Mt 9:21] Jesus turned to her and said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And she was saved. Oops, I mean made well.  Well, no, she was saved. If we were reading this passage in Greek we would have come across the Greek word sōzō, which means to save, to keep safe and sound and to rescue. Throughout this passage about this woman the verb, ‘to save’ sōzō, is used. The word, ‘save’ has at its root meaning safety and healthiness.  This may help our understanding of the noun salvation. You may recall decades back salvation was spoken about more often than today. We were even asked question like, “Are you saved?”  Or, “When were you saved?” This question wanted to know whether one was a Christian and when one accepted Jesus as their saviour? I think I would have been more comfortable with these questions if they had said, “Are you in good health with God, and living a godly life?” The Bible talks a lot about God saving us. In Ephesians 2:8 we are told that by grace we (you) have been saved through faith, and this is not (y)our own doing; it is the gift of God. Another word used to describe our good health with God is justification. God has justified us and made us right with him. In Romans 3: 22 we read that the righteousness of God through faith of Jesus Christ is for all who believe. Salvation is important because it concerns your total wellbeing – our health. Salvation is not a passport to heaven, but a passcode to enter life.   We need a lot of passcodes today. We use them to unlock, enter and benefit from our bank accounts, credit cards, buildings, and our devices. Passcodes keep us safe and protected.  Passcodes are for everyday and anytime.  Passports are for occasional use. We treat our salvation like a passport.  It is not surprising because preachers of the Gospel told us we wouldn’t go to heaven unless we accepted Jesus as our Saviour. Salvation was presented as made ready to go to heaven one day. The concept of going on a train to heaven produced a number of Negro spiritual songs about the heaven bound train. Larry Norman’s arrangement of an old Negro spiritual goes like this. Lord, if I got my ticket, can I ride? Lord, if I got my ticket, can I ride? Lord, if I got my ticket, can I ride? Up to Heaven on that morning. I hear a lot of talk about a Gospel train Better be ready ’cause He’s on His way Be down at the station, right on time If you not ready, you’ll be left behind. The bad news is that you don’t need a ticket because there isn’t a heaven bound train. This thinking coincided with a widespread notion that we need to escape this sinful world.  I guess the advent of the train seemed miraculous, and that would have fed the notion. This notion that we go to heaven when we die to escape this world is so un-Biblical.  From the Old Testament to the New Testament the prevailing view is that God will restore this earth. So we are called by Christ Jesus to live out the heavenly life on earth in the power of his name and the help of the Holy Spirit. Jesus gave us this understanding in that wonderful prayer he gave to his disciples.  Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven … . Amen. Heaven directs our heavenly life on earth.  The Lord’s Prayer, as we call it, has nothing to do with us escaping this world and heading for heaven, but rather we do God’s will on earth so that the Kingdom may come. The book of Revelation is not the only Biblical writing that speaks of heaven coming to earth. Salvation is about our wellbeing and our living well with each other through Jesus Christ and because of Jesus Christ and for God and God’s world. Salvation is about our wellbeing. When we turn to Christ Jesus and accept him as our Lord and Saviour we commence a journey of wellness. The woman who touched the hem of his garment became well and so will we.  The woman went away with her faith affirmed and joyful.  The first Christians were known for their joy. Joy is something deep inside.  Joy is that sense of deep wellness within us. The healing begins in our inner being. Wellness is expressed and stimulated by a thankful spirit. We are saved to a life of thankfulness and joy, because we are connected to our Maker through Christ Jesus. I would encourage you to say thank you to God as often as you can. The first thing I say when I wake up each day, regardless of how I feel, is ‘thank you God’.  There is so much to be thankful for. Salvation is

Winning with Love: The. Rev 5 Revelation 12: 7-11; (5: 1 – 10);  Ephesians 6: 10 – 18 How does love defeat evil?  I was 27 at the time. I had just completed six years of probation and it was my first year after ordination. I walked across the lawn with a devout Christian. He was speaking about how the devil had got into him.  I was struggling with what to say to him. I knew what he said, was wrong, but I wasn’t exactly sure what it was. I didn’t believe the devil made us do things. Not sure that I do now. It was an interesting statement. At the time I heard it as a cop out. I was thinking don’t blame the devil for what you do. Take responsibility. I might have even tentatively said something to that effect. However it was one of those moments that has stuck in my memory. Then I believed very much in the strength of the individual. Today I recognise that sin has the power to grab hold of us and mould us to the point we’re controlled by it. In Biblical times they labeled that as demon possession. The demon has possessed you.  We may scoff at such thinking. However on reflection we often speak of the demon of alcohol or drug addiction. What the ‘demon’ does is control and direct our actions. That is what the demonic means. – something is controlling us. In the light of this truth it is interesting how humans create things that in time come to control them.  A benign example is the motorcar. Yes, the motorcar. We developed the horseless carriage – the motorcar. It was wonderful. Henry Ford made it possible for the average person to have a motorcar. The motorcar increased our freedom. Before long this wonderful instrument of transport became the designer and director of our houses. Housing and suburbs were now designed around the motorcar. The motorcar in countries like Australia became a very important liberating influence in our lives. It changed the landscape of the city and town. Note how in our time we have moved from the single car property design to the double car property design. The garage has moved to the front of the home.  It has so determined our life style that we play catch up with our public transport.  The motorcar is a benign example of how what we develop begins to control our lives. Ironically what we possess can end up possessing us. Let’s move to some more devilish things. Let’s consider how apparently harmless ideas, but inherently flawed, have destroyed lives physically, psychologically and socially. Think of Australia’s white assimilation policy that tore apart the lives of the Aboriginal community. Think of the reasonableness of white South Africa’s separate development policy for the races that led to torture, unjust imprisonment and high infant mortality rates. Think of Germany’s national socialism that reached fever pitch in the final months of the war to exterminate as many Jews as possible before Allied forces took over. Now reflect on the good people of those nations and how they were sucked into that way of thinking. How they seemed powerless to stop the madness. In fact by their action or inaction they made it happen. Yes, the lack of witness to the truth – their silence – helped make these demonic systems work.  There are forces that press upon us today. I have identified only a few examples from the benign and helpful motorcar to the fear and prejudice driven policies that have caused untold harm.  I say to you don’t scoff at the Biblical writers’ thoughts on the demonic powers.  That is exactly what evil wants you to think. Listen to what Paul and John of Patmos say. Paul, in Ephesians, says that we’re up against spiritual powers and great forces. He writes in Page ! of ! 1 3 Ephesians 6:12 that our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.   The book of Revelation paints these surrealistic pictures of dragons, beasts and forces of nature that conspire against us. Yet if we look and listen to our world today we are faced with beastly, dragonish evil forces, which seem beyond our powers to stop. There is the mad mindlessness of ISIS; the rampant fear of millions of displaced peoples taking over our space; and, the oppressive market forces that exclude good hardworking people from the housing markets in Melbourne and Sydney.  Albert Einstein made a relevant and insightful observation when he said; It is easier to denature plutonium than denature the evil spirit of humanity. His statement tells us that he recognised the forces of the human spirit. Walk into some institutions and you sense a good spirit, and in others you sense a dark spirit. The point I am making is that we humans are not the free agents we think we are. We are caught up in systems and ideologies that rob us of the freedom that God wants us to have. How can we become free from such forces? Even the force of capitalism, which is not as bad as other forces, tends to control us John of Patmos’ surrealistic pictures of the struggle between good and evil provide the answer.  To break the force of the demonic powers and spirits we must hold firm to what is true, proclaim it and be prepared to pay the price of standing against the tide. The Wilberforces, the Nightingales, the Mother Theresas, Bonhoeffers, Mahatma Ghandies and lesser known characters have paid the price of making this a better world.  John of Patmos reminds God’s people of the strength they have.  He says that the demonic power of evil has been destroyed.  This is what he says.  But they have conquered him (Satan) by the