Sermons

A Gift Received: A Gift Given to receive God’s gift is to pass on God’s gift 1 Samuel 1: 1a, 2 – 28. God’s gifts are to be passed on. They are to be shared until others have as much of the gift as we do. They may even have more of God’s gifts than us in the end. This is completely opposite to what we commonly understand about gift giving. You give me a gift and it is mine to do what I wish with it. What is given to me is mine. I might let you share it, but it is to come back to me. The gift received is a gift possessed.  A child loves to receive a gift. They reflect our natural instinct. ‘What is mine is mine’, they say.  Nevertheless we encourage them to share.  We encourage them to give. When we analyse our gift giving we realise that it comes very close to being an exchange of similar priced goods. When we receive a gift we feel obliged to return a gift.  But it is not the same gift. It is same only in proportion to the one received. A larger gift might embarrass our friend. This gift-giving thing is problematic. It’s not wrong,  just problematic. We find it hard to accept another’s gift without wanting to do something in return. So on the one hand we treat gifts as ours to keep and do what we like with it, and on the other hand, we find it hard to receive a gift.  The subtle and fundamental difference is that God gives us gifts that we cannot reciprocate with any equality. All God asks of us is to pass the gift on. God wants us to receive the gift and give the gift to others that they might benefit from it as well.  As much as our wisdom indicates that it is better to give than receive, we are very good at ensuring others don’t just give but receive back as well. I wonder if we don’t need to learn a little more about just receiving gifts?  But let us press the pause button on these musings and turn to our story. She left him there for the LORD. [1 Sam 1: 28]  How moving is that? She, Hannah, left him there for the LORD.  Yes, it is Hannah who leaves her newly weaned child in the sanctuary with Eli the priest. This is Hannah’s first born. This is Hannah’s first child after years of being childless.  God’s gift to her of a child she gives back to God.  Of course she had promised that. She is keeping her side of the bargain. This must astound us. Would we do that? Let’s us remind ourselves of the story again. Hannah is one of two wives of Elkanah. She is much loved by Elkanah, but is childless. Now for a woman to be childless in those days was a great shame. It lowered her status. A woman in our Western world up until the 19th Century would have had a diminished status outside her father’s or husband’s status and the children she bore. Certainly for the landowners having a son was essential, otherwise the property would go outside the family. How much more in ancient times, as in some parts of the world right now, did a woman’s status depend on her being married with children? Hannah is childless. Naturally the ancient text blames her – the Lord has closed her womb [v.6]. They knew nothing about the importance of the sperm’s motility or the timing of impregnation.  It was not a man’s fault but a woman’s fault that she was barren. But the story has a certain charm. Elkanah says to his disappointed and saddened Hannah, “am I not more to you than ten sons?” [v.8] Elkanah loves Hannah as his double portion given to her to sacrifice at the Shiloh sanctuary indicates.  Hannah does not lack her husband’s affection. She lacks the one thing that gives her status and dignity – a child and in particular a son.  As a childless wife she has little worth in the eyes of her society. Hannah carries her suffering to God. She bargains with God. ‘Please give me a son and I will dedicate him solely to you’, she bargains with God. [v.11] This bargaining with God is not uncommon in the Bible. We find Jacob, Abraham and Moses bargaining with God. It is not uncommon with us. Who of us has not asked for something and offered something in return to God. We’ve used the language of ‘if you give me this I will do that’.  Bargaining with God is neither right nor wrong. It is part of the spiritual journey with God. It reflects our desperation and helplessness in the face of great adversity. It reflects the graciousness of God who journeys with us, leading us into God’s future.  To bargain with God is not the problem. The problem lies with our integrity with which we approach such bargaining. The wrestling with God is a legitimate part of the spiritual life. The wrestling and the argument with God is what helps us grow in our understanding of self and God. The problem with our wrestling with God is that we are so one sided in how we see things, and so unclear about the nature of God. By all means wrestle with God, but don’t rush to conclusions. Take time to take counsel with those who have gone before you. Take Hannah’s example. She enters the sanctuary. She did not absent herself. She knelt and prayed. Her prayers were formed out of her deep pain, embarrassment and sense of loss. She was a loved woman, but in the eyes of her society she was worthless – a barren woman. She couldn’t really articulate her prayers. We never can when we pray out of deep despair.  So she moves her mouth but the words

The Urgency. 2 Kings 5: 1 – 14;  Luke 10: 1 – 20 A father tells the story of how his teenage son had become seriously ill. For weeks he had been going to doctors and a specialist, all of whom had been puzzled by his symptoms. Finally he is recommended to senior specialist who put an end to the speculation. ‘Take him to the hospital at once,’ he said. ‘We’ll operate tomorrow.’ The specialist had discovered a brain tumour, which was removed with great skill and without lasting damage. Had they waited much longer it might have been too late. Something of that mood hangs over Jesus’ sending out on a mission 35 pairs of disciples. The sense of urgency bleeds through the sentences.  Talk of a plentiful harvest and a few workers heightens the urgency to gather the harvest in before it is to late. The imagery of lambs and wolves conveys the potential danger. The travelling light and the purposeful journey suggests there is no time to waste. The simple and decisive instructions to stay in one house instead of wasting time changing hosts leaves little doubt that the mission must be undertaken effectively and efficiently. The situation for the people is filled with risk. The warning is dire. This passage percolates with urgency.  Jesus has instructed his disciples to give the message and the warning so that people can be saved from a terrible disaster. We will no doubt feel uncomfortable with this passage. The lectionary editors left out the uncomfortable verses 12 – 15 about judgement. It is not surprising.  The lectionary editors do that kind of thing. I think they are motivated by a desire to domesticate the Bible. They like to portray the picture of a ‘loving God’. It is not the first time I have come across the lectionary editors sanitising the Scriptures – leaving out the hard bits. This is one of the reasons why I sit loosely with the lectionary. I think the lectionary editors left out the verses about judgement because they believed people shouldn’t be frightened into following Jesus.  I contend that they have missed the point of this passage. What is Jesus thinking about when he says to the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum that unless they change their ways they will suffer? Generally speaking Jesus doesn’t frighten people into following him. Mostly we see Jesus gently confronting, firmly shepherding, lovingly listening and pastorally responding to us at our point of need. So what is this bit about judgement and its frightening warning? To understand this account of the mission of the 70 disciples we need to rewind the story. Jesus came at a time when the people of Galilee and Judaea were looking for God’s Christ. They assumed that the Christ would be a great military king like King David, who would bring justice. They wanted the justice that would right the wrong and let the Jewish people rule themselves. Not surprisingly there were people who claimed to be the Christ – God’s king who precisely followed the script of military revolt.  However Jesus comes as God’s King and is a different kind of King. He comes and includes the Samaritans using a Samaritan traveller as the example of God’s most important law – ‘love your neighbour / enemy’.  Jesus comes to Jerusalem riding on a donkey, the symbol of peace, not a warhorse.  Jesus comes and dies sacrificially for the people.  This is the type of king Jesus is. He is totally counter to the general view that God’s king would be a military commander. Now just before Jesus sent out 35 pairs of disciples Jesus had asked his disciples who he was. He was near Caesarea Philippi [Mk 8: 22-31]. [Look at a map of Galilee] Now Caesarea Philippi was about 30 kms from the three small towns of Capernaum, Bethsaida and Chorazin that nestled at the northern end of Lake Galilee. Mark tells us that Jesus ministered in this area.  Jesus knew that his fellow Jews were restless and agitating for a revolution against the Romans. They wanted to correct Samaritans beliefs about God. They wanted punitive justice. They wanted to punish the Samarians for the wrong way they worshipped God and to throw out the Romans. They didn’t want peace – they wanted justice and believed military force would provide it. This wasn’t Jesus’ way. Where they wanted justice to get peace, Jesus said peace gets true justice. Jesus could see that a military uprising against Rome would not work.  Jesus knew that any uprising against the Romans would be ultimately brutally stopped. Jesus’ comment about ‘fire coming down from heaven’ is not meant to be taken literally but as a metaphor as to what would happen. Indeed some 35 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus there was a significant uprising in 66 – 73 CE/AD. Initially it was quite successful.  The Jewish rebel forces crushed the Roman Syrian army and massacred 6000 Romans. This shocked the Roman leadership, who sent in Vespasian with four legions and auxiliary troops. They crushed the rebels in Galilee – that’s where Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum were – and destroyed Jerusalem and theTemple.  The most reasonable interpretation of the 70 missioners in Galilee was this deep and urgent concern of Jesus regarding the possible outcome of military revolt. Yes, they were proclaiming that the Messiah had come, but they were also showing a new way of being faithful to God. Hence his disciples were to go with a message of peace. Jesus’ foresight was justified as history proved. So the urgency and the imagery of judgement is not about getting people into heaven, but about getting people to see that God’s way brings a lasting peace for all. As I have repeatedly said, Jesus’ peace brings true justice. By the year 316 CE the Roman Empire took Christianity as its main religion. It was a battle that Christians won not by military

The Joy of Persecution. Amos 5: 21 – 24; Matthew 5: 1 – 14;   The 8th beatitude speaks of the blessedness or joy of being persecuted.  “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” It seems bizarre to speak of persecution, people reviling you and uttering all kinds of evil, as a reason to be joyful.   The questions I pose today are: Have Christians been persecuted? Why will we be persecuted? Why should we be joyful when persecuted?  Have Christians been persecuted? We have all heard stories about Christians being persecuted by the Romans. The Roman Emperor Nero was the worst. He hanged Christians on posts, covered them in tar and then lit them using them as human torches. Then there are the stories of Christians being thrown to the lions. However the persecution of Christians in the first few centuries was not constant and they enjoyed relative peace. We should also note that the Jerusalem Jews persecuted Christians as well. When Christianity became an official religion of the Roman Empire Roman persecution ceased, but not persecution in general. Down through the centuries the Church has been persecuted. After the Roman Empire ended there were many persecutions of Christian in Persia and the Middle East. And there were persecutions or wars between Western and Eastern Christians.  Let me take a few notable moments in history that will illustrate the extent of persecution. The French revolution in 1789 led to the de-Christianisation of France.  Clergy were deported and those who refused deportation were killed. The property of the Church was taken and desecrated. It was a battle between the Cult of Reason, the new ideology of the French Revolutionaries, and the Cult of the Supreme Being, Christianity.  The persecution of the Church eventually ceased in France, but I put to you that the Cult of Reason still is the enemy of the church resulting these days in ridicule and marginalisation rather than martyrdom. In China during the 17th Century,  Christianity was banned for a century. It led to the martyrdom of many Chinese Christians.  During the 1600s Christians fought Christians. And Christians sometimes persecuted minority religious groups.  During the 1600s Japan’s new leadership banned the Church and persecuted Christians. In 1828-61 Madagascar prohibited the practice of Christianity and Christians were killed if they refused to recant. When the Bolsheviks took power in Russia in 1917 the Russian Orthodox Church’s influence was attacked resulting in the public execution of clergy and extensive re-education programmes for Christians. In 1917 the Mexican Revolution resulted in the Catholic Church’s religious orders being outlawed, worship outside of church buildings banned and the Church’s right to own property restricted. Pope Benedictus XVI stated that Christians are the most persecuted group in the world today. Today much of the persecution of the Church is taking place in Muslim countries. However we should understand that this might be due to the perception that Christianity is a Western religion and the persecution is an attack on Western culture. Why will we be persecuted? My brief survey of the persecution of the Church illustrates that Christians have always suffered a degree of persecution for their faith.  What is it in the Christian faith that makes people attack it? Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake”.   Jesus is saying that it is the righteousness of the Christian church that makes it vulnerable to attack. He is also saying that righteousness is the only legitimate ground for describing an attack on us as persecution with its resulting blessedness. What is Jesus getting at? We tend to take righteousness to mean someone who is holy – morally good. NO!  In the Bible righteousness describes the relationship we have with God and God’s world. Righteousness describes the way we live our lives by loving our neighbour and being just. We should never confuse ‘loving our neighbour’ with liking our neighbour. We may like them but remember for Jesus our neighbour is the person we don’t know who may be of another religion or culture or race. Loving our neighbour wants our neighbour to have justice.  Now, the Greek and Hebrew words for righteousness are the same words that translate into English as ‘justice’. Let us consider two examples where righteousness means a right relationship with God and also justice. Remember a right relationship with God always includes a right relationship with others and creation.  Our reading from Amos of chapter 5 verse 24 reads: But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream. Here we have our English concepts of justice and righteousness linked together in one sentence. They are also linked by the image of water. Justice is expected to roll down with the power of water and our relationship like the constancy of a life-giving stream. They are two beautiful water images: justice is a powerful force like rolling water; and the righteousness a gentle healing relationship like a constant stream of refreshing water.  We may see them as distinct but they were seen by the Hebrew mind as inextricably linked because the same word in Hebrew can be translated as just or righteous as we find in Nehemiah chapter 9 verses 8 and 33 respectively, where the same Hebrew word is used but is translated in verse 8 as righteous and in verse 33 as just. The same word is used to describe God as righteous and just. So Jesus is saying we will be persecuted because of righteousness. That is, we will be persecuted because we follow God, love our neighbour and this world and we stand for justice. Why should Christians not be surprised

The Promises of Baptism. Matthew 3: 1 – 15;  Romans 6: 1 – 11 Christ Jesus commanded his disciples to follow two rituals – Holy Communion and Baptism. Baptism is important but often neglected and misunderstood. Let us reflect on it a while. It might be good to begin with the story of a pastor baptising in the river one Sunday afternoon. A drunk happened to stumble upon the baptismal service. The drunk walked right down into the water and stood next to the Preacher. The minister turned and noticed the old drunk and said, “Mister, Are you ready to find Jesus?” The drunk looked back and said, “Yes, Preacher. I am.” The minister then dunked the fellow under the water and pulled him right back up. “Have you found Jesus?” the preacher asked. “No, I haven’t!” said the drunk. The preacher then dunked him under for a bit longer, brought him up and said, “Now, brother, have you found Jesus?” “No, I haven’t Preacher.” The preacher in disgust held the man under for at least 30 seconds this time, brought him out of the water and said in a harsh tone, “Friend, are you sure you haven’t found Jesus yet?” The old drunk wiped his eyes gasping for breath and said to the preacher; “No preacher, are you sure this is where he fell in?” Baptism isn’t where you find Jesus; it is where Jesus finds you. Baptism is what we do when Jesus has found us. Baptism happens when God has knocked on the door of our life, so to speak, and we have opened that door to God. Baptism acknowledges that we are followers of Christ and are beginning a transformed life with Jesus. Some questions might help us understand what has taken place this morning.  Why was John baptising? Why was Jesus baptised? Why do we baptise infants? What happens in baptism? Why was John baptising? John and his disciples didn’t happen upon the idea of baptism while swimming in the river Jordan on a hot day. Baptism was already around. It was practised as a symbolic act of a new life.  The water was symbolic of cleansing and washing the old life away.  Water refreshes and renews us and so it had that meaning as well. So baptism signaled a new person, a new name and a new identity. By the way in baptism the water was either poured over you or you were immersed in the water. John takes baptism and morphs it into something slightly different. He wasn’t calling people into a new faith. He was calling people to turn from their apathy, selfish life and their indifference of God’s ways to a new commitment to live a godly life.  It was a baptism of repentance. Repentance means turn-around and face the right direction.  So John’s baptism was an act of humility, commitment and identification with the coming Christ / Messiah. Why was Jesus baptised?  Jesus and John were cousins. John preached about the Christ coming – God’s anointed. John was challenging people to prepare themselves for the Christ. Then Jesus comes along and says I want to be baptised. John says to Jesus it wasn’t necessary for him to be baptised. John recognised that his cousin, Jesus, was already special. What he understood we aren’t told. But he must have thought that Jesus was ready for the Christ, or that he was the Christ. John wouldn’t have been sure, but he was sure that Jesus didn’t need to be baptised. But Jesus wanted baptism. So John baptised Jesus. We can only conclude that Jesus came to be baptised, because he wanted to humble himself before God the Father, signal his commitment and obedience, and affirm his identification as the Christ for us. Baptism became the ritual that publicly marked the life of a person who had humbled themselves before God, made a commitment to follow the Christ and took on the identity of a Christian.   It was a ceremony that God had found them and they had responded to God. Why do we baptise infants? It is a fact of life that children copy their parents, borrow their values and behave like them. At some point all parents have heard their children play games and stopped to listen with amusement and a little embarrassment. Why? Because they hear themselves.  Sometimes it will be amusing and other times embarrassing. And we know that we have a little of our parents in us. There are periods of our lives when we furiously deny we are like our parents. We even work hard not to be like them, but there is always a little bit of them – their beliefs, values, mannerisms and behaviours  – in us. Zoe is part of you. She will share your values and beliefs. At first she will just copy you and then she will tweak them. So right now Zoe is your child in a very profound and deep sense. She is dependent upon you to mirror the way of being human in this world. She is your child and she is part of all that you hold dear, love and cherish in life. So she is a Christian-child. She is not a child of a non-believer or a child of some other religion. She is your child. She shares your values and beliefs and will borrow your ways of doing things.  This is why Paul could write to the Corinthian church about marriages between Christians and pagans and says that their children are holy through the faith of one or both parents [1 Cor 7: 14]. From the beginning the disciples baptised family units. Children and servants were baptised with the key family adults when they became Christians. The story of Cornelius the Roman officer, who summons Peter to explain who Jesus is, illustrates the point. Cornelius and his household were baptised [Acts 10: 47,48]. The Church has been baptising children and infants from the earliest times