Hope: the Oxygen of a Meaningful Life. Isaiah 64: 1-9;  Mark 13: 24 – 27 Is gravity pu? Today marks the end of the first week in Advent. Advent marks the coming of Christ Jesus to earth to live amongst us and reveal more clearly the nature and intention of God. Advent also reminds us that we live in expectation of Christ’s return and the fulfilment of God’s Kingdom. These subjects contain the themes of expectation and hope.  Emil Brunner wrote:  ‘What oxygen is to the lungs, such is hope for the meaning of life.’ From times of old, people longed for, hoped for, and expected God to right the wrongs and bring peace. That longing, hope and expectation is as real and relevant today as it was yesterday.  We still have our troubles, our suffering and political turmoil. Injustices, abuse and exploitation remain.  We face our personal struggles and suffering. What sustains us is our hope. Our hope will be grounded in people, systems and of course God. Without hope our energy is sapped and motivation drained. We enter despair.  Without hope there is only death of the spirit and life.  It is hope they keeps us alive and keeps us expecting and working towards a better world. Oscar Hammerstein’s (II) said: ‘I know the world is filled with troubles and many injustices. But reality is as beautiful as it is ugly. I think it is just as important to sing about beautiful mornings, as it is to talk about slums. I just couldn’t write anything without hope in it.’ Our Scripture readings speak of the hope that preceded the coming of Christ Jesus. The prophet Isaiah lived through the times when Israel had returned from Exile, but the hopes of re-building the Temple and re-establishing the nation were not completed. There was a sense of despair. Where is God?  That is the question that lies behind our Isaiah reading.  What kept their spirits alive is the memory of the great deeds of God.  So the prophet asks the peoples’ question;  ‘Why don’t you do it again?’  The prophet’s answer is revealing and insightful:  no one has ever seen or heard of a God like you, who does such deeds for those who put their hope in him. You welcome those who find joy in doing what is right, those who remember how you want them to live. [Is 64:4ff]  What the prophet rightly observes is that God will act in conjunction with our faith and obedience.  God welcomes those who find joy in doing what is right.  God will not answer our needs without our cooperation for that merely turns God into a false insurance against trouble – usually the trouble we have caused. God gives us freedom and dignity by working with us rather than working for us. This is the spiritual lesson we must learn: God calls us into a partnership. God will bring about redemption and renewal, healing and restoration in our lives in conjunction with our faith.  I’m reminded of those five young maidens who ran out of oil for their lamps and found themselves shut out of the wedding feast. They had failed to do their bit. They were the type of person who expects God to do things for them when they’re in trouble, rather that working with God through the trouble. Our suffering can lead us to the question: ‘Where is God?’  That cry is often being uttered. Elie Wiesel writes about the absence of God in her book, Night.  Wiesel describes the agony of the experience of God’s absence.  A child hangs from the gallows set up by the SS. Someone is heard to ask, ‘Where is God?’  ‘Where is He?’ The child struggles between life and death for more than half an hour, and the same person asks again, ‘Where is God now?’   Wiesel writes:  And I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is He? Here He is … He is hanging here on this gallows. [Wiesel pp.61-62] The true prophet does not offer slick answers. The true prophet lets the contradictions of life exist. The true prophet challenges facile explanations of faith and invites us to trust and cooperate with God. The second lesson is that hope and faith help us see God breaking into our lives in new ways that astound us. How excited those first disciples of Jesus must have been when they witnessed miracles and saw the crowds grow large? How dumfounded must those first disciples been when they witnessed the cruel death of their Lord at the hands of the authorities in collusion with Rome? How bemused they must have been when they witnessed the Resurrection? How amazed those first disciples must have been to witness the church emerge around the Roman Empire?  How incredible it would have been when later generations heard of the Emperor’s acknowledgement of Christ Jesus as Lord and in time the rise to power of the Church? But living through any one of these times in history required faith and hope followed by obedience to Christ Jesus. Here is a picture of a changed life set free.   In 79 AD, the city of Pompeii in southern Italy was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Less well known is another town, Herculaneum, which was also destroyed. This town was a popular first century resort until that day Mount Vesuvius exploded and buried it under sixty-five feet of solidified mud and lava. Excavations of Herculaneum have revealed a wealthy town and like all towns had smaller blocks of tenement houses for the workers. In one of the smaller houses in a back room was found a cross that appears to have been hidden.  There are three nail prints that suggest the cross was covered.  We also know that there were persecutions in Italy. It is probable that the people of this home held a house church here in this ordinary house.  It tells us a

Our Choices Unite or Disunite Us. 1 Thessalonians 5: 1 – 11;  Matthew 25: 31 – 46 If ‘decision’ was a theme of last week’s readings, this week’s readings speak of the crisis – the moment of the ultimate judgement.  A crisis demands decisions and the impending crisis requires preparation.  At least the thoughtful and the wise prepare for the crisis moment. Both our readings this Sunday speak of a time of judgement: a time when we will be called to account.  Paul writes to the Christians in Thessalonica and talks to them about the Day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord is traditionally understood as a time of judgement. Paul warns that it will suddenly appear ‘like a thief in the night.  Jesus too, speaks of the Day of the Lord when all the nations will be gathered.  Many things are written about the Day of Judgement.  I wish to make two points about the Day of Judgement.  Firstly, we cannot assume other than that there will be a time when we are assessed before God. To think that we can merrily live our lives as we wish and not be judged is to fool ourselves. To think we are held accountable for our lives is silly. And let us not conflate judgement with condemnation. The judgement, the assessment and the taking account, is nothing more than that. It is the conclusion of the assessment that is concerning. Secondly, I want to say that in another sense our lives are continuously being assessed. Every turning point in the journey of life, every event that requires response is a moment of crisis – it requires judgement.  Every time we make our decisions, whether big or small, we are assessed in one way or another. Even those decisions in the darkness of our personal space emerge in the light of our normal living in one way or another.  And that is the point of both readings. They both point to the fact that the way we live our lives is the most telling evidence of our faith and values.  This is a truth regardless of whether you believe in God or not. The way we live out our lives witnesses to what we ultimately value. It is so obvious. Observe another and you get a sense of their beliefs and values. It is quite clear that for some their family or children are the most important – actually for some family and children are more important than God. For others it is their personal enjoyments. For others it is concern for others. For others it is justice. And so it goes.  Our life-style, life choices and commitments all proclaim to others what ultimately we value and believe. Paul knew that God is just and therefore will judge us. Paul knew that God is holy and holiness will always cast light on the world revealing the dark shadows of our lives and uncovering the darkness in our lives. Paul wanted the Thessalonian Christians to be prepared.  For him that preparation is firstly awareness that the Christian is a child of light and must walk in that light. Secondly the Christian should not be surprised that there will be a judgement day. In fact the Christian should be expecting to be accountable. And thirdly, what seems critical to Paul is that Christians live supporting, encouraging and building each other up in the faith. “Encourage one another and build each other up”, he writes. [1 Thess 5:11] Paul knew the Jesus tradition recorded in Matthew’s account of the Gospel. Jesus warned his followers to expect his return but gave no date. They were to live expectantly of his return when justice would be done and this world brought to its fulfilment. It would be a time of crisis.  It would be a time of decision. That is a key point of the parable of the ten young women waiting with their lamps to escort the bridegroom to the wedding ceremony. Five we are told were prepared and five were not.  Their preparation and lack of it tells us something of their character and care for others. The five who asked the others for oil were unprepared. The door was not shut on them; they shut the door on themselves by carelessly not preparing for God’s future. We shut doors by our lack of care, by our lack of faith and our paucity of hope. For Christ Jesus, the deciding factor in determining who were faithful followers would be their love.  Love is the key to understanding the Christian Faith and the Jewish Faith. It is the hallmark of the Bible.  The way you show your love for God is in the way you love your neighbour. As the Epistle of John says, if you don’t love your neighbour then you don’t love God.  The sheep and goats are separated. That is the crisis of the Day of Judgment. We get so caught up in who the sheep and goats are. The point of the story is not the separation of sheep and goats suggesting that one animal type is better than another. The point is that these animals are metaphors for two types of human reaction to other humans.  One type of human is imbued with compassion. The other type is saturated with self-love.  Our destiny is shaped by our decisions. What we value determines what we become. The choices we make are vital to our well-being. We understand what loving our neighbour means. But we don’t talk much, if at all, about ‘building up each other’. This is a powerful theme of Paul’s. He sees that our survival rests on the strength of the Church community. It is together that we will survive the persecution. It is together that we will grow strong and prosper as a church. Christians need to encourage the growth of others. This is more than providing for Sunday School or attending Bible Studies. It is

Decisions Determine Destiny. Joshua 24: 1 – 3, 14 – 25;  Matthew 25: 1 – 13 We make decisions daily – some good, some ordinary and some bad. If we did an audit we would possibly find that the majority of our decisions have been good. By good I mean a decision that has led to your’s and your family’s, friends’ and community’s well-being. Decisions are part of life and some are vital to our well-being and to that of our loved ones’, their peace of mind and prosperity. We also know that we have to live with the consequences of our decisions. John C Maxwell said,  “Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.” Every time we ensure we are going to be on time for an appointment is a formation of whom we are becoming. Our choices shape us.  To put it another way it is one thing to want to do something, but you have to do it to do what you want to do.  Of course there are Alices in this world like the Alice in “Alice in Wonderland” who asked the Cat, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’  ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat. ‘I don’t much care where’ – said Alice – ‘so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation. ‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.”    Our choices are the hinges of our destiny. Humans intuitively know this. Joshua certainly did. When Joshua led the descendants of those people whom Moses led out of slavery, he knew that they needed to decide what they believed and whom they would follow.  Their world was filled with many gods that people followed. We’re not so different.  We do not call the things we value and adhere to ‘gods’ but their grip on our lives, their power to absorb our time and their control over our decisions make them to be like the ‘gods’.  Joshua wanted the people to have a clear direction. He didn’t want them to be ‘Alices’ wandering aimlessly or even foolishly like the maidens who took no spare oil for their lamps.  This story we read today of Joshua summoning the people offers us a six-step model for decision-making.  The first step that Joshua took was to present the issue they faced.  He summoned the leaders and the people who had come from Egypt under Moses and Miriam’s leadership. He gathered them together and presented the issue that they faced.  The issue for them was which god they would follow. The first step in any decision making process is to be clear about what the issue is. For them it was the values and belief that would direct their lives – their destiny. That question, ‘what values and beliefs direct our lives?’ is eternal and universal. It is the question upon which our life hinges. The second step in decision-making is to have information. Joshua provides a brief but comprehensive summary of God’s action.  God had called Abraham and Sarah to leave their homeland and follow. They came to know this ‘voice’ as God, the Lord of life.  Joshua tells the people how God had guided and helped Abraham and Sarah and blessed them. He relays the history of God’s rescuing, guiding and blessedness through the family line of Abraham and Sarah through Isaac, Jacob, Joseph through to Moses and the Exodus.  The third step in decision-making is considering the alternatives. Implicit in Joshua’s comments is the comparison of God’s rescuing and caring action with the selfish interest and limited horizon of local gods.  These gods demanded much but gave little or nothing back. Our decisions should always weigh the benefits and disadvantages of the choice before us. Today our choice about faith in God is heavily influenced by a view that religion is a private affair, a widespread disbelief in God and a skewed view of the value of Christianity. I suspect most people see little value in Christianity. This is due to an ignorance of what Christianity has done for us. It is Christianity that has given the western world its hospitals, education, social-network and democratic systems and values. It is Christianity that was in the vanguard of the abolishment of slavery.  Take for example our democratic system. The notion of justice, freedom and equality comes right out of the Bible. Those minds that formed the documents that underpin the democratic system in the English speaking world argued that God gives us freedom, wants justice and treats us as equals. The 17th Century writer John Locke is a major exponent for the theological underpinnings of our democratic system. The fourth step in decision-making is deciding.  We must decide one way or another. To not decide is a decision in itself. Indecision leads nowhere. Indecision will let life blow you this way and that, resulting in a sense of meaninglessness and at worst a despair that nothing matters. Such indecision sometimes results in endless activity. When Joshua indicated that he had chosen to follow God the people responded affirmatively. The people responded that they would not forsake the Lord to serve other gods.[Jos 3:16] The fifth step in decision-making is evaluation.  It takes place following the people saying ‘yes’ to Joshua’s leadership and example.  Joshua asks them to evaluate their decision. He asks them to consider their choice and what it means.  There are consequences to every decision. There are consequences to following God. So we have this exchange between Joshua and the people of challenge and affirmation.  We should not presume that this evaluation merely took place in a few seconds. It may have been days or months as the people weighed the information and responded with their allegiance to God. We too, must take time to evaluate our following of God.  Joshua’s call is not

Facing Life’s Challenges Joshua 3: 1 – 17;  Matthew 23: 1 – 12 Adversity is the friend that makes us strong and deepens our faith roots. The story of Joshua is worth noting.  I used it in ‘Children’s Time” last Sunday. Joshua led the people through the river Jordan into the Promised Land. At first the people were frightened by the new opportunity. They hesitated until Joshua, strengthened by God, led them into the Promised Land. The Ark of the Covenant, carried by four priests, led the way.  As the priests walked into the water the river ceased to flow. While the priests stood holding the Ark of the Covenant standing in the middle of the riverbed, the people of God walked across dry land into the Promise Land.   Now I am not going into whether it actually happened or not.  There is no evidence to either support or deny the Biblical story. However we can say with utter confidence that the people of God did not believe that they had entered into their future land in their own strength.  Their success depended upon God. They honoured God for God’s faithfulness. Now what struck me as I read this story again was verse 15.  They crossed the river when it was at its highest flow. We read, “Now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest”.  When I read this I saw a powerful spiritual truth in this story. God makes a difference for the good in our most difficult times. Rivers are always more difficult to cross when they are running full. The people of God had wandered for 40 years and more in the wilderness under Moses’ leadership. They had escaped slavery and become a people. They had developed religious practices that supported their belief in God.  God had supported them in difficult times. God had rescued them. God had guided them. They were given the Ark of the Covenant and the Ten Commandments to represent respectively the presence of God and a map for life . The truth here is that our great successes are due more to faith and intuition than to calculation and planning.  As much as it is important to reflect, plan and set goals – I do that a lot – it is also important to note that these exercises often prepare us for the surprises that expand our horizons. I once studied the scientific process of acquiring knowledge. The physical chemist, Michael Polyani, researched how scientific discoveries are made. Michael Polyani noted that some of the greatest advances in our scientific understanding came as a result of play and intuition. When Polyani asked Einstein how he arrived at the theory of relativity, he replied saying that he had being playing with the idea as a boy. Einstein came to Relativity through intuition rather than the scientific process. The scientific method was used to demonstrate the truth of intuited knowledge. What I am trying to demonstrate is that our scientific discoveries have as much to do with intuition and play as any other human processes.  In fact some of the great ideas emerge in our recreation.  They come like a light bulb experience: a little revelation:  similar to spiritual growth. Polyani makes nonsense of the simplistic conclusion that scientific discoveries all happen in the strict environment of the science laboratory.  The great ones are not.  We might say that the mind that allows the divine in life to speak uncovers the truth.  What may be significant here is that we are more open to God in times of deep need or when we are quietly at play relaxing and listening.  The busy person will seldom see the new. Graeme Clark, the founder of the bionic ear, spent years of research trying to develop a hearing aid for the deaf. He faced obstacles of a lack of funds and collegial disbelief that it could be done. A break through came when he was on beachside vacation. He was playing with a shell and then noticed the grass in the sand dune.  He conceptualised using the seashell to replicate the human cochlea and the grass blades, which were flexible at the tip and gradually increasing in stiffness, to represent the electrodes. The Christian faith’s expansion had more to do with divine intervention than human planning and effort. There was Peter resting on the rooftop when he sees a vision of all kinds of unclean foods place in a sheet before him. He is told to eat. Bemused he is roused from this vision to received a call to go to a Gentile house.  This began a new direction for the Church as it moved into the Gentile world. Those Jewish apostles soon learnt that God had accepted the Gentiles just as God had accepted the Jews. [Acts 10]  This was a revolutionary understanding for a Jew. This is why our planning and goal setting needs to be preceded by deep prayer. This is why our well laid plans and calculations are always subject to review. The story of the crossing of the river Jordan into an unknown world was a challenge. It was stressful. It was threatening. The river crossing alone would be frightening.  I want to suggest that adversity is not something we should avoid when it comes, but rather something we should approach with faith and courage. I want to suggest that the challenges of life can be see as trials God gives us to help us grow and deal with life’s troubles. I am not suggesting that they should be sought, but that when they come use them to let God grow you stronger. I see the need for something like the ‘assisted dying act’ that our State Parliament is considering. I also see it as a symptom of a people, religious and secular, who want to be rescued and saved from all life threatening situations, and when the going gets too tough (who discerns that) they

“He changed his mind and went.” Philippians 2: 1 – 13; Matthew 21: 23 – 32. Living our faith is more important than right doctrine. Yet living our faith must be in accordance with what is right. This tension between right belief and right living is universal. This is the tension between conservatism and liberalism; tradition and progress; and, Jesus and the religious leaders of his day. They held that certain practices were essential such as not working on the Sabbath and being ritually clean. One finds it hard to disagree until work is so meticulously defined that it becomes counter productive. Ritual cleanliness is so defined that it is life-denying. Jesus often fell foul of these rules. He touched lepers and that made him ritually unclean. He healed on the Sabbath and that was seen as work. All a bit ridiculous we might add. Anyway we aren’t like that! Really! It is interesting what matters to people regarding worship and music in congregations. I want to emphasise what I believe both Jesus and Paul are telling us about our unity, our fellowship, our ministry and our witness in this world. I am going to take a particular incident and offer an analysis that I hope shows that our unity and strength lies not in legalism but in love. And we may see a little of the muddiness of Christ’s way. The media reported this September the action of a minister who decided not to conduct the wedding of a young couple because the bride had affirmed same-sex marriage on her Facebook page. I think it was two weeks out from the marriage date. What we have is a minister who feels so strongly about something that he refuses to go through with a ceremony. Now I agree with this minister that he has a right to marry whom he wishes. I have refused to marry one or two couples because they would not meet my criteria. My criteria for conducting a wedding are: that it is a Christian wedding; that the couple take a short course to help them understand the complexity of the relationship they are entering into and that they meet the legal requirements of the land. But this is sorted long before any wedding date is finalised. We Christian shouldn’t tolerate anything. I argued that point last Sunday. But there are essential and non-essential beliefs. This minister obviously thinks same-sex marriage is so important that he would refuse to marry a couple once he had learned this fact. There are a number of issues here. If the minister requires the groom and bride to hold to certain beliefs and values before conducting the marriage he should have made that explicit at the first interview. Now I would stand with this minister if the bride had stated on her Facebook page her disbelief in Christ Jesus. I would have called that into question. Sometimes you have to make a stand at the last minute. I recall the groom who turned up to the rehearsal smelling of alcohol. I told them both, quietly, that if he turned up the next day smelling of alcohol I would refuse to conduct the marriage as I believe that marriage should be soberly entered into. My point was both ethical and legal. He complied. The other thing, and the thing that really concerns me, is how long is this minister’s list, or anyone else’s list, of core non-negotiable beliefs and values. The point I want to make is that when we define faith in legalistic terms we risk destroying what it most valuable. Legalism has the capacity to become life-denying. I just don’t think this minister’s refusal to marry the couple achieved anything really worthwhile. Another interesting point is comment by the Australian Christian Lobby’s director, Lyle Shelton, who said “clergy should always reserve the right not to marry people if they are concerned that they may not understand the true nature of marriage”. I agree, but then I have never met a couple who fully understood the true nature of marriage. Did you when you were married? I’m not sure I did when I got married. I think we only understand what marriage is when we have travelled down the road a good few years. There’s wisdom in Scripture. There’s wisdom at the heart of Scripture. Jesus sailed very close to the wind when it came to tradition. He attended a wedding, but we don’t know if this was the groom’s first or third wife he was marrying. We just assume it was his first and only wife he would ever have, unless death intervened. Jesus evidently accepted that, in his day, a man might have more than one wife. He never spoke against it. And Jesus did not follow the ritual cleansing practices of the day. He broke with traditions that were not life-giving. Paul in his letters to the Philippians stresses the importance of love and faith rather than legalistic beliefs and rules. Listen again to Paul and hear how doctrine and morality are delicately balanced. If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. [Phil 2:1-4] Paul knew, as Jesus did, that if we have a long list of non-negotiable rules and beliefs you end up painting yourselves into a corner. Legalism leads to exclusivism. More important to Paul is the unity of God’s people. In saying this I am immediately reminded of Jesus’ prayer recorded in John 17 where he prays for the unity of the Church and that they all may be one. Our focus passage from Philippians today is