SERMONS
21st February 2010 - Rev Gregory Job
THE CONFESSIONS OF THE MOUTH Jesus - "It is out of the abundance of heart that the mouth speaks" Luke 6:45
Two dejected assistants of Thomas Edison said: "We have completed our seven hundredth experiment and we still don't have the answer. We have failed." "No, my friends, you haven't failed" replied Mr Edison. "It's just that we know more about this subject than anyone else alive. And were closer to finding the answer, because now we know 700 things not to do. Don't call it a mistake. Call it an education." When faced with the negative confession of others, his mouth made a positive confession, and so success was around the corner.
Come to the time of Lent. A time of repentance (turning), reigning in the appetites, prayer & spiritual refreshment. Readings today challenge - What sort of confession are we making? What words are emanating from our lips? Are they words that build up or that bring down? Are they words that encourage and motivate? Or words that drain and sprain? Words of life or of daggers?
Jesus - "Out of the heart the mouth speaks" As we are so we speak We sometime struggle to make that positive confession.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning "The Soul's Expression"
With stammering lips and insufficient sound
I strive to deliver right
That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound...."
Encounter 3 different yet important confessions:
1. THE CONFESSION OF IDENTITY Deut.26:1-11
Unusual recital (confession) Jew - of who we are - "Ancestor (Abraham) a wandering Armenian lived in Egypt as an alien...the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction...delivered us & brought us into this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first fruits of the ground to you O Lord."
Then together with the priests and the aliens they would have a big party of celebration, with the bounty that God has provided. Movement from wanderings to settled living - producing harvest, thanking God, celebrating with family and new migrants. The poor were also catered for in this feast.
Complex world, not easy to speak with simple confession of who we are, and how we relate to our history and environment & community. Australian confession at this time - somewhat confused, as we struggle with identity. Often we hear negative confessions or we celebrate partially.
I heard recently Noel Pearson speaking his belief that if we are to further identify modern Australia, and change the system in any way we need to recognise both the heritage of the Aboriginal people and the heritage from the Britsh.
How do we celebrate positively, embracing God, the migrant and the poor and our families and our heritage? Celebration as portrayed in Deuteronomy are not an escape from life (such a great time I can't remember it), it is rather an embrace of life, to affirm your identity with God - when the first fruits of labours are given thanks for to God.
We can learn much from this confession? We cannot give young people all easy answers, but they need to know they are not driftwood that floated onto an Australian beach. So as Christian we have a confession to make that can embrace faith, history, natural world and blessings and a fair deal for all. Our confession could be along these lines: "Father God, we are your loved children. You have put us in a land of plenty with the opportunity to live as Christ, caring for creation, sharing with others. You have blessed us with family and community. We celebrate this life you have given us and those from all parts of the earth that share its community." A positive and embracing confession of identity can be made.
2. THE CONFESSION OF FAITH Rom10:4-13
Mere words can waffle. Peter Abelard 11th century ungraciously said of a respected teacher: "He had a remarkable command of words, but their meaning was worthless”
But some words are very powerful. Shakespeare - Hamlet “To be or not to be" Martin Luther King - "I have a dream"
Word of God is very powerful. "Word became flesh and dwelt among us" Powerful words today Romans 10 (v9) "if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." A believing heart and a confessing mouth – a life changing combination.
Baptism or Confirmation - "I turn to Christ" “I repent of my sins.” Such a confession of the lips and heart - brings salvation That confession "I turn to Christ" is not just a one day wonder. It is the ongoing expression of the believing heart. We can make it the central confession of our Lenten renewal.
3.THE CONFESSION OF WISDOM Luke 4:1-15
Jesus when tempted with complex temptations had a clarity and wisdom of thought, response and faith. Who wouldn't want bread in the desert? Who wouldn't want power and wealth without effort? Who wouldn't want to experience the protection of God?
Temptation is not dressed in a devils suit. No it is an attractive fruit, that seems good and desirable, but it is less than God's best. Jesus could see through the packaging of the temptation. He knew that for him the way of love and service would be hard and dusty. He knew that his life must go via the cross. There would be blessings and joys and celebrations. But the deserts of life are not traversed on froth and bubble. His assured and clear rebuttal of each temptation by a wise and clear confession, “One does not live by bread alone.” “Worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.” “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Even the tempter quoted scripture. Yet Jesus knew its deep wisdom. These wise confessions were like stepping stones out of the desert. Here is wisdom for the journey of faith.
A negative confession in the times of trial - usually means that we will stay in the desert longer. Like the people Moses lead. Their negative confession in the wilderness lead them to another trip around the mountain. Back over the same tired old ground, no progress. Most of them died in the wilderness never able to find the land flowing with milk and honey. The encouragement as we begin this season of Lent is to make a good confessions before God and others - identity, faith, wisdom.
"It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks"
"Lord give us pure hearts and positively confessing mouths" Amen
31st January 2010 - Rev Gregory Job
Luke 4:21-30
“All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”
Jesus in his hometown of Nazareth makes a great impression. Here is someone who brings the grace or favour of God so close – you seem to be able to reach out and touch that grace. But how can this be: “Is he not just Joseph’s son?” Probably thinking: We know him and his father as local carpenters; they made our furniture. He was always a nice guy, but how would he know so much about God and be so intimately linked with God’s purposes? How could this be? A glass ceiling and Small town prejudice raises its head that Sabbath Day.
Jesus confronts the prejudice that he encounters. With some Biblical stories of ancient prophets Elijah and Elisha, he reminds his audience that God is not just parochial and narrow in outlook. –But reaches out to all people – Jew and Gentile – God cares for all.
His message is not well received.
We are in the season of Epiphany. Reminded that God’s purpose is to reach out to all the world. The message and the love of Jesus is for all.
We read today that wonderful Love chapter of the bible – 1 Corinthians 13. It is so familiar that its impact is diminished sometimes – yet it is a literary marvel and a great human challenge to live out. The immediate context of this message of the primacy of love is to do with spiritual gifts. The chapters before and after both encourage us with the help of the Holy Spirit to exercise spiritual gifts for the benefit and blessing of others. The most excellent way to do this is to exercise gifts through love. God’s gifts at their best and highest operate through love.
As we face another year the challenge for us as Christians – how will we use God’s grace and gifts this coming year? Will we use our gifts to bless and benefit other people? Will we bless our community, our families, needy people, our church, our place of employment? Gifts that operate through love look for the highest benefit to others.
CS Lewis in his day speculated that many of his contempories when asked of the highest virtue would think of unselfishness or self denial. Lewis believed that these values were the negative side. The greater virtue was the virtue of love. Not just to deny oneself – but to reach out and love another is the greater virtue or “value”.
Jesus in His teaching emphasized love from God and love to others. This is not new – but it is fundamental. If you want to be a fundamentalist – be a fundamentalist of love. Pray for God’s help to exercise your gifts and contribution – not out of duty, not out of self promotion – but out of love. This is the gift that will endure.
So what does it mean to express this love? Do we care for members of our family, or people we work live, or our neighbours?
Are we more courteous or cheerful? Do we make Faith in Christ something attractive? By doing so we live out faith, hope and love!
If you look at some of the universe you would not know whether or not love is a part of it. The impersonal forces of stars and planets, of time and great distance, of life developing. The force of tectonic plates colliding or heat erupting within the earths crust. You would not know whether love was a part of it or not. So some people such as Dame Elizabeth Murdoch if you saw her interview with Andrew Denton - conclude that there is not a personal God.
Yet there is also a very personal side to life as we know it. Human beings are capable of great acts of bravery and compassion. Of tender warmth and embrace. Protection and care of ones children and even those of others. It is in these personal aspects to life that Jesus comes and speaks the love of God to our hearts. He comes to give even his life to show God’s love and to bring us back to God.
Love is not just some mushy feeling – it is the action of God in self giving. It is the call to live human life above the impersonal base force of life. By faith we accept this personal aspect that Christ comes to enact and help us with.
“All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”
Early on Monday morning last week I had a knock on the door and a distressed young man was there concerned about the meaning and significance of his life. He was a university student soon to complete his degree. His parents were professional people and he had all he could want in life in a material sense – yet he was looking for something more. We were able to spend some good time talking and praying about life’s issues and meaning. Many years ago Catherine and I had a young Englishman live with us for 12 months who had travelled the world for years seeking spiritual answers to life. He found in Christ an answer to his searching - that sustained him through great difficulties.
What is it that makes us search for more? The materialist would say – just accept what you can see – there is nothing more. The Christian can say that there is meaning and significance to be found. There is much that we do not understand, but there is a God who loves us and this love has come to us especially in Jesus Christ.
The gifts that we can offer to the world are the expression and extension of that love. And that love is not parochial – it reaches out to all – it offers God’s grace and embrace.
I was reading this week some of the new History of Randwick – Pauline Curby. A large and beautiful book and a fascinating read.
St Jude’s features significantly in the book. One heading and text talks about this place St Jude's as the centre of the Village life in early Randwick. Here was a religious, social and moral centre around which the community orientated. The rough colonials and emerging gentry of the time were offered worship, teaching, moral guidance, books and learning for their children. The Randwick Mutual Improvement Society met in the former church and school. The Rector Thomas Wilson formed the Randwick and Coogee Literary Society in 1869 with some 90 members and 100 books of “standard English Literature.”
Life has changed – churches struggle against so many competing and exciting options for the time and attention of the community. The challenges are there for churches to find places and significance within our community.
Yet as much or more that ever – as society becomes more self centred and aggressive the message of Christ who came to bring God’s love
and calls us to take it to all people is still very appropriate and vital.
“All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”
Sunday 7th March 2010 - Rev Gregory Job Luke 13:31-35, Isaiah 55, Psalm 63, 1 Corinthians 10
Text: “How often have I desired to gather your children together.” Luke 13
Christian faith has been described (Canon Alan Jones) as the intersection of God’s desire and longing for us, and our longing for God. A somewhat unequal intersection it must be said. We see in our text today God’s longing and desire in Jesus Christ to gather his children together. To meet with them. The concept of desire or longing reoccurs in our readings today. We see more of God’s longing in the wonderfully appealing words of Isaiah 55: “Ho everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat….come to me; listen so that you may live.” The Psalmist in Psalm 63 desires God – “my soul thirsts for you”….”my longing shall be satisfied” Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 speaks of evil desires leading people away from God.
Throughout history philosophers and theologians have spoken of this longing and desire. We are familiar with the words of Augustine: “you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” Or with Blaise Pascall “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus”
But we know that human longings and desire can be misdirected. We are keen to teach our children to find self fulfillment and live out their desires. But do we thereby encourage a self - centered world that does not look out for others and especially does not look out for God’s desires? It is a scary thought to have 7 billion people on earth just wanting their own desires and selfishly going about fulfilling them! Our desires and longings can be out of control and misplaced as we long for and desire power or wealth or control or pleasure. What motives lie behind these desires?
The journey of this Lenten season urges us to bring our desires into line with God’s desires for us so we can truly pray – “your will be done on earth…”
Barbara Brown Taylor tells the story that on the western slope of the Mount of Olives, just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem, sits a small chapel called “Dominus Flevit” meaning “The Lord Wept”. The name comes from Luke’s Gospel, which contains not one but two accounts of Jesus’ grief over the loss of Jerusalem. According to tradition, it was here that Jesus wept over the city. On the floor of the chapel is a mosaic medallion (can be viewed on internet) of a white hen with a golden halo around her head. Her red comb resembles a crown, and her wings are spread wide to shelter the pale 7 yellow chicks that crowd around her feet. The medallion is rimmed with red words in Latin. Translated into English they read, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" The last phrase is set outside the circle, in a pool of red underneath the chicks’ feet: you were not willing.
The depth of the compassion and desire of God is seen in Jesus Christ. As the mother hen will even die to protect her chicks from the threat of fire or attack so Jesus draws this very poignant picture of his desire for us.
The word desire appears 3 times in our Gospel reading. There is this desire of Christ to gather his people together. But there is the unwilling desire of those He longs for “you were not willing.” (There was no intersection of God’s desire and the human desire.) The other occurrence of the particular word for desire in this passage comes at the beginning. Jesus is told, “Herod wants to kill you”. That is his evil desire – as he had killed John the Baptist - and it haunted him, so he wanted to kill Jesus. The fox was after the mother hen – to use the imagery that develops before us here in the story.
But Jesus is on a journey with a purpose. Yes he will die as prophets had done before him – but it would not be on the fox’s terms. He is on a journey to complete his work.
It is worthwhile to consider the interaction of the external journey and the internal journey – a good Lenten theme.
Jesus focused on the internal journey. Yes there were external dangers. The foxes are there. Wild beasts were in the wilderness with Him. The daily struggle of living is there with Him – food and shelter, companionship, life’s difficulties.
We journey through life concerned about work and house and home and relationships and illness and ecology. All good and legitimate concerns. But what of our prayer life, - our devotions – our scripture reading - our compassion – our desires? Matters of the inner journey, which will help us with the outer journey.
For Jesus the important thing was the inner journey rather than its external threats - “on the third day (a short time) I finish my work…I must be on my way” The inner journey can lead to deep satisfaction. See in the words of Isaiah: “why do you labour for that which does not satisfy?” Or in the words of our Psalm – “my longing shall be satisfied,” Christ desires and longings were to bring blessing and salvation to others and deep satisfaction to Himself. His compassion in the midst of personal trauma sets him apart. When he laments over Jerusalem he calls the whole world to gather under his grace and compassion. His loving reconciling heart is the very heart of God. “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.”
NZ poet and hymn writer Shirley Erena Murray expressed it ("God Weeps"):
God weeps
at love withheld,
at strength misused,
at children's innocence abused,
and until we change the way we love,
God weeps.
God bleeds
at anger's fist,
at trust betrayed,
at women battered and afraid,
and until we change the way we win,
God bleeds.
God cries
at hungry mouths,
at running sores,
at creatures dying without cause,
and until we change the way we care,
God cries.
God waits
for stones to melt,
for peace to seed,
for hearts to hold each other's need,
and until we understand the Christ,
God waits.
As we undertake the journey to Easter - May God by his Holy Spirit increase in us a compassion like His own – that we may truly care for other people and be more like Christ. May God help us to foster desires that fit with God’s desires. Returning to text: “How often have I desired to gather your children together.”