Friday, 12 November 2010
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
God works everything out?
Our reading from Ephesians this morning jumps right into the middle of this letter’s opening paragraph, a hymn of praise to God. In this praise we find an important truth about God. “He works everything out in conformity with the purpose of his will.” I find this to be quite a difficult thing to understand. How can God work everything out so that it lines up with God’s intentions? What about the five year olds sitting on the streets of Kampala, begging, that I saw a few weeks ago? What about the illnesses and struggles of life that we experience, that those around us experience? What about our families, friends, and neighbours losing their jobs and their homes? There is such a lot going on around us that, to be honest, doesn’t look much like it is being worked out in line with God’s will.
But, life was no easier in Paul’s day. He himself had suffered all kinds of things in the course of ministry. This very letter was probably written at a time when Paul was in prison. He had seen Christians killed for their faith. He was a Jew, someone whose country had been invaded and was ruled by foreigners. He also lived in a world where it didn’t look much like things were being worked out in line with God’s will. Yet still he could write that he was certain that they are.
How is this possible? Where does this depth of faith come from? Well, I think that we get the answer in the next verses. Paul talks about the Holy Spirit as the deposit that guarantees an inheritance.
Continued here...
But, life was no easier in Paul’s day. He himself had suffered all kinds of things in the course of ministry. This very letter was probably written at a time when Paul was in prison. He had seen Christians killed for their faith. He was a Jew, someone whose country had been invaded and was ruled by foreigners. He also lived in a world where it didn’t look much like things were being worked out in line with God’s will. Yet still he could write that he was certain that they are.
How is this possible? Where does this depth of faith come from? Well, I think that we get the answer in the next verses. Paul talks about the Holy Spirit as the deposit that guarantees an inheritance.
Continued here...
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Lost and Found
I wonder what it feels like to be totally lost. As I was thinking about what I was going to say this morning, I was trying to remember a time when I have been lost, and I couldn’t. Of course there have been times when I’ve had difficulty finding the way to the place that I was meant to be going, and there have been times when I’ve not been sure exactly where the bit of ground I’m stood on is on the map that I’m looking at. But I don’t recall a time when I’ve ever felt that I didn’t have a single clue how to get home.
I think that is how I would know that I was properly lost. If I had no idea how I was going to get home, then I would be lost.
Maybe you have been in that position; you have known what it feels like to be entirely lost. If not, perhaps that idea might help you to begin to imagine what it would be like to be lost. How would you feel if somebody took you from here in a blacked out car and dropped you in the middle of a wood, in the middle of the night, in a country where you didn’t speak the language, with no money. If you wandered around that wood until you couldn’t walk another step, and you’re just curled up in a ball, at the end of your resources, knowing for certain that you are never going to see your home again. You are truly lost. Despair, fear, deep sorrow.
What then if you see a light swaying through the trees. Are you imaging it? You think you hear a voice calling your name. Your throat is so dry you can’t call out. You feel warm arms cradling you, gentle hands lifting you. You smell the familiar scent of home on the clothes of your finder. The taste of reviving drink is sweet on your tongue. What then? You have been truly found. Hope, faith, vaulting joy. And not just joy for you, but joy for the one who has found you. Joy for those who have missed you, those who have been praying for your finding. Joy and rejoicing and a party.
Continued here...
I think that is how I would know that I was properly lost. If I had no idea how I was going to get home, then I would be lost.
Maybe you have been in that position; you have known what it feels like to be entirely lost. If not, perhaps that idea might help you to begin to imagine what it would be like to be lost. How would you feel if somebody took you from here in a blacked out car and dropped you in the middle of a wood, in the middle of the night, in a country where you didn’t speak the language, with no money. If you wandered around that wood until you couldn’t walk another step, and you’re just curled up in a ball, at the end of your resources, knowing for certain that you are never going to see your home again. You are truly lost. Despair, fear, deep sorrow.
What then if you see a light swaying through the trees. Are you imaging it? You think you hear a voice calling your name. Your throat is so dry you can’t call out. You feel warm arms cradling you, gentle hands lifting you. You smell the familiar scent of home on the clothes of your finder. The taste of reviving drink is sweet on your tongue. What then? You have been truly found. Hope, faith, vaulting joy. And not just joy for you, but joy for the one who has found you. Joy for those who have missed you, those who have been praying for your finding. Joy and rejoicing and a party.
Continued here...
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
See that you fo not refuse Him.
I would like to tell you a story this morning about two ways of living.
One way of living is one in which people are bent over, infirm, bound up, afraid, under law, in fear of punishment, surrounded by darkness.
The other way of living is one in which there is freedom, release, healing, life, joy, assurance that we are loved.
I wonder which way you would prefer to live?
Our two readings this morning tell the story of these two ways of life and their relation to each other, and leave us with this choice: which way will you live?
The first reading that we heard was from the book of Hebrews, and the writer of that book begins this section of the book with a description of something that had happened many years ago to the people of God.
They had been led out of slavery in Egypt, had crossed the Red Sea and had travelled across the desert to a mountain, a mountain that was holy to them, a mountain called Mount Sinai. When they got there they discovered that it was a place of darkness and fire. God came and spoke to Moses in the clouds of the mountain, but the people were afraid that they would die, so they drew back from hearing God’s voice and instead kept at a distance.
It was at Sinai that God gave the law to the people, through Moses. This law was to be life giving and life enhancing. It was given to allow the people to live in harmony with each other and with God. However, it was powerless to do this because the people continued to keep their distance from God. At first this meant that they were disobedient and unfaithful. While Moses was on this very mountain, being given the law by God, only months after the rescue from slavery in Egypt, they make an idol to worship, a golden calf.
The remainder of the Old Testament tells the story of the people of God keeping their distance from God, of them being wooed back by God, and of them going off again and again. Eventually their land is over run and they are scattered into exile. They insisted on keeping their distance from God, and in the end God allowed them to have what they wanted.
Continued here...
One way of living is one in which people are bent over, infirm, bound up, afraid, under law, in fear of punishment, surrounded by darkness.
The other way of living is one in which there is freedom, release, healing, life, joy, assurance that we are loved.
I wonder which way you would prefer to live?
Our two readings this morning tell the story of these two ways of life and their relation to each other, and leave us with this choice: which way will you live?
The first reading that we heard was from the book of Hebrews, and the writer of that book begins this section of the book with a description of something that had happened many years ago to the people of God.
They had been led out of slavery in Egypt, had crossed the Red Sea and had travelled across the desert to a mountain, a mountain that was holy to them, a mountain called Mount Sinai. When they got there they discovered that it was a place of darkness and fire. God came and spoke to Moses in the clouds of the mountain, but the people were afraid that they would die, so they drew back from hearing God’s voice and instead kept at a distance.
It was at Sinai that God gave the law to the people, through Moses. This law was to be life giving and life enhancing. It was given to allow the people to live in harmony with each other and with God. However, it was powerless to do this because the people continued to keep their distance from God. At first this meant that they were disobedient and unfaithful. While Moses was on this very mountain, being given the law by God, only months after the rescue from slavery in Egypt, they make an idol to worship, a golden calf.
The remainder of the Old Testament tells the story of the people of God keeping their distance from God, of them being wooed back by God, and of them going off again and again. Eventually their land is over run and they are scattered into exile. They insisted on keeping their distance from God, and in the end God allowed them to have what they wanted.
Continued here...
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Dancing to the music of the future
Someone once said that hope is hearing the music of the future and faith is dancing to it.
Both our readings this morning are about Christian faith. There are three things that I’d like to draw out from them that I believe we need to get our heads round if we are to follow Jesus fruitfully.
The first thing I’d like to suggest is that Christian faith is faith in God’s promises. Jesus was talking about God’s promises to provide for the physical and material needs of God’s people. He was also talking about his own promise to return to bring in the government of God in all its fullness and glory. The writer to the Hebrews was talking about God’s promise to provide a home for God’s people for all eternity.
There are many other promises that God makes to us. God promises that if we repent and accept Jesus as our Lord then we will live forever in God’s household. God promises that we aren’t slaves in that household, but beloved children. God promises to speak to us. God promises to give us the Holy Spirit to strengthen and guide us as we follow Jesus. God promises that our lives will be fruitful.
All these promises are guaranteed by who God is. God is the creator of everything. God made the earth and the sky, the sea and the stars, every living creature and plant. God made you and me. God is the source of all life and love. God is the one who spoke, and creation came into being. God speaks and it happens. There is no gap. God’s words shape reality. More than that, all that is, everything that exists comes from God speaking. God’s words are reality. So God’s promises are completely real and trustworthy.
Continued here...
Both our readings this morning are about Christian faith. There are three things that I’d like to draw out from them that I believe we need to get our heads round if we are to follow Jesus fruitfully.
The first thing I’d like to suggest is that Christian faith is faith in God’s promises. Jesus was talking about God’s promises to provide for the physical and material needs of God’s people. He was also talking about his own promise to return to bring in the government of God in all its fullness and glory. The writer to the Hebrews was talking about God’s promise to provide a home for God’s people for all eternity.
There are many other promises that God makes to us. God promises that if we repent and accept Jesus as our Lord then we will live forever in God’s household. God promises that we aren’t slaves in that household, but beloved children. God promises to speak to us. God promises to give us the Holy Spirit to strengthen and guide us as we follow Jesus. God promises that our lives will be fruitful.
All these promises are guaranteed by who God is. God is the creator of everything. God made the earth and the sky, the sea and the stars, every living creature and plant. God made you and me. God is the source of all life and love. God is the one who spoke, and creation came into being. God speaks and it happens. There is no gap. God’s words shape reality. More than that, all that is, everything that exists comes from God speaking. God’s words are reality. So God’s promises are completely real and trustworthy.
Continued here...
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Their mission, our mission.
In May we had the opportunity to meet together and explore ways of “sharing good news”. A couple of weeks ago we had the Canals Festival. In this next week we are visiting homes in Etruria, surveying people’s thoughts about the community that they live in, about God, and about the church. Tomorrow night we have a church council meeting where we will be talking about the progress we are making with our Mission Action Plan. It seems to me that there is a lot of mission activity going on around St Mark’s at the moment, which is really encouraging. And so I think that it is really appropriate that this reading from Luke’s account of Jesus’ life has come up for this morning, as I believe that it holds some important insights for us as we think about what mission God has for us, and as we get on with it.
Before we dive into having a detailed look at it, though, I would just like to take a step back a bit and do some groundwork. You see, it is quite clear that Jesus was sending out this group of people, to do this task, in a certain way. The temptation for me then, is to say that it doesn’t have to apply to me. What Jesus says is for them, at that time, not for me at this time. So I don’t have to take notice, particularly of the difficult bits that might mean that I have to do something that I find uncomfortable or challenging.
But, there are two reasons that I believe that this teaching does apply to us, and that Jesus is calling us to live like this now.
Continued here...
Before we dive into having a detailed look at it, though, I would just like to take a step back a bit and do some groundwork. You see, it is quite clear that Jesus was sending out this group of people, to do this task, in a certain way. The temptation for me then, is to say that it doesn’t have to apply to me. What Jesus says is for them, at that time, not for me at this time. So I don’t have to take notice, particularly of the difficult bits that might mean that I have to do something that I find uncomfortable or challenging.
But, there are two reasons that I believe that this teaching does apply to us, and that Jesus is calling us to live like this now.
Continued here...
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Telling the Wonders of God
I wonder if you ever watch those TV programmes or films where they have messed around with the timeline? You know the kind of thing, the film starts with a wedding and then the rest of the film is flashbacks to things that have happened in the lead up to the wedding. Through all the ups and downs of the relationship you know that there’s a happy ending, because you’ve already seen it.
Well, there is a sense in which we heard our readings in the wrong order today. In the reading from Acts we see and hear the sights and sounds of the Day of Pentecost, and then we had a flash back to an earlier scene, where we hear some of the things that happened in the lead up to that astonishing day.
In the reading we heard from John’s account of the good news, we hear Jesus making a promise and telling us something about the person who is going to be the fulfilment of that promise.
We hear Jesus as he speaks to his followers for one of the last times. They are meeting together in the days before Jesus is going to be crucified, and then raised to life. Jesus’ followers are afraid and confused. Jesus has been with them for three years, and now he is talking about leaving them.
Before he goes, he tells his followers about some of the things that are going to happen in the future. He tells them that those who have faith will do even greater things than he himself had done. (given that what Jesus has done included walking on water, raising people from the dead, healing the sick, and feeding several thousand people with a few loaves and fishes, this was a pretty big promise).
He then goes on to promise that he will not leave his followers alone. When he has returned to the Father, he will ask the Father to send someone else, the Holy Spirit.
And what does Jesus promise that the Holy Spirit will be like?
Continued here...
Well, there is a sense in which we heard our readings in the wrong order today. In the reading from Acts we see and hear the sights and sounds of the Day of Pentecost, and then we had a flash back to an earlier scene, where we hear some of the things that happened in the lead up to that astonishing day.
In the reading we heard from John’s account of the good news, we hear Jesus making a promise and telling us something about the person who is going to be the fulfilment of that promise.
We hear Jesus as he speaks to his followers for one of the last times. They are meeting together in the days before Jesus is going to be crucified, and then raised to life. Jesus’ followers are afraid and confused. Jesus has been with them for three years, and now he is talking about leaving them.
Before he goes, he tells his followers about some of the things that are going to happen in the future. He tells them that those who have faith will do even greater things than he himself had done. (given that what Jesus has done included walking on water, raising people from the dead, healing the sick, and feeding several thousand people with a few loaves and fishes, this was a pretty big promise).
He then goes on to promise that he will not leave his followers alone. When he has returned to the Father, he will ask the Father to send someone else, the Holy Spirit.
And what does Jesus promise that the Holy Spirit will be like?
Continued here...
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