Mark 4: 35-41 June 24 2012 Our Saviour's
Last week we talked about the Kingdom of God, how it is growing all around us, if we can only open our eyes and see it. And today we are going to talk about what it takes to see God working in the world.
Right off the bat, let me say that to see God at work, you have to look with eyes of faith, not as the world sees. When we look at things using normal logic, human understanding, we will not see God. We will see disaster, failure – crucifixion. These are the circumstances where God does the best work. Only the eyes of faith can see God at work in these circumstances.
When David faced Goliath, everyone around thought they were going to see a slaughter. Well, they did, but it was not at all the way they thought. How could little slip of a boy, unarmed (except for a shepherd's sling) dare to stand up to the giant? But he stood there in God's name, and prevailed.
And the disciples in the boat, they were in a sticky predicament, bailing the boat for all they were worth, and where was Jesus? Asleep. He'd had a long day! Well, in a situation like this, everybody is needed to bail. Even the Master. I think that's why they woke him up. They handed him a bailing can. And he had no use for the bailing can, he simply told the wind to stop. And it did.
“Don't you have any faith?” He asked the disciples. Because to the eyes of faith, it is just when the situation is darkest that God is able to act most decisively. God goes undercover in happy, everyday situations. God works behind the scenes. But when the going gets tough, God steps up to the plate.
You know, I think it's my fault that this congregation is going through difficult times. When I first started here, I prayed that we would be able to see and recognize God's presence with us. But in good times, God is present with us, but asleep in the boat. It takes tough times for us to remember to cry out, “Don't you care that we are perishing?” And then we can see God at work, doing much more than we can ask or imagine.
Now Our Saviour's Lutheran Church looks like it is perishing. A lot of people have left the church because they think it is doomed. Chris Hlady resigned from Council on Wednesday because he thinks this congregation is dysfunctional.
But to the eyes of faith, God is moving in this place. God is not bailing us out by sending some new members so we can go on as we were before. When we cry out to God to save us, we must be prepared for whatever it is God intends, which may be quite different from what we hope for or expect.
Last Tuesday I should have left the building much earlier than I did – I was messing around with the bulletin, putting it in trifold form that you see today. I looked at my watch and thought I should go, but I just kept on at the computer until I saw that it was almost 6 o'clock. As I was leaving, Pastor Asefa of the Oromo congregation was just arriving for Bible Study. We had a very interesting chat at the door, and he told me that now that he was ordained, he was interested in doing some outreach work in this neighbourhood. Wow. Just what Pastor Gavin of Holy Community was saying. Just what we ourselves have been saying. At that moment I felt God moving, setting up something that will change lives and rejuvenate the church.
Just as St Paul was saying in our second lesson, there is a disconnect between what the world sees and what God sees. “We are treated as imposters” Yes, that is what a lot of people think of churches. “And yet we are true.” We are honest and faithful to the truth of the gospel. “As unknown, and yet we are well known. As dying – and see, we are alive.”
This congregation is alive – alive in all the best ways. We have people of faith and gifts who are willing to give of themselves to follow Jesus. We have trust that God is in control, even of the wind and the waves.
“We are punished.” Yes, the Christian church has a lot to repent of, especially the arrogance we once had, expressed in crusades and witchhunts and intolerance and exclusion. But it's pretty hard to hold on to arrogance when we are entirely at the mercy of God, as we are today. But God doesn't want to destroy us for our sins, “we are not killed.”
“We are sorrowful.” Yes, we think of the glories of the past, and grieve for the many losses we have suffered. “Yet we are always rejoicing.” Even in our deepest grief we know the good news of the resurrection, and are able to rejoice. “We are poor.” Yes we are. We are fast running out of cash. We are lacking in manpower. “But making many rich.” We have the Good News that can enrich anyone! “Having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” As God's children, God gives us all good things. All our needs are provided for.
So, through what eyes are we going to look at this congregation? Through the eyes of the world, or through the eyes of faith? And are we going to just keep bailing, as though our salvation depended on us? Or are we going to give control over to Our Saviour, so that he can command the wind and waves to be still, so that we can go over to the other side, as he had commanded.
We don't know what is waiting for us over on the other side of the transformation God is leading this congregation through. It is uncharted territory for us. But God knows every hill and valley, and has prepared a place for us, and will get us there safely.
We are starting to see some of the rough outline of the terrain, however. Whatever it looks like, I am sure it involves cooperation with our brothers and sisters of the Oromo Christian Fellowship, and Holy Community Covenant Church, and the NA, and Scouts Canada, and who knows what other partners God will send our way. We often pray for unity in the church, and then act surprised when God sends opportunities our way.
Again from St Paul: “As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, 'At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.' See, now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation!” Thanks be to God. Amen.
June 17 2012 Mark 4: 26-34 June 17 2012 Our Saviour's
The Kingdom of God! We are told that Jesus came preaching the Good News of the Kingdom of God. We are told to seek the Kingdom of God and everything we need will be given to us. I guess the reason we are told to seek the Kingdom, is that it is never very clear exactly what the Kingdom is.
Jesus never comes right out and explains what the Kingdom of God is. He is always telling parables about it. He is giving out hints and glimpses. Why is that? Why doesn't he just come out with it? Maybe he can't. Maybe it is something that can't be put into human words. Or maybe we would have a hard time understanding. Maybe he has to give us little glimpses, so that we can use our imaginations and connect the dots, and really understand in our hearts and in our lives, not just with our heads.
So let's look at the two little glimpses Jesus gives us of the Kingdom of God today.
First of all, Jesus says that the Kingdom is like a farmer who sows seed, and doesn't know how it grows, but when it is grown, he harvests it. Then he says it is like a mustard seed which grows to be a large shrub. A common thread here, the idea of growing.
Growth is somewhat of a mystery. Biologists are still trying to figure out what the triggers are that start the growth of a seed. There are many different factors that go into growth – warmth, water, sunlight. But it all starts with a seed. The seed doesn't have to be very big. In fact, it can be tiny, like mustard. In fact, mustard was considered a nuisance weed, the kind of plant that, once planted in your garden, you can't get rid of it, and it starts to take over. Now that is an interesting image for the Kingdom of God.
So, what do we know from these two parables? The kingdom starts with seeds. It is a mystery how it grows. It does grow, and grows quite large, large and persistent. And in the end, it is beneficial – it bears fruit and provides shelter.
In the first parable, the seed has to be planted. Who plants the seed of the Kingdom? We are not told. Logically, if it is the Kingdom of God, God would be the one to plant the seed. However, in the case of the mustard plant, it plants its own seeds, crowding out other plants. The growth of the kingdom is organic and inexorable. God may plant the first seeds, but then the the plant itself reproduces itself. The Kingdom bears the fruit of more Kingdom.
But where do we fit into all of this? Where's the “so what?
For practical advice, you can always turn to Martin Luther. In fact, I'd like you to turn to Martin Luther right now, in your red books, right at the back, to page 1163. The commentary on the Lord's Prayer, the Second Petition: “Your Kingdom Come. What does this mean? In fact, God's kingdom comes on its own without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come to us. How does this come about? Whenever our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that through the Holy Spirit's grace we believe God's holy word and live godly lives here in time and hereafter in eternity.”
God plants the seeds of the kingdom in us. In our baptism we receive citizenship in the Kingdom. And this citizenship is activated by the Holy Spirit, by our own prayer. Every time we say, “Thy Kingdom come” we invite God to come into our lives and help us to believe and to act as if we believe.
So, God is active in your life. Every Sunday I stand up here and ask for “God-sightings”. I ask you where you have seen God active in your life. And usually most of you look like a herd of deer in the headlights! You just can't think of anything. You probably don't really think that God is there at all!
But God is. God has promised to be, and God always keeps promises. The trouble with us is that we are not accustomed to thinking in terms of what God is doing. We pay attention to what we are doing and what our neighbours are doing, and don't open our eyes to what God is doing. We don't notice the Kingdom of God growing up like a weed right before our eyes.
Here is a little exercise for you. It's not too hard, everyone can do it. The only hard thing is remembering to do it. It's a discipline. It might help you to make some kind of visual reminder to put in a visible place to remind you to do it. Maybe take the bulletin, or cut the picture out of the bulletin, and set it by your bed or stick it to your bathroom mirror where you brush your teeth at night.
Because this is what I want you to do: Every night before you go to bed, I want you to think back over the day and remember one thing, one way, that God was active in your life. It can be just a little thing, a butterfly (which God created) or a sunset, or a smile, or a kind word. It could be an amazing coincidence (and you are allowed to give God the credit – nobody else will take it). It could be something you learned or something you did which surprised even yourself. It could be the gift of a friend in need or a loved one who sustains you with their love. It could even come hidden in news of a disaster, as compassion arises and neighbours help neighbours.
God is working all around us. The Kingdom is growing all around us. Seeds are planted, crops are harvested, shelter is provided. All we have to do is look around us. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Mark 3:20 – 35
I was watching the TV show Downton Abbey the other day with Lucy. It takes place in pre-World War 1 England. It seems quaint to us to see a society where everybody had his or her own station, and knew just what society expected of them, whether they were a housemaid or a duke. And when one of the housemaids dared to buy herself a typewriter because she wanted a career as a typist, consternation arose all around! She was not following the script, the plan for her life that society had decreed!
We feel our society is not so rigid, and indeed it is not. Yet there are still scripts that are given to us by society, by our families and our employers. And woe betide us if we fail to follow the script, if we write our own scripts, or follow a different script! Many families have been thrown into confusion when a daughter becomes pregnant without being married, or if a son declares that he is gay. They are not following the script. People become distressed and anxious, and even angry, when the approved script is not followed.
In our Gospel today, Jesus is not following the script. Different people had different expectations of him, and he wasn't following any of their scripts. He wasn't raising an army to become the kind of military king some people wanted. He certainly wasn't being a good Jewish boy and marrying a nice girl and settling down and building up his carpentry shop. He wasn't supporting his widowed mother the way the eldest son was supposed to. He wasn't following the right script.
And so his family comes to take him home, to put an end to the craziness, to get him back on track again. And the Jewish authorities speak against him, warning people that he can't be the Messiah, because he is not following the right Messiah script.
Whenever we deviate from the script other people think we should be following, strong negative feelings are thrown at us. I'm sure you have experienced this in your own life. Either other people criticized you harshly for your behaviour, or you have criticized others for their behaviour. Because we all do it. It's one way that society tries to make people conform to what is considered normal behaviour.
And sometimes it's good, maybe most of the time it's good. We frown on bullying. When someone is verbally or physically abusive, we bring the full force of law down on them. When someone is wasting their money on addictions or gambling , familes resort to interventions, to bring them to their senses and impress upon them the damage they are doing, not only to themselves, but to the ones they love. This is what Jesus' family thought they were doing.
But sometimes, the script needs changing. Sometimes the way it's always been done is not the right way for this time and this place and this person. Sometimes God has a different script.
In our first lesson we see a clear distinction between God's script and the people's script. God wants Israel to be a different kind of nation, a nation that does not depend on the leadership of a king, but the leadership of God. But the people want to follow the script that all the other nations are following; they want a king. And so they get a king.
And in our Gospel, Jesus is writing a different script, too. It is a script where God has power over the forces of evil. It is a script where people who do the will of God are bound together in a family that is even stronger than a family bound by blood. It is a script which in the end will result in his death. And in his resurrection.
We all have a choice as to what script we will follow. Will we follow the script our families and society have given us? Or will we follow God's script? They are not always the same. And especially when God changes the script on us, there is hell to pay. We will face a great deal of doubt and opposition. Tempers will flare and harsh words will be said. There may even be ruptures in family relations. Sometimes it may seem that it is just not worth it.
God is changing the script in the world right now. For 500 years the Lutheran church has followed a certain script, a certain way of being the church in the world. This is what we grew up in, this is what we are used to and what we want. But it's not working any more. God has changed the script. God is pushing us to become a different kind of church.
Now this leads to a lot of confusion, doubt, anger and dissension. Even last Sunday we witnessed this. And what makes it worse is that it is hard to agree on what the script should be, even if we agree that the old script is not working any more.
It is easy to look at the story of Jesus and his family and see so clearly that Jesus was right and Jesus was following God's script. And it is easy to look back at Samuel and his contemporaries and see that it might have gone a lot better for them if they had paid attention to Samuel and played it according to God's script. I'm sure a hundred years from now people will look back at our struggles and clearly see that what we have done is right, or that we really missed the boat. I wonder which!
But whatever happens, we have to remember that the script we are to follow, is the same script that Jesus followed. We follow the script of reaching out to the hurting and lost. We follow the script of giving of ourselves in the face of criticism and scorn. When we were baptized, we were baptized into Jesus' death so that we would also participate in his resurrection. As Paul puts it, “We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart.” Now that is a very important point, because it is all too easy to lose heart when we are faced with confusion and doubt.
Paul goes on: “Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.” You could also say that of our congregation. Our outer nature is surely wasting away: our finances are faltering, our average attendance is slipping; but our inner nature does not depend on these external signs. The life of this congregation is still strong, the love we have for each other sustains us, and the hope for the future which God is giving us is carrying us along.
God has a future planned for us; a future with hope. God is guiding us to discover how we can move into that future. Between us, we and God are writing a new script for Our Saviour's Lutheran Church, a script that is loving and welcoming and challenging and inspiring. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Trinity Sunday June 3 2012 Our Saviour's
How to explain the Holy Trinity? The short answer is, you can't. Take a look at the fans up there on the ceiling. There are three blades, but they are whirling around so fast it looks like just one blur. And if you stuck your hand in there to try to stop it so you could see each blade clearly, it would hurt like blazes! That's the kind of thing that happens when you stick your mind into the dance of the Holy Spirit to try to stop the action so you can examine each person separately – your head hurts! Everything God does is done by the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. You can't separate them. But you can tell them apart.
Sometimes people try to describe the difference between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, by different things that God does. They talk about God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sustainer. Now this would be very tidy if we knew that God the Father was the Creator of the world, and God the Son, Jesus, was the Redeemer of the world, and God the Holy Spirit was the sustainer of our faith and life. And indeed they are.
But Creation, for example, involves all 3 persons of the Trinity. In Genesis 1 God says, “Let US make human beings in OUR image.” Plural right from the start. And in Psalm 104 it says, “When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.” And in Colossians 1 it says about Jesus, that “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created.” So it seems that just making the Father the Creator won't work. The Son and the Holy Spirit are Creator, too.
This is also the case with our redemption or salvation. Yes, it was Jesus who died on the cross, but he was doing it by the Father's will, and it was the Father who raised him from the dead. And it is the Spirit who warms our hearts and sparks faith in our minds so that we can embrace the cross for our salvation. So Jesus is our Saviour, and the Father is our Saviour, and the Spirit is also our Saviour.
And it is the same with the sustaining that we receive from God. Yes, the Holy Spirit comes to us to awaken God's gifts in us and fill us with joy. But the love we have is poured into our hearts by the Father. And Jesus promised to be with us always, to the end of the age. So the Holy Spirit is the Sustainer, and Jesus is the Sustainer, and the Father is the Sustainer.
Are you thoroughly confused yet? All three persons of the Trinity are present in whatever God does, but we do identify some things more with one and some things with another. The point is, God comes to us in many different ways; we experience God's presence in many different ways.
In our first story this morning, Isaiah experienced the presence of God in the temple. And we think, well, of course, that is where people are supposed to experience the presence of God! But to tell the truth, that does not always happen, does it? We come to church, to the sacred space, hoping that God will make God's self known to us. It is not always as dramatic as Isaiah's experience, not by a long shot. But God is there, and God does become known to us.
But worship is not the only place that we can experience the presence of God. Many people experience God's presence through Creation. I must say, that when I walk in the woods, I often feel very close to God. I think that is why the hymn “How Great Thou Art” is so popular. Sometimes God the Creator is our first experience of God.
And some people first experience the presence of God in the midst of a crisis. It may be that they need healing, or it may be that they need forgiveness, that something is wrong, drastically wrong with their lives. In the midst of their brokenness, they cry out, and God is present with them. The work that is so closely associated with Jesus, the work of healing and forgiving and saving, is some people's first and most powerful experience of the presence of God.
And still others first experience God in the love and acceptance of the Christian community. The Holy Spirit binds us together in love, with all our differences and our quirkiness, and this is a powerful testimony to the presence of God. When, as the Body of Christ, we are Christ to one another, in reaching out, in hugs, in smiles, in casseroles, in prayers, in water and bread and wine – that too is the presence of God.
What was your first experience of the presence of God? Was it in creation? Was it in a crisis situation? Was it among God's people? No matter how you first experienced the presence of God, your spiritual growth requires some experience of the others as well. A person who finds God in nature, but who never comes to the realization that life is broken and needs a Saviour, remains a child spiritually. A person who comes to God on their knees begging forgiveness, and yet who never joins in a Christian community, will have no opportunity for growth. A person who lives happily in the love of the church, but who never is exposed to the wonders of creation, will never reach their full potential.
God is with us, God is all around us, God is within us, God is within the people around us. There are so many opportunities to experience the presence of God.
Isaiah met God in the temple. The furnishings of the temple, the smoke of the incense, the carvings of the Seraphim, became windows through which God was able to reach out and touch Isaiah, and call him to ministry.
We call sacred, the things through which God makes God's presence known. The church is a sacred place, because many people encounter God here. The bread and the wine and the waters of baptism are sacred, because God promises to meet us there. The whole world is sacred, too, because God reaches out to us through Creation. And this gathering, this small, but powerful gathering, is also sacred, because God is present to us in each other.
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all here, right now. And just as they cried out to Isaiah, “Who shall I send?” God is still crying out for people to go for God. And in the same way, we cry out, “Here am I; send me!” And as we respond to the moving, urging, impelling work of God, we are caught up in the movement of the Holy Trinity, always moving, like the fan, refreshing, energizing, enabling us to be what God wants us to be. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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