Year B Proper 29 - Reign of Christ 25 November 2012
2 Samuel 23:1-7 Psalm 132: 1-12, (13-18) Revelation 1:4b-8 John 18:33-37
Tonight was the night! Brittany has been counting down the hours for the last couple of days..... It was the return of the television series Once Upon A Time. The last series finished with the curse being broken. With the curse broken, the characters remembered who they are and the heroine, Emma, who was sent into the real world as a baby, seemingly abandoned by her parents, realized that she was actually a princess. While everyone else rejoiced, Emma was the only one who seemed like she’d lost something. The others had all found their true identity, but for Emma to embrace her true identity meant letting go of all she’d ever known.
I think that many of us also have an identity crisis. We don’t realize who we really are.
Revelation 1:5b-6a “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.”
We belong to a kingdom and we are priests – all of us- to serve God. Most of us would acknowledge that this is right but most of us are more comfortable with the God who serves us and we like to say, “Thank-you God for salvation” and for the good stuff, and perhaps chat with him every now and then, but we certainly don’t think of ourselves as priests in a kingdom that serves God.
But there is more to our identity than this, because through our union with Christ we are heirs of this kingdom.
Jesus had a sign nailed to the cross above him which read, “King of the Jews”. The Jews objected to this but Pilate may have known something, because he insisted that this be the wording. In actual fact what Pilate ordered be written was prophetically accurate.
2 Samuel 23:2-4 ““The Spirit of the LORD spoke through me; his word was on my tongue. The God of Israel spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me: ‘When one rules over people in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning,”
I have always wondered about that old argument about keeping church and state separate. I have no answer, as it is complicated, but certainly we know that when one rules over people in the fear of God it is a great thing. Many times in the history of the Israelite nation they were taken captive by foreign kings, and many of these were actually good men who came to serve (in some manner) God as revealed through and often because of the King’s interactions with the Israelite nation.
Recently I did some research and found out some interesting things about Jesus and about the role of the messiah. It is well known among the Jewish people that the messiah is to be of the house of David, but did you know that to be able to claim to be the messiah, he must be able to prove his kingly line? And did you know that since the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, records were destroyed, implying that the messiah had to have been born before then?
In two of the Gospels we have the record of the genealogy of Jesus. Common understanding is that one of the records is of Mary’s genealogy and the other is of Joseph’s. Both are of the line of David, but one is directly the kingly line. So it would seem that even in a very earthly and physical way, Jesus was the king of the Jews. I found lots of great stuff.... but I’ll leave that for another time...
Psalm 132:2-5 “He swore an oath to the LORD, he made a vow to the Mighty One of Jacob: “I will not enter my house or go to my bed, I will allow no sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, till I find a place for the LORD, a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.”
King David spoke these words. His first priority was to God. This was a king who understood that he himself was part of a kingdom, and that he and his kingdom were there to serve God. It may have been easier for David to grasp the concept because he was a king, but he wasn’t born a king and even as the youngest, smallest and least significant of his family, he seemed to grasp that he was of God’s royal line.
John 18:36- 37 “Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.””
Jesus knew who he was. He didn’t need to prove it because the evidence spoke for itself, but he also declared that his kingdom was from another place. In the words of Jesus we find no doubts and maybes. He knows who he is and he always did. We recall the time he was in the temple at the age of 12 and telling his parents that he would be about his father’s business, meaning that God was his father. Jesus did not deny the fatherhood he had in Joseph, but the deeper reality was that God is his father.
We are the opposite of Jesus. We live lives that are grounded in the here and now and although we profess to have faith in God our lives bare testament to our doubts. How is it possible that Jesus could live without doubt, and so sure of his identity?
Sometimes it is easiest to find the answer by looking at fairytales like Once Upon A Time. Jesus, like a few of the characters, had grown up always knowing who he was. Some of the fairytale characters forgot who they were, but once the curse was lifted they remembered and fell easily back into their own identity, but Emma is a lot more like the majority who struggle with their true identity. She had lived all her life in a world apart from her birth place..... and that world denied the existence of her birth place.
We live in a world that denies our true identity.... a world that denies God exists. It is hard to remember who we really are while we surround ourselves with this world of denial and doubt. This is one very good reason for being in community with other Christians. When we go to church or meet with other Christians we are reminding ourselves where our true home is and who we really are.
Revelations 1:7-8 ““Look, he is coming with the clouds,” and “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him”; and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.” So shall it be! Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.””
Why will the people of the earth mourn because of the return of Jesus? It won’t just be those who physically pierced him who will mourn, but ALL peoples on the earth. I can only guess, but I would be mourning if I had forgotten my place in the kingdom of God. If I was found to be living as if removed from the reality of God, and then God interrupted my life, I would be disappointed in myself.
It’s time now to rethink our lives. In what ways are we living as children of the King, and how should we be living if we are living in the reality that we are children of the king?
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Friday, November 16, 2012
Reflection on readings for 18th November 2012
Year B Proper 28 18 November 2012
1 Samuel 1: 4-20 1 Samuel 2:1-10 Hebrews 10: 11-14, (15-18), 19-25 Mark 13: 1-811
Last week I arrived home from Cairns by plane, feeling very hungry after waiting through various travel delays, so instead of going straight home, I was driven into town. As I got out of the car I noted and said out loud, “something is wrong”. It coincided with hearing sirens, but I think I felt the sense that something was very wrong even before hearing sirens. Also, hearing sirens is not unusual and it seemed that something more was going on…. Something I couldn’t, and still can’t put my finger on, but just that something was very wrong.
As it happened, we discovered later that the sirens were because someone had started a fire at the Toys R Us building on the north side of town. I still am left pondering why I felt so strongly that something was wrong. Yes, something was wrong, but what is it that God is trying to tell me through it all, and what was really going on in the spiritual realm that overflowed dramatically into the physical?
I’ve said recently that the Israelite history was one of asking “Why?”, and we find that many Old Testament accounts of the Israelites not only tell us the happenings of our Bible characters, but give an account how God was involved. It is a coming together of the spiritual and the physical in order to show the deeper truth.
Our readings this week leave me with a similar sense to that which I felt last Saturday when the fire was blazing. There is a sense of drama and danger, and it would be easy to get swept up in fear. It is one of the many parts of the Bible that many would prefer to skim over, but it is there for a reason and the sense of drama and danger should alert us to the fact that this is something to take note of as important.
Mark 13:5-8 “Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.”
Our Gospel reading is quite long and with important warnings. Firstly we are told to watch out that no one deceives us. We think that we are clever enough not to be deceived and we’ve known that those who claimed to know the date for the world to end or Jesus’ return, were fakes, but this is a very real warning from Jesus to his closest followers. I suspect the reason for the warning is that the deceivers will become way harder to spot. These ‘end of the world’ fakes are likely there to serve the purpose of lulling us into a false sense of security, thinking we can spot the fakes, so that we will be off guard when a real deception presents itself.
When someone wants to make counterfeit money they will study the real thing. It is likely that the deceptions that we need to look out for are among our churches already, walking and talking like fair dinkum Christians. They will probably know the Bible and church history better than any of us. So how can we know that we won’t be deceived?
1 Samuel 1:12-16 “As she kept on praying to the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”
“Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the LORD. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”
What we learn from our first reading is that looks are deceiving! I wonder if you have ever had the experience of thinking that a particular person was not nice and then actually got to meet that particular person and found out how wrong you had been. I have been guilty of this – at least two examples come to mind where I have been so wrong.
Our Old Testament reading tell the account of Hannah who was married to a man who had two wives. Hannah was loved, but had no children. This fact was great material for her rival wife who tormented her about it. I wonder if the rival wife, Penninah would have been so cruel if she had realized this woman would be the mother of one of Israel’s great prophets. But Penninah wasn’t the only one to judge Hannah cruelly. Eli was the high priest and although he had wicked sons which he should have chastised and didn’t, he had no hesitation in chastising this heartbroken woman. The good news is that Hannah had opportunity to explain herself and Eli prayed that God might grant her request, which He did.
There is something more we learn about Hannah. She was a woman of her word. She prayed that if God gave her a son she would give him to God for all of his days. It must have been so for Hannah, because when Samuel was a small boy he was given to Eli to serve him and to serve God.
I think that we are way more inclined to reject the people we should be accepting than we are to reject the teaching that we should be rejecting. We reject and judge people who are God’s chosen, but we seem to accept teaching that is popular fairly readily, sometimes simply because of who it is that teaches it, rather than if it is the truth.
I remember attending a weekend with some theology students where the lecturer was a catholic priest. His teaching was heresy, but most seemed to be lapping up his every word as if it was something fabulous. It was fabulously clever and combined science and faith and appealed to the intellectual Christian who wanted to be seen to be intelligent, but I have no doubt and no hesitation in telling you all that it was complete heresy.
So this begs the question, how can we know that we are not being deceived?
Hebrews 10:15- 16“15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”[Jer 31:33]”
By the gift of the Holy Spirit, God writes his law in our hearts and on our minds. Sometimes it starts as a gut feeling that something is not right and then we need to look further. If we are like Hannah and striving to be faithful to God and in relationship with him, i.e. he lives in us, then we need to know that a gut feeling telling us something isn’t right is the Holy Spirit telling us truth. This is how God’s Spirit communicates with us, but to expose the falsehood we need something more tangible…. We need to be familiar with the word of God.
There are some who will tell you that the word of God is all you need in order to know God’s truth, but those who deceive often use the word of God. You may remember that Satan tempted Jesus in the desert by quoting scripture. He told Jesus the truth…. “If you are the son of God you can turn these rocks to bread.” It was true, but it wasn’t God’s will and it was with the Spirit of God to discern the will of God and with another scripture truth that Jesus was able to resist Satan’s attack.
Hebrews tells us that by one sacrifice, Jesus made perfect forever those who are being made holy. Why is it important that we know this? Because so many of us feel that we can’t be too close to God because we feel unworthy. This unworthy feeling prevents us from knowing all that we can about God and being able to discern the truth. But the truth is that while we are physically being made holy by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, we are spiritually made perfect by the sacrifice of Jesus. This means that there is nothing to separate us from God except our own ignorance of the gift he has given.
I wonder if you have come in contact with the kind of person who uses scripture to condemn you? There is plenty in the Bible that does condemn us…. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…. There are many of God’s laws that can witness against us, but if we understand that we are in need of a saviour and that a saviour has been given then who can condemn us…. God is for us and our debt has been paid.
Hebrews 10: 19-22a “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings”
Mark 13: 20 – 23““If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.”
I remember a girl I knew, who went on a bus trip to see a new leader who had risen in the church. On the trip she said they all saw the sun dance in the sky….. it was a miracle. It is so important to know that just because something is real and supernatural, it is not necessarily from God and not necessarily good. It was discovered later that this particular leader was setting up a cult.
From the experiences I’ve had with wonderful Christian people it is clear that it isn’t too hard to be deceived by these seemingly knowledgeable false prophets, and it is important to be constantly checking ourselves to see if we are accepting false teaching. It is vital that we remain connected to the church to keep a check on ourselves and our influences. Although these false prophets and teachings can and do come through the church, in the broader church body these are usually sorted out and found out for what they truly are. And so, as we are exhorted in the letter to the Hebrews, let’s not give up meeting together and let’s consider how we can spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
The warning that is repeated in the Gospel is that we must “watch”. We are the “watchmen” and if we compare this to the watchmen of the Bible it gives us a clear picture of someone patrolling up and down and back and forth…. There may not be any attack, but neither is there any sleeping. It is a constant dedication to keep all safe from harm. We have been given an amazing gift; the assurance that our spiritual debt is paid and now we are united with God and have him living in and through us. This is a truth which saw St. Paul stand up against St. Peter to proclaim that we are saved by faith and not by works…. It is Good News that needs proclamation and protection. We need to protect the message of the Good News, because any other Gospel is not Good News and not truth and makes Christ’s sacrifice to be pointless.
Watch! There are plenty of false teachings out there, but do you know them? Can you spot them? AND what do you need to do in order to discern?
1 Samuel 1: 4-20 1 Samuel 2:1-10 Hebrews 10: 11-14, (15-18), 19-25 Mark 13: 1-811
Last week I arrived home from Cairns by plane, feeling very hungry after waiting through various travel delays, so instead of going straight home, I was driven into town. As I got out of the car I noted and said out loud, “something is wrong”. It coincided with hearing sirens, but I think I felt the sense that something was very wrong even before hearing sirens. Also, hearing sirens is not unusual and it seemed that something more was going on…. Something I couldn’t, and still can’t put my finger on, but just that something was very wrong.
As it happened, we discovered later that the sirens were because someone had started a fire at the Toys R Us building on the north side of town. I still am left pondering why I felt so strongly that something was wrong. Yes, something was wrong, but what is it that God is trying to tell me through it all, and what was really going on in the spiritual realm that overflowed dramatically into the physical?
I’ve said recently that the Israelite history was one of asking “Why?”, and we find that many Old Testament accounts of the Israelites not only tell us the happenings of our Bible characters, but give an account how God was involved. It is a coming together of the spiritual and the physical in order to show the deeper truth.
Our readings this week leave me with a similar sense to that which I felt last Saturday when the fire was blazing. There is a sense of drama and danger, and it would be easy to get swept up in fear. It is one of the many parts of the Bible that many would prefer to skim over, but it is there for a reason and the sense of drama and danger should alert us to the fact that this is something to take note of as important.
Mark 13:5-8 “Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.”
Our Gospel reading is quite long and with important warnings. Firstly we are told to watch out that no one deceives us. We think that we are clever enough not to be deceived and we’ve known that those who claimed to know the date for the world to end or Jesus’ return, were fakes, but this is a very real warning from Jesus to his closest followers. I suspect the reason for the warning is that the deceivers will become way harder to spot. These ‘end of the world’ fakes are likely there to serve the purpose of lulling us into a false sense of security, thinking we can spot the fakes, so that we will be off guard when a real deception presents itself.
When someone wants to make counterfeit money they will study the real thing. It is likely that the deceptions that we need to look out for are among our churches already, walking and talking like fair dinkum Christians. They will probably know the Bible and church history better than any of us. So how can we know that we won’t be deceived?
1 Samuel 1:12-16 “As she kept on praying to the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”
“Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the LORD. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”
What we learn from our first reading is that looks are deceiving! I wonder if you have ever had the experience of thinking that a particular person was not nice and then actually got to meet that particular person and found out how wrong you had been. I have been guilty of this – at least two examples come to mind where I have been so wrong.
Our Old Testament reading tell the account of Hannah who was married to a man who had two wives. Hannah was loved, but had no children. This fact was great material for her rival wife who tormented her about it. I wonder if the rival wife, Penninah would have been so cruel if she had realized this woman would be the mother of one of Israel’s great prophets. But Penninah wasn’t the only one to judge Hannah cruelly. Eli was the high priest and although he had wicked sons which he should have chastised and didn’t, he had no hesitation in chastising this heartbroken woman. The good news is that Hannah had opportunity to explain herself and Eli prayed that God might grant her request, which He did.
There is something more we learn about Hannah. She was a woman of her word. She prayed that if God gave her a son she would give him to God for all of his days. It must have been so for Hannah, because when Samuel was a small boy he was given to Eli to serve him and to serve God.
I think that we are way more inclined to reject the people we should be accepting than we are to reject the teaching that we should be rejecting. We reject and judge people who are God’s chosen, but we seem to accept teaching that is popular fairly readily, sometimes simply because of who it is that teaches it, rather than if it is the truth.
I remember attending a weekend with some theology students where the lecturer was a catholic priest. His teaching was heresy, but most seemed to be lapping up his every word as if it was something fabulous. It was fabulously clever and combined science and faith and appealed to the intellectual Christian who wanted to be seen to be intelligent, but I have no doubt and no hesitation in telling you all that it was complete heresy.
So this begs the question, how can we know that we are not being deceived?
Hebrews 10:15- 16“15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.”[Jer 31:33]”
By the gift of the Holy Spirit, God writes his law in our hearts and on our minds. Sometimes it starts as a gut feeling that something is not right and then we need to look further. If we are like Hannah and striving to be faithful to God and in relationship with him, i.e. he lives in us, then we need to know that a gut feeling telling us something isn’t right is the Holy Spirit telling us truth. This is how God’s Spirit communicates with us, but to expose the falsehood we need something more tangible…. We need to be familiar with the word of God.
There are some who will tell you that the word of God is all you need in order to know God’s truth, but those who deceive often use the word of God. You may remember that Satan tempted Jesus in the desert by quoting scripture. He told Jesus the truth…. “If you are the son of God you can turn these rocks to bread.” It was true, but it wasn’t God’s will and it was with the Spirit of God to discern the will of God and with another scripture truth that Jesus was able to resist Satan’s attack.
Hebrews tells us that by one sacrifice, Jesus made perfect forever those who are being made holy. Why is it important that we know this? Because so many of us feel that we can’t be too close to God because we feel unworthy. This unworthy feeling prevents us from knowing all that we can about God and being able to discern the truth. But the truth is that while we are physically being made holy by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, we are spiritually made perfect by the sacrifice of Jesus. This means that there is nothing to separate us from God except our own ignorance of the gift he has given.
I wonder if you have come in contact with the kind of person who uses scripture to condemn you? There is plenty in the Bible that does condemn us…. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…. There are many of God’s laws that can witness against us, but if we understand that we are in need of a saviour and that a saviour has been given then who can condemn us…. God is for us and our debt has been paid.
Hebrews 10: 19-22a “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings”
Mark 13: 20 – 23““If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.”
I remember a girl I knew, who went on a bus trip to see a new leader who had risen in the church. On the trip she said they all saw the sun dance in the sky….. it was a miracle. It is so important to know that just because something is real and supernatural, it is not necessarily from God and not necessarily good. It was discovered later that this particular leader was setting up a cult.
From the experiences I’ve had with wonderful Christian people it is clear that it isn’t too hard to be deceived by these seemingly knowledgeable false prophets, and it is important to be constantly checking ourselves to see if we are accepting false teaching. It is vital that we remain connected to the church to keep a check on ourselves and our influences. Although these false prophets and teachings can and do come through the church, in the broader church body these are usually sorted out and found out for what they truly are. And so, as we are exhorted in the letter to the Hebrews, let’s not give up meeting together and let’s consider how we can spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
The warning that is repeated in the Gospel is that we must “watch”. We are the “watchmen” and if we compare this to the watchmen of the Bible it gives us a clear picture of someone patrolling up and down and back and forth…. There may not be any attack, but neither is there any sleeping. It is a constant dedication to keep all safe from harm. We have been given an amazing gift; the assurance that our spiritual debt is paid and now we are united with God and have him living in and through us. This is a truth which saw St. Paul stand up against St. Peter to proclaim that we are saved by faith and not by works…. It is Good News that needs proclamation and protection. We need to protect the message of the Good News, because any other Gospel is not Good News and not truth and makes Christ’s sacrifice to be pointless.
Watch! There are plenty of false teachings out there, but do you know them? Can you spot them? AND what do you need to do in order to discern?
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Reflection on Readings for 11 November 2012 proper 27
Mark 12:38-40 “As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.””
This passage reminds me of something that happened when the Anglican Diploma students went to the Indigenous theology college graduation on Thursday night. The Indigenous priest asked us, “Who are you blokes?” Our fearless leader replied, “This is the Anglican theology students.”
The Indigenous College is also Anglican, but he replied, “Anglican? What’s that? The Chosen Frozen! ...and more frozen than chosen!” And we all laughed, because we could all probably bring to mind an image of traditional Church that fitted this description....... but not us of course!!
This passage from the Gospel is an invitation to take an honest look at ourselves.... the Pharisees were the religious leaders who were God's earthly representatives. Can you imagine what God would be doing if he were on earth? Would he be parading around in the shops escorted by the dignitaries, such that the poor folk, (the single parents, the hung over night clubbers and smelly addicts) were kept away? Would he remain in the altar sanctuary area of the church and wait for people to come to see him?
I hope the answer is obvious, but I want us to make this a little more personal.... WE are God's representatives on earth.
In the past the clergy had been seen as people deserving respect in the community. But I would like you for just a moment, to consider how your friends, acquaintances and work colleagues would respond to you if you were to announce to them that you were to be ordained a priest tomorrow.
In some circles, being clergy can still be seen as a position of respect but, more often than not, this is now a position of disdain in society. On the flip side it is still a good thing on a job application to proclaim that you are a church goer..... So it is now the people in the pews who’ve become the people of honour and respect who might fail to realize that they are actually claiming and enjoying a seat of honour, and who may not realize it, but they maybe figuratively devouring widows houses. Anyone who calls themselves “Christian” is God's representative on earth but it is becoming increasingly important that the laity realize that they are called to this..... are we aware of this and responsible? ...or do we simply enjoy the privilege of being seen as a "holy" or “good” person?
Here is the benchmark to test if we are truly being God's representative on earth? Do we love our neighbour, and care for the poor?
During my week away, taking part in the intensive unit for the Diploma course, the idea of power was discussed. Each person there truly desired to NOT abuse the power, position and responsibility we have. Someone reminded us that mother Theresa described the people that she worked with as the "ungrateful poor". We need to realize that the reward for being truly God's representative on earth may well mean that no earthly reward may be forthcoming. (Remember the story of the ten leapers? Only one returned to give God thanks.)
Not all are called to work directly with the poor in the way of mother Theresa, but we all need to have the same heart that genuinely has concern. The poor that we may be called to work with are the people we meet each day. They may or may not be financially poor, but they may be spiritually poor.... emotionally poor... simply worn out and hurt.
They may be the ungrateful poor, with little regard for our efforts, but this is our mission because we know it is the poor that God is concerned with, and often, the poor who are his chosen. Such is in the case of Ruth.... Ruth 3:3 “One day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, “My daughter, I must find a home for you, where you will be well provided for.”
Naomi was a woman of great grief. She was a woman of God and yet her sons and husband had died. She had told her daughter-in-laws that they could go home to their family of origin, thus releasing them from any obligation to look after her. Can you imagine her grief? Not only would it have seemed a great emotional loss, but who would care for Naomi and provide for her?
While the natural reaction would have been to cling to the daughter-in-laws and demand that they had an obligation to care for her, Naomi puts the welfare of her daughter-in-laws ahead of her on and strives to trust solely on the Lord for her future. I suspect she didn’t hold out much hope, but that which she could give, she gave..... she gave the hope of remarriage and a happier life to the daughter-in-laws.
In many ways she was like the widow from our Gospel reading who gave to God all she had to live on. And we read on to discover that Ruth follows in this same act of selflessness.
Ruth refused to leave her mother-in-law and proclaimed that famous commitment statement, “where you go, I will go. Your God will be my God and your people will be my people”.
You know, that wonderful commitment is all good and well, and to us it might seem lovely, warm and fuzzy, but this was a commitment that could have meant the death of Ruth. She was going to live with a foreign people, and if our own experiences tell us anything it should be about how hard it is to be accepted when we try to become part of a new family. I wonder if this “family” of God, the Israelites, were as difficult to be accepted by as some of our own church families.
Ruth was not even an Israelite by birth. She was an outsider in that community- but she chose to be joined to the family of God, not because of the acceptance of the people, but because of her duty and love for her mother-in-law. I have no doubt many would have still regarded her as an outsider -bigger fool them to reject her, as she became an ancestor of Christ.
We often have subconscious limits about just who might be the recipients of God’s grace. I suspect that the Israelite people of Ruth’s time would never have thought it possible that this outsider could have been God’s chosen vessel to bring them salvation. It was a long way down the line, but Ruth was the great grandmother of King David and therefore an ancestor of Christ.
Certainly the story testifies that Ruth’s commitment to her mother-in-law was admired by many, but it was only the wonderful man, Boaz, who would redeem the property to which this outsider belonged, and, reading between the lines, it seems that these remarks about Ruth’s admiration came from a distance, as if from those who feared to contaminate themselves with an “unclean” Gentile woman.
Are we limiting God’s grace by rejecting someone who might just be a vessel, chosen by God, to bring God’s message of salvation? Although we may subconsciously sometimes reject some one as being a possible recipient of God’s grace, do we also subconsciously reject someone as not being able to bring us God’s grace? Ruth shows us that she was both. She was an outsider destined to receive God’s grace and she was an outsider who was the bringer of God’s grace and salvation. What I am really asking is, do we realize that God can reveal himself to us through the man who seems to be just a little slow? ....through the new Christian who seems to be a little flighty and worldly?.... The elderly quiet lady... and the list goes on....
Hebrews 9: 24 “For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.”
In God’s perfect plan for our salvation he died to unite ALL to himself. He also sent us all his Holy Spirit. Taking this through to its logical implications we see that God lives in all his people, therefore he can minister to all and through ALL.
Once upon a very long time ago I use to be very critical as I listened to the preaching at church. Somehow it dawned on me that I had the wrong attitude and I can remember that this was at a time that my house backed onto the church grounds. I’d go to church on Saturday night, but I could hear it a second time while I sat in my back yard. I remember that I decided that I should pray for the minister while church was going on. So I prayed for his sermon, that the Holy Spirit would lead him and also that the Holy Spirit would enable the listeners to hear God’s message in what he was saying.
None of us is perfect and we all fall very short of perfection, but many of us do care deeply about the truth of God. Sometimes this caring causes us to fight for what we believe to be true and this is necessary and good, but do we realize the person we are arguing with just may have the same passionate commitment to the truth of God?
We have the potential to be the equivalent of the hypocritical Pharisees if we remain comfortable in our honourable position in society and church and do not care for the poor.
I’d like to suggest that our poor neighbours that God would have us care for, are the very same people that we may have hurt with our criticisms. These maybe the emotionally poor, or the spiritually poor... maybe even the financially poor who’ve learnt to hide it well so that they appear to fit in. I’d also like to challenge us to care for the outcast - Those who are new to our churches and those who maybe just feel alone.... they maybe hard to spot, but if we pray for God’s guidance I’m sure we’ll not be led astray.
Finally I want to point out that the outcast, the criticized, the overwhelmed and the harassed that God wants us to also put our whole self into caring for, is our ministers. These are those on the front line of the battle and they have become society’s outcast and sometimes they are outcast in their own churches. Often they are called by God to move from where they are comfortable into places where they are unknowns and outsiders and they find themselves giving all and getting only criticism in return.
Mark 12:41- 44 “Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.
Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)