Year C Proper 7 23 June 2013
1 Kings 19: 1-15 Psalm 42 & 43 Galatians 3: 23-29 Luke 8: 26-39
I’d have to say that this here is one of my favourite scriptures and it is especially my favourite today. Elijah had just proclaimed the sovereignty of God in his show down between the prophets of Baal and the sacrifice to God, where the one true God answered dramatically by sending down fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice and also consuming the prophets of Baal. After this, you would think Elijah would be full of self-confidence, but instead, with great fear, he receives the message that Jezebel is out to kill him, and he runs.
1 Kings 19:3-5 “ Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.”
Ever felt like that?
In the Christian community we almost dare not admit it, because we’d be deemed as one lacking in faith. You’d be judged as a flawed and immature Christian.
Elijah would have to be the most mature and strong man of God, and yet if he were among us, would we reject him for his honest, fearful and broken heart?
In the Psalms that are listed for this Sunday we see the sentiments that may have been expressed by Elijah as the same sentiments expressed by the psalmist;
Psalm 42:2-3 “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
But the story of Elijah doesn’t finish there. After crying out to God and falling asleep, God wakes him and feeds him. He is nourished by God and yet he remains despondent and falls asleep again. Again he is awoken by God, and fed and encouraged, and warned that the journey is too great for him. There is no condemnation from God. There is only care and comfort and encouragement and nourishment. Still it doesn’t change the despondency or even depression that Elijah is experiencing.
There are so many lessons about depression and grief in this passage. I hope you can sense some of them without me having to draw them all out.
At this point in time, after being woken and feed twice by God, Elijah sets off into the desert for 40 days until he comes to the mountain of God, where he goes into a cave to sleep – again. Then God speaks;
1 Kings 19:9b-11 “And the word of the LORD came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”
God already knew what Elijah was doing there, but Elijah needed to express his grief. Elijah was in the presence of God already but was told to go outside and be in the presence of the Lord and that the Lord would also pass by.
While Elijah was in the presence of the Lord on the mountain he experienced a great and powerful wind which tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks. Can you imagine how scary that was? And what was the point of it all? To show that God was not in the wind.
Then while Elijah was in the presence of the Lord on the mountain there was an earthquake. OH MY GOODNESS! I can just imagine Elijah being precariously perched on the mountain while an earthquake is happening, having barely recovered from the powerful wind, just regaining his balance and beginning to relax and then and earthquake shakes his being. And what was the point of it all? To show that God was not in the earthquake.
After this there came a fire…….. same story… God was not in the fire.
In the lives of God’s people there sometimes seems to be storm after storm and we find ourselves battered and shaken, and even depressed. We, as Christians are in the presence of God always because we carry him in us, but sometimes we feel that God is in the storm. Other Christians might even believe and have us believing that we are lesser Christians and this is why there are storms in our lives, erroneously indicating that God is “IN the storm”. AND other Christians will often erroneously judge our faith maturity by our inability to keep smiling through these storms…. I believe that God was showing Elijah something important that we all need to know.
Elijah was a prophet of the Lord and everything he’d done was to proclaim the word of God and for his reward he had been hunted and threatened. The people had seen the mighty work of God and yet it wasn’t enough… they still turned against Elijah.
The storms in our life are like the wind that batters us while we are in the presence of God – But don’t be mistaken – God is not in the wind / storm/ earthquake/ fire.
1 Kings 19:12b “…And after the fire came a gentle whisper.”
Elijah stood in the presence of the Lord and spoke with him, explaining his pain again to God. This time God gives him a direction to go back the way he came and anoint Hazael King over Aram.
It is said that a prophet is never accepted in their home town. Jesus came to his own, even though many rejected him and Elijah was sent back also, and in our Gospel reading we find that a man who’d be cured of demon possession was sent back to his home town to proclaim God’s message. Regardless of whether we are accepted or not, we are called to proclaim Gods message to our own people, and to our own community.
Coming back to that Gospel story, it is one where Jesus was travelling just outside of his “home parish”… he did this at times and we read of his interactions with Samaritans and other Gentiles. In our Gospel reading Jesus encountered a man who wore no clothes and who lived among tombs. This man was often chained, but he broke the chains. If I was Jesus companions I’d have felt rather scared. It brings to mind the story of Beauty and the Beast.
In today’s politically correct climate it could be argued that Beauty and the Beast is a harmful story, as it teaches little girls to put up with abuse at the hands of a beast. The flip side is that it is true love that sees through the beastly exterior and sets free the imprisoned prince within. Call me a romantic, but I like to think that this flip side was the actual intent of the author and it matches perfectly with our Gospel story.
The prince – a son of the living God was imprisoned by the demons that kept him separated from all that he loved and kept those who love him separated also. Jesus saw through the beastly exterior and set him free.
In both our Old Testament reading and our Gospel reading we can see that the judgments we make on people can keep them imprisoned. We can judge other Christians depression as being a lack of mature faith and we can judge outsiders as beasts who have no prince within. Our vision is limited by our lack of love and understanding.
Before the coming of Jesus into our lives we were all sharers of the beastly reality that we could not live up to the standards of God, we were imprisoned by our own humanity. And still we remain imprisoned unless we realize the Gospel message.
Galatians 3:23 “Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.”
Apart from Jesus we are all subjected to the consequences of our fallen humanity and destined to live separated from the one who created and loves us. If we look at our lives with natural eyes we can still only see the beast – that creature that fails to live up to the perfection of God’s perfect law. If we think that we are better than that we are really only fooling ourselves because a quick look at some of the most confronting scriptures shows us that we all fall short of the glory of God.
But God sees the royal children within the beast and set us free by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, but more than that…..
We who are IN CHRIST are clothed in Christ.
When God looks at us he sees his perfect son. That is how Paul, in Galatians 3:26 can say, “So in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith”. Many modern translations, aiming to be politically correct state that we are “Children of God”… all true, but when we understand how God looks at us and sees his son, it seems that “sons of God” means a whole lot more. My relationship with God is not conditional on my ability to keep God’s law, it is conditional upon my relationship with Christ and I’m so grateful for that.
Galatians 3:10-12a, “For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith;…”
If we think that we can earn our way into heaven we are gravely mistaken. If we think we can work out our own salvation this way we have “fallen from Grace”. Grace is the unmerited favour that we have from God because of our relationship with Jesus, but once we start to try and earn our own salvation we become once again cursed and lost and there is no other sacrifice that can save us because we’ve not truly accepted the sacrifice of Jesus…. We haven’t understood that we are only saved by faith and not in any way saved by good works. In fact, this is an act of abominable disregard for Christ’s complete and sufficient sacrifice.
FAITH – complete faith in God is all that we need. We can be despondent and grieving and still have complete faith in God. We can still have that beastly human nature and our faith in Christ means that we are completely saved.
Galatians 3: 14 “He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.”
By FAITH we receive the promise of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit came on the feast of Pentecost. This feast was the feast of the receiving of the law. The Holy Spirit is God in us, the deposit of heaven within us and it is the true law of God. The Holy Spirit at work in us and allowed to fully live through us breaks through our beastly nature and brings God’s nature into our being. How it does this is between us and God and through our relationship with him.
This is amazing Good News! God himself is the author and perfector of our faith. But are we open and receptive to the Holy Spirit or are we striving foolishly in our own strength?
Clothed in Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit the beast is transformed. You may not sense it, but God sees it and his opinion is all that matters.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Reflection 2nd June 2013
Year C Proper 4 2 June 2013
1 Kings 18: 20-39 Psalm 96 Galatians 1:1-12 Luke 7:1-10
It was a dark time for the Israelite nation. Those who pronounced judgment about the culture in which they lived were labeled crazy fundamentalists and trouble makers. They were persecuted and put to death or else lived in hiding.
Though it was a dark time, the sky was clear. There was drought. Food was scarce and the people sought a solution.
It is a dark time in many places in the world for Christians. Those who speak out and proclaim and proclaim that Jesus is the only way are labeled crazy fundamentalists who cause offense and are trouble makers. They are persecuted. In Australia and other western countries, those who speak out are branded as some kind of crazy, but there are other places in the world where their lives are in peril.
In this dark time, there is a drought of people in our churches. The Christian Church in Australia is diminishing.
What is the solution? It seems like Mission Impossible….
I’ve been reading articles for my course of study, the diploma of Anglican orders, and through this I have learnt a new word; syncretism.
The articles were dealing with the church of the unknown future and how, as a church we must change to “speak the language” of our current culture, but it warned against syncretism.
Syncretism is the melding of two opposing religious views.
I mention this because we find this issue in our readings for this week and I believe that God wants us to sit up and take notice. Forget about the future just for the moment, and let’s look at here and now. Are we already guilty of the sin of syncretism?
To explore this we’ll look at our first reading. It is supposed that the reason for the drought was that the people were hopping between two beliefs. They hadn’t deserted belief in Yahweh, their God, but they were also taking part in rituals that were identified as Baal Worship.
Baal worship included four things; the sacrifice of infants, immorality, Worship of nature and magical incantations.
Do we see these things anywhere today?
I’ll let you think about that, but add that you know that something is out of whack when a nation has laws to protect dangerous animals like crocodiles and yet abortion is readily available!
In our New Testament reading we find that the Galatians are struggling with this concept of syncretism. These people were those “on fire” early Christians who were quite radical and active. In fact they were so keen and active that they were hungry for more and more of what there might be to know about God. They figured that Jesus was a Jew and that God was revealed through the Israelite nation and therefore they figured that they needed to also take on the keeping of the Jewish law.
This was a common problem that St. Paul encountered and that he firmly, strongly and even fiercely fought against. It was an acceptance of the message of God’s forgiveness and saving power through his grace and through our faith in Jesus Christ, but then the people added that certain works were also necessary in order to be truly saved.
Having grown up in the Roman Catholic faith and education system, I know that in the history of the church there was a time when the priests sold “indulgences”. A certain amount of money “donated” to the church would ensure a shorter time for the soul in purgatory. However, when I was little I remember being told a certain amount of church attendance gave special grace… I was told that if you had a special petition you should go to church for nine first Fridays in a row and this would ensure God’s answer to that petition. There are many other forms and other denominations, unwittingly had their own more subtle forms – ie, Salvation was not sure unless certain prayer forms was said, or they knelt at the altar, or full emersion baptism, works of service, pray in tongues. Ultimately they’ve swapped one set of rules for another. These Gospel variations make their way to emails too – “pray this prayer and you will receive that thing you need”. Sometimes they are so close to being correct – but there is a slight difference.
The slight difference is that there is an underlying belief that God’s answer to our prayer depends on what we do, and not on God’s grace.
It shows that we do not understand God’s love and it shows that we do not actually have faith in God, but our faith is instead in an action. Adding certain works to our faith is like getting into a plane and then flapping your arms to keep the plane in the air.
Our Gospel reading tells the story of a Centurion who asked the Jewish elders to speak to Jesus on his behalf and to ask him to heal his servant. The Centurion was well acquainted with the Jewish ways and knew that if Jesus was to come under his roof and touch his sick servant, Jesus would be ceremonially unclean and unable to partake in the Jewish celebrations. So, out of politeness and thoughtfulness he declares that Jesus need not come to his house. He declares that Jesus need only say the word and the servant would be healed.
This Centurion knew that Jesus had power and he knew that he, as an outsider, had no right or authority to claim any special privilege, but he simply made his request. He had faith. He allowed Jesus to be the Boss! He acknowledged Jesus authority.
Jesus declared that the man had great faith and we often hear this from the Gospels and things like, “Your faith has made you well”, and we mistakenly think that if we had as MUCH faith, we’d see great things happen too…. But this is an error. The faith that heals is simply the fact that the person has “faith in Jesus” – that is the great faith, and the faith that heals…. Not some hypothetical volume of faith.
I’ll demonstrate with two chairs; one rickety and frail, and the other solid. I can walk around the rickety one seven times and praise it and offer thanks to it, but if I sit in it no matter how great my faith, the chair will fail me. On the other hand, I may not be sure about the solid chair and sit on it very cautiously…. It will still hold me… the object of my little faith is “faithful”.
And that is how it is with God. Will we have faith in him or will we have faith that the rituals or actions that we perform will somehow cause him to act on our behalf?
We can safeguard ourselves against syncretism by knowing and rejoicing continuously in the pure Gospel message that we are saved by the Grace of God and our faith in Jesus. FULL STOP.
We need to allow the fire of the Holy Spirit to come with power into our lives to sort out those superstitions and doubts that we have. It is the Holy Spirit who teaches us and leads us into all truths. In reality we are all a little guilty of syncretism – we unknowingly hold on to beliefs that are not 100% correct and we need to be in constant Christian conversation with others – through Bible study, church etc… and allow the Holy Spirit that is alive in each of us teach each other.
If we look back to the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal we will note that prophets of Baal perform many rituals and strive to invoke Baal to act, but when Elijah prays to God it is a simple prayer. It was not his volume of faith that enabled the great miracle – it was simply that his faith was in a great God.
So here is the solution to our Mission Impossible –
If the drought is to break in the decline of our numbers of Christians in Australia, we need to pray for that great fire of the Holy Spirit to turn our hearts back to him and burn up the areas where we are unwittingly worshiping false gods and accepting fallacies. We need to proclaim the pure Gospel without any additives and have faith that God will send the rain.
1 Kings 18: 20-39 Psalm 96 Galatians 1:1-12 Luke 7:1-10
It was a dark time for the Israelite nation. Those who pronounced judgment about the culture in which they lived were labeled crazy fundamentalists and trouble makers. They were persecuted and put to death or else lived in hiding.
Though it was a dark time, the sky was clear. There was drought. Food was scarce and the people sought a solution.
It is a dark time in many places in the world for Christians. Those who speak out and proclaim and proclaim that Jesus is the only way are labeled crazy fundamentalists who cause offense and are trouble makers. They are persecuted. In Australia and other western countries, those who speak out are branded as some kind of crazy, but there are other places in the world where their lives are in peril.
In this dark time, there is a drought of people in our churches. The Christian Church in Australia is diminishing.
What is the solution? It seems like Mission Impossible….
I’ve been reading articles for my course of study, the diploma of Anglican orders, and through this I have learnt a new word; syncretism.
The articles were dealing with the church of the unknown future and how, as a church we must change to “speak the language” of our current culture, but it warned against syncretism.
Syncretism is the melding of two opposing religious views.
I mention this because we find this issue in our readings for this week and I believe that God wants us to sit up and take notice. Forget about the future just for the moment, and let’s look at here and now. Are we already guilty of the sin of syncretism?
To explore this we’ll look at our first reading. It is supposed that the reason for the drought was that the people were hopping between two beliefs. They hadn’t deserted belief in Yahweh, their God, but they were also taking part in rituals that were identified as Baal Worship.
Baal worship included four things; the sacrifice of infants, immorality, Worship of nature and magical incantations.
Do we see these things anywhere today?
I’ll let you think about that, but add that you know that something is out of whack when a nation has laws to protect dangerous animals like crocodiles and yet abortion is readily available!
In our New Testament reading we find that the Galatians are struggling with this concept of syncretism. These people were those “on fire” early Christians who were quite radical and active. In fact they were so keen and active that they were hungry for more and more of what there might be to know about God. They figured that Jesus was a Jew and that God was revealed through the Israelite nation and therefore they figured that they needed to also take on the keeping of the Jewish law.
This was a common problem that St. Paul encountered and that he firmly, strongly and even fiercely fought against. It was an acceptance of the message of God’s forgiveness and saving power through his grace and through our faith in Jesus Christ, but then the people added that certain works were also necessary in order to be truly saved.
Having grown up in the Roman Catholic faith and education system, I know that in the history of the church there was a time when the priests sold “indulgences”. A certain amount of money “donated” to the church would ensure a shorter time for the soul in purgatory. However, when I was little I remember being told a certain amount of church attendance gave special grace… I was told that if you had a special petition you should go to church for nine first Fridays in a row and this would ensure God’s answer to that petition. There are many other forms and other denominations, unwittingly had their own more subtle forms – ie, Salvation was not sure unless certain prayer forms was said, or they knelt at the altar, or full emersion baptism, works of service, pray in tongues. Ultimately they’ve swapped one set of rules for another. These Gospel variations make their way to emails too – “pray this prayer and you will receive that thing you need”. Sometimes they are so close to being correct – but there is a slight difference.
The slight difference is that there is an underlying belief that God’s answer to our prayer depends on what we do, and not on God’s grace.
It shows that we do not understand God’s love and it shows that we do not actually have faith in God, but our faith is instead in an action. Adding certain works to our faith is like getting into a plane and then flapping your arms to keep the plane in the air.
Our Gospel reading tells the story of a Centurion who asked the Jewish elders to speak to Jesus on his behalf and to ask him to heal his servant. The Centurion was well acquainted with the Jewish ways and knew that if Jesus was to come under his roof and touch his sick servant, Jesus would be ceremonially unclean and unable to partake in the Jewish celebrations. So, out of politeness and thoughtfulness he declares that Jesus need not come to his house. He declares that Jesus need only say the word and the servant would be healed.
This Centurion knew that Jesus had power and he knew that he, as an outsider, had no right or authority to claim any special privilege, but he simply made his request. He had faith. He allowed Jesus to be the Boss! He acknowledged Jesus authority.
Jesus declared that the man had great faith and we often hear this from the Gospels and things like, “Your faith has made you well”, and we mistakenly think that if we had as MUCH faith, we’d see great things happen too…. But this is an error. The faith that heals is simply the fact that the person has “faith in Jesus” – that is the great faith, and the faith that heals…. Not some hypothetical volume of faith.
I’ll demonstrate with two chairs; one rickety and frail, and the other solid. I can walk around the rickety one seven times and praise it and offer thanks to it, but if I sit in it no matter how great my faith, the chair will fail me. On the other hand, I may not be sure about the solid chair and sit on it very cautiously…. It will still hold me… the object of my little faith is “faithful”.
And that is how it is with God. Will we have faith in him or will we have faith that the rituals or actions that we perform will somehow cause him to act on our behalf?
We can safeguard ourselves against syncretism by knowing and rejoicing continuously in the pure Gospel message that we are saved by the Grace of God and our faith in Jesus. FULL STOP.
We need to allow the fire of the Holy Spirit to come with power into our lives to sort out those superstitions and doubts that we have. It is the Holy Spirit who teaches us and leads us into all truths. In reality we are all a little guilty of syncretism – we unknowingly hold on to beliefs that are not 100% correct and we need to be in constant Christian conversation with others – through Bible study, church etc… and allow the Holy Spirit that is alive in each of us teach each other.
If we look back to the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal we will note that prophets of Baal perform many rituals and strive to invoke Baal to act, but when Elijah prays to God it is a simple prayer. It was not his volume of faith that enabled the great miracle – it was simply that his faith was in a great God.
So here is the solution to our Mission Impossible –
If the drought is to break in the decline of our numbers of Christians in Australia, we need to pray for that great fire of the Holy Spirit to turn our hearts back to him and burn up the areas where we are unwittingly worshiping false gods and accepting fallacies. We need to proclaim the pure Gospel without any additives and have faith that God will send the rain.
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