13th August 2023 - SENT!

2023 08 13 PROPER 14 (19)   Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost  Year A

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 and Psalm 105: 1-6, 16-22, 45b  Romans 10:4-15  •  Matthew 14:22-36

Salvation begins with someone being SENT!

This week we have the Good News revealed clearly and simply; We read in Romans that “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  The saving grace of God is a free gift.  It is simple and easy to obtain.  It is a matter of believing and confessing that belief.  However, for this Good News to reach all people, The letter to the Romans tells us, someone needs to be sent.  

 

We are all called to step out in faith.  The first step we take is to decide to follow Jesus… we must be convinced in our own mind that we believe in Jesus.  We believe what Jesus said about himself.  In the Gospel to John there is a statement when the Jews were questioning Jesus about his knowledge of Abraham, Jesus replies; “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”  In this, Jesus claimed to be one with God and pre-existent.  Jesus is the lamb of God who died to redeem us and he rose from the dead, declaring victory over the grave.  This is our faith… do we believe it?  This is the first part of our being assured of salvation.  The second part is that we confess our believe.  We do this each time we meet as we recite the creed – we confess our belief. 

 

This is guarantee of our salvation; if we believe in our heart and confess with our mouth…  then we are saved… we can rest in that assurance.    It is like there is a line drawn in the sand.  On one side is doubt and fear, but the other is a joyful, confident assurance.

 

I know that there are many people who don’t fully realize the assurance of God’s love and acceptance.  We all might easily say, “I hope that God will accept me when I die.”  And maybe this is how you are feeling today.  But I’m here to tell you today, that we don’t have to merely hope that God will accept us - we can know!  This letter to the Romans tells us clearly – we believe and we confess -we are therefore assured of our salvation. What is that song?  Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!  Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!  Heir of salvation, purchase of God.  Born of his Spirit, washed in His blood.  THIS IS OUR STORY!

 

What does it mean to you that you are an heir of salvation?  What does it mean to you that you and I have been purchased by God… bought with the blood of Christ, we are redeemed.  We are Born again.  We are all physically born and then it is through our belief in and confession that we are born of the spirit of God.  Washed in His blood means that we are considered spiritually pure and acceptable to God.  The only condition is to believe and to confess.  That is mighty good news and truly a blessed assurance.  But how did this faith come to us?

 

 The readings this week are connected by a theme of being SENT.  In order for us to enjoy the Gospel, the Good News of this New Covenant and the blessed assurance of our salvation, someone needed to pass that Good News on.  Saint Paul was SENT by the believers to spread the Good News.  Jesus was SENT.  There would be no Good News at all if God had not SENT His only begotten Son.  The Good News is pretty incredibly good, but it took a sacrifice on Jesus’ part.  For this amazing news to be passed on it took quite a sacrifice from Saint Paul and many others.  Those who are sent, need to have absolutely no doubt about the love and goodness of God, because passing on this message sometimes means enduring hardship.  This was certainly true for the Israelites, who were the children of Jacob.  And very true for Joseph.

 

In our story about Jacob and his children, we remember that God has given Jacob a new name.  Last week we read that Jacob had his name changed to Israel.   The giving of a new name was incredibly significant as it meant that he was given a new destiny and a new identity.  More than this, the name was given to him by God.  How would it feel to have God give you a name?  It meant that there was a special intimate relationship between Israel and God.  Israel belonged to God and God was the father of Israel.  But Israel still experienced some very tough times.

 

Jacob had two wives and two sort of wives – and through these he had 12 sons.  Rachael was the wife that he loved and she was, like many in this story of faith, somewhat barren.  She did eventually have a son, the man in the spotlight of our story today, Joseph.  Eventually Rachael had a second son, Benjamin, but she died in childbirth.

 

Therefore, you can imagine that Joseph and Benjamin were particularly important in the heart of Jacob.  They were the favourites and especially Joseph.   According to biblical scholar Tikva Frymer-Kensky, "The infertility of the matriarchs has two effects: it heightens the drama of the birth of the eventual son, marking Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph as special; and it emphasizes that pregnancy is an act of God."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel#Marriage_to_Jacob

 

Certainly, God’s hand was mightily on Joseph.  God gave dreams to Joseph and these dreams were about him ruling over his family.  Foolishly, or probably more naïvely, Joseph spoke of these dreams to his family, who certainly didn’t appreciate this little up-start, usurping his place as a mere child.  Neither did the brothers appreciate him giving a bad report about them to their father when they were shepherding.  Just what exactly they were doing, we will never know, but when these brothers had the opportunity, most of them wanted to kill Joseph with no remorse.  Reuben being an exception.

 

At this point these men were not all honourable sons of a great patriarch. They didn’t appear to have any fear of God, who cast away Cain for killing his brother Abel.  We are not told of Joseph’s emotions as he was thrown into the pit, or while the brothers were conspiring to kill him and pretend it was a wild animal.  He must have heard all this while in the pit and knew that his father, believing he was dead would not rescue him.  Therefore, there was no hope of rescue as he was lead away, sold as a slave and sent on his way to Egypt.

 

I wonder if those dreams are what sustained Joseph during that time?  He knew that those dreams were from God and therefore a promise of something to come.  However, this was a young boy who had been sheltered and protected as a father’s favourite son.  This change must have been frightening.

 

With the gift of time, we can look back and see God’s using the situation so that Joseph was SENT to Egypt and found his way into the favour of the Pharoh for the salvation of the Israelites during the coming times of famine.  Joseph eventually realized this also, but that doesn’t mean it was easy for him. 

 

Joseph being sold by his brothers is a bad news story.  But the story isn’t ended.  There is more yet to be revealed.  Perhaps we are feeling that our lives are a bit of a bad news story – or the current state of our country and world is a bad news story – But the story isn’t ended.

 

I personally feel that our world is in a very chaotic time.  The Christianised west is most definitely losing that particular identity.  This means that we do not need to travel to another country to spread the Good News to those who haven’t heard it, because many people right here among us have never heard the Good News.  Most people on the street don’t even realize that Jesus is a real person who really existed and really historically and physically walked this earth.  Today in our town we desperately need people here among us to be SENT.

 

My school does not have Religious Instruction for every class.  There are simply not enough people prepared to go and teach them.  We aren’t sending out our people.  In our Street Chaplaincy organisation, we mostly enjoy a very good reputation among those we deal with on the street, but we are short on people too.  If we don’t SEND out people into these positions of influence in our community, we will continue to see the decline in the church.

 

BUT for someone to be SENT, we need to ask if that person is us.  And then we need to step out in faith.  It can be a little scary.

 

Jesus had just miraculously fed the multitudes and made the disciples go off in the boat while he dismissed the crowd and withdrew to pray.  He then went walking on the water to meet the disciples!  After their fear factor of seeing a Ghost and Jesus identifying himself, Peter calls out, , "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water."

 

Often when we sense God calling us to do something, we check by saying something like, “Lord, if you really want me to do something, then….”  Whatever… we want proof.  We want to be sure… and so it is with Peter.  He’d just experienced an amazing miracle of the feeding of the multitudes and he still needs proof.  Jesus is gracious and calls him out.  Peter walks!  He actually walks on water also, but then he notices the wind and begins to sink.

 

We often set out to do what we know God calls us to do.  Things go amazingly well and doors open.  We say it is obviously God’s will, but then things start to go wrong and we doubt.  We think, “maybe we shouldn’t be doing this after all.” -  These are the waves and the wind, and they are always there!

 

We live in a physical world, but for certain there is a spiritual dimension among us also.  In this spiritual dimension there are the Angels of God, but there are other powers and principalities also.  They are always against us – but they are merely the wind and the waves.  Merely?  Wind and waves can drown us!

 

Notice that Peter cries out to Jesus and Jesus takes hold of him and saves him.  Jesus does not let Peter drown.  Neither will Jesus let us drown.  There will be wind and waves.  We are called to step out in faith.  To answer the call of God so that we can be sent…. All of us.  Not just some of us.  I’ve heard people say, “Peter needed to just keep his eyes on Jesus”.  While it maybe true, would any of us done any better than Peter?  At least he got out of the boat… and he did actually walk.  He got out of the boat…  Jesus says, “You of little faith… why did you doubt.”  The others didn’t step out.

 

As a young Adult I came across a poster with a phrase that has always stayed with me.  It had a question; How can you know that God is calling you?  At the bottom of the poster was the answer; You are breathing.