A new eternal life - but the choice is yours. 3rd August 2025 Proper 13 year C

2025  08  03   Proper 13 Year C  Pentecost 8 

Hosea 11:1-11     Psalm 107:1-9, 43     Colossians 3:1-11     Luke 12:13-21

 

At an in-service for Religious Instruction teachers, I was running a session on Images of God in the Old and New Testament.   All went well until an elderly lady gushed that God is love and is gentle and kind.  That riled up a man who said that God is a mighty and powerful God, who is just and makes judgements.  This really upset the lady who was keen to re-state her position about God’s love. 

 

Generally, people think that the revelation of God in the Old Testament was one of a wrathful God of judgement, and in the New Testament we find the love and compassion of God, yet we are told that God is the same, yesterday, today and forever.  So, what is God really like?

 

The Old Testament Prophet, such as Hosea, proclaimed God’s word and warned the people that they were going astray.  In all these God still expresses His love for his people.  This does not mean that it doesn’t matter what we do.  God has an impossibly high standard, but his call is to goodness, love and compassion.  Both the lady who understood God’s love, and the man who understood God’s judgement, were both correct.

 

God is completely good.  The law of God reveals a high standard of perfection because this is who God is…. Good, perfect and completely loving!  God is also a God of justice.  Justice and mercy might seem like two opposite attributes, but peace is made between the two in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  In Jesus, God shows both his justice, and his great love for us.  That same intense and immense love was always there, God so loves his people, yet his people refuse him.

 

Those Israelites were still being unfaithful to God.  Our reading begins;

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.     Hosea’s hearers would have immediately recognised what he was saying was a messianic prophecy.  Isreal was in slavery in Egypt and was delivered by the most amazing series of events, including the parting of the Red Sea.  Jesus also spent some of his young life in Egypt to escape from the King who sort to kill him as a babe.  It is this line from Hosea that is quoted in the Gospel of Matthew, when Mary, Joseph and Jesus returned to the land of Israel.

 

Hosea tells us; “The more I called them, the more they went from me;...”  This nation belonged to God.  They had God’s law, and they knew that they were called to love God, with all heart, mind, soul and strength, but they broke God’s law – constantly, and mostly, they did this unwittingly.   

 

How are we at keeping that first commandment?  Even back in the Garden of Eden, mankind was given just one rule, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Note that at that time they could eat from every other tree.  Coincidentally, that included the tree of life.  Satan in the form of the serpent put doubt in their minds about the rule and indicated that mankind could be like God if they ate from that fruit.  Therefore, he planted a desire in them to be God, to be powerful and rebellious.  Satan also planted doubts about God’s love and care for them.   Mankind lived in paradise, with everything they could possibly want or desire, and they had the tree of life, meaning that they could live forever, but somehow this was no longer enough.  

 

To love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, means to be completely trusting God.  The Israelites started sacrificing to the Baals and offering incense to idols because they didn’t trust God to provide for all their needs.  The first and great commandment was broken, over and over, and the Israelites are not the only ones who broke God’s law…. we still break it.  In fact, I suspect we don’t really even understand how to keep it.

 

A man built bigger barns so that he could eat, drink and be merry, but he didn’t get to enjoy any of it.  He spent his time working at getting more.  We don’t do that, do we?  We don’t skip church because we are too busy with our life and getting ahead with it all, do we?  We all make God and our church family a priority… after all, we are here! 

 

Our Gospel reading warns us; “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."  And this is explained by the story of a man who experiences great prosperity.   This was because two brothers were disputing their inheritance -  A thing that you don’t earn – but inherit– and therefore don’t deserve.  In the story that Jesus told, the land of a rich man produced an abundant crop.  It was the land that produced that harvest.  God that sends the rain.  No doubt man had a part in it, but our reading clearly states that it was the land that produced that crop.  The man was blessed with prosperity from his harvest, and from God, but what is the man’s response?

 

It is important that we understand that many of the father’s of our faith were abundantly blessed with prosperity.  Abraham, Job, King David and King Solomon are just a few who experienced God’s divine blessings which made them materialistically rich. Our letter to the Colossians tells us; “Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).  On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.”

 

Greed is idolatry.  It is that desire to have more and be more and it is the sin that crouches at the door.  It is idolatry because in greed we desire more - , more power, influence and security in our delusion that we are in control and have no need for God - just as in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve desired to be more.  The creation wanting to be their own God!  But here is the incredibly crazy thing…. God still absolutely loves us.   

 

The only way to explain it is like a parent and a beloved child.   The child is limited in understanding and disobeys the parent.  The parent loves unconditionally, but the child doesn’t show love in return, but like the daughter of a friend of mine, leaves that parent and goes to live with another and lives as in enmity with the birth parent who loves her.

 

What is a parent to do?  Well God said… “I know, I’ll show them my love by sending my Son to show them.  This is a love that will die to give them eternal life.”  (Last week I spoke about how the Spiritual realm has laws. The spiritual price for sin is death…. And God respects our free will…)

There is a spiritual price for our disobedience to God and Jesus paid that price with his life.  We now, through our baptism and free will, choose to belong to God identify with Christ.  We are considered to be clothed in Christ – meaning that we identify with Christ.  The spiritual purity and spiritual law-keeping of Christ, becomes our own.   Now that we have this new life in Christ, we are urged to make our earthly life match our spiritual life.  Our pure spiritual life does not slander or speak abusively etc.. and so we aim to clothe ourselves with the attributes of God who created us, as we grow in knowledge of him and His ways. 

 

The reason that a baptism traditionally has the candidate dressed in white is to symbolize being clothed in Christ.  We become a new creation, and we no longer think of ourselves as Greek, or Jew or Maltese or Australian or English or anything else.  Our truest identity is only in Christ.  The old self is gone – it is buried with Christ.  But the life we live now is because of the risen life of Christ.  He is in us and we in him.  By His Holy Spirit and with the permission of our free will, Christ lives his life through us.  This is how we can say, “We are the body of Christ”.

 

From the point of our baptism forward we can choose to live either of two ways.  We can strive to “be good” and get our physical self to match the spiritual reality of our life in Christ, or we can allow the life of Christ to live through us by the Holy Spirit.  To do this is an act of our free will.  Spoiler alert; choice number one will only see you frustrated because only Christ can live the Christian life.  Take choice number two where we rest because we simply allow Christ to live through us and to create us into the person, he designed us to be.  

Remember who you are - and don't compromise! Proper 12C 27th July 2025

2025  07  27  Proper 12 C  Pentecost 7

Hosea 1:2-10     Psalm 85     Colossians 2:6-15      Luke 11:1-13

 

Around about 750 BC, the Israelites dedication to God had … wandered….  Through Hosea, God revealed how He felt about their actions.

Hosea took a prostitute for his wife and then had children by this marriage. This mirrored God’s union with the nation of Israel who were unfaithful in their devotion to him.   The nation combined faith in God, with the superstitions, practises, traditions and ways of the society around them. Hosea’s unfaithful wife gave birth to children.  These children were the fruit of a union of compromise.  needless to say, God was not pleased with the ways of the nation.  Yet his love remained.

 

The greatest command is to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.  Therefore, completely faithful to God – his morals, values and His word.  We are not to marry our Christian beliefs with philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

 

What does this mean?  Philosophy explores questions about our beliefs, why we exist, our values, and core understandings about what life is about and why.  We are all impacted by philosophy because societies operate with shared philosophical assumptions, values, and beliefs.  The shared philosophy influences behaviour, and shapes social norms.  It weaves its way through our television shows, the movies we watch, and ultimately, the laws that are made.  Through all these we are encouraged to agree on certain matters. 

 

Philosophy, in our society has questioned and challenged values and beliefs, leading to new assumptions such as the case of marriage, whether same sex or between a man and woman.  It is philosophy that questions, “what really is a woman”?  Can a man be one?  Does life and death matter?  If life doesn’t matter, then all that does matter is the convenience and inconvenience of those alive now, which then impacts assumptions made about issues such as euthanasia and abortion.  We are to Watch out that no one takes us captive through philosophy!  To ponder and study wisdom is great.  To test things to ensure we are doing well, is honourable.  But we need to weigh it all up against an ultimate truth - God’s plumbline.

 

At the time the letter was written to the Colossians, they were merging Christianity with other popular ideas.  This is an effective way to deceive.  Not through overt lies, but by presenting clever ideas that compromise and seem to make peace between a lie and the truth.  This is how Scar, in The Lion King, was able to keep Simba away.  He told him the truth, that his father was killed because he was looking Simba and therefore his father’s death was Simba’s own fault.  Elements of truth but not the whole truth, meant that Simba lived for some time as an outsider, not remembering who he was. 

 

The way to truth, is to keep our eyes on him who IS the truth – Jesus.  Look deeper, and see who we are and who he is calling us to be.  Truth is not subjective.  There is an ultimate truth, whether we like it or not, and we find it in Jesus.  If we compromise, and dabble in other spirituality, philosophy, etc… we help no one.  And why do we compromise when we have GOOD NEWS?  Colossians tells us that we are baptised into Christ.  This means that God the father imputes to us all the goodness of Christ.  We therefore come before God as his perfect child, who already has eternal life.

 

Read again in Colossians; “when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him ….  And when you were dead in trespasses …, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.  He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.”  There IS a spiritual realm, and it has its own laws, just like our natural world with gravity and aerodynamics.  Because we turned from God, there was a spiritual consequence, and that consequence was death, but through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, those spiritual rulers and authorities have been disarmed.   

 

With consequences for our eternity, this is pretty mind-blowingly amazing Good News.  And yet those Colossians had to be warned not to be taken captive by philosophy, and empty deceit according to human traditions and the elemental powers of the world.   These are the very spiritual powers that Christ disarmed and yet we so very easily become ensnared.  I suspect we are ensnared easily because we don’t fully understand our identity in Christ and we don’t fully comprehend all that has been accomplished.

 

The Holy Spirit helps us to understand all things.  Jesus ends his instructions on prayer, with this interesting line about, if we know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will the father give the Holy Spirit.  Prayer, by the religious of Jesus time, was to recite prayers and praises by rote.  They thought that the longer the prayer and the more elaborate, the more likely that God was to hear you. What Jesus gave was simple in contrast to the prayers of the Pharisees.  We acknowledge that we worship God alone – “Our father in heaven!   Holy is your name”. 

 

We bring our petitions to God.  He really does care about everything that concerns us – big and small.  “daily ”, in the original language is a word that implies “coming-day”.  It  can actually be translated “the bread for tomorrow”.   Fruits of Zion website says this;  ““bread of tomorrow” alludes to the banquet of the Messianic Era. By asking God to give us the “bread of tomorrow,” we are not merely asking God for daily provision. Instead, we are asking him to provide us with a foretaste of the Messianic Era today.” (https://ffoz.org/torahportions/commentary/tomorrows-bread-today) Imagine living with an understanding of that Messianic Era.

 

We ask God’s forgiveness as we forgive those who have done wrong by us. We remember the scripture; “God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands.”  We are forgiven a debt that we could never pay, therefore we need to let go of holding grudges against another.  We are all his children and we recall his love for all – even those who have hurt us.  

The passage goes on to talk about going to a friend at midnight asking for some loaves of bread to feed another friend who has just arrived.  The friend lending the bread eventually gets up because of the man’s persistence. 

 

The jump that most make from this is that God will give us what we want, if we are persistent.  The word for “persistent”, in the original Greek language, could also be translated as steadfast or shameless.  God is longing to give good things to us.  We don’t need to nag!  The truth is that we have free will and God respects our free will by not interfering in our lives unless we are bold (shameless) and dare to ask.  This is the way that we need to be like the man asking for bread – Be bold and dare to ask, but understand that God is longing for us to ask him, and keen to answer our prayers and give us every good gift.  ASK and it will be given. 

 

Jesus mentions the Holy Spirit as the good gift that the father will give.  It seems out of place unless we remember that one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to helps us to pray.   In Jesus day, he was accused of healing and casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub.  This is because those dark powers could and did perform wonders.  It was a deceit, and it is why the people would compromise.  People using Crystals or following horoscopes and palm readings do so because they’ve experienced some accuracy, but make no mistake, these things put us under a curse.  These things hold people spiritually captive – it is unwittingly bowing down to Satan, and therefore being faithless to God.  Jesus came to set the captives free, but compromise with these things will put us back into bondage. 

 

Those in the early Christian church were being accused of the same as Jesus; they were speaking in tongues and healing- it was unusual, and some were jealous, and some were scared.  In this context we can understand why Jesus talks about the father giving good gifts.  He needed the people to know that the Holy Spirit was a good gift from God, and the Holy Spirit helps us to pray.

 

At our Alpha retreat day, we saw a video asking about superheroes.  We were asked; which is your favourite?  And if you could have a superpower, what power would you choose?  The fact of the matter is, God is longing for us to understand His “Kingdom come”, means his people walking in all the power that he has given us.  I have this sense that we are missing out because we don’t fully know who we are in Christ, and we don’t know the power that God has given us.  Remember in the Gospel of John Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I am doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.…”  

 

We pray “May your kingdom come”.  We are looking forward to the reign of Christ and we are stepping into the Kingdom of God.  And what do you think your place is in that Kingdom?  We are children of God…Romans tells us;  “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory”   We, as the children of the king, need to be stepping into our royal roles as part of our father’s business. 

 

God, the King, loves to give us good gifts and he does have a plan for our future – we are integral in His kingdom.  He is calling us to step up.  His plan is for eternity, but also for right now.  We are called as God’s people to take an active part in the coming of His Kingdom.  It is exciting and great news and there is no need, or room, for compromise.

Live your truth- like the tower of Pisa ? Or live God's truth - like a plumb line Proper 10C 13th July 2025

2025  07  13  Proper 10 Year C   

Amos 7:7-17    Psalm 82      Colossians 1:1-14     Luke-10:25-37

 

A question was posed to us at Alpha, “If you could ask God something, what would it be?”  A few of us thought we’d ask, “Are we on the right path?”  It is kind of the idea of wanting to know what is true so that we can line our life up with it.  Kind of like lining our life up to the plumb line.  The plumb line is a string with a weight on the end.  This line is held so that the weight can fall freely, and then an exact vertical measurement can be defined.  In our reading from Amos, we are told that God is setting a plumbline in the midst of his people.  That plumbline is the truth of God’s right and holy standard.  That plumbline, being placed in the midst of the people, reveals both what is good, correct, straight and true and therefore, revealing also what is crooked.  How do you think our current society would measure against God’s plumbline.  Mind you, the idea of the plumb line is to see how we measure against it.   Are we growing in the wisdom and knowledge of God, bearing fruit like the Colossians? Or ….  ?

 

Whatever was happening in ancient Israel, was important enough for God to declare that he was taking action and measuring.  Now, God didn’t HAVE to measure.  He knew where the society was going askew, but he declared that he was measuring so that the people had the opportunity to self-correct.  The job of the prophet was to warn the people and try to correct them.  That declaration sort to teach the people that God had a standard…. A standard of truth.   What is truth?

 

What is true?  “You do you, and I’ll do me”….   “You live your truth”.  “Be true to yourself”.   These are catch phrases of today’s society.  Looking up quotes about truth on the internet, there are SO many about “YOUR truth”… not about THE truth.  For so long, truth has been subjective.  Here is one I found, “Whatever human Endeavour we choose, as long as we live our truth, it is success.”  These sound great and positive but imagine that your human endeavour is to dominate others….  As long as we live our truth, it is success…  hmmm…   All these indicate that there is no real plumbline, but that individual truth is subjective.  What do you think?  Where will this take society?  Leaning like the leaning tower of Pisa!  You and I know that there is a plumbline.  God has a standard.  Whether people know what that standard or truth is, or not, doesn’t change the fact that there is an ultimate truth and a spiritual plumbline.   

 

A plumbline is about testing.  It is about checking to see what measures up and what does not.  It is fundamental to our faith that we understand that God is good and perfect.  God has a standard.  God is real.  God is true and God is the standard.  We also constantly measure what is good and true by using God’s plumb line…. We test things – and we are meant to test things and be discerning. 

 

In our Gospel reading an expert in the law “tested” Jesus.  This was not a pharisee trying to trap Jesus.  This was a good man who was doing what we all should do, he was being discerning and checking the words and actions of Jesus against what he knew to be the plumb line of God’s revelation through God’s Law.

 

The expert asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life.  Jesus does what was typical of the Rabbi’s and answers the question with a question.  This was expected.  The expert then answers with something that is very familiar to us, by summing up the law into the two commandments; "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbour as yourself."  This, while familiar to us, was not so common to Jesus’ audience and something that showed Jesus that this man was an expert and not a novice.   Jesus says, “… "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."  When Jesus uttered, “Do this and you will live”, he was also quoting scripture.  He was referencing when Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt to buy grain; Genesis 42:17- 19 tells us “So he put them all together in prison for three days. Now Yoseph said to them on the third day, “Do this and you will live, for I fear God: if you are honest men, let one of your brothers be confined in your prison; but as for the rest of you, go, carry grain for the famine which is upon your households,”  Do you notice the 3 days… and on the third day?  This is a shadow of the way to be restored to life, foreshadowing the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. 

 

Jesus was also referring to the giving and reciting of the Law in Exodus, Deuteronomy and Leviticus, which also end with similar encouragement to keep the law because by them you will live.  (Jewish commentary ( https://www.bethmelekh.com/yaakovs-commentary/the-samaritan-luke-1025-37 )  )

 

The words; “Do this and you will live”, also informed the “expert” pharisee that there must be a corresponding action to match the intellectual understanding.   In Jewish understanding there was no such thing as believing without it being shown by action.  

 

What follows next is the expert trying to stay in the game with the question, “and who is my neighbour?”.  The Expert already knew the answer.  The Hebrew word, “rea” is the word for neighbour and implied friend, fellow Israelite, countryman, or a person living in close proximity.  It did not refer to an adversary or enemy and it is important to note that Jesus did not imply that the Samaritan was an enemy.  The Samaritan was the Israelite half-brother.  He was already considered a Rea… a neighbour, but he was often looked down on because he didn’t do things in the way that was thought to be strictly correct. 

 

The story goes on to tell us that a man is travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho.  It is worth noting that at the time of Jesus, Jericho was one of the cities designated as a place for priests and Levites who were rostered for duty in the Temple.  It is believed that About 12,000 priests and Levites lived there, and they were a familiar sight on the road. (https://www.seetheholyland.net/jericho/) .

We aren’t told if the man was a priest or a Levite, but we can safely assume that he is someone who legitimately belongs in the Israelite and Jewish society and Jesus is wanting his audience to identify with him.  (This now includes us).

 

This man fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead.  We are told that a priest came by and a Levite, and both passed by him on the other side.   We could sympathize and say, “Yes, but touching the man would have made them ceremonially unclean, as it was against God’s law to touch the man.”  The problem with this is that the men were also traveling “down” that road… on the way to Jericho.  This means that they had already completed their priestly duties in Jerusalem and were on their way home. 

 

A Samaritan found the man, bandaged his wounds and treated them with oil and wine - the equivalent of first aid.  The Samaritan didn’t stop there, but took the man to an inn, and took care of him, paid the innkeeper to look after him and promised to repay any other expenses. 

In the end Jesus said to the expert, "Go and do likewise." – In other words; “Do this and you will live.”

 

Let me emphasise that the Samaritan was not an enemy, but he was a bit of an outsider.  The Samaritan is our neighbour who lives near us in peace.  It is our family, friends and acquaintances.   We are the man beaten and left for dead, helpless to help ourselves.  Jesus is the one, somewhat outcast…  He was rejected by his own people and crucified, but He is our “Good Samaritan” who has rescued and cared for us, and he continues to heal us and help us grow.  And now we are called to “Go and do likewise”. 

 

In the Jewish understanding there is no belief without action.  If we are the people of God, our actions MUST show it.  We can not say we love God and our neighbour and not show it by our actions.  We are told that God has a plumb line.  There is an absolute truth, and we find it in God and His law.  But how do we keep that law?  By action.  Putting our money where our mouth is, so to speak.  It isn’t always easy, because it means stopping our own journey momentarily to help another. 

 

Research has informed me that the Oral Torah (Mishnah), places the sanctity of life above all but the instruction to love and worship God alone.  Jesus, in his story, is emphasising two things; that the law of God is not complete unless there is action, and the action to value human life and protect it, supersedes any other law besides loving God.  Understanding this view of the sacredness of human life throws new light on what it means to keep the law of God, and perhaps, in this light, we should review some of our beliefs and actions.  If we are going to stand up and advocate for anything in this life, it must be firstly and foremostly to guard and protect human life.

 

This is our challenge for today.  There is a plumb line -a way that is right - a truth; Life is precious. In the Good Samaritan story, Jesus was clarifying that the sanctity of LIFE is above all, but the love of God. This is what it means to love your neighbour; to remember that the greatest gift God has given us is life and we must protect it, heal and even pay the price to guard that precious God given gift.  Not to draw too much attention to issues that have been challenged by legislation such as euthanasia and abortion…  but then again – maybe that is what this is all about.  We need to know the word of God and what God really requires of us.  We recite those two great commandments every week, but do we understand what it means?  Now, we do! To love your neighbour is to work to safe-guard our neighbours life. Our lives are precious gifts from God. Treasure that gift - and we too, like the Samaritan, are to “Go and do likewise”,