Radical Discipleship

Well, you will be pleased to know that the Warden didn't call me up in the week to talk about my sermon.  But it’s there again, isn't it – in that Leviticus reading.  Being a neighbour to those who live around us is not optional, is it?

The question I want to begin with today is “Do you consider yourself to be a radical?  To be living a counter-cultural lifestyle?  Or maybe in even simpler terms do you sometimes feel that your being a Christian makes you a bit of an odd-bod?” 

I know – that was three questions.

It seems that again and again, the descriptions we have in Scripture of how God wants us to behave in relation to each other expect us to do pretty much the opposite of what the rest of the world thinks is the way it stands.

The idea of leaving your gleanings around the field so that the poor and have a share was not good business to the Canaanites – but it save Ruth and Naomi’s life when they were otherwise destitute.

I am guessing that every clause that follows these words in the Leviticus passage is a call to the people of God to do just the opposite of what everyone else would normally do.  Now that is pretty radical.

The whole of Psalm 119 is a cycle of 8 line verses carefully crafted so that each line in a verse began with the same letter of the alphabet, and each verse with varying imagery extolling the merits of allowing our lives to be guided by the Law of God.  The Statutes of the LORD were the supreme guide for life.  Keeping them, rather than doing what felt good, was also pretty radical.

And Paul gets the radical bit, too.  He reminds us that as god’s creatures we should have a special regard for our bodies, in which the Spirit of God lives, thus making our own bodies effectively the TEMPLE of God and therefore something to be cared for rather than abused.  Now that is very radical in our time and place, isn’t it?

But perhaps the most radical thing for us to consider today comes from the mouth of Jesus in our Gospel reading.

Twice Jesus begins some teaching with the words “You have heard it said:…”  He is appealing to the conventional wisdom of the day, and perhaps even the general consensus of the meaning of God’s Law, and then he turns it upside down.  As I have said before this is part of Matthew’s clear message to the Hebrew Christians he was writing the Gospel for that Jesus stands in the tradition of Moses, but goes even further.

Jesus says that if we are to become his followers we will have to forgo our “right” to have just recompense – an eye for an eye – from those who would injure us.  Rather we show up their bad behaviour by radically inviting them to do it again – in front of everyone who knows they have done something wrong.

Jesus says we have to beyond the ordinary obligation of loving those we have an obligation to love.  We are to love the unlovely, and even those who are actively working to hurt us – our enemies.  Indeed we are to pray for them.

These things are a call to live differently from everyone else – and we as Christians should live with the tension of this all the time; because it is so easy for us to want to just fit in.

I went to see a film last weekend called “Occupy Love” which was a reflection on the OCCUPY movement of a few years ago that grew out of our dismay over the aftermath of the GFC and the way the banks got away with wrecking the place.  This revealed their utter selfishness and determination to win for themselves no matter what the cost to the people was.

If you listened to what the people involved with the Occupy Wall Street were on about, they wanted to move away from a self-centred approach to life that was fundamentally destructive of society and towards a communitarian approach in which love and the well-being of the other was at the heart of the value system.

Their occupation was peaceful, not violent.  The violence was created by those who wanted to remove them – city officials or the Police.  Their purpose was not to harm others.  Rather to call others to work together for the common good.

This sounds pretty close to what Jesus was talking about there in the Sermon on the Mount.  There is indeed some deep wisdom there – but living this way makes you as radical as all those OCCUPY people were, perhaps without the dreadies.

Many of you might have been struck by the abruptness of the final sentence in the Gospel:  Be PERFECT therefore as your Heavenly Father is PERFECT. 

At first glance this seems to be an impossible goal for all Christians because of our contemporary understanding of PERFECT.  But in the etymology and cultural context in which Jesus said this, this is not so much about keeping all the rules perfectly, as it is about trying to be consistent in thought and deed, living with integrity of word and action.  This word is about wholeness and living in authentic relationships that show these radical ways of living we have been talking about.  God really does want us to turn the world upside down in so many ways.

Putting this all together with what Jesus said before, we are called to live in ways that make extravagant moves towards reconciliation, new attitudes towards men and women, simple truth-telling, outrageous expressions of generosity and that totally unexpected care for one’s enemies.

These are to be the essential signs of the rule of God in our lives.  It is these that will make the light of Christ within us shine ever more brightly as I said a week or two ago.  This is the Perfect will of God for us all.

Did you get it yet?

The new vicar of St Swithans had just finished his seminary studies and had been ordained two weeks before he started in the parish.

Parishioners were very excited.  They had waited over a year to secure a new priest.  Now he was here.

On his first Sunday he preached well – a rather moving sermon about the Good Samaritan.  People thanked him warmly at the door and he was rather pleased with himself.

 The next week he preached the same sermon – about the Good Samaritan.  He seemed a little more earnest about it, but it was the same sermon.  People still greeted him at the door with some warmth, although he did notice a few people who made their way out through a side entrance, avoiding him.

His third Sunday came around and he preached the same sermon again.  He changed his introductory illustration, and he turned up the level of passion in his speech, but it was the same sermon.  The people who shook his hand on the way out seemed a bit lost for words, and seemed relieved to let go of his hand and move on.

It was time for the Wardens to say something.  They were very kind about it and began by saying that they understood that he was fresh out of seminary and might not have had time to write many sermons, but they just wondered if there was a reason why he had preached the same sermon for three Sundays in a row.

Without the slightest hint of defensiveness he replied:  “When I feel like this sermon has changed the way you are living, then I might move on to a new one.”

I am wondering if, after today, I met be asked to meet with the Warden, because it seems to me that we have been confronted with the same old story these past three weeks – at least from the Old Testament readings.

We began three weeks ago with Micah saying that what God really wanted from us was that we should do JUSTICE, love MERCY, and walk HUMBLY WITH GOD.

Then, last week, Isaiah expanded on that with:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?” … and a whole string of other social justice things that God expects of us.

Now, this week, we have the same old story all over again.  Despite Deuteronomy being regarded as one of the five books of Moses and therefore part of the Torah – the first Hebrew Canon of Scripture, it was clearly written in the 7^th Century BC during the reign of King Josiah, not many years fore the Exile into Babylon.  So it seems written somewhere between the passages we referred to over the past two weeks.  Listen again:

¹⁷ For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.  ¹⁸ He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.  ¹⁹ And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.  ²⁰ Fear the Lord your God and serve him.

So it seems to me that there is a common theme here and it will be very useful as we prepare for our Parish Consultation over the next couple of weekends.

These Old Testament prophets are in complete harmony with the teaching of Jesus when they remind us that God wants action, not self-righteousness.  God wants us to do stuff rather than show that we have orthodox beliefs.

I am not sure if any of you have come across people who are Quakers before.  They prefer to call themselves The Society of Friends.  I know that some Christians are unwilling to accept that they are Christian because they are a bit vague on their doctrines.

They are members of the Council of Churches of WA and one of them once said to my wife when she was the General Secretary of CCWA that generally Quakers do not care if you believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden, but they do care about how you live your life – embodying the things Jesus called us to do. 

I suspect that some of you would like to think that what you believe is important too – I won’t disagree with you on that – but I do hope you also agree that what you do, how you live is important.  This certainly seems to be the message for us today – and last week – and the week before.

What better preparation could we have for our Parish Consultation than this? 

As we consider our situation I am sure that much of our thinking will be directed towards the question “How can we get more people involved with us at Holy Cross?”  That, I think we will find, is a secondary question.

The first question that we will need to consider is what things would we be doing in Hamersley that is an expression of us “defending the cause of the fatherless and the widows, and loving the foreigner residing among us, giving them food and clothing?” 

What would we have to do that showed we loved those who were foreigners among us?

Now I don’t mean literally the fatherless and the widow or the aliens who live among us.  These are examples that are leading us into lives in which we

         DO JUSTICE

         LOVE COMPASSION and

         WALK HUMBLY WITH OUR GOD.

These are examples of ways in which we might be loosening the chains of injustice for someone or untying the ropes of oppression for them.

Jesus makes it very clear that as we love one another, as we express our commitment to him by doing these things, his LIGHT will shine from within us and make it clear to everyone who is our LORD.

So, one of our fundamental tasks will be to find a way of understanding what the needs of people are in our area and which ones we might be able to do something about.

Now some of that might involve quiet specific activities with our Nuba people that will help them overcome some of the things that are holding them back – language, qualifications, steady work, etc.  But it will need to be them who tell us what they need help in, not us saying “this or this will be great” and then find they won’t come.

But there are people who actually live here in Hamersley and Warwick whose needs are not being addressed by any community services and this failure to have those needs met leaves them with a poorer life than they should have.

I trust that as we discuss these things together, we will have sufficient information to inform us, and an abundance of faith in the leading and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that we will be able to see a fantastic future ahead of us doing everything we can to brighten up that light of Christ that will be shining out of us.

Jesus & The Law

The story is told a long time ago of a man who wanted to give his wife a very special present – one she had dreamed of having since she was a little girl – a beautiful Music Box.  You know the kind – you lift up the lid and a tune plays, and maybe even a ballerina dances.

He found an exquisite one in a shop one day when he was shopping alone and knew this was it.  It was extra special because it also glowed in the dark.

Her birthday came around and after they had had a lovely dinner together he said he had a little extra surprise for her.  He turned all the lights out, and he got this precious gift from his wardrobe and gave it to her.  She carefully unwrapped it in the dark and when uncovered all she could see was a dark kind of box thingy.  The husband was really disappointed.  He was sure it would be glowing and give her such a thrill.  In clear disappointment he went and turned the lights on and said he was very sorry.  It must be broken.

Undeterred, his wife opened it up and just loved the music and the little ballerina, and as she was looking it all over she saw a little sign on the bottom.  It said “If you want me to shine all night, keep me in the sun all day.”

Of course there was nothing wrong with the box, and once it had spent a day in the sun it fairly glowed in the dark.

Light is a bit of a theme for the readings today.  In the Isaiah reading we heard these words:

⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

There is an echo here of the Prophet Micah’s words, that we hear last week about doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God.  It is clear that we are called to reach out and share what we have with those who do not.  But Isaiah goes further.  He says:

                ⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,

By doing these things our lives take on the quality of light – they shine for all to see; and they challenge others to praise God and to do likewise.

In our Gospel reading Jesus declares that we ARE the LIGHT of the WORLD.  Not that we WILL be.  Not that we CAN be.  We ARE the Light of the World.  And he makes the observation that this is about taking on his ministry of service and compassion and so making those who observe us doing this aware that God is good and worthy of our praise.

In the ancient world you had to keep a light burning all the time – it wasn’t always easy to get it started again; there were no safety strike matches.  If your light went out you would have to go find a neighbour to borrow some light from.  The flame for your light had to come from the flame of another’s light.  Light was always being passed on and around.

Another way of looking at it is that the light that shows when we are engaged in this ministry of good works is a REFLECTION of the light of Jesus that is within us – just like the moon’s light is a reflection of the light of the Sun.

And, of course, we need to realise that this kind of light was never intended to be hidden away.  When there is just a single light in a room, it has to be put on a stand so that everyone can receive the light.

Years ago, when I was in teacher’s college, I was involved in a geology excursion to the caves in the Leeuwin-Naturaliste region.  We were privileged to gain permission to explore the Devil’s Lair cave.  This cave is not open to the public and which has no electrical lighting in it.  We came to a huge cavern area and were all told to douse our lights.  After our eyes had adjusted to the most absolute darkness I have ever experienced one of the crew lit a single candle.  It was amazing how much light came from that one candle.  In time we could make out all the basic features within the cavern just from that single light source.

The light of Christ within us is so needed in our day.  There is so much darkness around us.  There are many many dark places but they will never overcome the light of Christ.

Light is also used to warn us of danger and lead the way – especially on the oceans.  Lighthouses and navigation lights keep people safe – that is part of our calling, too, if we are to be the light of the world.

To me, this is a call to action.  We are called on to undertake these same acts of mercy and kindness to those around us. 

But there are two other images in our selection of Gospel that I thought I would mention in passing – just worth a thought.

Jesus actually says that we are the Salt of the earth.  He says this before he says that we are the light of the world and its an image full of meaning.

In Jesus’ day salt was a very precious commodity.  You may be familiar with the term “Off to the salt mine” as a reference to going off to work.  Work is where we earn our salary and the etymology of salary lies with the word for salt – saline, for example is similar to salary.  How did this happen?

In Roman times it was not uncommon to actually use salt to pay wages.  Salt was very useful, and according to the Romans it was the purest of all things because it was made of two very pure things – the sea and the sun.

There are two wonderful dimensions to this image if we are to understand what it means for us to be the salt of the earth.

Firstly, salt makes things tasty, it brings out flavours and without it many foods are insipid.  As we live out the mission and ministry of Christ in our world we are adding that same zest and flavour to the world.  We are changing what would otherwise be an insipid experience of life into something rather vibrant.

But salt is also a preservative and cleanser.  Many things, when treated with salt or brine are able to be kept for long periods of time without refrigeration.  We, too, can have that same life-preserving effect in our society, the same cleansing effect id we live out the mission of Christ.

I think I have told you before that many of the things we have in the Gospel stood alone as stories or what they call aphorisms – little sayings of Jesus – that people remembered and passed down orally for many years before the Gospel writers created a text. 

In writing the Gospel, each author has created their own sort of “string of beads”.  By stringing the stories and aphorisms together in their particular way they end up with a string of beads that looks a bit different from the string the other gospel writers made.

There are three beads in this week’s selection from Matthew – the salt aphorism, the light aphorism, and the teaching about the law.  We have considered the salt and light aphorisms.  Why do we have this teaching about the Law just here?

The first thing to say is that we have already seen that for Matthew, the story of Jesus needs to run parallel to the story of Moses.  So it should not be a surprise for us to hear Matthew giving Jesus an opportunity to say he was not doing away with all the Law stuff – rather he was fulfilling it.

But if we are to take this too far in a particular direction we will end up failing to understand the importance of God’s amazing grace.  Like Seventh Day Adventists we would be trying to keep all the LAW as our pathway to salvation and I am sure that’s not the way it should be.

Perhaps the salt and light aphorisms will give us a way through this conundrum.  

The two aphorisms seem to point us to a way of being and doing that is an expression of the life of Christ within us.  It is Christ in us that inspires the good works that we do – not the demands of the Law by which we are working out our salvation. 

It is in this way that our righteousness will exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, not by us being even more meticulous than they were in keeping the whole law.  To me that is the absolute fulfilment of the law that Jesus was talking about. 

Someone asked the question are we saved by works or grace – I think in truth that the answer is both, but the works are not driven by the burden of the law.  Rather they are the outworking of grace.

JUSTICE COMPASSION & HUMILITY

Many of you, I am sure, will remember the TV show from the BBC called “Keeping Up Appearances”.  Patricia Routledge created a larger than life character in Mrs Bouquet (Bucket).  She spent so much effort trying to ensure that everyone thought she was rather Upper Class when in reality she came from a much humbler background, perhaps even working class.

I think the reason we laugh at such stories is that we are all susceptible to the same kind of sensitivities about what people will think of us.

Sadly, I think that the tragedy that is unfolding before us in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to allegations of child abuse has its origins in this deeply ingrained personal and institutional instinct.  We denied that terrible things happened because it would not do for people to see the church in that light.  So we keep it hidden.

In the church, as in our wider society, it is always tempting to look to the outward appearances in order to determine whether the church is doing okay.  So we look to outward signs of growth rather than inward signs of faithfulness.  We even measure our blessedness by such things as our prosperity.  Even though we know better it is really hard to avoid this kind of thinking.

It isn’t always as easy as it is today, but the four texts we have in our Lectionary for this Sunday join in warning us all that we should not be confused or intimidated by appearances or by how our society values this or that.  

As a kind of summary statement these texts are telling us that being faithful and responsive to the God of the Bible may not fare so well or look so cool in terms of the world's standards of judgment, but what is required and blessed is a community that is ordered by its covenantal relationship with God, shaped by God’s gracious promises, and attuned to what Paul called the "foolishness" and “weakness” of God.

Micah condemns all the outwardly “lawful” rituals and sacrifices of religious practice, saying that what God really wanted of us was hearts that sought to do justice, love compassion and in all humility know our place in God.

When you consider the things the Psalmist says will please God, most of them are intangible – things of the heart that reflect our relationship to God and one another.

While much could be said about the Beatitudes the standout feature of them is that those who are expressly described as blessed were least likely to be considered blessed by the world’s value systems.  As one commentator said, these people are now regarded as “the apple of God’s eye, singled out for blessing.”  That is the kind of thing people have in mind when they speak of God’s preferential option for the poor.

Finally, Paul engages his Corinthian friends in a counter-intuitive argument that what the world regards as wisdom is folly in God’s eyes, and what they regard as folly is the very wisdom of God.  His reference to Christ crucified was his most potent example – crucifixion was a symbol of the absolute power of the state to crush anyone or anything, but this very defeat has become the power of Christ.  It is just God's way to take the low, the despised, the weak and the foolish to confound the wise and mighty.

Having said all that I wondered what we all needed to consider for today and the days ahead.  What is it that God wants you to take away from your time of worship here, to wrestle with in the days to come, or to be affirmed by?  What is the Word of God here for you today?

Let’s just see if the Holy Spirit can be trusted as I share a few thoughts with you.

When we think about the Old Testament times we generally think of them as the times when the People of God lived under the Law.  We know that sometimes they seemed to be doing okay, and other times they seemed to really get it wrong.

This makes a great prelude for us to think about the New Testament times as the times in which God’s grace has replaced the Law as the pathway for God’s people into the presence of God, holy and acceptable to God.

Jesus and Paul offer insights into the significance of this grace by emphasising that Law was always destined to failure.  No-one can really keep all the Law and, by their own efforts, be holy and acceptable to God, because the law was so focussed on externals.  Jesus showed a better way – a deep and personal relationship with God in which we are committed to loving God and loving our neighbours as ourselves.

What I find fascinating about this is that it is not new.  What Jesus said begins almost word for word with the most important daily prayer for a Jewish person – the Shema.  We use it in our liturgy every week as a constant reminder.  “You shall love the Lord your God…”  the first and great commandment – and the second is like it “Love your neighbours as yourself.”  Jesus says these two commandments do away with all the outward requirements and appearances of the law.

But the prophets had also been telling Israel this kind of thing before their Exile to Babylon and while they were there.  Micah was writing before the Exile and he has a wonderful summary statement to replace all the outwards of religious piety:

And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

These famous words are not much different in practice than the two commandments Jesus said would fulfil all the law.

1.       ACT JUSTLY – in all your dealings with people be honest, fair, and be willing to challenge injustice when you see it.

2.       LOVE MERCY – Mercy is actually too weak a word for me in this translation, and others prefer the word COMPASSION.  Either way, though, we are called into a life that cares about the welfare of others by this term.

3.       WALK HUMBLY WITH YOUR GOD – can mean nothing more than walking humbly in a Creature-Creator relationship with God.  God is the source of our being and in him we live and move and have our being.

I have these words on a plaque on my lounge-room wall.  Each morning Eira and I say the Daily Office there and they are a constant challenge to me and maybe they will be for you.  In what ways will your life today reflect these three things:

ACT JUSTLY

LOVE MERCY (or Compassion)

WALK HUMBLY WITH YOUR GOD.

Maria Montessori Shows the Way

At the beginning of the 20^th century an Italian Paediatrician was doing some important work leaning how to help children with disabilities learn best.

Her work with those special needs children grew into a general approach to education for all children that is best embodied in what we call Montessori Schools today.

Among many aspects of her approach she discovered that most of us learn things in one of three different ways.  Some of us learn best by being TOLD what to do.  Some of us learn best by being SHOWN what to do or being given some written or illustrated instructions.  Some of learn best by DOING things – having a go and learning by trial and error.  These are what she called Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic pathways for learning.

A very simple way to demonstrate how you learn best is to think about what you do when you get a new Mobile Phone.  Do you read the instruction book?  Do you ask one of your children how it should work?  Or do you just try it and see what happens?  Hold onto that thought.

In John’s Gospel today we read a slightly different version of the story we read last week – the Baptism of Jesus.  John seems much less concerned about whether or not Jesus was actually baptised, but utterly concerned to let us know the revelation that was made to John through this encounter with Jesus.  It is a profound moment and very important for John the Baptist and John the Gospel writer.

What follows that REVELATION to John the Baptist that this man is the One who is to come – the Son of God – is what I want us to think about today.

In a funny kind of way, those two disciples did something I said last week was evidence of our failings as human beings.  They thought John the Baptist was the best prophet around and they were his followers.  But as soon as John says that this Jesus is greater than himself, they just dumped John and followed Jesus.  Anyway, I want to consider the things that John the Gospel writer says happened after that.

You can just imagine Jesus wandering off after John had given everyone a rather cryptic clue about how special he was – “Look, the Lamb of God!”  Maybe he was trying to be a bit inconspicuous but two of John’s disciples followed straight after him.

Jesus says straight to them, “What do you want?”

Were you surprised by their answer?  They said “Rabbi, where are you staying?”  I was surprised.  I think I might have said something quite different.  Maybe I would have said something like “We want to follow you, Rabbi.”  I would have then waited to see what he said to do next.

But these guys were very direct.  Perhaps they thought that if they could go to where he was staying he might sit down and teach them stuff.  This seems to be what actually happened because Jesus said they could come along and they stayed the rest of the day with him.

Now there is a particular word John uses numerous times in his Gospel.  It is a very important word for those of us who have lived a while in the Christian faith.  It is the word ABIDE. 

I am sure you are familiar with that phrase in John 15 when Jesus is describing himself as a Vine that nurtures all of us who are his followers – the branches.  Jesus says “Abide in me, as I abide in you.”  The NIV loses this word by using the word “remain” in our story today and so you would miss the link with this important word for John.

This word has become a theological word for us – it certainly was for John – and so when you realise that when the disciples ask Jesus where he is staying they are actually asking “Where are you ABIDING?” you must understand that John wants us to think of much more than which Inn he was staying at.

These two new followers of Jesus – the very first in John’s Gospel – are shown asking and doing the most important thing that John can think of: they are choosing to ABIDE with Jesus.

When we talk about ABIDING as a theological term we mean a very intimate learning and supporting relationship.  Elsewhere Jesus talks about abiding in the Father and about the Father abiding in him.  This seems to be about being closer to each other than the air we breathe is close to us.  It is deep within and it is life-giving.

So the first thing these two disciples wanted to do was ABIDE with Jesus – to learn from him, to get to know him, to discover what he wanted us to know about himself and God.  They stayed all day.

This has become a wonderful way of describing how to be a disciple.  It is a way of allowing all those different learning styles I mentioned at the beginning to come into play and help us learn the most – in a place where we can learn by hearing, by seeing and by doing. 

It means living intimately with Jesus as a friend.  It means learning from him every day about the Way that he has shown to us and called us to live by – the Way that leads us into the same intimate presence of God.  In this Way we become fully human as Jesus was – made holy and acceptable to God by grace.

The question we need to take home from this is “Am I still doing my best at ABIDING in Jesus?”  Not that this is a work by which we obtain our salvation.  Not in the least!  It is a question of accountability from those you love within this Community of the Holy Cross.  If we are all doing our utmost to ABIDE in Him, then there is just a chance that we will see his presence evident among us and within our community.

But, wait!  There’s more!  Just like the salesman on the TV I have the pleasure of telling you that there is more for us in this story.

Andrew was one of those first disciples.  John tells us very simply that the first thing Andrew did was go and find his brother and he told Simon about this wonderful Rabbi they had just met.  But Andrew had obviously drawn a conclusion about this wonderful Rabbi – “We have found the Messiah” he said.

John is using this story to tell us all that when we discover who Jesus really is we will inevitably want to tell others about it. 

In our modern expression of Christianity I think we have allowed many things to prevent us from doing what really is a rather natural thing to do.  We think we need to have a nice set of words prepared that will convince people to follow Him too.  Or we think we need a special program in Church to do it for us – like Alpha or Christianity Explained.   We also know how hard it is when doorknockers come telling us about their church.  We don’t want people to think we are weirdoes.  As a result we often don’t do much of this.

John isn't talking about that.

Here are two ideas that might help unpack this for you.  I grew up in the Christian faith.  I can’t think of a time when I was not a Christian.  Yes, I made a personal confession of faith, but there was no Road of Damascus experience for me.  So I have to look elsewhere for help to understand what it must have been like for Andrew in this story.

Nearly 40 years ago, after I had known her for a rather short period of time, really, I asked my wife to marry me.  I asked her after church one Sunday night, and when she said yes we just talked and talked and talked.  It must have been after 2pm when I drove home because the street lights had gone off (only the old people remember those days in Perth).

The next day I just busting to tell people – but we wanted to follow the tradition of seeking her Father’s permission before it was made public.  But as soon as that was settled, everyone knew about it, albeit not as quickly as people get to know things these days with Facebook and the like.  That’s how I think Andrew felt, and how Saul felt on that road to Damascus.  And some of you can remember feeling that way.  Maybe that can inspire you about how to talk to people about your Jesus.

Another way might look like this.  I remember in a class in Seminary being told that Paul in one of his letters is basically telling people to go about “Gossiping the Gospel.”  Now don’t ask me for a reference or anything, but the idea has stuck and I think it is helpful. 

It creates in my mind the sense of talking in intimate circles to close friends and acquaintances about the things we see and hear.  It is deeply grounded in our personal experience and it is about speaking from our heart about everyday but deep things.  It is not a rehearsed script.  It is not part of a “program”.  It is just you being real with the people you know.

I hope that one way or another you can catch hold of a possibility for you to do as Andrew did – because I think it is important.

Now I wonder if you noticed the very last sentence in our story.  It was very important, too.

When Peter is brought to Jesus he does something that you and I might think strange or at lease unexpected.  Jesus gave Simon a new name.  We echo this when we give our children a Baptismal name (at least some of us did).  I like to think of this as a further expression of the intimacy of this new relationship we have when we ABIDE in Jesus – it changes us so much that we deserve to have a new name – a name that marks us as part of God’s family.

There is a huge niche in the book publishing market providing books with explanations of the meaning of names.  There are some Christian groups that really emphasised this name thing and they take on a Christian name in the proper sense of it.

I am not sure if you have a Christian Name, but maybe a good thing for you to do sometime, if you don’t, is spend time considering this question: “What name do you think Jesus would give to you?”  If you come up with one you might like to celebrate it with your friends here some time.

For Bruised Reeds and Smoky Candles

I have not always been an Anglican.  In the church I grew up in, baptism was not for babies.  It was only for people old enough to confess their personal faith in Jesus. 

I was 10 years old when I was baptised.  I think that I had one burning desire of my heart when I was baptised.  In a way I was saying that I would then be a good boy.  I would no longer be troubled by all my sins – the things I did wrong.

I think I misunderstood something about what would happen when I was baptised.  You have to remember I was only 10 years old.  I thought that it would be one of those “Wow!” moments when I really felt God in a powerful way and so would be assured of my inward transformation.

I don’t think I said anything about this at the time.  But I felt let down because it seemed to me that nothing happened.  And to make things worse, the next day one of my friends at school said to me that now I had to be good all the time. 

The story of Jesus’ baptism has in it some really important things for us to remember and think about.

Much of what the early Christians thought about Jesus was influenced by their ideas of what the Messiah would be like.  There are numerous prophecies, especially in Isaiah that they relied on.  The hymn we read today from Isaiah is wonderful.  Let me remind you of the first three verses of it:

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
    my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
    and he will bring justice to the nations.
² He will not shout or cry out,
    or raise his voice in the streets.
³ A bruised reed he will not break,
    and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;

There is an echo of this in the Baptism story.  Matthew says the Spirit of God descended upon him like a dove.  There are other stories that use similar words to describe who Jesus has come to help. 

It is from the last verse I just read to you that I would like to draw our thoughts today.

All poets use images to help us grasp the ideas they want to convey. 

The idea of the bruised reed is rather wonderful.  This makes me think of the long reed of a bulrush on the banks of a river.  Such a reed, bent over but not broken, fits for me with this image of a bruised reed.

The idea of the smouldering wick is easy to understand, too.  Some people would discard a candle with a smoky wick.  If they knew how to trim the wick they could get it to shine brightly again.   

These two images then have a common message for us.  They tell us that this Servant of God has come for the battered and bruised ones.  His plan is not to discard them, but to put them back together again and give them justice.

Again and again we see Jesus reaching out to the poor and the marginalised and seeking justice for them.  It actually got him a bad reputation but he never minded that.

A THROW AWAY SOCIETY

We get very used to throwing things away when they get a bit dirty or broken. 

Sadly, we seem to do the same with people.  We do it to our sporting heroes – as soon as they stopping being as good as they used to be we find someone else to be our hero.  We do it in business as well as in our personal relationships.  When people are no longer useful to us we discard them.

There is something that I think is even worse.  There are people in our society who for some reason don’t fit.  They might have a disability.  They might be homeless.  They might have the wrong religion.  We seem to ignore them as much as possible just because they are different. 

These are the broken reeds; these are the smoky wicks that Isaiah was thinking of for whom Jesus came – to bind up their wounds and make them shine brightly again and give them justice.  We in the church must continue to do this in his name. 

ONE MORE BRUISED REED

But I wonder if I could get a bit personal.

There have been many times when I have felt like a bruised reed or a smoky wick.

In a sense, my mere admission of the need to follow Jesus is a recognition that I couldn’t do it all by myself – that faith in him offered the world a much better version of me that I could ever give it in my own strength.  Jesus has bound up those bruises and trimmed the wick so that the light shines true and clear.

There is also a sense that even though I would like you all to think that my life in God is wonderful and that I am profoundly wise, that I am a widely read scholar and am exceptionally prayerful I know I am not.  That is a plain fact.  I am a bruised reed and I am always in need of the Servant.

It is this humble reality that binds all of us in the church together – we all know that without our life in Jesus, learning from him daily about the Way he has called us to live, we would simply be self-seeking bruised reeds and smoky candles.

GIVE CHRIST A GO

Why am I telling you this?

Well frankly,  I don’t want you to miss out.

Maybe some of you may need reminding for the thousandth time of Jesus the truest Lover.  He has time for flickering lamps and bruised reeds.  He wants you to be the very best version of you that you can be.

Or perhaps for the first time, you are at a point in your life where you dare acknowledge your frailty and need of a Saviour.  To all such I say:  What God can do with one bruised reed he can do with another. 

But you’ll never ever know if you never ever give Christ a go.