Sunday 14th April 2013

Service for Sunday 14^th April 2013

godhelpus.cheezburger.com

Year C Easter 3

Call to Worship Psalm 30 (responsive) from Uniting in Worship

Hymn Together in Song 147 To God be the Glory

Prayer of Adoration and Confession

Holy God,

You have always loved this world you made, and have always loved us, the creatures of your world. You loved this world so much as to give it the gift of Your Son.

He came into this world, and gave us one command: to love. Because he loved us, we were asked to show his love, to reflect it in every aspect of our lives and our dealings. He commanded us to love you, to love each other, even to love the unlovely, even to love those who have hated and mistreated us.

Sometimes it is hard to love. It is hard to love our enemy. It is hard to love those who persecute us.

To love means to forgive, and there are so many kinds of wounds to forgive. There are the wounds which everyone can see. The physical scars which tell their own story, which are open and honest and visible. Your Son knows the pain of these kinds of wounds, the wounds of the nails in his hands and feet. They are the wounds which are often easiest to cure. They can be seen, investigated, and treated. Many physical wounds will heal and leave only a scar as a sign of where the hurt has been.

There are the wounds which on-one sees. The wounds which are kept secret in the quietest, darkest parts of our lives. There are wounded memories, wounded emotions, wounded relationships, wounded consciences. Your Son also knows about these wounds: the wounds of being betrayed with a kiss, being abandoned by friends, being denied by a loved one.  These are injuries which can hurt the most and do the most damage, unseen.

Yet, for all their pain, we tend to cling to our hurts. Instead of opening them to the air and letting them heal, we hide them away and let them continue to fester. We hold tight to our hurts and we do not know how to let them go. And so we become trapped, held in the prison of past things, and suffering under the power of past persecutors. Your Son showed us the way to escape this prison, praying forgiveness on those who had hurt him.

Gracious God, send the breath of your Spirit into our lives. Release us from the unnecessary burdens of pain and hurt which we carry. Heal those parts of our lives which keep us trapped.  Help us to truly forgive so we can truly love.  And when we truly love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, we will know that we are free, and that we are healed.

In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Declaration of Forgiveness

Jesus not only teach us to forgive those who have harmed us, but he shows us how it is done, by forgiving us all that we have done.

So I have confidence to say to you: Our sins are forgiven.

Thanks be to God!

Kids’ time

Hymn Together in Song 209 And can it be

Scripture

Revelation 5:11-14

John 21:1-19

Reader: This is the Word of the Lord

Response: Thanks be to God

Sermon

“I’m going fishing,” Peter said.  I heard it used once as an example to show that Christians suffer stress as much as anyone else.

Peter definitely had something to be stressed about.

Try putting yourself in his place for a while.

Jesus had said to him, “You’ll deny me three times.”

At the dinner table, sharing in a celebration and surrounded by friends, the idea must have seemed absurd. Of course he would never deny Jesus.

 In the safety of that room, Peter said exactly what he was thinking, “No, I wouldn’t deny you, even if I have to die with you.”

But later that night, when it wasn’t so safe, when many of the people around him weren’t friends, when there really was a risk he might with Jesus; he did deny him, three times, just as Jesus said.

There’s a huge difference between being theoretically willing to give up one’s life, and actually coming forward when the risk is real.

Peter had done what very many people would have done in the same situation. And really, his speaking up at that time would probably not have made any real difference to what was to come. But having made that choice, he was left with the guilt of having done it.

Have you ever done something you were sure you would never do? Something for your own self-protection or self-benefit, that harms someone else?

When we do things for our own self-protection, knowing that we have let someone down, we are often left feeling guilty. Sometimes we deserve the guilt. Sometimes, we don’t. But the feeling is the same, whether or not we have really earned it.

In Peter’s case, his denial ensured he stayed alive. He would not have been able to save Jesus, and there would have been no purpose served by his death anyway.  Perhaps Jesus already knew this when he predicted Peter’s denial.

When Jesus took Peter aside and asked three times, whether Peter loved him, it wasn’t some sort of test.

Peter had denied Jesus, and had done so three times. He was carrying the guilt of doing that, and the hurt associated with his feelings of guilt. Peter was never going to be effective in carrying the message of the resurrection while he was carrying his own personal burden of guilt.  He was more likely to give up and just go back to fishing.

In asking three times for Peter to affirm his love, Jesus might have upset Peter, but he also gave him the opportunity to bring that guilt out into the open and deal with it. Each of those times Peter had denied Jesus was now compensated for with an affirmation of his love.

Through having the wounds of guilt which Peter carried opened, and healed, he was able to do exactly what Jesus was sending him to do , to care for the sheep, those who Jesus himself cared for.

It hurts to have what we’ve done wrong brought out into the light. But usually we have to face up to what we’ve done wrong if we ever want to be part of putting it right. We can’t accept forgiveness without admitting that we need it.

There would come a time when Peter would again be called on to risk his life in claiming his allegiance to Jesus, and in this future time, a much stronger and more mature Peter would sacrifice his life for that allegiance.

When we’ve faced up to the things we have done wrong, and have known God’s love and forgiveness, it helps us learn and to grow, and it can make us stronger people for the next time we’re in a difficult situation.

Hymn Together in Song 393 Christ is alive, with joy we sing

Notices

Offering

Prayers of the People

Gracious God,

you know the needs of this world,

you know where there are nuclear missiles

you know where there are incurable diseases

you know where there are lives that could be saved by clean water

you know where people are living in fear

you know where people are starving

you know where people are homeless

you know where children are not being educated.

God you know it all.

You know the needs of this world,

and you know all of the needs we have,

and the people we are concerned about.

And so we come to you in prayer,

knowing that you already know it all,

knowing that your love is greater than all of our needs,

and we pray for your healing, peace, and love to change what is wrong in this world

and we offer ourselves to help be part of that change, wherever you would have us be.

In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

Passing of the peace

Hymn Together in Song 537 Let us talents and tongues employ

Service of Holy Communion

Hymn All Together OK 413 The Summons

Benediction

Threefold Amen

Reflection: Christmas Condescension

Philippians 2:5-8

godhelpus.cheezburger.com

A while ago, I had a conversation with a friend who could not understand how I could accept that the theory of evolution was probably right, and still maintain my faith.

My point had been that human beings can't limit God - who are we to say whether or not God might choose to work through evolution or any other means?

Yes, the first of the two creation stories in the Bible say the world was created in seven days - but that is not written as history, but as a wonderful hymn in praise of God's creativity. (The Bible contains many different kinds of literary forms - narrative, poetry, hymns, laments, history, etc. The form of the first chapter of Genesis is a poem or hymn of praise, so it makes perfect sense that it contains the same kind of figurative language that other poems or hymns will contain.)  It was written by human beings who were not there when the world was created (think of God challenging Job - "where were you when I created....?") And really, it's not about the details of how, but about praising the who - the God who made all things happen. That's a digression, so let's get on with the point.

My friend's concern was that we are made in the image of God - if we evolved from pond scum, how can pond scum be the image of God?

Human beings are made in the image of God in that we are spiritual beings, as God is.  We're also physical beings which God is not. We are bound by the limitations of our bodies - young and old, male and female, age and youth, life and death.  By nature, God does not have any of these limitations. God is wholly Spirit.

In the scale of things, there is a much greater difference between God and human beings, than there is between human beings and pond scum.

One of the most remarkable things about Christmas is that God has condescended to be what God is not.  God, in Jesus, chose to share our physical nature, our limitations, our pain and suffering. In Philippians we are told Jesus "emptied himself" - he gave up his own nature as God - to spend a human lifetime, albeit a brief one, experiencing the life of a part of creation. We often look at what the pain of Easter cost Jesus, and cost the whole of the Trinity.  We don't often stop to think of the cost of Christmas.

For our sake, Jesus left the perfection of Heaven, for a world corrupted by human evil. For our sake, he experienced the limits of a human body - which was totally alien to his God-nature. For our sake, he experienced the poverty of homelessness - being placed in a manger at birth because there was no appropriate place available. For our sake, he was a refugee, fleeing persecution from an evil dictator when he was still an infant. For our sake, he experienced living under foreign military rule, being persecuted and rejected, being tortured and killed.

To my friend who says pond scum could not be the image of God, I would suggest that pond scum has never perpetrated the evils that human beings have.

Human beings are the only thing in creation that intentionally harm each other, and intentionally harm the rest of God's creation. Other creatures may kill for food, but we kill our own species to gain power. And yet, Jesus condescended to be one of us. While we are spiritual beings made in the image of God, in our actions and our treatment of each other, we are the least God-like creatures imaginable. What a painful thing it must have been for Jesus to become one of us!

This year, when we celebrate, and share our gifts and food and all of the things that we enjoy, may we remember that the most costly gift of all was the gift of Jesus, who being one with God, emptied himself of his own nature, to be one with us.

Preview of Beside Still Waters

Here's a preview of my book Beside Still Waters (you can click through a couple of pages.)

If you can't see the preview above, click here to see it.

Beside Still Waters is available in paperback and epub at Lulu.

It's available on Kindle at Amazon.

Reflection: The Prophetic Voice

Zechariah 7:10, Isaiah 1:23-24

In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me -
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
- Pastor Martin Niemoller

There's several variants of the above quote floating around, and it appears Niemoller himself included different groups when he said this at different times, but the basic impact is the same.

Neimoller's quote tells us the danger of neglecting the church's role as prophet in society.  I don't mean "prophecy" in the way it's sometimes interpreted as predicting the future, but "prophecy" in the Biblical sense - the call to justice.  God requires that we are just and compassionate to those who have less, or who are vulnerable. When those with power choose to disregard the needs of the powerless, they are setting themselves up against God's will.

In Biblical times, prophets were often not welcomed for their message.  In Neimoller's day, if he had taken a prophetic stance, the Gestappo would probably have come for him sooner.

In our day, if Christians speak out about injustice towards vulnerable people, there is still resistance.

Athiests say Christians have no right to speak out on political issues. (I know in Australia we don't have a constitutional right to freedom of religion, but we also don't have any laws preventing people of any faith from having a political opinion.)

Christians who have a narrower understanding of Scripture say, but those people are sinners, you can't align yourself with them. Read your Bible!  (I did read my Bible. In it Jesus spent almost all his time with the sinners, ate in their homes and celebrated with them, even defended them. He often argued with the holy people who didn't want to hang out with sinners.)

Others will say, but we didn't have a meeting to discuss it a committee hasn't decided it, or we need to leave it up to the moderator to say that.

When it comes down to it, God calls us all, at times, to be prophets.

When we see anyone being treated with less than the love and respect that they deserve because they are made in the image of God, then we have a responsibility to say what we know: that God does not approve of this treatment.

We don't have to be asylum seekers to speak up for asylum seekers. We don't have to be pensioners to speak up for pensioners. We don't have to be disabled to speak up for people who are disabled. We don't have to be gay, to speak up for gay people. We don't have to be indigenous, to speak up for indigenous people. We don't have to be children to speak up for the needs of children.

All we have to do, is to know the God whose love for the poor, the widowed, the orphan, the foreigner, the outcast, the person who is isolated or vulnerable, is more important than any pressure that we might ever feel to keep silent.

Beside Still Waters

Beside Still Waters is my new book of sermons and brief reflections on Christian Scripture.

It's available in both paperback and ePub versions from Lulu.

The items in the book have all been taken from worship services I have prepared, or reflections on Scripture I have written for church newsletters.  They don't follow the lectionary, in fact they have no set order at all. Each item is meant to be a "surprise", not particularly related to anything else in the book.

Readers can pick the book up, and choose any item, and find it entirely self-contained.