MustardSeed Talks 2019: Recent Episodes
David Gore
Each week we are challenged and encouraged to think through our faith in Christ and what it means to follow him each day.
Oppressive forces that enter our lives, in such a way that we cannot escape them - even when we are on our own - are a very serious matter. There may be a number of ways this could occur. But the more crucial matter is to find liberation.
When the possessed man encounters Jesus, everything changed for the man. That which had not previously been possible - not even thinkable - suddenly became not only possible but desirable.
What is it about the presence of Jesus that brings liberation? How do judging and condemning forces recognise they are beaten by the open, forgiving grace that Jesus embodies?
The authority of Jesus’ presence is irresistible. Alternate claims of absolute authority all fall away in the face of his unrelenting love.
If you had authority to command the wind and waves, and make them obey, what would you do with that power? Apart from the more obvious utility for picnics and camping trips, what does one do with authority like that?
This story (from Mark 4:35-41) appears to be highlighting Jesus’ authority over more than simply the wind and waves. The story that follows immediately after this (in chapter 5 of Mark’s gospel) is about Jesus’ authority over a legion of demons who had taken possession of a man.
The wind and waves are emblematic of uncontrollable elements in our world. Yet, here is one who can speak to these uncontrollable elements, and have them respond to his commands. It begs the question, which the disciples ask one another, ‘Who then is this?’
Seeds are remarkable things. To all intents and purposes, seeds appear to be dead bits of grain. They lie dormant. They can be stored for long periods of time. They do not appear to change or develop. Then, in the right conditions, something miraculous happens.
New life begins to grow. That which was otherwise dead, offers a whole new lease of life. The architecture of an entire plant is encoded within this tiny little package.
The farmer knows enough to put these dynamic packages into the soil and bring water to them. But that is just the beginning of the mystery of a whole new cycle of life.
The gospel holds a similar mystery. For those in whom this good news takes root, new life begins to grow… just as miraculously!
In the playbook of life, when things are getting out of hand, the default go-to move to regain control or order is violence - or the threat thereof.
We reach for it in families (anyone remember the wooden spoon on the backside?). Corporal punishment was used in school classrooms in my lifetime (before being outlawed). Society relies on it for law and order (NSW police carry loaded guns on their hips). In many places around the world it continues to be used as an instrument of so-called justice (capital punishment).
The impulse to contain violence by way of violence is as old as humanity itself. But it is not a solution - it is merely a management strategy. One that, over time, reveals the inherent weakness of its apparent strength.
There is an alternative. It sounds nice… perhaps even easy. The reality is this alternative costs us everything. And it is completely worth everything!
If you were making up a theology from scratch, you would never opt to include a notion as allusive and difficult to explicate as the Trinity. It is an idea that has forced itself upon faithful believers simply because no viable alternative conclusions satisfy the available data.
This gives rise to the somewhat reluctant realisation that we are seeking to describe something far beyond our everyday experience of life. We simply have neither the words, nor even the concepts, to do justice to the divine realities presented to us.
Every now and then, in moments of relational clarity, we might glimpse something of the depth of interconnectivity that bonds the three distinct persons of the Trinity. But for the most part, this aspect of our God remains mysterious to us.
Never-the-less, it is worth exploring - or at the very least acknowledging it is so.
Hope is one of those things that keeps people going. It is like the wind beneath our wings in a way. Humans are highly social - but our interactions with one another can be helpful and they can be equally destructive. Hope is one of the dynamics that keeps us oriented in the helpful direction.
Should we lose hope, it is not straightforward to recover it again. It seems to be beyond us to generate for ourselves. Hope is something we place in something (or someone) beyond ourselves.
Ezekiel’s vision of the valley full of dry bones - that somewhat grotesquely reconstitute as living people in response to the prophetic words of God - is essentially a message of hope beyond any reasonable reason to hope.
When the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples at Pentecost, they are imbued with this same quality of hope beyond hope.
Jesus directs his followers to love one another as he has loved them. This is not a matter of feeling warm toward others or having pleasant thoughts. It is about being ready to put one’s self out for the sake of others.
At first blush this might seem less than favourable as a disposition. We might instinctually ask, ‘What’s in it for me?’
Jesus says as we do so his joy will be in us. That is, we will bring joy to Jesus as he sees us loving one another. Also, the joy Jesus knows as he fulfils his Father’s will, is the same joy we will experience as we fulfil Jesus’ directive in this way.
The more astonishing thing is that Jesus goes on to call his followers not slaves or servants, but friends! Rather than exulting himself over those who would follow him, he invites us into the most intimate of relationship.
In our day, believers tend to talk about their faith or their relationship with God using theological terms in philosophical tones.
By contrast, Jesus made use of earthy metaphors. He spoke about real life dynamics that were well known by people in his culture. Jesus used these ideas to illustrate spiritual truths.
Rather than abstract, complex and elaborate, the ideas Jesus shared were straightforward to relate to and suggested real world responses in discipleship.
His words about the vine and the branches is just one such example.
Stations of the Cross on Good Friday offers us the opportunity to reflect on the final moments of Jesus’ journey to Golgotha and the cross. Resurrection Sunday is an important celebration of the Messiah’s victory over the grave and the defeat of the ever present fear of death.
Holy Saturday, the day between these two momentous events, is an equally important phase in which the disciples are in the process of transition.
Our tradition has not put a great deal of emphasis on Holy Saturday. Indeed, Many in the Protestant world are in quite a rush to get from the crucifixion straight on to resurrection, without much more than a meaningful head nod toward the fact that Jesus died.
Yet these kinds of transitions are so important if we are to be transformed in our discipleship. This morning that will be our focus.
‘He has Risen’ is our cry on this Sunday morning. Yet we will pause and consider how we got here!
The Servant Songs of Isaiah depict a servant so utterly committed to faithfulness to God that no matter what he faces he will not turn back from his faithfulness.
As we arrive at chapter 50 of Isaiah, it is very clear that the Servant faces significant opposition. in fact, like most of the prophets, the Servant is reviled in the most aggressive and violent of ways.
If we are to be true to our calling as God’s people, we do well to learn how to face opposition. Not to react to it. Not to retaliate to it. But to face it squarely and to respond in a way that does not compromise our faithfulness to God. This is among the most challenging aspects of our discipleship. It runs counter to the culture around us and even counter to our instinctual responses.
We do well to learn from Isaiah.
Moses’ reception of the Law was a key moment in the formation of the people of Israel. A disparate group of tribes and hangers-on emerged from Egypt into a land they did not know. The challenges that could pull them apart were many. The things that held them together were few.
In this context, the people make a promise together to be a people governed by the laws that were being handed down to them. Not only would these principles shape the way they conducted themselves with each other, they would come to be a key identity marker for the people.
All human authorities in Israel stand under this Law. Neither king, priest nor prophet may disregard it. Yet, while the law protects the people from destroying themselves, it does not have the power to save. That will be the task of Messiah!
St Peter wants his readers to be aware that their sins have been forgiven. The believer has been brought close to God... made alive in spirit! Those who were once locked up within the prison of their self-interest have been set free by the grace-shaped love of God.
Just as the ark saved Noah and his family from the flooding waters, the baptism of the believer offers the safety of assurance amidst the flooding tempest of accusation and half-baked motives.
Left to either a peer-assessment or a self-assessment, we would be lost. But having given ourselves to Christ, and marking that with the act of baptism, we can be confident that we are accepted by God. We have no need to hide or pretend. We can confess, be honest and draw near!
Our confidence is in Christ. The one who was condemned and crucified. Yet, he is also risen. All authorities are now subjected to Him! Christ’s way is the eternal way.
Elijah is certainly an enigmatic character in the history of Israel. Coming (as he does) after the period of institutionalisation of temple worship and the monarchy, he is a most unconventional presence in the stories he inhabits.
The story of Elijah’s death and the passing of his prophetic mantle to Elisha (his successor), is designed to ensure no one is left in any doubt about how important Elijah’s ministry has been. The prophetic voice must be heard and understood as integral to the wellbeing of the people of Israel.
When Jesus is transfigured, he is seen with two crucial figures from Israel’s history - Moses (representing the Law) and Elijah (representing the Prophets). These two elements of law and prophetic spirit continue to be in dialogue with each other… and sometimes in tension.
We do well to listen for what the Spirit might be saying to us as we discern what it means to be the people of God today.
The ups and downs of life can be wearing at times. Not only the continual changes in circumstances that life often brings, but also the combined overall mood of the culture around us that can lift us or pull us down.
Isaiah spoke to the people of Israel at a time when they had been wearied by their years in exile. The people were struggling to believe life could get better again for them.
The prophet reminds the people that from where they take their bearings, radically alters one’s sense of what is going on.
Look to the powerful people (and their regimes) and you will get a particular impression. Look past those people, to One who can extinguish their temporal power in the blink of an eye, and you will get a very different, and invigorating, impression.
Isaiah recommends the latter!
If we hear teaching with authority, there are a number of ways in which that authority might function.
The sense of authority in the teaching might be by virtue of the identity or position of the teacher. It might be the critical mass of the group who’s attention the teacher commands. It may be the teacher’s qualifications, experience and expertise in a given field.
Jesus’ teaching with authority addressed the heart of his audience. He managed to activate an innate sense of what is true and what is in accordance with love. Then he called for a response.
He called people to follow him as he lived his teaching in front of them.
Despite the sense that history keeps repeating, the story of humanity is going somewhere. There has been a steady development of the ways in which societies have structured themselves and cared for the most vulnerable.
There have been key moments in this process. Jesus’ entry into history is one of these key moments.
Jesus wants people to know of God’s grace shaped love for all. He lives it and embodies this love among them. Jesus calls disciples to join him in the task of living and sharing this love. The story of human history has been changed irrevocably as a consequence.
Thanks be to God.
The process of being found by, and consequently finding Jesus, is one that changes the way we perceive everything.
We are brought up in an environment that tacitly indicates it is our responsibility to placate the divine powers. The reality is that the real threat is from within our own human survival instincts that will ultimately pit one against an other.
Jesus challenges this instinct and calls us to die to it. In its place we are instructed to give ourselves. A new approach that equips us to be for one another.
This is where divinity and humanity come together.
When we encounter paradox, it should alert us that our categories may be too small for the data we are observing.
Paradox is that moment when the way we have understood a thing (up to now) contradicts the way we have understood another thing (up to now).
This suggests there may be a way of understanding one or other (or both) things that we have not yet come to realise.
We may be hindered in perceiving in this new way due to the imprecision of our capacity for observation... or sometimes our unwillingness to see clearly(?!).
John’s prologue is full of paradox!
Not many of us would consider ourselves to be slaves. Yet, for how many of us is it the reality that we are driven?
The dynamic of God’s kingdom is that we are no longer slaves. We are no longer driven. We have been adopted as children. Called. Invited!
As children, we also inherit good things from our Heavenly Father. Not material stuff... eternally important stuff. The stuff that brings life to us and to the world.
When St Paul writes of a mystery that has been made known through the scriptures that leads to an obedience of faith to the glory of Jesus Christ, he is not simply stringing together a bunch of ideas because they sound interesting.
Paul is referring to the central awareness that the revelation of good news (news that has always been good) can only be engaged by faith. It has always been accessible by faith. But nothing and no one in all of history has displayed it quite so clearly as Jesus.
The glory it reveals is a uniquely Jesus shaped glory. Not the glory of monarchs, millionaires or movie stars. This is the glory of a love stronger than death!
Hope is not simply an important part of a fulfilling life. Hope is of the essence of the People of God.
God’s people are a people looking toward the fulfilment of the promises of God. There are partial fulfillments along the way. Yet the very experience of the hoped for fulfilment gives rise to the realisation that there is yet more to hope for!
Seasons when we misplace our hope often come down to the uncomfortable process of recalibrating the connection between the promise of God and the way we had construed it should be fulfilled.
The truly hope-filled reality is that God is faithful and holds us even when our own hold on hope appears lacking.
We have good reason to hope.
It is always better to have a reasonable sense of where you are. We find it helpful and reassuring to be able to plot where we have come from, where we are headed, and where we are at now.
To assist us, we make use of reference points that are stable, that we can take comparative readings from.
For the ancient traveler, the celestial bodies (sun, moon and stars) were those unmovable markers - set in their courses in the heavens above.
Should the unthinkable occur... should those markers fall...
How would the ancient traveler know where they were or which way to go on?
Are there any clearer, more permanent reference points by which a person might get their bearings?
The nature of parables is that different people tend to hear different things in these brief stories Jesus told.
Everything from an endorsement of capitalism to the judgement of God on laziness have been heard in the Parable of the Talents.
The relational dynamics demonstrated by the 3 slaves offer a most penetrating and relevant insight into how our essential beliefs shape the way we interact with our world.
Most of us are unlikely to have a clear or precise account of our functioning core beliefs. As I’ve suggested previously, our behaviors are eloquent in their own way.
How is your life telling you about what you hold to be most true and important?
The outrageous part of Jesus’ story about the ten young women in Matthew 25 is not that the women with oil refused to share their meagre supplies with the women who had not thought to bring enough for the long wait through the night. Neither is it that the women who had to go to the merchants to replenish their oil supplies were subsequently barred from entering late into the celebration.
The scandal is that anyone would not prepare adequately for such a time honored and important community event. It was unthinkable. Jesus original audience likely scoffed as if to indicate, ‘Well that would never happen in real life’!
It is unthinkable that we would fail to prepare adequately for an important event. Either too many other things would have to have crowded out the importance of the event in our thinking or the truth is we never really cared that much about it.
Jesus is urging his followers to consider carefully what is most important and to be sure to live into those things without being distracted by other less important parts of life.
This is a limited time opportunity!
It seems to come naturally to us to want to impress upon others just how well we are doing. Whether in our career or our religion, we would rather people thought we were on top of things rather than failing.
When the impression becomes more important than the substance, we are in trouble. We have begun to believe the lie that the most important thing is what everyone thinks... not what is actually going on!
Eventually this deceit will be uncovered. We shall be seen for who we actually are. For some this will be a boon. For others a humiliation.
In the highly charged religio-political world of first century Palestine, any claim of divinity would have been greeted with skepticism and opposed with force (not unlike today in many ways).
Jesus avoids evoking immediate violent opposition by gently introducing the notion that the Christ might be more than simply the son of a man. While his favourite way of referring to himself was the phrase, ‘Son of Man’, Jesus wants people to consider the power and significance of the Christ as one more than simply human.
In the end, what does it matter whether the Christ is divine or not? It matters a lot. The meaning of everything ultimately hangs on this!
Jesus’ opponents seek to trap him by playing to one of his strengths.
Jesus discerns what they are up to.
Rather than skirt the issue or make an unclear response, Jesus shocks his audience with a full throated affirmation in precisely the opposite direction to what they were expecting.
Jesus then broadens the realm of consideration as he pivots from the notion of the image of the Caesar to the image of God.
Do you know who you belong to?
Generosity is something of a disruptive dynamic. We have no way to quantify or codify it. We cannot command nor control how it comes to us. If it comes to us in a measure different to the measure given to someone else, we find it difficult to know what to make of this.
Yet, the grace that gives according to the fullness of the heart that is giving, is not concerned nor constrained by matters of measures of fairness. This generosity offers what is needful regardless of deservedness or otherwise.
In the affairs of human economy, the unregulated (and unregulate-able) gesture of generosity can serve to remind us that our own efforts are not the ultimate arbiter of our worth. Generosity is the whisper of the heart of God - who gives everything to and for us - letting us know we are deeply loved no matter what!
Personally, I prefer to avoid confrontation. However, pretending something is not there does not make it go away. It gives it space to grow.
Jesus encourages his followers to be accountable to each other and to hold each other to account.
This is not the laid back or fun part of community. It is the structural support that makes ongoing community possible. It is one of the ways we offer life to one another!
The sense of call that drew Jesus to Jerusalem and into the hands of those he knew would take his life, was fundamental to his identity. The Messiah came to show the love of God to people. Jesus was not naïve about how that love would be received.
An acceptance of where things are headed, can empower us to make the most of our time on the journey. When we know the purpose (the end point), we can make choices and take actions that enhance our effectiveness to our desired end.
To the extent that we do so, we shall not be burdened with regrets. Our lives will tell a true story of our heart’s intent. We shall be to the glory of God… a glory that is truly beyond imagining!
Many of the utterances we hear these days are not worth the time it would take to listen to them. The trend appears to be the use of words without proper consideration of their meaning nor the truth value of the statement being made.
There are a few utterances well worth listening to and discerning the meaning they offer.
This morning’s reading from Matthew 16:13-20 contains words from and about Jesus we do well to take careful note of. A whole world of meaning rests on the declaration that Jesus is the Christ.
This can flow on to impact the worth of our own utterances and the power these have on the lives of those who hear us.
When was the last time you had a sense the call of Christ was bidding you to place your feet where you had no reasonable expectation that your weight would be supported?
Have you had that experience?
How did you respond?
The life of faith, responding to the call of Christ, is always bidding us to follow Jesus to places the culture of our world does not sustain. We are called to be, and to respond to the world around us, not just like everyone else.
For all the grand statements we might hear about diversity, it is always a step into the unknown to allow one’s self to be identified as different.
You might even say it is quite like walking on water!
We like to have more than enough to go around - especially when it comes to the essentials. Scarcity is an experience that triggers our survival instincts and heightens our competitiveness for needed resources.
Imagine there was a way to overcome the reflex that causes us to focus on our own requirements and treat others with less regard. Imagine we could become instinctively generous and thoughtfully inclusive of others.
Jesus shows us the way. In the midst of potentially life-threatening developments in the politics around his ministry, Jesus turns his attention to the crowds, and helps them become a community. Soon they have more than enough!
Every now and then elements within the church dabble in triumphalism. There is something perpetually attractive about the notion of the greatest power in the universe being on one’s own team. The reality is, of course, that God never joins anyone’s team. We are invited to participate in God’s kingdom.
The difference may sound subtle but it is significant. The conquering we do has far less to do with vanquishing threats or enemies around us. It has far more to do with overcoming destructive urges within and between us. When we become overwhelming conquerors, it is our victory over self-centredness, fear deception and violence that we are touting.
This conquering is more profound and its impact more far reaching than any other. We grow into the new humanity that God is calling us to be. We become increasingly free from destructive impulses. As a result we are liberated to offer ourselves to the world in life-giving ways. That is conquering!
What is it that keeps you going?
Day to day life changes and we all have our ups and downs. What is it that keeps you going when there is more down than up?
Another way to ask this is, What do you hope in?
What do you hope to see happen? What is it that you want to participate in? What are you longing for?
St Paul is quite paradoxical here. He would have us fix our gaze on that which is unseen! Yet, this is of the very nature of hope. We eagerly wait with perseverance for what we do not see!
What are you hoping in?
The grace we enjoy as those set free from the fear of condemnation opens new opportunities to us to be transformed in the most profound ways. The fear of condemnation drives a kind of slavish obedience to the rules. Obedience undertaken in the hope that we might be judged somehow acceptable.
Now that there is no condemnation for those in Christ’s Jesus, we no longer need be motivated by fear. There is a gracious space to reconsider what life is about and where fuller life is to be found.
This re-evaluation in the context of grace has opportunity to go all the way through to our motives and desires so that we not only desire new things, we desire them in new kinds of ways.
This transformation holds the hope of living the richest life to the full.
The internal tussle between what we know to be good and what we seem to find ourselves doing despite our knowing what is good, is as old as humanity itself. It is a universal experience to have unconscious drives within us that take us places our conscious weighing of things would never direct us!
St Paul says it like this: “For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.”
How familiar are you with this experience in your own life? What have you discovered to be the most useful way to reign in unconscious wayward drives? Does faith in Christ offer us anything helpful here? St Paul certainly believes Christ does!
The people a person welcomes and the people they turn away from can tell us a lot about that person. Who we like to associate with and who we avoid, can offer insight into what we hold as most important. Insight that looks past our capacity for self-justification.
When Jesus speaks of receiving the prophet and the righteous, we might self-assuredly think ‘of course we would receive such people’.
But we should remember, the prophet and the righteous are the people most often shunned and ostracized by their community. To welcome and be associated with them can be risky business!
St Paul made a lot of Christ’s death and resurrection. He saw it as the pivot point on which all of human history and meaning turned.
For Paul, these events were not simply historic. They were events that the believer somehow participated in through identification with Christ.
What does it mean that we have died in Christ? How do we live the resurrection we have in Christ? What is your experience of such things?
The kind of authority that has been given to Jesus is different to the style of authorities we have become accustomed to in the world.
Jesus’ authority is uniquely powerful without being over powering. We become fully immersed in it without being overwhelmed by it. It disciples and builds us without tearing us down.
We are given the privilege of both sharing in this authority AND sharing it with others, that they might taste also the richness of kingdom life and be transformed by it..
Jesus promises those who believe in him that they will have ‘rivers of living water bubbling forth from them’. What on earth might this mean?!
This was a looking forward to the coming and impact of the Holy Spirit. A spirit not of humanity but from beyond us. A unique and other spirit.
This Spirit changes everything for disciples of Jesus. We are transformed from being consumers to being a resource for those around us and the whole world.
Well established expectations take a long time to die. When we have held a particular hope in our hearts for a meaningful duration of time, letting go of that hope - even in the face of overwhelming evidence that holding on to such a particular hope will certainly end in disappointment - is not straightforward for us!
When the disciples meet the risen Christ, and begin to come to terms with the fact that he has come through death, they default to their well established hope of kicking out their Roman overlords and establishing an independent Israel.
But this was never what Messiah was going to be about. The risen Christ allows space for the disciples to reflect a little longer on the revelation of salvation history. Even as Christ bids them farewell and is taken up away from their sight, he sends them forth to infiltrate the whole world.
In this excerpt from Peter’s pastoral letter to the churches in Asia Minor there are some very particular concepts and images.
It seems likely that letters like this one from Peter were deliberately coded messages. They used images and ideas that the church would know how to interpret.
They wrote using code because the church was engaged in something that was considered profoundly subversive to the authority of the empire.
This meant it was risky business!
Letters could easily be intercepted by Roman authorities. But the encoded messages meant the uninitiated would not be able to get what they were actually saying.
I believe this is what we have before us today.
So many things about the Jesus story have the potential to mess with our sense of justice. Perhaps that is the point?!
Could it be that our sense of justice has not been much like justice from the beginning?!
The gospel story offers an alternative approach to seeing and weighing everything.
The church has always championed the resurrection as the key moment in the story of salvation - as it surely is.
Too often this has found expression in a kind of misguided attempt to exert a form of authority over people who were not sure they wanted to come under that authority.
But the resurrection is the pivot point of the meaning of everything. It is the point that turns conventional structures on their head and subverts our most effective survival strategies and motives.
The resurrection effectively says the point you all thought was the end... that's not the end!
St Paul takes up an ancient hymn to highlight the self-giving nature of Christ. This is perhaps the most challenging aspect for disciples of the call to follow Christ.
It is common to develop a sense of who we are, based on where we have come from. Our roots often set our course through life and remain an unconscious guide for us as we proceed.
However, where we have come from cannot tell us all of who we are. Neither does it contain all the resources required for us to fulfill our calling.
Jesus offers us a new source. A living source that is not simply past history but ongoing discovery and engagement. This new source is Jesus himself.
Jesus’ way of engaging with us becomes for us as living water that not only nourishes our life, but also becomes a resource of nourishment for all who we share with.
As if it were not enough that Jesus places exacting expectations on his followers with regard to their words and behaviours… in today’s reading (Matt 5:21-37) Jesus goes still deeper with concern for intent, desire and integrity in his followers.
It might be easy to hear these words as a kind of judgement over parts of our life that we often seem to have limited control over. It is better to understand that Jesus wants the liberating grace of the Kingdom of God to be not simply about behaviour modification, but also heart transformation.
As we give ourselves to the Grace of God… our intent and desire does shift. We have opportunity to be more fully integrated and to be people of integrity. This has the power to deeply impact the world around us for good!
Temptation is a feature of human existence. Life is an running stream of choices that are sometimes straightforward for us. But sometimes our choices are nuanced with a sense of clarity regarding the ’right’ thing to do that is undermined by an overwhelming desire to do something else.
What is going on when we are tempted? What mechanisms are activated around and within us? Are all temptations equally injurious to our wellbeing, or are their particular things to beware of?
The devil’s tempting of Jesus focused on three key areas...
Wherein is life?
What does it mean to trust God?
* How does authority function?
There is much to be gained in seeing these issues clearly.
Jesus made extensive use of metaphor when he taught and preached. He found word pictures the most useful way to convey his meaning. These are deliberately imprecise and open to variable interpretations. Almost as though the wresting conversation that would ensue down through history was a design feature of this approach.
This morning we are presented with the call to be salt and light, and to fulfil the Law by surpassing the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees. As with so many of Jesus’ sayings, there is no comfortable way to hear this call. It cuts to the core of our natural desire to simply ‘fit in’. Even when we think about being different, we prefer to be different in the same ways as everyone else!
Nearly everything about the Good News that Jesus brought to first century Palestine was different to the expectations of the people at the time.
Truth is, it is different to the expectations of every generation. The Good News is not found in the main stream or in the default approach of society in general.
Jesus' Good News comes from the unexpected places and comes in unexpected ways to lead us to unexpected places... just as we should expect!
For quite some time, it has been a common place understanding that the Good News is for all people. Even when we have been unsure about the best or most appropriate ways to share it, we generally have known it is a good thing to share.
This was not so much the case in Isaiah’s day. Israel was caught in a sense of struggle for survival that meant surrounding peoples were viewed as rivals. The existence of a powerful neighbouring nation was perceived not as a blessing but as a threat! And not for no reason - history tells the story of the threat neighbouring nations had posed to Israel. So it is all the more remarkable that Isaiah comes to understand that the calling of the people of God
is to become a blessing to the nations.
The magnitude of Isaiah’s vision of God, and his sense of the calling of God’s people, is exceptional. In Isaiah’s own day this understanding was quantum leap from any other conception. Even today, many of those who count themselves among the people of God struggle to grasp and/or believe such an all encompassing vision.
In the midst of a tribal-oriented people who were under the intense strain - politically, socially, theologically and spiritually - of the exile, Isaiah offered the most audacious of visions to the people of God.
Not only were this defeated and broken people still belonging to God. They were also to be instrumental in God’s salvation of the whole world!
How was 2019 for you?
At the close of the year, what were you grateful for? What have you learnt? What do you feel as though you have survived? What will you take with you as you look to the year ahead?
The prophets are good at reminding the people of both the promises of God and the valuable lessons of past experience rightly understood.
It is useful to re-collect the past and re-member it... put it back together and make sense of it in a way that is not possible at the time when the events are taking place.
How is your 2019 spurring you on? What is God saying to you from the events of the year past?
Isaiah imagines an ideal future in which the reign of God comes in full flower.
There is judgement. But not as we generally understand judgement. This judgement attends to the needs of the most vulnerable.
There is righteousness. But this sounds like a practical and relational rather than religious righteousness.
There is peace. But this is a peace that is beyond our imagining. It is a wholly unnatural peace. Things not functioning the way we have always known them to!
This is a vision of a renewed heaven and earth under the lordship of Good’s anointed.
The startling vision Isaiah offers is notable because it sees a time in history when nations will decide against war. Not as a temporary tactic. But as a permanent and thorough going strategy for relations with other nations.
The history of humanity suggests such a strategy would be foolish at best... and should be considered completely irresponsible.
The only thing that makes this non-violent strategy a realistic option is that all the nations of the world have come to learn of the ways of God. This represents an ultimate human phase - not of evolution - but of transformation (conversion).
When Jesus came to save the world, part of that saving is from the instinctual behavior we tend to react with. We are saved to share the love of God. To be transformed to the nature of God.
There are three key pieces of speech that occur in Luke’s account of the crucifixion.
Jesus prays: ‘Father forgive them. They do not know what they are doing.’
The rulers mock: ‘You saved others. Save yourself!’
One of the criminals next to Jesus pleads: ‘Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.’
These three utterances tell us a lot about the drama that is unfolding.
Jesus continues to behave consistent with love toward others… even the others who are at that moment crucifying him. The rulers refuse see what they are doing (ref Jesus’ prayer) and demand that Jesus ‘save himself’ - which is the very antithesis of Jesus’ mission. One person has his eyes opened. The second criminal acknowledges he personally deserves to be on his cross… but Jesus does not deserve to be. He then essentially says: ‘I am with you, Jesus.’
What do you imagine you might have said if you had been caught up in this drama?
There are a number of things that we might prefer were not written in scripture. Surely Jesus’ warnings about what is coming are in that category. If they were not in scripture, it would be easier to pretend to ourselves that such things would never (could never) happen.
These things are not only likely to occur, but already have many many times in all manner of places. Each time they happen, we assure ourselves they must not be allowed to happen again. They do happen again.
We can be wilfully naïve about the realities of our shared human nature. Or we can consider ourselves appropriately warned. Warned not so as to create fear. Warned so as to enable resolve.
As disciples of Jesus, we are called to be aware of the realities and yet to resolve to be faithful to our calling. Naïvety might seem more comfortable. But it will crumble as surely as the temple did. Better to trust in the truth that will never crumble.
Resurrection is something that stretches the credulity of most people. There is so little evidence in our world today to support the possibility of resurrection. Yet, resurrection is right at the heart of Christian faith.
Perhaps there is more evidence for resurrection than we might have first considered. Not simply evidence regarding the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection - which might be considered unique. But closer indicators in our everyday experience of life that point squarely at the essential nature of the hope of resurrection.
Resurrection is inherently imprecise... precisely because we have no experience of the fullness of what it will yet mean. If we look carefully, we can see its contours shaping the last 2000 years of world history.
If we look even more closely, we might be able to discern the hope of resurrection shaping our own lives.
The story of Jesus’ encounter with Zaccheus is not just a great redemption tale. It also highlights the deeply problematic nature of a grace as profound as the grace Jesus offers.
This grace is problematic precisely because it effectively dissolves the barriers we all use to separate ourselves from ’them’ (whoever our particular ‘them’ might be).
Jesus’ acceptance of those who are the least acceptable, challenges our natural reflex of ‘othering’ - the process we instinctually use that makes us feel safer and more acceptable.
If we are all equally as un/acceptable as each other, what is the basis on which we decide who is in and who is out? How can we work out how to treat people if we no longer have the categories of ’my people’ and ‘not my people’?
How has Jesus’ grace changed the way you are with others?
It is difficult to compare a Pharisee with a tax collector in any unbiased manner. They are both characters who are loaded with meaning in their context. One is the very representation of righteousness and the other the ikon of sin and betrayal.
However, Jesus (as is his custom) has this capacity to reinterpret these two figures in a very different manner. Rather than simply reinforcing the predominant stereotypes, Jesus goes right to the heart of the matter.
It is not how the community views a person that determines how God views them. It is the honesty with which a person sees themselves that opens the way for a good relationship with God.
How honest with yourself are you when you stand before God?
What do you hope for?
How deep does your hope go?
What actions are you taking toward the realisation of your hope?
Are there actions that flow from you almost beyond your own deliberations because your hope is so strong?
Can you imagine the power of a hope that overcomes the lulling pull of simply giving up in the face of frustration and disappointment?
A hope so strong within you, that you cannot help but keep giving yourself to that hope until it finds a way through to fulfilment.
This is the power of kingdom hope.
It is not about getting what we want. It is about giving ourselves to the much larger purpose and finding ourselves in the kingdom.
In a day of fragile self-esteem and uncertain identity, we have become loath to speak of people using the category of sin.
Paul shows no hesitation in that regard - least of all in reference to himself! He claims top spot among sinners.
Paul does so to make clear that there is no one beyond the reach of the grace of God. If even he, the chief of sinners, can become the recipient of this life-altering divine love, then there is no one who can possibly be outside God’s reach.
In the perfect patience of God’s eternal view, the end game is the inclusion of every last person who is willing to join in the life of the kingdom of God.
Most of the choices we make in life are not binary. Life is full of nuance and alternate options.
Yet, there are key moments when the choice before us represents a choice between self-interest or self-giving. We can stay with the established supports and comforts that we have grown accustomed to. Or we can follow the way of Christ - that continually calls us beyond these bounds.
This is a crucially important decision. A decision that sets the course of a person’s life. It is not one that should be made half heartedly or with inadequate consideration. Neither is it a decision that should be avoided simply because it seems too hard to make.
In life, something will have a primary hold on us. We can find our security in the default ways of our world. Or we can decide there is more life to found in following the way of Jesus and being held in the security of God’s way of self-giving love.
What are you choosing?
If Jesus came to our church and healed someone, I don’t think the first thing we would react to would be whether he did it at the right time in the service.
This tells us something of the difference between the religious environment we live in, and the one that existed in first century Palestine.
Why were the religious authorities of that time so caught up with keeping their own rules? And why was Jesus so unconcerned (at times) by the thought of transgressing them?
What are the rules about and what purpose are they meant to serve anyway?
There is something about the Good News of Jesus that is profoundly subversive to the status quo. In allowing himself to be lynched by his community, Jesus focuses a penetrating light on the systems of justice, judgement and righteousness. It becomes inescapably clear that when humans pronounce judgement (claiming it to be the justice of God no less!) it might just as easily be the arbitrary victimisation of the innocent!
What happens to the pillars of society when that which we have self-assuredly believed to be absolute is revealed to be arbitrary? If what has passed for our knowledge of good and evil ends in the murder of God, what are we to do instead?
And what are the consequences of this leaven of the Gospel in every society it touches?
This little prayer might be one of the best known in all of history. It is not surprising. Jesus offers it as a model when his disciples specifically ask for his help.
What does this prayer model for us?
What are the areas Jesus felt were most important in prayer?
Everyone likes to get the good part, right? We will take everything from a free upgrade to first class to the choices bit of the Sunday roast.
But what if we have been mistaken about what the good part is?!
What if our desire has been so shaped by what everyone else around us is desiring, that we have never worked out for ourselves what is genuinely good?
Jesus’ encounter with Martha and Mary as a guest in their home reveals how easily we can adopt the assumptions of our culture and miss out on the really good part.
Casting out demons sounds a bit like a carnival sideshow act these days. Yet, the level of deep internal torment in the lives of many in our community suggests there is an ongoing need for deliverance.
The Spirit world has no doubt regarding the authority of Jesus. Grace, truth and peace always trump judgement, lies and torment.
When Jesus delivers the man tormented by the legion of demons this is no play acting. There is a move from one realm of power to another. The man moves into Jesus’ realm - and the demons lose their power over him.
The same dynamic remain true and operable today. Worship Jesus and all other claims on your allegiance will fall away.
Discipleship has always been challenging. We are prone to attempt to take the call to follow Jesus on our own terms. This is the very thing Jesus rules out in the sayings we are considering today.
Here we have a series of encounters with people who appear to have very reasonable excuses for why they cannot drop everything and follow Jesus.
Jesus’ direct challenge in response to each of these objections reveals the stark nature of his call. This is not about adding a religious veneer to your established life-style and priorities. This call goes fair against the grain and challenges us to consider what is, for us, most important.
Each year, at the festival of Pentecost, we celebrate the coming of the Spirit upon the ragtag band of Jesus followers who would be formed into the church.
It is understandable that the inexplicable phenomena that took place as part of the event often takes our attention. The wind, the tongues of fire and unusual languages were all intended to communicate important aspects of what was taking place.
Anticipating the Spirit’s arrival, Jesus speaks of this coming as the arrival of an advocate - The Spirit of Truth. The work of revealing truth is perhaps the singular task of the Spirit - the truth of Jesus and the truth of each of us as well!
The story of the Good Samaritan has long been heralded as the example of how to care. But it begs the question whether this is an example we take seriously - any more than Jesus original audience would have.
When Jesus first told this story, every character performed true to form except the Samaritan. The Samaritan, by contrast, behaved in a manner that was simply unbelievable!
What do we make of this unbelievable tale? Is it simply a nice folksy story about how life would be better if people were more kind to each other? Or does it whisper something more of the true nature of God’s kingdom and how we might encounter it in our own lives?!
What is it with Jesus and lambs? How did this fluffy, gentle creature become so central to Jesus’ teaching and eternal identity?
There is something about the non-threatening gentleness of the lamb, even in the midst of the kill-or-be-killed ways of our world, that speaks of the eternal nature of God’s kingdom ways. Uncompromising gentleness is a stark contrast next to the intrinsic viciousness of how our world does its business.
The power of the gentleness is in where its confidence is placed. This is not confidence in brute force or dominance. Gentleness is the lived assurance that God’s ways will prevail in the end. Gentleness is a sign that the kingdom is among us.
When a promise is made, we are wise to consider the past form of the one making the promise. Have they been true to their word, and is what they promised in keeping with what we have observed of their character.
When God promises (through Isaiah) that something new is coming, we can be assured by God’s consistent faithfulness to past promises made. Also, God has consistently done hitherto unimagined things among his people.
Making humanity central to the creation story was new. Calling Abraham out to an unknown land was new. Making a covenant with the people was new.
Isaiah indicates God is again about to do something beyond the imagining of the people. Yet we know a good deal of the character of our God. It may be new (and thus unknown), but we can be sure it will be good - better than we could imagine!
The story of the Prodigal Son has become known as a yarn about a wayward child and a very gracious parent. There is much more going on in this outrageous narrative that Jesus wove for his eager audience.
The behaviours of each of the characters reveal something important. Together they suggest a way of being together that is barely comprehensible to our worldly understanding. A way in which the things we simply assume to be the most important are virtually passed over... And that which we almost dare not hope to be possible, is revealed to be true.
Yes. God loves us that much. Can you believe it?!
For the fledgling church, struggling to find its place in a political culture determined to snuff it out, there were deep questions about where the adventure of following Christ was likely to take them.
The Revelation of John seeks to offer some clarity and hope in response to that wondering. Throughout its dramatic visions there is recognition of the challenging realities the people of faith were facing.
Yet, the vision also holds unswervingly to the lordship of Christ and the ultimate fruition of God’s kingdom. This talk explores a little more what that looks like.
In his high priestly prayer of intercession on behalf of his disciples, Jesus asks his Father for those things which would be essential for them.
Oneness is an intriguing inclusion. Presumably Jesus, with his insight into human nature, would have known just how challenging being one would prove to be for his followers. Setting aside the splintering of the church into uncountable denominations, it is difficult enough for a single congregation to be one.
Yet the disciples being one is a key and powerful testimony to the truth of who Jesus is. It is also a persuasive pointer to the salvation of the world.
This talk is part 2 of a 3 part series on the Revelation.
There is an inevitable tension between the world’s way and the way of Christ. We feel it in our personal lives (see Romans 7). It can also manifest as a societal tension.
Established power easily becomes threatened by the alternate frame of power and meaning that the way of Christ represents. Not the threat of being overthrown by brute force. It is the threat that love and truth pose to deception and intimidation.
Any attempt to stamp out this threat makes the existing fragile power more transparent. The more force is applied… the more those in power reveal their ultimate powerlessness in the face of the eternal kingdom.
The way of Christ stands through and beyond time. There are seasons of tribulation. Yet, the way of Christ prevails.
After the ructions that took place with Jesus crucifixion and the preaching of his resurrection, John (the writer of the book of The Revelation) was exiled on the island of Patmos.
It would seem this was an entirely sensible thing for the authorities to do (from a Roman imperial perspective). The Revelation is a profoundly subversive text that dares to indicate an entirely alternate structure of power and meaning.
For us today, as people shaped by centuries of Christian infused Western culture, the starkness of the challenge to assumed structures of meaning and power may not be obvious. Think about it for a moment...
According to The Revelation, the greatest expression of power and authority in all of creation is a lamb! Seriously!?!
Isaiah looked over the horizon of his day and glimpsed a new day when life would be so different to the ways he was experiencing that the only way he could describe it was as a ‘new heavens and a new earth’!
The seemingly fruitless struggle that characterised so much of his people’s history would come to a close. Something altogether new was to be created - not by the people themselves - but by the hand of the one who watches over and created them in the first place.
The tenor and flavour of this new creation would be as different from the existing experience of life as chalk is to cheese. Rather than fear as the central organizing dynamic of communal life, there would be rejoicing and gladness.
Isaiah could not have known that what he was glimpsing... what he was hoping for... was the way of Jesus of Nazareth. The way of self-giving that goes beyond death and on into resurrection life!
The word that can save us is always close at hand. Saint Paul seems to suggest it is already known to us… in our mouth and in our heart.
Yet, if it is so close, and even known to us… how is it that it also often seems illusive to us?!
Knowing the transforming power of this word is not determined by our heritage or identity. It is available to any and all who call on the name of the Lord.
The riches of God are such that they do not disappoint.
What does it mean to be a citizen of heaven? Citizenship offers access and resources to those who appreciate what they are part of. In all manner of direct and indirect ways, being a citizen also shapes how we see ourselves and what we understand to be of utmost importance for our life and wellbeing.
It might seem that heavenly citizenship sounds like ‘pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die’. In reality, the resources we access, how we see ourselves and what we understand to be of utmost importance shapes the way we live each and every day… today!
What is the magnetic north that your compass points you toward? That which is fleeting… or that which stands in and beyond time?
The story of the Transfiguration of Christ is (by any measure) a very mysterious account. It is strange to our ears as we hear it. And it was equally strange for the disciples who experienced it first hand.
There seems no doubt that at the heart of this little supernatural drama is the clear proclamation that Jesus is both in the line of revelation of the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah), as well as the fulfilment of these - ‘This is my Son, listen to HIM!’
Jesus’ identity is of critical importance as he makes his way steadfastly toward Jerusalem and the events that await him there. If Jesus were simply a prophet, his crucifixion would be a terrible crime indeed. But as the Son of God, it transfigures the meaning of everything!
Love your enemies is not designed to be an unreachable utopian ideal - neither is it intended to make us feel that we will never be able to live up to Jesus’ expectations.
It is, in fact, a very specific, practical and life-sustaining imperative. Consider the alternative… We either love our enemies or we end up hating them, or at the very least, disregarding them.
The only way the Kingdom of God becomes a reality in our world is when God’s people love others - not just friends, but ALL others - as a general approach to life! This is the way of Jesus… the way we are called to follow him in.
None us us does it perfectly. Yet, this quality of love remains the guiding star for the direction of our life. This goal stands as the ever present hint of where the richest life is always to be found.
With today’s busy lifestyles, it is important to stay healthy. Our culture is fairly good at focusing on physical wellbeing. How well do we look after our sense of direction in life… our sense of who we are?
These are matters of the heart. Not the physical blood pumping organ, but the deeper inner desires and perceptions that shape all our interactions and purpose in life.
How do we best attend to that kind of heart health? What makes for a healthy sense of direction in life? How do we develop and maintain a true and robust sense of who we are?
Jeremiah’s ancient insight can serve us well here…
When a person hears the call of Christ to follow, there is more going on than meets the eye.
There is the context in which this call is heard. The culture that has formed the person. All that is going on in the moment. As well as the less defined aspect of what the person hopes for.
There is the content of the person of Jesus. His teaching and his ways of relating to others.
If a person makes the decision to respond favourably to Jesus’ call, there is (at least the beginnings of) a conviction that life is to be found in Jesus’ direction.
Consider the context, content and conviction of your own response to Christ. What do these things help you understand about the nature of your response?
Not everyone remained happy to be with Jesus. He displayed an uncanny gift for cutting to the heart of those he spent time with.
Some responded with openness and repentance - drawn by the grace and forgiveness offered them. In this way, Jesus offered a deeper and more complete peace than ever known before.
Others found Jesus all too confronting. They arced up against his penetrating words and insight. They found him unsettling and disturbing. So much so, they did not want to simply shush him. They wanted to silence him... completely... forever!
But we all know, you can’t keep truth buried... And you can’t keep a good man down!
Local friend Liz Crittle arranged for Rev Dave to be interviewed by the UTS FM radio DRIVE program. It is a brief 7 minute interchange between the presenter, Danny, and Rev Dave.
Have a listen...
Jesus came announcing Good News to the afflicted. He did so, quoting a prophecy of Isaiah’s from hundreds of years earlier.
How does good news change in varying times and places? How are we to understand the intended fulfilment for Isaiah’s day, Jesus’ day... and indeed our own day?
When we hear of captives being released, the blind receiving sight and the oppressed being freed, it is possible to imagine a range of ways these could be fulfilled.
What might the fulfilment of these words look like for you - in your own life and the way you see the world?
The theme of light and darkness is sprinkled throughout scripture.
Light usually represents divine revelation - some kind of cut-through insight or transition in understanding. Light represents being able to see things more clearly. Light means that when was previously obscured is now out in the open.
Darkness, by contrast, represents the more natural state of people. Darkness means not being able to see what is right in front of us. Darkness can hide things even when they are out in the open!
Darkness is the absence of light. When light comes, darkness is done away with.