Summary

(Matthew 3:1-11)

John the Baptist is most often associated with Easter but we’re choosing to go here today at the start of Advent because of his unapologetic focus on our needing to be ready for the coming of Christ into our lives. How are we ‘getting ready’ for the celebration of Christ’s birth? And to what extent are we useful for helping others to get ready? Do we in fact facilitate their readiness or do we in fact get in their way? John the Baptist confronts us with ‘readiness’ as the necessary attitude we must adopt in order to be properly Christ-receptive – properly God-expectant…

Some say, as Christ followers, THAT is probably our main purpose & goal within all our friendships, all our partnerships, marriages: …somehow always to be facilitating others in their faith journeys – helping them to find their place in welcoming Christ’s birth. Do we do that or are we normally just about ourselves and get in their way?

But what does that actually mean? Aren’t we all so very different? We will be looking at aspects of that question from now to Christmas, and we’ll do so by looking at the Nativity scene. What I’m suggesting is that each of these very familiar characters represent some aspect of each one of our readiness journeys, and as we focus on them one at a time, who knows how God may work to prompt greater readiness to celebrate Christ’s birth within us and others this year!

On Dec 8, next week, it will be about the shepherds. We’ll be examining what it means that they had the angels burst into their lives – what do we learn from them? And also, the townspeople who were not at the birth. How could they possibly have just missed all of what was happening as Christ was being born? We’ll be doing so around the Advent theme of PEACE.

The following week, on Dec 15, our focus will be – a little anachronistically – on the Magi, the Wise Men, whom we know actually only arrived sometime later. We’ll be specifically looking at the determined and intentional and deeply faithful logic that drew them from their comfort zones in the East to Bethlehem… What does that mean for our getting ready today? Our Advent theme on that Sunday will be JOY.

On the 4th Sunday of Advent, Dec 22, we will focus firstly on Joseph, looking at what we learn from his stubborn rejection of what both social and religious law demanded of him with regard to Mary, that he may be useful for facilitating Christ’s birth. And then, secondly, on Mary and her spirit of absolute submission. That last Advent theme is LOVE.

But we begin this month of getting ready with John the Baptist, and the theme of HOPE.

Clearly, John was a rabble rouser. A troublemaker. A disrupter. He stopped people in their tracks and forced them to face things about themselves that they may otherwise have missed: …and that is his gift to us! He insists that we STOP! RE-ASSESS! NOTICE & then LEAVE BEHIND all of what is getting in the way! The reality is that there are constantly things that creep into each of our lives where we have compromised, to which we have become numb. Comfortable things perhaps, familiar, but desperately unhelpful as they get in the way of us engaging with the Christ and who he has made us to be. John would have us confront those things! 

For those Pharisees and Sadducees – I wonder what things they had embraced that were stopping their appreciation of Christ as He moved towards them? It seems to have had to do with their sense of religious privilege and entitlement. As the teachers and keepers of the Law they believed that they had some especially elevated status over others, believing they had some special ‘IN’ with God.

John demanded that they not only notice those attitudes of entitlement but that they immediately stop trying to hide behind them! They were to notice whatever was complicating their real & most authentic receptivity to Christ – and they were to end them! Repent! Turn away! Looking straight through all their impressive outer credentials John the Ba

Summary

Psalm 46

Will Willimon begins his commentary on this passage with these words: Most of us live under the illusion that our world, that is, the world we have constructed for ourselves, is predictable, stable, and fixed. Yet not so! Because there are always those times when our worlds are shaken, fall apart. What then? Psalm 46 tells us that it’s then as we reach out for God we find that God is a refuge and a strength, an ever present help – and particularly so in our times of trouble!

One of the very many things I’ve always cherished about Linda is her ability to make a nest… Create routines… Establish procedures… Order… I think of our moving to our new home here in Vernon and how hard she worked to settle things down… Or whenever we go camping…

Willimon describes his bathroom routine, explaining how, when he travels, he carefully arranges his toiletries on the bathroom counter, attempting to recreate something of his home in every hotel bathroom. I think we truly all do that – in one way or another – some better than others! We construct little micro-worlds of order around ourselves – predictable routines to follow, programs, habits, relationships. They give us a sense of stability and order. Even meaning and purpose. It’s an illusion of course, because we also know that all it takes is for just one thing to dislodge… for us to realize just how fragile our constructed world is…

It’s true what they say, that ‘every one of us is just that one dreaded late-night phone call away from falling apart.  It’s the devastation of the single mom – SO proud of her only son – who saw his car crushed among the highway wreckage reported on the local news. I think of that beloved older couple who, after that late night Christmas Eve service, were just one icy misstep onto the bus away from utter disaster. It’s just that one visit to the doctor and malignant medical result…

Of course we know that there are all sorts of spiritual practices that help us stay close to God.

Some find it helpful to have regular times each day to pray, others find it helpful regularly to read scripture. Some journal on a regular basis while still others walk the labyrinth.

Some people fast regularly, or try to get away on retreat as often as possible: times to refocus and re-center/ be re-aligned with Christ as God’s Sacred Presence within them. Each of these are valid and beautiful disciplines of faith. But according to Psalm 46 one of the most powerful ways of getting really close to God is when trouble comes & our worlds fall apart, because that’s primarily when we may actually discover that: “God is our refuge and strength, and is a very present help always near in times of great trouble.” It was Corrie Ten Boom, I believe, who said: You’ll never know Christ is all you need until Christ is all you have. Of cause I agree that it would be good if we all routinely called out to God in our good times, but like many, I confess that I don’t.

It’s for us – people like you and me – that Psalm 46 especially has a word:

On this ‘Christ the King’ Sunday: …knowing that in times of our greatest trouble, we can always reach out to God for refuge and strength …and we can do so knowing that God – who is always bigger and greater than our circumstances – promises always to reach back toward us. That is such a comfort. But I would like to suggest that there are at least 2 further very precious implications of this beautiful truth:

The first has to do with the worlds that we create! We are NOT ultimately in charge! Of course we must do the best we can in order to build the very best world we can, but good  or bad, successful or unsuccessful, we are NEVER to be defined only by what we have built or attempted to build, because what we do is never what is most actual, most eternal. …you’d think we would have learnt that lesson after the whole Tower of Babel thing…

Another implication of Christ as the King has to do with the perspective we hold! We have to remain open ALWAYS

Summary

Isaiah 65:17-25

Our reading begins with words previously addressed in ch.43 and repeated at the end of the Bible in John’s Revelation (Ch. 21). They point us to one of the most basic elements of our faith: hope! And the hope that God’s not done with us! It’s the hope that there is always room for expectancy: that the new thing that God promises is still coming.

It’s like there’s a rhythm that pulses throughout the book of Isaiah, much of scripture, and through much of life! It always begins with God’s calling/drawing of us as God’s people before moving on to the blessings which we sense are associated with responding to that call. Then, inevitably, there’s our failure and our having to live with the consequences of that failure, followed by a renewed calling/drawing and the renewed promise of blessing… All before invariably more failure and more having to live the consequences of that failure! Only to start again – thank God – with renewed calling, and so on.

For Isaiah it all began with his calling in Ch. 1! He remembers that it was when their mighty king Uzziah died that he felt himself being called. The people of Judah had been living extremely well in ‘their promised land’ under that great king – enjoying unprecedented wealth, peace & comfort. But they had also allowed themselves to forget who they actually were and why they existed. They had forgotten that they had been chosen to be God’s blessing to others and all creation and not just for their own privilege and comforts. That’s what the first 39 chapters of Isaiah are all about – God’s message of warning that: they are to come back into meaningful relationship with God and with God’s plans for their lives or else all they have will be lost! They ignored the warning and, in 597BCE, it came crashing down as mighty Babylon, under the pretty unstoppable king Nebuchadnezzar, invaded Judah, destroyed their temple as well as all their most holy places and took them off into Babylonian exile.

But then, from Ch. 40, Isaiah’s message changes. To an exiled Judah, humiliated and shattered, come words of promise and hope: ‘comfort, comfort my people…’ That’s also when we meet prophecies of the suffering servant who was to come to heal them – pointing them to Jesus Christ who was to be born some 500 years later. The promise was that they will one day be set free to come home to their place of original blessing and rebuild the temple! As we know, that happened with the defeat of Babylon by King Cyrus of Persia in 538BCE, who then allowed all the exiled to go home to Jerusalem – and to rebuild the temple there and their lives!

From Ch. 55 the message changed once again. They were home. Settled! The temple was being rebuilt. They were no longer shattered, no longer exiled, no longer spiritually hungry. A new message was necessary! Voices begin urging them to wake up from their luke-warm complacency and to re-engage with what God intends for them.

Thank God for faith cycles! Thank God our descent to complacency and faithlessness never just ends it for us! But we do unfortunately tend to get stuck there!

Just like those returned exiles, we may be among the chosen of God, called and blessed, but also like them, we may never forget that our chosen blessedness always has associated responsibilities! May we never forget that we are chosen for purpose, not simply privilege. Our embracing of promise without embracing the associated responsibilities is profoundly destructive and creates greed! So many prosperity cults that exist today, based purely on ‘the promises’ but without any emphasis on responsibility! Just ‘name it and claim it! They say! ` Seriously?  As if our God-given blessings are ever meant to be about just ourselves!

But, equally, the taking on of responsibility without the promised privilege of blessings is brutal, and always = fear! We are not made to live in fear! Fear is never our God-given reality!  We were made to live our lives from a place of love, not fear! May

Summary

Last week (All Saints Day) we ended our time by honoring our Saints! When I think of those who’re particularly the saints in my life, they were/are those people (young/ old/ wise/ not-so-wise) who have somehow contributed to my faith journey. It’s all those whose lives/ witness/ writings/ example God has used to show something of who & what God is and so also who I am. Whoever it was who originally spoke of faith as the common cold – something caught from others, not taught was correct.

We begin this week by remembering all those associated with war death. We think of so many young men and women, people from all walks of life: mail carriers, teachers, doctors, housewives…  Typically, we think of those in uniform. But tragically, those who suffer the most are no longer soldiers on battlefields but the innocent killed in their homes. The very real challenge for us as we gather at cenotaphs across the country is never to honor the awful destruction & suffering associated with war while still honoring the sacrifices of those who lost their lives. We honor them for their sacrifice, their patriotism & courage, but we hate war! We understand war to be the ultimate breakdown of our recognition of our common humanity and of all relationship.

We remember in order to do at least these 4 things:

To honor the best of ourselves and our human spirit! We remember in order to honor our heroes for the finest and noblest of their past actions.

We remember to learn from the worst of ourselves, that we may know what to avoid! It was Spanish philosopher George Santayana who famously said: Those who cannot (or will not) remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

We shudder to remember our Canadian past and what’s now being called the First Nation Genocide: our government’s official answer to what back then was called ‘The Indian-problem’ which was to ‘kill the Indian in the Indian’ and to do so by making them European. That led to the creation and enforcement of the Residential School system which has destroyed so much…! I think at last we are beginning to get it that it was not only a brutal system because of the atrocities associated with it, but because of the genocide it was designed to achieve! But can’t we just forget about that? We may never forget!

I think of my own homeland – South Africa – where for generations the segregation of race into higher and lower classes was officially based on the attempted theological justification of an evil system: APARTHEID! But do we still HAVE to remember…? Yes we do!

How about those millions executed during the German holocaust of WW2 simply for being Jewish, or for being gay, or for having some physical impairment? Now, almost 80 years later, do we still really need those awful memorials…? THEY’RE ESSENTIAL!

I’m sure we’d love to be able just to forget all those things – deny that they ever even happened.

But we can’t – …because they are still with us. Remember the Rwandan genocide of 1990s?

What about the current horror of political and religious ideologies which result in the 100s of 1,000s if not millions of killed innocent and displaced people?  May we never lose sight of the horror to which we are capable.

We remember to have hope for whatever’s ahead. Our remembrances are never to be anchors confining to the worst of ourselves so much as rudders of learning & insight to steer us onwards towards to all of what can be ahead…

We remember in order, by faith, to make what was once known from God’s historical reality real once again for us today! It’s what scholars name as: ANAMNESIS! Time & again we see that commandment in scripture: Remember: …that you were slaves in Egypt & that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and outstretched arm… (Dt.5:15) …the wonders God has done, God’s miracles, and the judgments God pronounced… (1 Chron. 16:12) …that I have commanded you to be determined and confident! Do not be afraid or discouraged, for I, the Lord your God, am w

Summary

Luke 19: 1-10

Today, we’re going to be talking about Jesus’ insistence on ‘loving’ and reaching out to all the ‘wrong’ people. Let me start with how William Willimon[i]  introduces today’s reading. He writes: Jesus’s scandalous way of breaking our barriers and reaching out to those whom we deem ourselves as being morally and spiritually above, continues to shock us. Jesus Christ was criticized for being one “who receives sinners and eats with them.” In reaching out to the sinners who we sinners look down upon and avoid, Jesus presents us with a continuing radical challenge in evangelism and mission.

Zacchaeus was not only a tax collector, he was a chief tax collector and probably the richest man in town as a result of what he skimmed for himself. We’re told that he wanted to see Jesus, but couldn’t because he was too short and couldn’t see over the crowds. So he climbed a sycamore tree. The highlight of the story is not as Zacchaeus saw Jesus but as Jesus saw him. Jesus called him down and invited himself into Zacchaeus’ home and life. Jesus chose to break bread with only one person – the worst person in town. What does that tell us about Jesus?

We all have this in common with Zacchaeus: we want a better view of who Jesus is and what he means for us. Our shortness has to do with how narrow our understanding is of who and what God’s work in Jesus actually is and what Jesus actually does. Most of us spend most of our time just staring into the back of the heads of others’ opinions – of who and what they think Jesus is! As a result, we risk missing him altogether.

Where are we in this story? Zacchaeus…? Jesus…? Maybe, but like Willimon I’m pretty sure I would have been among those shouting: “Wait a minute! I heard Jesus was a good person, a religious leader, a prophet! How dare he go to the home of the richest, most unsavory character in town! Is Jesus approving of this man’s thieving ways? He should be condemning him not eating with him.”

When have I done that? When have you? Willimon knows when he did! He describes his reaction to Franklin Graham accepting the invitation to go eat with the President in the White House. Willimon, among those Christians who oppose the President, was outraged!  What did Franklin Graham think he was doing – legitimizing the leadership of someone with whom they SO disagree? But then Willimon goes on to ask WWJD? Well, I wonder…? The only person with whom Jesus shared a meal in Jericho was that sinful despised Zacchaeus. And people hated him for it. Willimon is left feeling kind of conflicted, certainly challenged by what he implies is his own sense of self-righteousness.

The good news is that whenever we gather to eat – be it be for Holy Communion or for hamburgers in the gym – there are those many good righteous people who may properly say:

“Look! He’s at it again: eating with sinners!” …to which all of us sinners may answer: YES! Thank God! Thank God that this Jesus still loves all the ‘wrong’ ‘undeserving’ people, because that means there is room for us!!! And room for us to be inspired to do the same… May it be so. Amen

Rev. Robin Jacobson reserves all rights © 2019.

You are welcome to use, copy, edit or reproduce this sermon summary with copyright attached. Publication is prohibited.

[i] Much of today’s reflection quoting and drawing from Willimon’s published reflection on this passage in Ministry Matters, Nov 3, 2019

Summary

After the feeding of the 5000[i] John’s Gospel tells of how Jesus and his disciples slipped away, ending up in the town of Capernaum. But the word would have got out about that miraculous meal on the mountainside and those folks would have been fascinated enough to be wanting more from him…[ii] That’s where we pick up today’s reading from John 6 where Jesus calls himself ‘bread’.

WHY BREAD? What was Jesus wanting those who were following him to understand about who and what he was – IS – by calling himself ‘BREAD?’ ‘BREAD’ is an absolute staple of the Middle East! No meal ever happens without bread in some form or another. Until there has been bread, the meal is somehow incomplete. Bread had an essential role at every meal back then – probably still does in many of those communities. Someone once pointed out how, if Jesus had been Asian, perhaps he would have called himself ‘rice’, saying that ‘I am the ‘rice’ of the world…’ The point being that Jesus was/is describing himself as the stuff most basic, most foundationally fundamental – to all life.

This then, the first thing for them – and for us – to understand from his teaching: how we are to understand that in Christ we have something primal, fundamental, something so radically essential, that without him – somehow, we, whom we actually are – our truest selves – we don’t survive!

And I love that he chose something as practical and physically ubiquitous as ‘BREAD’ to make his point – as opposed to – you know – something aesthetically beautiful but quite remote such as ‘the sky’, or ‘the stars’ or ‘the ocean’ or even perhaps some emotion as ‘love’ or ‘kindness’: I am the sunshine of life/ I am the kindness of life/ I am the love of life…’

He could have said any of those – but instead, he chose bread! Tangible! Physical! Practical! Everyday! And essential for all of life! It’s as if we’re being taught that unless our faith is grounded in that which is ACTUALLY most tangibly life-giving, it is meaningless!

This, then, is the second possible reason for why Jesus chose to use this bread metaphor to describe himself and his work! Any truly authentic expression of our Christian faith MUST have this tangible physical quality! ‘Like eating bread! One beggar sharing with another where we’ve found food![iii]

But I wonder if all this is merely a metaphor that Jesus was choosing to use or if there is actually something more going on here? I believe so. Let’s call it an emphatic metaphor, or an empowered, incarnate, in-the-flesh, metaphor! BREAD!

It’s as we bring these two elements together: (1) bread and our providing physical sustenance to those who are hungry, and (2) our faithful intentionality about doing what we are doing in Christ’s name, that we embody something truly sacred and Christ-like! 

That’s what any sacrament is defined as being: ‘an outward physical sign pointing to an inner spiritual reality!’[iv] The words of Christ we remember spoken at Holy Communion as he broke the bread: ‘My body which has been broken for you…’

For those with spiritual eyes opened enough to see it – the breaking and sharing of food (bread) and doing so in Christ’s name always reflects that – it is actually always profoundly sacramental!

All of which makes what we are doing on this ‘WORLD FOOD DAY’ so very much more than just some act of kindness – some act of generous humanitarianism. It’s us participating in the very real and alive presence and work of God – in Christ – in this world! Jesus’ teaching in John 6 reveals all of this as being deeply SACRED!

…35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welco

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Jeremiah brings us the promise of ‘a new thing’, a fresh, new beginning – a new Covenant! I think of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ . Most of Christianity believes that the New Covenant finally came into force with the ministry of Christ, as he taught : “this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood”. This promise of a ‘new thing’ has to do with the sacred nature of the relationship that exists between God and all Creation – and the living out of that witness with the world!

3 Points: (1) It brings the greatest possible ‘hope’, (2) it is different from what has gone before, and (3) it empowers from within.

(1) Hope. NEW COVENANT people live as a people who’ve glimpsed the promise of the new thing! Proverbs tells us that ‘people perish for lack of vision’ but it could equally read ‘for lack of hope!’ And in Hebrews we’re told that to have faith means: being sure of what we hope for, and certain of that which we cannot (yet) see!

(2) Different! There was nothing wrong with the ‘OLD’ COVENANT which had all sorts of beautiful and clear instructions on all sorts of moral, ceremonial and judicial issues… ‘Live within these boundaries and live well’ we can imagine God saying! ‘Do these things and you will be living in harmony with me and what I intend for you!’ The only problem is that it wasn’t possible! Our human weaknesses constantly stop us from living into those realities! I think of Paul – who had been a highly educated Israelite Jew of the order of Pharisees – a student of the highly respected Rabbi Gamaliel, Doctor of Jewish Law – Paul, who cried out at his own constant failure! But look again at how he ends that passage with New Covenant gratitude in the hope of: ‘Thanks be to God who does this for me through Jesus Christ’

(3) From within. This not something for which we have to stretch so much as the discovery of something sacred ‘right here’ ‘within us – written on our hearts’

The focus of the NEW COVENANT is NEVER on just ourselves, it is on God. But through others – others are always among the most vulnerable/ disconnected/ hurting.

Jackie Pullinger reflects how the problem is that while taking God’s NEW COVENANT message of hope to wherever it’s most needed requires us to have soft hearts and hard feet –what most of us have are hard hearts and soft feet. And so, what about you?

Two questions for reflection:

Where are you most longing to embrace ‘NEW COVENANT HOPE’ in your life – currently?

Where are you being most charged/commissioned to take Christ’s NEW COVENANT HOPE out to others?

Rev. Robin Jacobson reserves all rights © 2019.

You are welcome to use, copy, edit or reproduce this sermon summary with copyright attached. Publication is prohibited.

At first it may seem that there is no obvious connection between our readings on this Canadian Thanksgiving Sunday… But there is! The first reading is set in Babylon – where the people of Judah were in exile – they who once had so much promise and hope in their wonderfully privileged Promised Land, but now were just devastated, their dreams shattered! Their beautiful Judah had been plundered: Their homes had been wiped out, their temple destroyed. They were now living as exiles in a foreign land under King Nebuchadnezzar. But instead of their prophet Jeremiah telling them to lie low and lick their wounds, they’re told to embrace their circumstances! Do the best you can to live as fully as possible where you are!

The second reading happened over 500 years later, as Jesus walked near Jerusalem and saw some lepers who’d been kicked out of society because of their disease and had pity on them. He healed them, but was disappointed that only one came back to thank him.

The second reading is about us living healed lives in ways that must most effectively express gratitude for our healing. That is the link between our readings today! They’re about us living in ways that express appreciation for what we know we have in Christ – that something which has been so beautifully secured for us through all the wonder of his promise, birth, life, his teachings, his death & resurrection…

Jesus’ point as we are touched by His love and are healed, is that we are NEVER to allow our circumstances to diminish us. These scriptures stress that it is profoundly good for us to choose to live in every sense of the word – choosing ‘to live’ with attitudes of profound appreciation and gratitude for everything! We are never to live less than ourselves – as we’ve been made to be!

Gratitude is huge in this!  Jesus wasn’t wanting those other healed lepers to come back to thank him because that would be good for him – he wanted them to be living gratefully because doing so is good for them! Gratitude is how THEY would come to be alive!

Gratitude releases the best of life from within us, as opposed to living into the bitterness and victimhood which just steals everything, leaving us hard, cynical, jaded, people. It’s what Paul[i]describes as the ability to ‘be thankful in all circumstances’because we know that ‘this is what God wants from us in our lives lived in union with Christ Jesus!’

But then these scriptures not only teach us TO give thanks but also HOW best to do so! Jeremiah tells those refugees from Judah not just politely to tolerate their circumstances by putting up with them, they were being told FULLY TO EMBRACEtheir circumstances as if they were actually to anticipate a blessing through them as they did so! Build houses and live in them; It’s as if we’re being taught that wherever we are in our life – don’t ever just camp there, allowing ourselves to be defined by the worst of our circumstances: living haltingly, gloomily expecting the worst! NO! Set down roots!  Live grateful lives that own how it is right here – where we are – that we believe God is most longing to bless us and use us!  It doesn’t have to be somewhere else, because God isn’t restricted – if we can’t find sacred life and love and healing and hope and purpose right here where we are, chances are we won’t find it anywhere! God is everywhere… and in all circumstances!

And so, Jeremiah urges, plant gardens and eat what they produce. Sow into your circumstances – invest in making friends, develop/grow relationships, and be very blessed by what comes back to you…Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; Don’t hold back on the complete giving of yourself, as if you are waiting for something better, somewhere else! This is it! Here! Now! Embrace it! Multiply there, and do not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in i

Summary

There’s fellow who was crossing the iced river – terrified – down on all fours – when a cart laden with lumber hauled by 6 great galloping Clydesdales came bursting out of the undergrowth, and onto the ice! The point is that the thickness of the ice had nothing to do with the depth of his faith. All his faith could do is decide is how confidently he was going to be making the crossing.

That, in a sense, is the mustard-seed-of-faith point Jesus makes in today’s reading. After a whole number of teachings on how they were to be living as they followed Him the disciples were feeling – understandably – a little overwhelmed, and so asked for more faith. Jesus’ response to them is today’s reading from Luke 17[i].

The point is that Jesus Christ has already done it all, and that a correct ‘kind’ of faith is one that believes and lives that! It’s done! That’s what He most clearly announced from the cross as He died – remember? TETELESTAI! As Christ followers, what we need do now is not try to do it all again, but instead to live intowhat He has already achieved on our behalf! It’s for us (by faith) to embrace what has already been completed for us and for all peopleand for all creation!  THAT’S the Gospel Truth!

But what exactly does that mean, and what does having faith in is this Gospel truth actually do?

We, as a Gospel-believing-people, understand this at different levels, and with different emphases. Our understanding may even change in terms of where we are in our lives! At one stage we may believe one thing about the essence of the Gospel, but then, as we change, or are changed, as we grow, evolve so our understanding may also change, grow, evolve…

Just what exactly is it that you believe having faith in what Jesus has finally already achieved for you and for all creation means?

What do you believe we now have that we didn’t have before the whole Gospel-event of Christ’s birth, life, death & resurrection?

Some of us believe that it’s all about ATONEMENT! We believe that while we’ve been blessed to have been made in God’s image – through the sin of Adam and Eve – our sense of that original blessing has become muddled and confused, darkened …and as a result our ability to own our unity with God and creation has been lost! …that may leave us feeling separated, alone, broken apart and away from any and all meaningful awareness of that original blessing.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is therefore that He would bring us back into an awareness of being once again what God has always wanted us to be – able to own ourselves as once again one with God AT-ONE-MENT! Do you believe that? I do!

Along with that we believe comes the possibility of our fullest possible actualisation! We begin to rediscover within ourselves what God has made us to be – our truest self – what Richard Rohr calls this ‘Immortal Diamond’– OUR SOULS!  Rediscovering that empowers us to slough off all those externally imposed roles and behaviours that we have allowed to keep us small… Do you believe that? And once again, Dear God, I do! 

That leads us to what theologians call Pan-en-theism[ii]! …believing that as a result of Jesus Christ ALL has now been revealed as being holy, sacred, of God, and within God!

EVERYTHING! And I believe that too![iii]

Our growth in Christ depends on the extent to which we live into that reality!

Atonement reality! WE ARE ONE!

True-Self-Actualised reality! WE ARE BETTER THAN WE KNOW!

And PANENTHEIST reality! IT’S ALL OF GOD AND FILLED WITH GOD’S HOLINESS!

That, Jesus teaches, is what we need at least this little mustard-seed-bit of FAITH to embrace! The point of our faith is not the attempts we make to achieve these realities for ourselves but the extent to which we are given to trust and to embrace them! Live them! Our faith in the Gospel of Christ is all about the owning & empowering of our, in Christ, God-given identity indicative, that we may live into our, in Christ, God-given imperative!

Oh Boy, that’s quite a mouthful! SO profou

Summary

I never thought I’d ever be referencing Adam Sandler, Charles Dickens and the teachings of Jesus Christ all in one message… But here we go! Because, according to Luke 16, they actually do all have this one most profound teaching in common. They’re about the ability/ the opportunity that we all ALWAYS have to (1) stop, (2) re-assess our lives, and (3) make a fresh start!

Adam Sandler demonstrated that in the 2006 multi-awarded movie ‘Click’ which tells the story of Michael Newman: this exhausted & overworked workaholic architect with a busy young family all the demands that any person trying to build their career and keep their marriage afloat inevitably faces. Well, he finds this universal remote control that allows him to fast-forward and rewind his life as he sees fit! At first, that magical remote seems to be the answer, but he gets his wake-up call when he discovers how much of life he’s missed by being on ‘fast-forward!’

Charles Dickens seems to have had a similar theme in mind as he wrote his classic

‘A Christmas Tale’ some 163 years earlier, published in 1843. He was writing about the miserable miser Ebenezer Scrooge whose name has since become synonymous with all things greedy and selfish! Of course, for Scrooge, it was all about how ugly and dismissive he was allowing himself to be to everyone and everything he touched! His wakeup call came with a series of nightly visits from his ghostly partner Marley…

Both Michael Newman and Ebenezer Scrooge got to wake up from their nightmares to find that it wasn’t too late! And that was enough for them intentionally to decide to change their lives! They could both begin again!

Now all of that is very much like the story that Jesus told almost 2000 years earlier – our reading from Luke 16 today: the parable of a rich man and a poor man.  The poor man has a name–interestingly enough the only name given to anybody in any of Jesus’s parables–Lazarus – which I understand is from El-azar, “God has helped.” Jesus was speaking – as we’re told in vs 14 – to “the Pharisees, who were lovers of money…and ridiculing Jesus” …but actually, this – like all the parables – was being spoken quite directly to each and every one of us!

In all three stories we have someone who seemed for a while to be getting life right –they were PROSPEROUS! RICH! Had all the trappings! For Adam Sandler’s character it was his rewards at work. For Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge it was all his fantastic wealth horded away. For Christ’s rich man it was as we’re told: he was dressed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day… Yet all three came to a point in their lives where they were forced to confront the hard consequence of how they were choosing to live, lives that may outwardly have seemed to be successful, but were actually highly destructive – lives that were either causing or allowing all sorts of destruction and pain in those around them…

But it’s only the first two characters who seem to learn their lesson… In Christ’s parable that once rich man now burning in hell was left to face the consequences of his life choices…  Why?

We don’t know – but we can guess! Perhaps, it’s because it’s WE – the readers of scripture – who are left to complete the parable! It’s WE who are to be the ones who will do the ‘waking up’ and learning our lesson!

…and that’s just where the Good News of Jesus Christ impacts us! IT’S NOT TOO LATE! EVER! …WE CAN STILL FIX THINGS – CHANGE HOW WE ARE LIVING! The One whom Jesus referred to as needing to come back from the dead to wake us up is none other than the life and teachings of the risen Jesus Christ Himself!

And who does he use? Prophets!  Christ uses modern day prophets like, well, preachers, who are able occasionally actually to avoid our petty issues and get it right! Christ uses people who will bless us by not always agreeing with us! People who challenge and stretch us! Christ uses wisdom from old people, young people, intellectuals, everyday people, wherever