Month: February 2013

Through the Bible in a Year – February 5th

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The Scheme for January and February can be found here

Job 27-29; Acts 11; Psalm 45

Job now comes to the close of his disputation. Having had to put up with the naive arguments of his friends – having wrestled with the utter injustice of his situation, whilst the wicked heap up silver like dust – his final speech begins by declaring not that he, but God will be vindicated in the end. That the wicked will perish and then speaks an ode to Wisdom.

It is all too simple to think of Wisdom as great cleverness – or as something that only a few might aspire to. After all, says Job, you can dig up rubies and Gold and Sapphire far more readily than we can find Wisdom. But then wonder of wonders, he declares that Wisdom is attainable by all. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom – her gate is wide open – she welcomes all who would come to her – and to shun evil is understanding. Wisdom is the life oriented towards God in humble obedience and the rejection of all that is evil.

And so as St Paul remarks, ‘he has become for us Wisdom from God’. As always all the attributes of God’s life have to take on flesh, be incarnated. Jesus becomes Wisdom from God as he devotes his life to the will of his father.

So it is that this word of salvation spreads and spreads – ‘even the Gentiles have been given the gift of repentance – the Gift of Wisdom – the Gift of Life

Through the Bible in a Year – February 4

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The Scheme for January and February can be found here

Job 24-26; Acts 10; Psalm 43-44

It is hard to read the complaint of Job and not see how all he sees is to be seen around us in this day. Bildad rebukes him, but Job immediately reveals how Bildad has proved the words of Job. So ready with his answer, Bildad is the one who has failed to help the powerless or assist the one who has not strength. Bildad seeks to make of God, nothing but an idol – one who can readily be described. So it is with the powerful and wicked who live by their own rules.

Job will have none of it – this attempt to reduce the mystery of the one before whom Sheol is naked and Abbadon has no covering, to a neat and tidy answer which will give comfort in the night. His ways are past finding out, as even the infant church discovers.

As it moves on in the story, as the gospel has gone seemingly as far as it can to those apprently on the edge of God’s story, the Samaritans – so it is discovered that the world of grace is not flat, it is round. Peter sees the sail let down, and is bid take his ship over the horizon of possibility. The vastness of God’s mercy is past finding out. The discovery that the Gentiles are recipients of Grace is as unimagineable to those in the days of the Apostles as . . . ? What is our horizon? How have we limited the Living one, the thunder of whose power none can understand?

Sermon for Candlemas 2013 – WITH RECORDING

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Sermon for CANDLEMAS 2013
Malachi 3:1-4
Hebrews 2:14-18
Luke 2:22-40

RECORDING OF SERMON – CANDLEMAS

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.
He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
2 Peter 3:9

A little earlier this week I was reading a blog by my former bishop back in England where he strongly recommended a book on a theme about which I was very interested. Back in the times of monasteries, St Benedict had said that to enter a monastery you had to make promises, take vows – and there were four. You had to give up your possessions – a vow of poverty – you had to give up any idea of getting married – a vow of chastity – and you had to promise to do as you were told – a vow of obedience. These were the three classic monastic vows – but St Benedict added a fourth – you had to promise to stay – a vow of stability. You had to stay put – in the place you had been called to – not go gadding off and moving around – not flitting from one monastery to another. You know, if you didn’t like one – well you go and try and find another more suited to you. And it is that vow of stability in which I was particularly interested.

So I did what we all do when we want a book – I went to Amazon – only to discover that it wasn’t going to be released until February 21st!! Nearly a whole month!!! But then I found it was available on Kindle!! YES!! [Kindle – ‘start reading this book in less than a minute’] And I clicked on the link “ Due to copyright restrictions this Kindle book is not available to buy in New Zealand”!!!

But I want it NOW!!! I wonder how many of us have had that experience of driving a car and you’re stopped at lights, and for a moment you attention drifts away and you don’t notice the lights change – SUDDENLY the blare of a horn wakes you – my the light has been green for a whole two seconds!!!

We are not good at waiting [wishing our lives away – ‘can’t wait to go to School!’] – Waiting requires us to stay put, to stay in one place.’Oh I haven’t got time for that, I have to be here and here and here’ – but nowadays we can be quite still and yet not staying put. I wonder how many of us rather than sit down quietly for the evening with a good book, sit in the same place all evening with a laptop or a tablet and flick from place to place to place on the internet – Tumblr one minute, then Facebook, then back to Tumblr – checking your emails, or a friends txts. [Phone] Our bodies in one place – but our minds moving from place to place to place [And by the way – don’t say you’re multistasking – all the psychological evidence is that when we behave like this we are not paying attention to anything – it takes several minutes for our brains to move from one task to another – in other words as we move from one to the other to the other – we haven’t actually paid any attention to any of them!]

And because we are not patient, we don’t stick with something, we don’t attend to it – we can’t wait for something more. If something doesn’t deliver immediately we give up on it.

We’re not good at waiting and so we waste our lives and fritter them away. Jesus tells a story with which some of us are familiar – He tells a story about a young man who cannot wait – he cannot wait for his Father to die – because when his father is dead he will get all that belongs to his father – so he tells him. The father has two sons, and so he divides all he has in two and gives have to his impatient son – who runs off . . . and spends it all . . . and is left with nothing . . . because he couldn’t wait – he had His Life to live and he was jolly well going to get on and live it – and then its all spent, all gone . . . and Jesus say’s ‘the young man came to his senses’ What am I doing? BAck home even those people who worked for my dad had all their needs taken care of – they had plenty to eat and wear, and here I am with nothing . . . all because he couldn’t wait

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. The End of the season of Epiphany – it’s culmination, the End of Epiphany and the End of Waiting. God’s people have been waiting – in the words of the prophet Malachi, ‘The Lord whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple’. The one you have been waiting for . . . he will suddenly come to his Temple.

Malachi wrote those words 400 years before!! 400 years – waiting for 400 years

And when MAry and Joseph bring Jesus to the Temple – there are two people waiting for them – Simeon and Anna – an old man and an old woman – who have been waiting their whole lives for this moment . . . waiting for the father’s gift

Can we begin to imagine what it might be that was worth waiting your whole life for? What would we give up our lives to wait for??

Simeon holds Jesus in his arms and utters an extraordinary prayer – Lord – you have allowed your servant to depart in peace, according to your promise. You promised and that was enough. I waited and although I waited my whole life, you have been good to your word – I have seen what I was waiting for. Anna and Simeon were waiting for the same thing – Simeon we are told was waiting for the ‘Redemption of Israel’ Anna sees the child and she goes out to tell everyone who is waiting for the redemption of israel.

What is this?? What is Redemption?? What does it mean to redeem something? Why is this so important??

Well it’s all tied up with that visit of MAry and Joseph to the Temple – when you had a child you came to the Temple to offer a sacrifice, a sacrifice of purification according to the ritual law. But in the case of a first born son – there was a second sacrifice, or payment to be made. According to the law, all the first born sons belonged especially to God and so you went to the Temple effectually to buy them back, to Redeem them. When someone takes something from you you can pay them and then they have to return it. So when your first born son came along, you paid 5 shekels to the Temple, to buy them back, to redeem them

But listen When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23(as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), 24and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” No 5 shekels. They made the sacrifice of the birds as required for the purification following the birth of a child – but no redemption price, for their son. They presented him to the Lord – they gave him to God – they did not pay the price for him, for He is the one who pays the price for us

Simeon and Anna were waiting for the one who would pay the price to bring us back to the one who rightfully we belong to God.

The young man in Jesus’ story had forgotten whom he belonged to – he had forgotten whom he was and he was utterly lost – he had lost everything, squandered everything, but he thought he’d cut a deal . . . so he walked home with a careful little speech – ‘You know I’m really sorry – I’ve done an utterly terrible thing – I deserve nothing’ Perhaps there are some amongst us who feel that way – I know from time to time I do – but here is the amazing thing – the son’s father had been waiting for him – watching out for him – longing to see him back – waiting for him to stop frittering his life away – waiting for him to come to his senses – to stop – to come home

When we think of impatient Sts – I am sure Peter comes to mind – but St Peter too, comes to his senses – he writes much later in life The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

God’s people had waited 400 years . . . finally their redemption had come – the price had been paid – now as God in Jesus came to his home – the price was paid – anyone now could come home – the waiting is over. Our deepest need, the life of GOd which transforms everything is now available – we don’t have to wait – we can run home. He is waiting for us

As he waits for us today – as in the Eucharist we come to him – he has paid the price in his body and blood – he is pouring out his life for us. The waiting is over, so like Simeaon and Anna – let us come quickly – let us rejoice – let us run to him. The one who has been waiting for us ever since we left home

Through the Bible in a Year – February 3

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The Scheme for January and February can be found here

Job 22-23; Acts 9; Psalm 42

As Saul will himself tell us, when the scales fall from his eyes – ‘We are the body of Christ’. He who hears the voice saying, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, is under no illusions. The Church, full of the Holy Spirit is the One whom Paul persecutes. It strikes me that the Church shrinks in fear from this – as perhaps it should. It is only with fear and trembling that we can begin to comprehend the immeasurable and terrible significance of this. Christ’s identification with his church is total. If his church is persecuted, He is persecuted. If his church is reviled, He is reviled.

Throughout Acts we have seen the significance of the holiness of the church – most especially in the death of Ananias and Sapphira. This Holiness only finds its true parallel in the Holiness of God as revealed in the Old Testament – for example in the Ark of the Covenant, which Uzzah saw fit to touch.

Perhaps there is no greater need in our age, than to recover with fear and trembling that vocation, to be the Body and perhaps to cry out, to so thirst for God that he will refresh and restore us in holiness of Life. Perhaps in a dry and weary land, Psalm 42 ought often to be on our lips.

Through the Bible in a Year – February 2

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The Scheme for January and February can be found here

Job 20-21; Acts 8; Psalm 41

Out of death comes Life. As the early church readily testified, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. And at first it seems that everything is getting darker. Although the Life of the Risen one is so manifest amongst them, death is still a tragedy – loud lamentation is called for. The Resurrection stands before the tomb of Lazarus and weeps.

We live in an age which so seemingly devoid of Life, that often people will quote ‘death is nothing at all’, but this is chloroform to the senses and the Life in the Spirit.

And so the blood of the first witness (martyr), scatters the seed of the gospel – and as it is one of the seven set apart to serve at tables who has been chosen first to follow Christ in death, so another of the servants Philip who spreads the word in Samaria. In the early church, the ordinary table waiters are those who are also called to bold witness. And we have the dramatic encounter between Simon the magician and the apostles.

After the apostles discover that the word is bearing fruit Peter and John are sent and pray over those already baptised in the name of Jesus (perhaps those referred to in John 4:1?), that they might receive the Holy Spirit. But Simon is captivated by the signs – and money. For him money and magic are closely related as they are today – more precisely power and money. Money confers Power, money buys power – but the sharpest of divisions is drawn between the Life of God and that conferred by Mammon – Silver and Gold have I none. The destitute apostles are full of the Holy Spirit. As with Ananias and Sapphira, our values are so distorted by our culture that we find Peter’s response to Simon harsh. But Peter divines truly – those captivated by money and its power are still in chains of wickedness . . . there are perhaps few amongst us to whom the Lord would not say, ‘Unless you give up your possessions you cannot be my disciple’.

Through the Bible in a Year – February 1

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The Scheme for January and February can be found here

Job 18-19; Acts 7:17-60; Psalm 40

As the anger of the High Priest and those around him is aroused by Stephen’s truthful description of those who would say ‘We have no King but Caesar’, so Job in his integrity, in his steadfast faith in the vindication of God arouses the ire of Bildad.

As the world hides in the death of deceit, so Truth and Light cannot but provoke a response. Stephen in recounting the story of the children of Israel speaks of their continual rebellion against God, speaks Light into the present darkness which surrounds him. Although to our eyes, his circumstances turn ever darker a remarkable transformation is seen in his vision. As Job in the midst of his suffering cries our in Hope ‘I know that my redeemer liveth and that on the last day he will stand upon the earth and that in my flesh I shall see him, I an not another – how my heart burns within me’, so Stephen increasingly is full of light. He is full of the Spirit. The Light and Truth of the whole creation is seen in him ‘and he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He sees his redeemer – he Witnesses to Life and Light and at the Last as his Lord had done prayed forgiveness for those who slew him.

‘they threw their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul . . . and Saul approved of their killing him’ . . . the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not comprehended it, the darkness has not overcome it.