Faithful God... A Prayer of thanksgiving and confession... March 18th 2012

Faithful God

You always keep your promises

Your love for us is strong and constant

There is no other like you

This morning we come to worship you

We praise you for who you are

And we give you thanks for what you have done

You are eternal and almighty, all knowing and all loving

Before the mists of the beginnings you were

Long after it all winds up and finishes you will be

There is nothing that is too hard for you

There is nothing that is hidden away from your sight

You are always just and kind in your dealings with us

We deserve your enmity for sin but you have showed us mercy

You made us in your image

The best of who we are male and female, reflects your goodness

Our creativity and artistry reflects your amazing creation,

You spoke and it came in to being

Our understanding, reflects just a glimpse of your wisdom

Our ability to love and have compassion your grace and mercy

We praise you we are wondrously and fearfully made

We turned away from you and you sent your son to call us back

In Jesus you became one of us and dwelt in our midst

You proclaimed good news to the poor and Healed the sick

You called the outcast and sinner back to friendship with God

Our sins are forgiven because of Jesus death on the cross

We have new and eternal life because you raised him from the dead

By your spirit you dwell within us

Just and righteous God

We confess before you that we have sinned

We do not love as you love

We have broken our promises

We have broken relationships

We do not value your image in others

We leave undone the good you call us to do

We ask O God that you would forgive us

There is hope O Lord because of your great love

There is hope for us O Lord because of your Son Jesus

If we confess our sins you are faithful and just and forgive us our sins

You cleanse us from all unrighteousness and make us new

Today we hear that good news

We are forgiven and invited to make a clean start

Fill us afresh with you spirit O Lord

Help us to reflect you more clearly to all around us

Bind us together in love

Empower us to witness to you and your gospel goodness

That the world you love may know you more

That we may work with you to see your kingdom come

To the glory of God, Father Son and Holy Spirit.

A Prayer of Thanksgiving and Confession: From these Shakey Isles (11th March 2012)

Holy, Holy, holy Lord God almighty.

We do raise our voices to praise you today o great and faithful God.

From the shore of our shaky island home we acknowledge that even when the world around us changes that you are constant in your character and your love.

More solid than the ground beneath us; such a sure foundation.

In our times where as soon as we’ve got our head around something it seems to be out of date

or get something off the shelf and its obsolete

we can rely on you  that you lead and guide us

that you hold our times in your hands

You are gracious and full of mercy

Not only in moments of rest and tranquillity

But in the midst of the storms of life

In the midst of struggles and conflict

We can be still and know that you are God

That you are the one who is sovereign and in control

That you are eternal and transcendent

But also with and for us and so close

In this we find strength and hope

We praise you 

That even though you were the one who spoke and it all came into being who has no beginning or end

That in Jesus Christ you’ve also walked in our shoes

Experienced our highs and lows, joys and sorrows, pleasure and pain

Jesus we praise you

That you became one of us and showed us God’s great love

Revealing God as our heavenly dad

Healing with a touch

Embracing the outcast

Calling people not servants but friend

That because of your death in the darkness and violence of Calvary

We can have forgiveness, a clean slate and a fresh start

In your being raised back to life we can have new and abundant life

Eternal life that steps through the veil of death into your light

That as you’ve sent your Holy Spirit

We have a guide and enabler who leads us into all truth and empowers us to witness to the hope we have in you.

Thank you our most wonderful God

We also ask today O God

That you would forgive us

We admit we have sinned and confess them before you this morning

We have acted as if there was no God or even if we were God

We are full of pride and have chosen to go our way not your way

We want to turn again and follow you

We have put our hands to things that have been wrong and unjust

We have not loved, as you would have us love

We have been so concerned with our stuff and our agenda that we have been impervious to your call to care in our world

Forgive us O God

Thank you that you are faithful and just and as we have confessed our sins you have forgiven us and cleansed us from all unrighteousness

The slate is clean and the stain is gone.

O gracious and caring God in the midst of our still moments and our chaotic days, When things are going swimmingly or we feel like were just treading water we pray you would fill us afresh with your spirit that we know you presence, your comfort and your guidance. That we may testify to the great light and life we have found in you.

The Jesus Guide To Happiness...(the Beattitudes part 1)... Blessed are the Poor in Spirit.

On Sunday March 11 2012 I started a new phase of my ministry. I took my first service as the minister at St Peter's Peresbyterian Church, Ellerslie Mt Wellington. It's in my home city of Auckland New Zealand.  I will be posting my sermons and prayers from public worship on my blog as well as reflections and book and film reviews.

I have ti admit that for my first message on the beattitudes I found myself very dependant on Mark Woodley and his great commentary on Matthew's Gospel "God with us" in the Resonate Series.

When I came and preached for a call back in January I chose as my text Jesus call to his first disciples to “come and follow me and I will makeyou fishers of Men”.  I wanted to use that to articulate a vision of our ministry; that it is following Jesus into relationship with God, into Community, a special relationship with each other as God’s people, ministry, doing the things that Jesus did, and mission that Jesus would make us fishers of men. It seems appropriate to follow on from that, at the start of our new life together, by following on from that in Matthew’s Gospel, if I’m aloud to over use the term, to see what it means to follow on, following Jesus…

After Jesus calls his disciples we have a summary of his preaching tour of Galilee and then a record of Jesus teaching his new disciples in what we call the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:1 tells us that Jesus saw the crowd and he sat down and called his disciples and began to teach them. He calls those who have chosen to follow him together to instruct them about what it means to be a follower, what it means to be in the kingdom of Heaven. The Sermon on the Mount has been called by some the manifesto of the Kingdom, out lining what the reign of God breaking into the realms of human beings will mean, and look like. Others have called it the job description of a follower of Jesus. Not only did Jesus teach his disciples but we note the crowd was present as well, almost as if they were eavesdropping and had the chance to see what it meant to follow Jesus and see if they wanted to apply to be a follower.

We’re not doing this simply to follow on through Matthew’s Gospel; it’s not just an academic exercise. As a congregation we have a great challenge before us. Like many congregations in the western world we are wrestling with decline and the shadow of closure and the response to that of rediscovering God’s call to mission to our community and world; to change and to reach out and grow. This is where I believe the Sermon on the Mount is specifically important for this time, this place, this context. Dietrich Bonheoffer, imprisoned and executed in Nazi Germany, says that

 “The restoration of the church will surely come from a new kind of community, which will have nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising adherence to the Sermon on the Mount in imitation of Christ. I believe the time has come to rally people together for this.”

Over the next eight weeks, with a break for Easter, we are going to start looking at the Sermon on the Mount by exploring the beatitudes that Jesus starts his sermon with: The Blessed ares, and you have to be careful how you say that. And if the Sermon on the Mount is a job description for a follower of Jesus, then the beatitudes are the character traits for a follower. And today we are going to explore the first beatitude… Blessed are those who are poor of spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Mark Woodley sees the beatitudes, and the whole Sermon on the Mount like this. He says “In a practical sense, we must sit at Jesus feet and say, “lord, we’ve tried to be good and happy and loving but we need help-lot’s of help! We need to learn life from you. So we’re going to sit and listen. How would you have us live?” It would be easy to think that Jesus would simply give us a list of things we need to do, maybe a series of tips and “how toos” , that Jesus might simply be a new Moses and give a new set of laws but as Woolley says “Jesus description of life in the Kingdom isn’t about trying harder, gaining power and control and then mastering the spiritual life. It begins with an act of powerless and surrender.” It begins with acknowledging our need for God.

This goes counter intuitive in our world today. We do not equate poverty and weakness, physical or spiritual as a sign of being blessed, or as a reason for people being happy.  WE have a fascination with the lifestyles of people with wealth and a life of ease and trouble free, we see them as blessed. Even the Jews had this understanding they saw such things as evidence of God’s blessing.  In the book of Job his friends saw his wealth and health and family as a sign that he was pleasing God and was blessed and when it all went wrong that it was a sign of God’s displeasure.

 In our advertising saturated world we are all told that all our problems can be solved and we can be made happy again by buying and using a particular product or obtaining a certain standard of living.

 We see people who are happy and blessed as those who have found purpose and meaning, who have it all sorted. They’ve got a good marriage, nice kids, the right job. We use words life self-fulfilment and self-actualisation, to express what humans need to be happy. We don’t see it by acknowledging that we don’t have what it takes, that we are impoverished. 

 In the twelve steps programme, that is used in many addiction recovery programmes, like alcoholics anonymous, the first step to recovery, and wholeness,  to right living is the admission that a person is powerless in the face of their addiction and they need the help of a higher power to free them and make them whole.  Joan Chittister says that Jesus starting point is also what we may need in society today  "Dependence on God” she says “may be what is lacking in a society where consumerism and accumulation have become the root diseases”, and addiction,  “of a world in which everything is not enough and nothing satisfies."

Jesus staring point also goes counter intuitive to how we often view and practise our religion and faith. We can see even Christianity as doing things that will make God like us. That will put us right with God that will merit and earn God’s favour. Henri Nouwen, says to do this is spiritual death.

“without Jesus words of blessing you will go on running helter skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out.”

Jesus says those who are blessed are those who know they are spiritual poor that they are dependent on God’s goodness and grace for life, because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. They know their inadequacy and so trust God. It is about the grace of God.

The kingdom of heaven says Jesus is not earned or merited it is not a reward, rather it is a gift given. It is all about the grace of God. And when we are aware of our spiritual poverty and our need for God and surrender ourselves to Jesus it opens the door to all the others things of the Kingdom.

Once again Mark Woodly puts it like this.

When we see God’s offer of grace in the midst of our spiritual poverty, it’s easy to mourn for our sins. We are able to face what we have done wrong and how we have wronged God and others and to seek to change.

When we believe that God is sovereign and in charge of the world and our lives and times are in his hands , it is easy to be meek, to patiently trust God for his way and his timing to set the world right.

When we experience the goodness and grace of God, we find that we wanting to know more of God’s character and long for God’s justice and righteousness in our lives and our world

When we experience God’s grace and mercy that we in no way earn or deserve, it seems inconsistent to not treat fellow sinners in the merciful way we have been shown.

In this broken disjointed world of ours where people are separated and isolated by hatred and prejudice, we feel constrained to step into the conflict, becoming agents of reconciliation and peace.

When we realise that Jesus gave his life to save us out of love we’ll follow him even if it puts us at conflict in the world and means enduring being ostracised and even persecuted.

Like sunrise after a long night, When we know our own spiritual poverty and surrender ourselves into God’s hands do we can know the reality of the resources, encouragement and blessings that Jesus offers and promises at the end of each of the beatitudes.

For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

For they will be comforted

For they will inherit the earth

For they will be filled (or satisfied)

For they will be shown mercy

For they will see God

For they will be called the Children of God

When I was contemplating the call to come here to St Peter’s I have to admit that I felt totally daunted by the task that you as a congregation were asking. If nothing changes there is funding for three years if all the reserves are used. I felt inadequate, and as I was praying and thinking about how to respond to you I got another offer. A church that I knew well was looking for me specifically because of the strengths I had. They wanted me to do a job for them as part of a ministry team, that suited me and played to strengths that I had and they had the resources and people to back that up and there were people who would cover for my perceived weaknesses. It was tempting and in our world and church that is so captivated by leadership culture, it is the prevailing wisdom that to succeed you move to work in your areas of strength. But after the Spirit lead us here I had confirmation that it was the right thing through a trusted source. I was reading Leonard Sweet’s book “ I am a Follower” and Sweet was contrasting this wisdom of leadership culture with the gospel. He said that the gospel says that it is in our weakness that God is able to be strong. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 Paul had been praying to God to heal him of what we only know as a thorn in the flesh and final God replies, “My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness.” Even in our ministry and mission as we acknowledge our spiritual poverty and rely on God and surrender ourselves to Jesus Christ, we can trust that he will provide and lead and Guide us. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

Message from 'Focus' March 9th 2012 on unity from 1 Corinthians 1:10-31

The passage that we chose for our gathering tonight from 1 Corinthians is a plea from Paul that the church in Corinth not be divided but rather that in Christ’s name that they might be perfectly united in mind and thought.  It’s good for us to hear this plea, to hear this call for unity. New Testament scholar Gordon Fee says we all readily relate to the situation in Corinth because none of us have known a united church, a united Christian faith, we live in a time where there is a great raft of different expressions of the Christian faith, History and geography, theological disputes and disagreement, differing understandings, different movements, and yes even different personalities and styles of doing things at different times and places have meant that we are part of a church that t best can be called diverse and at worst guilty of being divided. That reflects itself in landscape of Auckland University. We have different groups at university with differing goals and purposes and understanding of what it means to minister on campus… Even to the extent that  I have heard AUSA officials wonder at why are there so many different Christian groups… don’t they get along?

There may be a different raft of Christian groups and expressions, but Paul’s plea is that there shouldn’t be a rift between Christians and Christian groups.  He argues with the Church at Corinth and us that Christ should not be divided and for that to occur our focus needs to be on Christ…. Christ crucified.

The city of Corinth is very much like our own city and our university. In fact one commentator has noted that our twenty first century home has become more like the first century home of our Christian faith.  It, like our city was full of diverse people with different cultures and ideas.  It was a city along a major trade route in Greece recently built by the Romans, people from all over the Roman Empire had been bought together in this place, with their customs and culture. It like our city and university was a market place for new ideas and philosophies, and different religions and understandings of the world, multiple voices that represented both the heights and breadth of human wisdom. Paul and others had come into that environment and Paul tells us that he had preached the gospel of a crucified Christ and despite his lack of eloquence and ability as a speaker, people had responded and a church had been established.

Now Paul hears that there is a problem that there is division in the church, that people are aligning themselves and disagreeing with each other based on who it was that was chief in them coming to Christ. Be it Paul or Apollo, or Cephas (Peter) and a group who said they were simply of Christ. The problem was not they had come to faith by these different routes and been influenced by these different people, but rather that these differences were causing derision and division.  You and I today are like these first century followers. We all have come to Christ through different means and been nurtured and disciple, and serve through, and in, different expressions of the Christian faith, different movements and groupings with different historical roots. We could say that we are from Bill Bright (the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ), or Pope Benedict, or John Knox and Scottish Presbyterianism, or Wesley or other differing groups, we are reformed or Pentecostal, Baptist or brethren, pedo-Baptists and Ana-baptists, Scripture Union, navigators and YWAM, That we all come from various denomination, main line, what some have called lameline or non-denominational new expressions of church. And one of the understanding of the faction in Corinth that said they are of Christ was that they were a group who didn’t want to identify with any of these human teachers or traditions, but in the end it didn’t help because it meant they were their own group at odds with everyone and behaving in the same way as everyone else. . That’s fine that’s the way it is, the spirit of God has been moving through those, and will continue to move through those things.

Sadly, historically there have been tensions and disagreement, suspicion and competition and even downright enmity between such groups and people. Maybe not on this campus, but you can go to places round the world where here is historical evidence of this disunity and worse.

Diversity is a good thing it’s to be celebrated, but says Paul disunity is not. Can Christ be Divided he asks, it’s supposed to be a rhetorical question by the way, the answer is obvious.

Then Paul invites his readers and us to focus. To focus on what is at the core of our faith to what is the way in which God has shown his grace to us all. He says that it’s not by human wisdom or understanding or this particular method or way of doing thing that we have been saved, it is because of Jesus Christ and Christ crucified.

In fact he says that this is totally beyond the understanding of both Jew or Gentile. That none of the wisdom of human being could do it or even consume it… but it is God’s wisdom that Jesus coming and dying on the cross has enabled you and I to come and have our sins forgiven and live in a new relationship with God. For the Jews who seek signs, it was anathema, they were used to God moving in power to save them in their history, like he had in freeing them from Egypt, but here it was that God would bring his saving in to the world through powerlessness. For the Greek’s who sort wisdom and understanding it did not compute that a all wise God would act like this; become one of us and allow the creatures that God had made reject and kill his son. It is totally folly. But says Paul it may seem made but it is the wisdom and the power of God, to those of us who believe, it’s God power for our salvation. We can boast in our human methods and the people God had used to bring us to Christ, but in the end it is Christ and Christ crucified, it is the grace of God.

Paul goes on to say that it’s not even who we are that has caused our being made Gods people. We are not the wisest or the most powerful or the most righteous and holy, not the most noble born. But it is because of God’s grace shown in Jesus Christ that we have been welcomed back into that relationship with God. In fact Jesus said it was when we know our own spiritual poverty that we are blessed because he kingdom of God is ours. It is Christ not our credentials, it is Christ crucified.

Paul goes on at the beginning of chapter 2 to say, it wasn’t him and his methods and skill that was the reason they had come to Christ either. In fact he says, and I love this as a minister of the gospel and a preacher, that it was despite inadequacy as an orator, it was not his fancy multimedia presentation or his flash, slick gospel presentation that they had believed but it was the spirit of God and the content of his message, Christ crucified that had bought them to faith. So no one can boast except in Christ.

AS we are aware that we are saved by grace, that it is Jesus and his death on the cross that we can find that unity and that we find a common purpose and have a common mind: To glorify and worship Jesus. To love each other as Jesus commands us to do and as we are each objects of Jesus love. To witness to Jesus love in word and deed, in spoken word and through seeking justice and peace.

It’s interesting that word that Paul uses for perfect unity in 1 Corinthians 1:3 is one which has the idea of being woven together like a net.  You get the idea of us all as different strands and threads being woven and tied together. The idea of unity being woven together as a net of course echoes Jesus call to his first disciples of come and follow me and I will make you fishers of men it echoes Jesus commission to his followers after his resurrection, that they would be witnesses to him in Judea Samaria and to the ends of the earth..  We often think with our western world view that these things are spoken to individuals to be done as individuals and we don’t realise the corporate and communal nature of this purpose. That our unity across our diversity witnesses to what Christ has done for us. That from our varied backgrounds, cultures and historical contexts we are one people in Christ, that it makes a difference. If there isn’t that unity, then the net is ripped and broken and while it may catch a few it isn’t able to attract many and hold as many. Remember Jesus saying at the last supper they will know you are my disciples if you have love one for another.  

Let me use another net, a very 21stcentury net, as an illustration of this. The internet… I came across a great video of composer Eric Whitacre. I don’t particularly like the music but I love the way in which he has used the internet to form a choir of 2 5000 videos from 85 countries, all singing in harmony. All tied together as net and you'll note how this music then attracts others to it. So let me leave you with this video to illustrate our unity. Christ as our composer and conductor and us singing together drawn from all our different backgrounds and how that can attract people to Christ.

A Soul Cries Out... Psalm 22 (Part 4... Psalm 22, Luke 19:28-44)

Leading into Easter we’ve been reflecting on Psalm 22. The psalm is a poem a prayer a song written over 1000 years before Christ by king David. It’s a prayer from a time in his life when he was in trouble and obviously suffering physical and spiritual isolation. We don’t know which particular instance in David’s life inspired this poem or rather I should say necessitated this prayer being written. But both its ability to capture the intensity of human suffering and of gutsy hope has meant that it has stood the test of time. Each new generation that have uncounted it can relate to it. You get the feeling that the thing that is causing David the most suffering is not the taunts of his enemies, or the physical suffering but rather the aloneness: that God who has been close to him since his mother womb now in this hour of need feels far off, distant. The doors of heaven seem firmly shut to him and he feels his cries just echo round the room unheard. It’s what people down through the ages have called the long dark night of the soul.

Yet as the prayer unfolds we see that David does not despair or throw his faith in God out rather he affirms a strong belief that despite the absence of the feeling of closeness, God is still the one who is in control, God is working his plans out for good, that God is able to save him. He knows God well enough to know that God is for him and with him even though he cannot feel him. That God will bring about a salvation that will have positive effects not only for him but also for the poor and the needy and bring people from all nations and families to worship and acknowledge God. 

More than simply standing the test of time like all scripture it has the breath print of God on it as well. Paul in 2 Timothy 4:16 says that all scripture is spirit breathed and Psalm 22 has been seen by the gospel writers as prophetically pointing to the suffering that Jesus would go through on the cross.

The Taunts of David’s enemies ‘he trust’s in God let God save him’ echo the taunts thrown at Jesus in Matthew 27:43 “he trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him. He said “I am the Son of God”.

The description of all the joints being out of place and all his strength being gone reflects the process of crucifixion where the person slowly dies of asphyxiation as they run out of the strength to force their whole body weight on to the nail through their ankles and hands to grab a gasp of breath the stress and strain causing the joints to pop and dislocate.

The picture of the tongue sticking to the roof of the mouth and the horrific thirst, being reflected in one of Jesus sayings from the cross recorded in John’s gospel ‘I’m thirsty’. John writes that Jesus said this to fulfil scripture.

John also quote’s Psalm 22 in his narrative when Jesus clothes are divided up between the soldiers at the cross and they decide not to divide his outer cloak but rather to gamble for it. The outer cloak was the most valuable part of Jesus clothing. In Psalm 22 verse 8 it says ‘They divide up my garments between them and cast lots for my clothes’.

Jesus himself chose the first line of this psalm as his dying words. As recorded in Mark and Matthews Gospel in their original Aramaic, the language that Jesus would have used in everyday life. You get the feeling that they were ingrained in the memories of those who had heard them. Not words of despair in Jesus final hour of suffering but rather in Jewish short hand quoting the whole of Psalm 22, which is a prayer of hope. That despite the situation and the horrific nature of what was happening God is still in control and that God is working out his good plans beyond the situation in the situation…

Because it is prophetic it also points beyond the cross to Jesus resurrection and the fact that because of god’s saving action in Jesus Christ that people from all nations and families would come to know God and that those who experience God’s salvation would show care and justice to the poor and needy. At the cross, when Jesus felt that isolation from his father, a way was being made for us to enter in to a new relationship with God.

At the heart of this prayer is relationship: An intimate knowing of God. That’s what makes it a prayer of hope in the middle of what is vividly described opposition and danger. It is why it comes from David a man after God’s own heart. It is why it is on the lips of Jesus on the cross.

One of the debates around what’s known as the ‘problem of evil’, why do bad things happen to good people, is the assertion that evil and suffering in the world means you can’t have a good God who is all powerful. The argument goes something like this. A good God would never let evil happen so it must mean that he is not sovereign. He’s not in control or if God is all-powerful and allows evil to happen how can God be good? But poetry and prayers don’t live in the field of theoretical theology and philosophy, they come from the heart and head grappling and wrestling with what’s going on now. So David in his prayer has it both ways. He affirms God’s sovereignty, ‘even though I don’t feel you and you don’t return my calls God still you are enthroned on the praises of Israel. Still you have always done well to them and saved them. Beyond this situation I know that you will continue to save people and show justice and mercy. In fact from this situation people of all nations and even those not even born yet will know you have done it.

That is Jesus on the cross as well. His answer to his mockers and taunters is to quote Psalm 22. It may seem that God has forsaken him. But as it says in Isaiah 53 of the suffering servant,  “we thought him stricken by God, but it was our sins that he bore.” The answer is that God’s sovereignty and goodness are not diminished by this situation or Jesus suffering far from it as it says in Psalm 22 people yet unborn will know of God’s goodness and salvation and they will see that God has done it.

I can’t help but hear the words that John records of Jesus that the other gospel writers simply heard as a loud cry echoing those last words of Psalm 22 “it is finished”. Because here on the cross Jesus has done all that was needed to be done for you and I to be saved; the sin that separated us from God forgiven and a way was made for us to come back and know God. In one of the paradoxes of the cross the writer to the Hebrews is able to say that for the joy set before him Jesus endured the shame and the suffering of the cross. The joy that was set before him was not his own personal safety or wellbeing but rather that you and I would come to know him and abide in him and he in us.

In a profound way the cross shows us the amazing way God chose to work. It would have been easy for God to over come evil with a great display of power for the one who created it all to stop the world and judge it and find it wanting. To start again like some parallel universe or Microsoft version with those troublesome glitches ironed out hopefully. However God does not do that instead he destroys the power of sin and death in the world by accepting powerlessness. By allowing his son to be killed. A move so absurd and ridiculous that only God could have seen it. That as we look back we can say it is God who has done this. 

This prayer and the cross itself show us that even in the darkest moments even in the face of the worst humanity can dredge up God is able to bring light and hope. It’s what our faith and hope is. That God’s character will shine through. 

Ric Foxley from the leprosy Mission talks about going to visit an Australian missionary Gladys Stains who worked in a leper colony in India. She and her family her husband two sons and daughter had worked in the leper colony for over thirty years. In January 1999 Graham her husband and her two sons Philip aged 10 and Timothy eight were burned to death in their car. Hindu extremists had attacked them while they were sleeping in the car at a camp. The three had tried to get out of the car but a crowd of about 100 people had stopped them. There was a huge outcry in India over this and the government clamped down on extremists who were trying to kill the Christian minority in India.

At the funeral attended by thousands from many different faiths Galdys Stains was able to say. “ I am terribly upset, but not angry. My husband loved Jesus Christ who has taught us to forgive our enemies’ She continued to work with the leper colony until she had to retire recently. The impact of this tragedy and her offer of forgiveness was that it had a profound impact on the lives of many people in India and round the world. The Indian government has just bestowed its highest civil award on her and she is hoping to go back to India to receive it. Tragedy and darkness and evil happen and surround us yet in the midst of that a good and sovereign God works his plans for good.

Often people mistake faith that holds on to God in the midst of the seeming absence of God for blind faith. But God does not invite people to have a blind faith rather a knowing faith.

We know God well enough that in the face of suffering and sorrow we know God is for his people.

We know God is good. We know god is able to work out his plans for our good.

We know God isn’t suddenly too busy with international affairs to deal with things on the home front, our home front.

We know God well enough to say well God I feel so alone. I feel abandoned where are you.

We know God and the reality is that God is there and with us and for us despite that emotional isolation.

We know God well enough to wrestle with God in the seeming darkness.

We know God hears the cries of our souls and answers.

A Soul Cries Out (Psalm 22... Part 3...Psalm 22:12-)

There was a man who had grown up all his life in a big city. He’d never really gone out into the country before. One day he brought a new car; A flash convertible sports car. He was so pleased with this that he decided he needed to go for a long drive. Away from the city and the traffic jams and crowded highways and find some wide open roads where he could really see what this new car of his could do.

So he drove out of town down the motorway and found some long country roads. He had never been out in the country before. Suddenly he was aware of the beauty and peace of the wide-open spaces the green fields and rolling hills. Even though the car was his new and latest toy he soon decided to stop the car and just soak in the peaceful atmosphere. He decided that he should get out and go for a walk in the fields . Not being a farm kid he thought nothing of climbing over a fence and strolling off into the grass. He got halfway across his second paddock when he spied a large animal coming over the rise of a hill.

Now the man was a city fella but he wasn’t stupid he recognised a bull when he saw one. He also recognised the stamping of the feet and the snorting and the charge as anything but a friendly gesture by a docile farm animal. So he took off as fast as he could for the fence. I guess it was just his luck that he was of equal distance from any fence and in the very middle of the paddock when he saw the bull. He ran and for a short while he thought that he was going to make it. But as he looked back in horror he saw that the bull was faster than he was. He turned and with the speed that blind terror and the adrenaline rush it provides he went even faster. But just as it seemed he might make the fence he felt the bulls breathe on his back and he knew it was helpless.

Now the man had never been what you would call religious but in the situation he thought that a little divine help might be in order. So he decided to pray. The only problem was he only knew one prayer, he had learned it when he was young. So he desperately prayed 

“for what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful”

Ok so it’s a bad joke. We’ve been reflecting on Psalm 22 leading into Easter. It is a prayer written by David in a time of trouble in his life. David is in a predicament and he uses vivid wild animal imagery to describe thes. From the very first line you get the feeling that the worst suffering he is experiencing is the feeling of aloneness. That the God who has always seemed so close to him right from when he suckled at his mother breast seems to have left or is taking an ill timed holiday. It’s what people down through the ages have called the long dark night of the soul. David’s prayer has stood the test of time and each new generation are able to relate both to David’s situations and emotions and also the real gutsy hope with which the prayer concludes.

Also this prayer like all scripture has the breath print of God on it. It is seen by the gospel writers as prophetic, that it pointed to the suffering that Jesus Christ would go through on the cross, with such details as people gambling for his clothes. In fact Jesus himself chose to recite the opening line of this prayer with his dying breath “my God My God why have you forsaken me’. Not a cry of despair in his final hour of suffering but rather identifying with Psalm 22’s expression of the suffering of humanity and aloneness and its hope. That even in the cross God’s saving action would be the cause of people of all nations and peoples coming to know and worship God in Jesus Christ and the poor and needy receiving care and justice.

What I want to do today is to look at this prayer and explore an idea and word that we often hear in prayers and in religious talk and see what it has to say to us. The word Save. Save me O God. First idea you get even in this psalm is that people are looking for God’s intervention in the situation they are in at the moment. Kind of like the man in the bull paddock or David surrounded by his enemies as if they were vicious wild animals just inches away from ripping him to shreds. It’s just a natural human response to hard times and suffering. Hey make it stop. I need help to get out of it. We know from scripture that God can and does answer these kinds of prayer. David himself looks at the history of his people and sees that God has in the past heard their cries and saved them. They were in Captivity and slavery in Egypt and at the burning bush God tells Moses that he has neared the cries of his people and is sending Moses to lead his people out of Egypt.

But some people want to see God as a miracle drug, even better than what the pharmaceutical companies claim for their products: Instant relief from pain. Not only dealing with the symptoms but the problem as well or even as Karl Marx said of Christianity that it is an opiate for the masses. Some how God would just deaden the pain or give us a buzz and a high in the hard times so we wouldn’t have to deal with the real problems. God does save people in trouble in hard times but not like that.

Some people get the idea from this that God is just there for people who have a weakness or a need. If they are alright in life they don’t need God. Not even to thank for the fact that they are truly blessed.

As we reflect on Psalm 22 however you see that David doesn’t see God as a get out jail free card for the monopoly game of life. What he is looking for first and foremost is a restoration of relationship with God. In the midst of his troubles he is wanting to know again the closeness of God that gives him strength and enables him to persevere in the face of his troubles; that gives him the hope that despite the fact that situation looks hopeless that people will see that God is good and God is for his people and able to save.

Brian McLaren talks about people praying in two different ways in the hard times of life. Some pray out that is they want God to bail them out. Others pray in, they invite God into the situation with them to see what difference God can make. That is what David is doing; he invites God in…to strengthen him and work out God’s plans for good. With Jesus on the cross this may mean that it does not result in a physical saving but rather God’s higher good is achieved.

This is what we call being saved into not just from.

Through Jesus death and resurrection we could be saved into a relationship with God. “ For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believed in him would not perish but have eternal life. A life and relationship that despite the hard times that we can and do face can only be described as abundant, full… Yes, Full of ups and downs not a blissful bouncing along the top but full of the presence and knowing of God.

Why do we call being invited into this relationship with God being saved? Because of ourselves we can never be good enough to intimately know God. Scripture tells us that God is Holy and a righteous Judge and cannot over look the wrong that we all do. Rather in a way that theologians and thinkers down through the last two thousand years have wrestled with to fully understand in Jesus life his death and resurrection what we have done wrong can be forgiven and we can by grace know God’s love.

The final reflection on this word saved from psalm 22 comes from the last section of the prayer. It’s as if David is aware again of God’s presence and can look beyond the situation and grasp again the big picture. At the beginning he looked back and was able to realise that God had been for his people in the past and now he is able to look forward and see that in God’s intervention the world would be blessed. It’s the same with Jesus death and resurrection as well. It means we are saved for…

In the well known gospel reading John 3:16-17 the emphasis for many years had been on the “whoever believes”. It’s been seen as a personal benefit, a scripture that deals with personal individual salvation. Maybe that reflects our western over obsession with the individual. We often miss God’s great love for the world. “ For God so loved the world.” We often miss the fact that we are invited and saved into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ so that we can be a blessing to the world that God loves. This prayer of David’s ends up being very Missional. Because of a restored relationship and God pouring out his goodness in this situation David sees that the poor will be fed and cared for. This relationship with God calls him out from his own life his own struggles, his own ‘I’m all right, I’ve got what I need, to see the needs and the needy round him. He sees that because of God’s goodness and saving acts that people from all nations and families will come to praise God and acknowledge him.

It’s this aspect of the Christian faith our relationship with God that makes me say that ‘Jesus isn’t the answer in my life as much as Jesus is the problem’. We have been invited into a relationship with the God who made the world and loves the world to be instruments of that love. Perhaps this is best illustrated by Gods call to Abraham. Abraham was invited into a special relationship with God and God would bless him with off spring and land/ God wanted him to have the joy of family and benefit from his labours and the good earth. God’s not a kill joy, he made it for us to enjoy. It’s one of the ways we can thank God is to enjoy the things that God has given us. However God also said that he would make Abraham a blessing to the nations. In Christ we are invited into a relationship of blessing with God to be a blessing in Christ.\

My youngest son Isaac is  named after Isaac in the bible who was the son born to Sarah and Abraham in their old Age. His middle name is Aidan. He’s named after the Celtic monk Aidan who was sent from Iona on the Scottish coast to Northumbria and founded the community of Lindisfarne. Aidan almost single handed was responsible for the whole of Northumbria becoming Christians. There is a story told to illustrate Aidan’s character, which illustrates being saved for.

Aidan always walked everywhere he went. It gave him time to pray and meant that he was able to connect with the poor in the country who didn’t travel by horse back or carriage. The king of Northumbria really valued Aidan as a teacher and mentor. The king decided it wasn’t right for Aidan to walk so he gave Aidan a gift: A beautiful Arabian horse: A valuable gift, possibly the best horse in the kingdom. Aidan thanked the king. A short while after this he was out in the country. Maybe he was doing what our man in the opening joke was doing seeing just seeing what this horse could do on the open road. He was also drawn to an animal in the middle of the field. This one wasn’t pouring the ground or snorting rather it was lying on its side dead. And standing next to it was a poor farmer. Aidan stopped and the farmer told him how his family horse had died and there was no way they could afford another and there was no way they were going to be able to get their corps planted this year and so they would face starvation. You could almost hear the strains of Psalm 22 on this man’s lips, “My God My God why have you forsaken me”. So Aidan got off his horse and gave it to the farmer and continued to walk on his way. The king was angry with Aidan for giving away such an expensive horse and Aidan reminded the king that he had given Aidan a gift and that the man was in more need and equal in God’s sight he had passed on the blessing.

We may cry out to God in the midst of life’s hard times in our hours of need that God would save us. God does just that beyond simply extracting us he saves us into a relationship with him where he blesses us and calls us to be a blessing to all people everywhere that they may know the goodness of God.

A soul cries out (Psalm 22 Part 2... Psalm 22:12-24)

The film ‘Monty Python Live AT the Hollywood Bowl” starts with a sketch in which one of the python crew send up big time wrestling by getting into the ring and wrestling himself. He circles round the ring looking for a opening to get a good hold on himself. He links hands in one of those tests of strength with himself. He gets himself in a headlock, breaks out of it, and slams his own head against the turnbuckle… Finally he gets himself in a complicated leg lock and is forced to tap out and is declared to be the winner and also losses to himself. (watch it for yourself)

As I watched this sketch I couldn’t help but think of the deeper spiritual and philosophical implications of people wrestling with themselves. Paul in Romans talks about the war that goes on within, when he talks about his new nature and his old nature wrestling with each other. He does things that he doses not want to do because the two natures are at war with each other. You get the feeling as you read through Psalm 22 that in the midst of his troubles that David is also wrestling within himself. Between despondency and despair as he looks at the trouble he is in and hope and faith as he remembers God’s faithfulness in the past and acknowledges God’s ability to save him in the situation he finds himself in. Maybe even beyond that he is wrestling with God as well. We often think of seeking God as the quite pastime, a quite meditation by a beautiful stream or quite lake. Maybe we equate it with people who talk… slowly… and… thoughtfully… and… are… very intense, but in scripture we often see people seeking God in the midst of difficulties and suffering and it has the quality of wrestling of grappling of struggling to come to terms with what they know of God and what they are experiencing in life.

As we lead into Easter we are reflecting on Psalm 22, a poem and prayer that David wrote a thousand years before Christ. A poem that encapsulates the real depth of suffering that we can experience in life and even in the light of that a real gutsy trust in God to be with him and save him. It’s more than just a poem because as with scripture it has the breath print of God’s spirit on it as well and prophetically points to the suffering that the Messiah would go through. David’s son like David was not exempt from pain and sorrow in fact as the book of Isaiah calls the suffering servant he was a man of sorrows. Jesus himself would use his dying breath to gasp out the first line of this prayer on the cross. Again not a cry of despair in his final hour but like this poem an identifying with the suffering of humanity and a trust in a God who at the moment may seem distant but who through his saving acts would see people from all nations and peoples come to know God though Jesus Christ.

At the heart of our faith the thing that makes it unique is that God is a personal God. When we say that we mean God is knowable, we were created for and saved into a relationship with God. A relationship which is robust and like any love relationship is able to withstand the  wrestling and struggling of the soul. We have a God who doesn’t want obedient robots who will go “yes God” and do his bidding no matter what but God enjoys a relationship with us in the midst of our ups, when we feel like a teenager in love and all giddy like we are drunk on the Holy Spirit’s  presence, and in the midst of the hard times in life when we feel abandoned or our souls fire the real deep questions or real deep hurts at the heavens. When we cry “oh come on God where are you”. I want to look at that from the experience of three biblical characters.

The first is Abraham. Abraham is held up to us in the book of Hebrews as a hero of the faith. By faith he leaves all he knows in his home town and becomes a wanderer, trusting in God that he will have decedents even though he has no children and he’s getting on in life, a promised land, even though he doesn’t end up owning anything except the land where he is buried and that he will be blessed and be a blessing to the nations. He follows God. When God tells him that he is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham plea-bargains with God for the lives of the people in the city. He wrestles with God and in that wrestling learns more about the goodness and grace of God as the numbers of good people in the cities that would cause God to spear them falls lower and lower.

It is a surprise then that when Abraham faces the greatest challenge in his life that he is silent before God. He hears God ask him if he will take Issac and sacrifice him. This passage is one of the most disturbing parts of scripture. Abraham makes Isaac walk three days to the mountain carrying the wood and after they have built an altar puts Isaac on it and raises his hand to kill him. It is only the intervention of an angel that stops him and God provides a ram to take Isaac’s place.

Jews and Christians have viewed this scripture as the greatest test that Isaac has to face and when it comes to Obedience he does well. However maybe that wasn’t the test that Abraham was being asked to pass. God knew that Abraham had faith, great faith, leave it all behind faith. Rather it was a test of relationship, after all Abraham knew of God and God’s goodness was Abraham going to see God as simply like all the other god’s round about who called for a child sacrifice. Abraham could have wrestled with God like he did at Sodom and Gomorrah, But he didn’t. It says in the Genesis narrative that for three days as he walked to the mountain that he had his head down and he was silent.  Maybe the test was not would he do it but did he know God enough to know that God wasn’t like that. That God was different from all those other gods of the people round him.

It’s interesting to note that it was an angel not God himself who intervened with Isaac. That after this part of the story we do not have another instance where God speaks with Abraham. Abraham goes home alone and we don’t have a time when Isaac and Abraham actually talk face to face again. It says that Sarah died after this and you can imagine her heart breaking when Abraham comes home and tells her what he has almost done.  He blew the relationship test.

The second person is David himself. David is known as a man after God’s heart. It doesn’t stop him from stuffing up and making errors in his life and he doesn’t seem to be the greatest person when it comes to family relationships either. However as we read Psalm 22 through you get the feeling that he knows God well enough to be prepared to wrestle with him. He expresses both hope in God but also a feeling of overwhelming abandonment in the face of trouble. You get the feeling that he is trying to bargain with God. God come and save me from these bulls that roar like lions these Dogs and wild animals and I will tell of your praises in the gathering of your people. Come on God spare my life and people in many lands and nations will hear and come to praise you. I know you God you are good and righteous and able to help me in this trouble. Don’t be too far off God now would be a good time.

Despite the agony of the situation and the questions and doubts it flicks up there is a hope and an affirmation that God is able to save him: A faith that he will continue to declare God’s goodness. If this is a test of relationship, David does not let go of the God who will not let him go. He has a faith that will not resign itself to disbelieving God’s goodness. God is able to and willing to rescue him. God is for his people. God is still good and great even though it seems like he is going to be torn to bits by these wild animals. In the end we know that God did lead David through many of his troubles. He didn’t lead a charmed or totally sorrow free life but that God was with him.

The third person we want to look at is Jesus. In Luke 22:39-46 Jesus praying wrestling with God in the garden of Gethsemane. The fact that Jesus had the words of Psalm 22 on his lips may have shown that he knew something of the suffering that was before him. We see him in the garden come before God and it tells us that he was distressed that his sweat was like blood on the ground. His prayer is “father if its possible take this cup from me.” Or  “If there is any other way we haven’t thought of father.” As a human being Jesus would have wrestled with the suffering and sorrow he was about to endure, Jesus didn’t simply accept it like a masochist, pain was not his thing. He had to wrestle with God to make sure he had heard right. That he was indeed doing the right thing. The relationship he had with God was such that he could still call God that most intimate of names ‘abba’ (father), as he enters into a debate, a wrestling with God. He knew God well enough to know that the questions and the doubts and the dread of suffering were not going to destroy the relationship. But in the end after being strengthened by an angel he was able to say “not my will but yours be done”. He had come to trust God. Maybe the words of Psalm 22 were again part of that strengthening as they were brought to mind. That because of God’s saving action and that people would hear of it in every nation and people that he could trust God for what was to come. AS Hebrews 12 tells us for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross.