Knowing or Knowing About

I have some things here, how might we describe them:

Stone – heavy for its size, hard, cold

Bubble mix – liquid, bottle,

Coloured pencils – long thin pieces of wood, different colours

Rubber band – stretches, holds things together,

Book – pieces of paper, words, sometimes pictures

How might we describe Jesus – told stories, broke bread, rose from the dead

…

Jesus asks the disciples who do people say I am?
What is the word on the street?

And the disciples answer:

Some people say you are John the Baptist or maybe Elijah or Jeremiah or some other prophet.

Who do people say Jesus is today?

for some people Jesus is a swear word,
to some he is a prophet,
a teacher,
a good person,
an example.

If Jesus was standing here asking you that question, what would you answer? Who do you say that I am?

…

It is Simon Peter who answers, the one who tried walking on water, Peter who will deny knowing Jesus, it is Peter who answers: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Well that is all good and simple, Peter answers the question and Jesus says well done. Does this mean all we need to be able to do is repeat the word of Peter?

Peter’s words did not come from a book; they came from his experience of being with Jesus, listening, watching, and being forgiven.

We can know people or we can know about people.

We can learn about people from books and from movies etc, the way we know about John the Baptist, the way we know about various public figures, both now and in history; but we do not know them.  

The same as with the stone, bubble mix, coloured pencils etc; until you hold them and use them, you miss out on the fullness of the item. I mean bubble mix isn’t real until there are bubbles, and if you don’t know you need to blow through the solution, you don’t get bubbles. [blow bubbles]

Until you put a mark on the paper with the long thin wooden cylinders, you don’t know what colouring pencils can do, how much joy, or frustration, they can bring.

…

Yesterday Ian and I were at the ordination of Fiona Blair at Pittwater UCA. 

I thought back to when I was ordained, just over ten years ago. I went away on retreat for a few days before the service where I was ordained, meeting daily with a spiritual director. I looked through the vows I would be asked to make, and the questions I would answer in the service. 

The first question was:

Patty, are you willing to be ordained as a minister of the Word?

I am.

[All the questions have the answers written down, so you don’t get confused if you are nervous.

Until looking through the service, and reflecting on it, it hadn’t occurred to me to think about if I was ‘willing’ to be ordained. I was about to be ordained, I knew that, I had spent three and a half years at college, studied, participated in field education and college life. I knew I was about to be ordained, I was there for that reason, but was I ‘willing’ to be ordained.

The second question was:

Do you confess anew Jesus Christ as Lord?

And the answer was: I do so confess.

Easy…

But then I wondered what did I mean by saying that I confessed Jesus Christ is Lord.

Saying Jesus Christ is Lord is fairly easy, no tongue twisting names and all the words are only one or two syllables. And of course, Christians believe Jesus Christ is Lord.

I know saying Jesus is Lord implies that I am no longer the boss of my own life, but my experience is that it isn’t that clear cut. I am responsible for my words and my actions, I ask the Holy Spirit to guide me, but I am still human. I know for some people saying Jesus is Lord means that Jesus is now driving the car of their life; but for me, I think of Jesus as the navigator, I am still the driver, and yes, I don’t always listen to the navigator.

What does it mean for you to say Jesus Christ is Lord?

Who is Jesus?  

We can answer the question by speaking of his life as recorded in the Bible, we can talk about Jesus.

Or we can speak of our experience of Jesus, of forgiveness, grace, mercy and love.

How would you describe Jesus to someone who never heard of him before?[i]

We could speak of a man from the middle east, who travelled and taught and healed and did amazing things and argued with religious officials and died on the cross. All true, and possibly helpful, but until we can also speak of the difference our relationship with Jesus makes in our lives, it is only part of the answer.

I wonder if when people ask us about Jesus, they mean what is our experience, what difference does faith make in our lives.

After Peter’s declaration, Jesus tells him he has a new name, until know it has been Simon; now he has a new name: Peter, which is also the word for rock. They are to be the basis of the church, the group of people who confess that Jesus is Lord.

Then, Jesus tells the disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah, the one people are waiting for, the one who will bring freedom.

How will they then build the church, if they cannot speak of Messiah, Lord, Christ?

“Their lives will speak louder, more truthfully, and more effectively than their words.” [ii]

We need to both speak and live the gospel.

A gospel of love

for God

love for others

A gospel of hope and peace and joy

A gospel of forgiveness.

Let us build a church that demonstrates belief in a living, speaking, incarnating God, a God of freedom and not of oppression, a God of justice, love, and peace.[iii]

and may that be shown in our lives, as well as our words.

---

[i] http://www.davidlose.net/2014/08/pentecost-11-a-who-do-you-say-i-am/

[ii] https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3361

[iii] https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3361

civil disobedience or divine obedience

Exodus 1:8-2:10

Matthew 16:13-20

“whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  Peter is given the keys to the kingdom.  Peter, the rock on which the church is built; there is a word play going on here, as the word for Peter in Greek, is like the word for rock.

one implication is that the church has the keys to the kingdom. just imagine you have the keys, do you use the key to lock the door and guard the entrance? or do you use the key to unlock the door for everyone to enter?

often in the church we talk about heaven and hell as places that exist after death; I think heaven and hell exist, but they exist here, in this dimension of time and space.  it is easy for us to think the keys to the kingdom are for keeping out the ‘wrong’ people; but in doing so at times we make life hell for each other.

during this past week at the retreat we looked at holiness, shame and vulnerability:

how often do you worry about saying something in case people laugh at you?

how often do you worry that you are not enough, not clever enough, or pretty enough, or strong enough,…?

how often do you worry that people won’t like you if they knew what you were really like?

that is shame. guilt is sorry for something you have done, shame is sorry for who you are. many people feel shame, it keeps us small, trying to not get noticed.

shame also makes it hard for us to be vulnerable, yet we need to know vulnerability if we are to feel empathy, if we are to act with courage, if we are to stand alongside people who are hurting. Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable means being honest with ourselves, and with others, about who we are. and yes it can be hard.

..

the Hebrew people were in Egypt because Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, and Joseph ended up in Egypt, did a good job and was promoted by the then Pharaoh. then famine hit the homeland and Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt looking for food, and so the whole family moves to Egypt.

years later we pick up the story, there is a new Pharaoh who doesn’t know Joseph, and the Hebrew people are large in number. so Pharaoh does what many in his positon have done throughout history, and continue to do; he got scared. ‘ He said to his people, "Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land."

heard anything like that recently?

Pharaoh not only was worried, but told the people of Egypt to be worried.  there is no suggestion that Hebrews and Egyptians had not lived peacefully until then.

the Pharaoh, the King, was scared, the Hebrew people are made to be slaves, they build cities, they are oppressed and still they breed. the fear increases and the oppression increases.  until finally the King decides that something has to be done; all the baby boys will be killed.

but there are some flaws in his plan:

1. the midwives are about life not death
2. the river that is meant to be the place of death, maintains life
3. and girls/women were more trouble than the king imagined they would be.

 

This story is one with a number of heroines: the midwives who refused to kill, the mother and sister of Moses who refused to give up hope and the Egyptian Princess who refused to ignore a child.  This reminded me of other times when women have been the ones to speak out against injustice and violence.  women like the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who met as they looked for their ‘disappeared’ children, during the military dictatorship in 1976 – 1983 in Argentina; women like Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan form Northern Ireland who received the Noble Peace Prize in 1976. these women were generally in traditional homemaker roles. the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo were demanding their right to care for their children – something they couldn’t do when their children were taken by the secret police.   

Moses grows up and God calls him to free the people from slavery, and leads them out of Egypt, safely through the water that kills the Egyptians. there are a lot more steps in the journey until we get to that point. sometimes it can seem that God saves the people from slavery in one giant amazing miracle, but there are small steps throughout the story of Moses. and each step is necessary for the story as a whole.

“It's a courageous act of civil disobedience that changes history, And it all starts here, with two women willing to say "no" to an act of injustice. I doubt very much they thought they were changing the world. But they were, just by being faithful, by following the dictates of their hearts, by heeding the call of conscience.

The things we do this week -- our actions, decision, choices -- will, in fact, ripple out with consequences foreseen and unforeseen, for good or for ill, for the health or damage of the world. That question isn't whether, but what...what will we do this week to make a difference in the world.” [David Lose, working preacher]

 

the action of the midwives is ‘civil disobedience’, or as one person has put it  ‘divine obedience’. [http://sweetjubilee.tumblr.com/post/79831990907/imagine-a-woman-confronting-injustice-shiphrah-puah]

we can stay out of sight, we can hide, or we can stand up, we can speak out, we can protect life.

here is a  quote from Nelson Mandela:  “ for to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

and another quote , this time from Desmond Tutu

”If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

 

Jesus told the disciples not to tell anyone he was the Messiah. I wonder if it is because our living speaks louder than our words.

in our world today there are many examples of injustice, poverty and oppression. in our world there is a need for people to act with integrity, compassion and courage.