witnesses?

Reading 1 John 1 

In the early church one of the big questions was about the nature of Jesus, was he human or was he God. The gospel of John makes the case for the divinity of Jesus. John writes of Jesus being the Word of God, the Word that spoke creation into being. In the gospel of John, Jesus is God. here in the letters of 1,2 and 3 John, we see a more human understanding of Jesus.

We now talk about Jesus being fully human and fully God.

While this is no longer contentious in the church, it was a major issue at the time.

A few themes to think about with this passage.

Witnesses – “We saw it happen, and we are witnesses to what we have seen. Now we are telling you …”

What are we witnesses to?

Not the birth in the stable,

Or the feeding of the multitude

Or the calming of the storm

Not the arrest

Or crucifixion

Or empty tomb

We didn’t walk with Jesus on the Emmaus Road

Or touch his wounds

What are we witnesses to?

What have we witnessed?

·         I have seen people grow in faith as they ask new questions and look for ways of understanding what is happening in their lives.

·         I have seen people grow in confidence as they step out in faith and use gifts they were not sure were good enough

·         I have seen young people make decisions about their future based on where they sense God is calling them – and that isn’t into ordained ministry.

·         And I have been aware of God’s presence in my own life, and how I have changed because of those experiences.

Another theme is Light – “Jesus told us that God is light and doesn’t have any darkness in him.”

·         At the time this was written there was no electric lights, or torches or even gas lamps. I remember camping a lot as a child, and even with a torch you can’t see much around you in the dark.

·         There is the idea here, that you can get away with poor behaviour in the dark, because it goes unseen. If you are going to be ashamed of what you do, do it in the dark, and no-one else will know.

·         But Jesus is light, so nothing goes unseen, and if we do something we are ashamed of, we know we have done the wrong thing.

Which brings me to another theme - Sin and forgiveness

“If we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar “

“if we confess our sins to God, he can always be trusted to forgive us and take our sins away.”

We all sin,

I wonder what do we mean by the word sin?

For me, sin is that which separates us from God

Or shows that we are not living in the way God intended for us to live.

It may be something we value more than God

It may be the way we speak to or treat people, and God gives us that nudge that says – really!!!

The 2 greatest commandments are love God and love others a you love yourself; so, sin is probably anything outside that 😊

I suspect for many people sin is focusing on our own desires rather than on God.  

But, we also know that God forgives us, not so we can do the same thing again, but so we can continue to live in relationship with God and each other.

…

We are witnesses,

witnesses to the power of forgiveness,

        living in the light of Christ

                and showing the light of Christ.

Not only are we witnesses, but we are to tell others. To tell others what we have experienced of God’s presence and grace in our lives.

In the Grapevine this week, I have encouraged you to:

Think of a time when you were especially aware of God’s presence.

Sit with that image in your head - What did you feel

Here is a piece of paper, with 3 boxes on it

An example from my life:

      1.   At a retreat, day one was hard ☹

      2.   Woke day 2 – cloudy –I realised just as the sun continues to exist even if 

          it is covered by cloud here, so God still exists even if I can’t sense God

      3.   I started to sing 😊

  

One commentator writes about this passage:

“Authentic love is not an abstraction. It comes through speech, action, and presence. That is the manner of God’s communication. That will characterize authentic faith and authentic community as well.”[i]

What do we communicate about God: with our words and our lives?

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[i] Craig R. Koester; https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3702

Hesed

Book of Ruth

Proclamation of the Word

Ruth, a book of the Bible,

Ruth is a person:

• ·         An ordinary person
• ·         A foreigner
• ·         A widow

This is a story about people,

• ·         Real people
• ·         Not warriors
• ·         Or kings
• ·         Or priests

This is a story about people,

• ·         Real people
• ·         About survival and death
• ·         About struggle and birth
• ·         About welcome and blessing

Like many people, before and after, Naomi and Elimelech and their sons moved because of famine.

Same as the brothers of Joseph who go looking for food in Egypt and find Joseph.

And it happens still.

Naomi and Elimelech take their sons to search for food in foreign country, the sons marry Moabite women, and all 3 men die.

This was a perilous position for the women to be in.  At that time a woman needed a man as protector and provider, otherwise she could be destitute and at risk.

Naomi makes a sensible decision, go back to Bethlehem now that the famine is over.

And Ruth goes with her, even though Naomi points out that she is not likely to have another son for Ruth to marry.  This refers to the system of a man marrying his dead brother’s wife, so that she will have children to carry on the dead man’s name and inherit his property.

I wonder why this little book made it into the Bible. It is one of 2 books named after women, the other being Esther.

·         We hear a story of loyalty of a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law

·         We read of unusual courtship practices – including Ruth asking Boaz to marry her.

·         It is also a story that moves from despair to hope

o   From death to life

o   From famine to abundance

o   From bitterness to joy

o   Barrenness to birth[i]

This is a story about ordinary people, people like us, and how their story connects to the God story.  

Ruth, the foreigner, the widow, is the great grandmother of David, and an ancestor of Jesus. For the people of Israel, Jewishness was important, yet here we have an outsider in the lineage of the great King David and the Messiah.

….

Things to think about:

What is family?

·         Bloodline?

·         People who love us and are loyal to us?

….

How to live?

The book of Judges finishes: In those days Israel wasn’t ruled by a king, and everyone did what they thought was right. [Judges 21:25 CEV]

What we see in the book of Ruth is people living in ways that allows others to live with dignity. Naomi, Boaz and Ruth all act out of loyalty, love, and a deep sense of righteousness.[ii]

…

Spoken blessings:

In the four chapters of this book, we read of people blessing each other. It sounds a bit like passing the peace.

Such as when Boaz went to his field, he said to the harvest workers, “The Lord bless you!” They replied, “And may the Lord bless you!” [Ruth 2: 4]

…..

How God acts:

We don’t have God telling people to allow Ruth to be part of the community, there are no great miracles in this story, like walking on water or the burning bush. Here we see God acting through circumstances, and through the faithfulness of ordinary human beings.[iii]

…..

What does all this have to do with us?

The lives of Ruth and Naomi and Boaz are part of the story of God, and our lives are also part of the ongoing story of God.

Sometimes it can be difficult to see God in our lives, especially at times of grief and loss.

I wonder how often we offer a blessing to people, even when we gather as a church.

One commentator wrote: As the old adage goes, “A coincidence is a miracle in which God prefers to remain anonymous.”[iv]

Can you think of a time when a coincidence turned out to be a blessing?

When I was at University in my late teens, I was going to be a scientist, or a science teacher. Then I changed to engineering, and this boy was in my Maths class, and he was at the church I had started going to. Each year my family was involved in running a canoe race, and the same year I changed to engineering, the same boy came to the race with a mate to help with communications, remember this was before mobile phones.

It seemed everywhere I went there he was.

I remember asking one of the people at church how would I know if he was the one, God hadn’t yelled at me, or put our names in bright lights.

We have been married for almost 36 years.  

Can you see where your story connects with the God story?

There is a word that keeps appearing in this story, a Hebrew word: hesed: goodness, kindness, faithfulness[v]

We see this in the book of Ruth, which is a tale about belonging, about blessing, about faithful love (in Hebrew, hesed), God's faithfulness, incarnated in human beings.[vi]

 Where do you see God’s faithfulness, God’s covenant love, lived out in the lives of everyday, ordinary human beings, much like you and me?

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[i] Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3707

[ii] http://www.enterthebible.org/oldtestament.aspx?rid=28

[iii] Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3708

[iv] https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3708

[v] https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/nas/checed.html

[vi]   https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1108

What is a Christian?

After thinking about the church, this week I thought we would think through what it is to be a Christian.

I am sure there are lots of different readings I could have chosen when looking at this topic. 

Our 2 gospel readings both speak about commandments:

The Mark reading has someone asking, “What is the most important commandment?”

And in the John reading, Jesus gives a new command.

All are to do with love.

Jesus answered, “The most important one says: ‘People of Israel, you have only one Lord and God. You must love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.’ The second most important commandment says: and ‘Love others as much as you love yourself.’

And the new command: you must love each other, just as I have loved you.

Loving God with all that we are - OK

Love others as much as you love yourself. Not exactly what I was taught as a young Christian. I was taught love God and love others, and I don’t count.

So we have:

Love God

love yourself

Love others

love each other

what might that look like.

on Friday night we read a few verses from 1 John – we love because God first loved us. I asked the children what love looked like. They are clever children:

love looks like kindness

and hugs

saying sorry when you hurt someone

playing games together

I asked them what God’s love looked like:

The earth

People

Family

Air and water and food and animals

I told you they were clever children.

So how do we:

Love God

Love others

Love ourselves – because if we don’t love ourselves we can’t love others

Love each other as Christ loved us.

I am not suggesting any of this is easy. What might it look like in our lives.  

Love in action?

Love God: like other people we love that will mean spending time with God - for some that will be in church, others walking along the beach, or in the bush or a garden, or …
for some it will be singing, or painting or drawing or laughing or dancing or silence.

The ways we show God that we love God will be as individual and unique as each person.

Loving others? We can’t go around hugging everyone we meet.

In Galatians I think we get some clues, we love others by being peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. The fruits of the spirit within us. We love others by looking at the world from their point of view. In another place Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan in response to a question about who to love. We love when we do what is needed for someone to have life, fullness of life.

Loving ourselves? Sometimes I wonder the commandment should be love yourself the way you love others, because we will often treat other people better than we treat ourselves. We love ourselves when we give ourselves the time we need - to walk and sing and swim and play. We give ourselves permission to make mistakes. We forgive ourselves. We are kind to ourselves.

And then the new command that Jesus gave to the disciples shortly before his death: love one another as I have loved you. there is nothing sentimental about any of this. Jesus showed love in many ways – healing, forgiving, restoring to community, and dying. In what ways are we a community where people find that which is life giving and healing and hopeful?

All this reminded me of a song:

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord

And we pray that our unity will one day be restored

And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love

Yeah they'll know we are Christians by our love.

Do people see that love in us and our interactions,
do people see Jesus in us?
in our words?
In our actions?

so often when I hear people talk about what it means to be Christian, the conversation is not about love. The conversation is about:

a set of doctrines,
or a way of understanding the Bible,
or a prayer that you must pray

or what you can or cannot do or eat or say

or the length of your hair or your hem

In Galatians we heard: All that matters is your faith that makes you love others. At that time the debate was over the need for Christian men to be circumcised.

All that matters is your faith that makes you love others.

And from John: If you love each other, everyone will know that you are my disciples.

What is a Christian? my answer is someone who loves God, who tries to live that out in loving other people, loving themselves, caring for the creation.

A Christian is someone who loves Jesus and tries to live that out in following the call to be a disciple.

A Christian is someone in whom the Holy Spirit is taking root, growing and will hopefully show the fruits of kindness and peace, patience, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

The way we love God, the way we follow the path of discipleship and the way the spirit acts in our life, will be different in each one of us, just as each one of us is unique.

Church is ...

After four weeks of Guest Preachers, i am back for 2 weeks, then on annual and study leave.

Here is an image from Facebook a few weeks ago.

The church is not a group of people who believe all the same things; the Church is a group of people caught up in the same story, with Jesus at the centre. [Rachel Held Evans][i]

I will come back to it in a few minutes.

Over the past four weeks we have heard about Church from our guest preachers.

When we look at the New Testament, the church is described in various ways. In the gospels, there is an assumption that the people who follow Jesus will remain part of the Jewish faith. Jesus calls people to follow him. To some he says give up riches, to others it is count the cost. Jesus treated each person as an individual, each conversation, each healing,  

When we read the book of Acts, we read about

• ·         the separation of the followers of Jesus from the Synagogue and Temple;
• ·         the discussion about whether circumcision, a Jewish requirement, was necessary to be a follower of Jesus;
• ·         the way people shared what they had with each other;
• ·         the planting of new churches throughout the Roman Empire
• ·         and imprisonment of Paul and his travelling companions. 

In the letters of Paul and others we read of the encouragement to keep the faith, remembering that this was a time when being a Christian could get you killed. In Romans this morning we heard how we know we are God’s Spirit makes us sure that we are his children.

Here is part of an Australian paraphrase:

All those who dance to the Spirit’s tune are God’s beloved children… we come running to God, and with loving arms, God’s Spirit gathers us up, demonstrating clearly to whom we belong.[ii]

In Ephesians we hear about our unity in Christ.

Over the past four Sundays we have heard from Dr Sureka Goringe, Rev Dr Chris Walker, Rev Dr Stephen Robinson and Rev Simon Hansford.

Here is a summary of some of the things we have heard about the Uniting Church in the past month.

• ·         UCA is a church that works in partnership with overseas churches.
• ·         UCA is a church that encourages thoughtful faith
• ·         UCA is a church that walks beside people after disasters, not for a day or a week, but for months.
• ·         UCA is a church that engages in difficult conversations, such as voluntary assisted dying, same gender marriage, domestic violence, Recognition of Indigenous Sovereignty, environmental crisis.

One thing that stood out for me is the way the UCA is relational. We are called to relationship with God through Jesus, but we are also in relationship with partner churches, other denominations and the local community.

Next Sunday Dr Deidre Palmer will be Installed as the President of the Uniting Church. On Monday 9^th July the business sessions of the Assembly will begin. The Assembly meets every three years and has determining responsibility for matters of doctrine, worship, government and discipline.[iii]

The meeting will consider a dauntingly diverse set of issues. These proposals are all on the Assembly website of you would like to look at them.

• ·         The Church’s response to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse,
• ·         the challenge of domestic and family violence,
• ·         our continuing conversation on Indigenous sovereignty in light of the Covenant relationship between the UCA and the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress.
• ·         There will be a landmark statement encouraging action and advocacy on Climate Change and
• ·         a consultation process proposed regarding voluntary assisted dying.
• ·         Assembly members will also consider a report and proposals on marriage and same-gender relationships. [iv]

There has been a lot of discussion about how we stay as one denomination when there are diverse views on some of these issues. My guess is that if I asked each of you about these issues there would be a variety of views.

The proposal that seems to be generating the most heat is from the Doctrine Commission on same gender marriage. The proposal is that Ministers and Church Councils have freedom on this matter. That would mean each Minister would be able to choose if they will do Same Gender Marriages and each Church Council will be able to decide if the church premises can be used for Same Gender Marriages.

As I wrote in this week’s Grapevine, one way to look at the influences on our decision making is: Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience.

For example, women in leadership. 

In 1 Timothy 2:10-12

Women who claim to love God should do helpful things for others, and they should learn by being quiet and paying attention. They should be silent and not be allowed to teach or to tell men what to do.[v]

So, we could say Scripture forbids women to preach or teach adult men, but in other parts of the New Testament women were leading churches.

Tradition: for many years women were not able to be leaders.

Reason: we now know that women are not inferior to men, mentally or spiritually.

Experience: we have seen women in leadership roles in other areas of life.

There are still denominations that do not allow women in positions of leadership, but the UCA, and others, do have women in in leadership roles.

Using this fourfold method does not mean we all come up with the same answer, but it is helpful to see where our differences come from.

I encourage you to read the column by the General Secretary in the current issue of Insights if you haven’t yet. Rev Jane Fry writes:

“The Uniting Church, (on the other hand), seems to me to have a ‘shoulder to the wheel’ theology in which disciples are called and gathered into the Jesus story and then sent — individually and collectively — to work for the common good and to make a difference in the world.”[vi]

Remember the image from the beginning of the sermon:

The church is not a group of people who believe all the same things; the Church is a group of people caught up in the same story, with Jesus at the centre. [Rachel Held Evans][vii]

For me the Church is about relationships: our relationship with God through Jesus; our relationship with each other, and our relationship with the community into which God has placed us.

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[i] https://www.facebook.com/rachelheldevans.page/posts/10156013107864442

[ii] http://laughingbird.net/LectionTexts/C40.html#Second%20Reading

[iii] Basis of Union, Government in the church section e

[iv] https://www.insights.uca.org.au/news/assembly-2018-making-decisions-amid-gods-abundant-grace

[v] Contemporary English Version (CEV) Copyright © 1995 by American Bible Society

[vi] https://www.insights.uca.org.au/features/editorial/faith-requires-courage-and-imagination

[vii] https://www.facebook.com/rachelheldevans.page/posts/10156013107864442