Difference: Diversity or Distinction

In the Luke passage we just heard, Jesus crosses into gentile country, where he meets a man in a cemetery. This is wrong on so many levels. For Jews, cemeteries were unclean places, gentile land was unclean, and pigs were unclean. Impurity heaped on impurity.

In the story I read earlier, people had stars and dots to put on other people. [You Are Special by Max Lucado] This man would have lots of grey dots – he is a gentile, he lives in a cemetery, he had demons in his life.

When asked his name, the man replies with the name of his demons.

I wonder how often we talk about people by their illness or disability.

The paraplegic, the blind woman, the alcoholic, the divorcee, the druggie, the dole bludger, the Muslim, the homosexual, the black man …..

And I wonder what demons we live with

Demons that keep us chained

Demons like fear, hate, and greed

Demons like racism, sexism, and homophobia

Demons that prevent us from living fully as the people God made us to be.

What demons do we live with?

Luke writes about demons and how Jesus healed the man, incorporated him back into society, and brought him back to full life after living amongst the dead.

And yet the villagers did not rejoice, they were afraid. Who was this man who could cast out demons, who could cause their herd of pigs to drown in the lake? What else might he do?

They urged Jesus to leave.

And the man who was healed?

He wanted to go with Jesus, but Jesus told him not to, rather “he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him”

Do we speak about what Jesus has done for us? Not only salvation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Do we speak about our experience of Jesus, the way in which we have been changed, comforted, challenged by Jesus?

I was Dad’s girl. We had lots in common like colds and flu each winter. And Dad would read to me when I was sick – Henry Lawson short stories mainly. We are both sociable, more so than Mum and my brother. He was quick to tell me when I had done something wrong, and I felt like I never did anything right. Even after my dad died I was hoping to do something that would make him proud. In my head I could still hear him telling me how stupid and useless I was.

But one Easter that all changed. I let go of the striving to do something that would make my father proud, this was about 20 years after he died – so really how was I ever going to make him proud? J And after I let go of that sense of trying, there was a healing, and I don’t hear those words from him anymore.

We all have things from our past, and often our present, that hold us back, that stop us being the people God created us to be.

There is fear and anger and harsh words.

There is shame and guilt.

There are modern demons, demons that accentuate difference, not as diversity to be celebrated, but as distinction to be judged and ridiculed and wiped out.

Paul writes to the church in Galatia about unity in the midst of difference. While people are all different, Paul writes of Jews and Greek, men and women, slaves and free. Paul is reminding the people that those differences do not make us any more or less part of the body of Christ, we are all one in Christ.

Just as today, people are not all the same,
there are Christians, Muslims and Jews
Liberal voters and Labor voters
there are men and women
heterosexual and homosexual
Aboriginal and non-aboriginal
old and young
Korean, Tongan, Pakistani, Australians, …

Not all people are the same. In the news this week we heard about 50 people who died in a shooting in Orlando, and a British MP who was stabbed to death.  The young man who was responsible for the death and injury of so many in Orlando is also dead, so we will never know for sure what his motivation was, but it seems it may be something to do with his hatred of people who identify as LGBTQI or his concern that he may be gay that led to the shooting.

The killing of British MP Jo Cox, has shocked people in Britain. The police are still looking for a motive but in court, when asked for his name, the person replied: "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain," suggests a possible political motive.

“The Brexit vote is dividing Britain down the middle and has been whipping up emotions on both sides. But cold-blooded murder? We just don't know.

Instinctively, both campaigns, for and against Brexit, suspended all activities as the full horror of what happened was revealed.

It was as if they feared there may be a connection, and no-one wanted to be seen carrying on with those questions unanswered.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-17/jo-cox-murder-shocks-britain-as-political-fault-lines-deepen/7519746

It appears at present that both these events were motivated by people who could not embrace diversity, but were threatened by difference.

I wonder how we feel about difference.

Do we fear people who look different to us?

Do we want to only be with people who agree with us?
act like us?
have the same dress and behaviour standards as we do?

Do we love people as we are loved in Christ? Or do we only love those who are like is, and think and act the same as we do?

From Galatians: “It is through faith that all of you are God's children in union with Christ Jesus. You were baptized into union with Christ, and now you are clothed, so to speak, with the life of Christ himself. So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus.”

What demons need releasing in your life?

Who do you need help loving as Christ loves you? 

I refuse to reject the grace of God.

Proclamation of the Word

The phrase that stood out to me in the Galatians passage this week is: I refuse to reject the grace of God.

I refuse to reject the grace of God.

That may sound a little strange – why would anyone reject the grace of God?

The grace of God is a gift, and like all gifts, we need to acknowledge, accept and use the gift.

This passage from Paul is focussing on the place of faith in salvation. It is easy for us to think of sin as something with grades. We talk about ‘a little sin’, or an ‘unforgivable sin’, but we know that sin is sin. We may say we are all sinners, but we act as if there is a ranking for sins, from minor to really serious.

“ … for Paul the tragedy of sin is not measured by infringements of the law but by rejecting Christ and by denying the meaning of his death as the saving act of God.” [i]

Paul writes about salvation, justification, being made right with God. The means of our salvation is faith in Christ or the faith of Christ.

While we genrally talk about faith in Christ, some scholars translate the Greek as the faith of Christ that saves us. We are justified through the faith of Jesus. [ii]

“Either we effect justification by believing in Jesus or Jesus effects justification by his own righteous obedience.” [iii]

This might all seem a bit complicated J and it is. The message Paul was trying to get across to the people of Galatia is that salvation is not about following a set of Jewish laws, but about our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. A free gift.

In the reading from Luke: Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

He said this to a woman who is named as a ’sinner’, one of those sinners, a ‘big’ sinner. But she is the one who is free. Have you ever met anyone who could be truly comfortable in their own skin, who acted as they wished because they had nothing to lose? This woman is looked down upon by the people in the community – or the people in the community who think they count. [iv]

“You cannot determine your worth to Jesus by a calculation of your sins. That is not how God works.

Because faith, you see, is also the belief that you are worthy of salvation. You are worthy to sit at the table. You are worthy of touching, and being touched by, God. You are worthy of belonging. You are worthy of being called a disciple.” [v]

Remember where I started: I refuse to reject the grace of God.

This woman is an example of someone who accepts the grace of God. She says no to those who would try and prevent her from seeing Jesus, she says no to those who try and make her shamed of her life and her actions. She says to herself and yes to Jesus.[vi]

I wonder in what ways we have rejected the grace of God.

I can remember times when I felt worthless and not good enough – as if I had to make a certain level of bible knowledge or trust or something before God’s grace would be available to me.

I have had people tell me that they are not good enough, or they have done something bad, as if we need some gold stars before God will love us.

I have had people tell me they can’t come to church because they don’t have the right clothes or they live in the wrong part of town. One place we lived a person who attended church each week told me she didn’t stay for morning tea, because if people knew she was divorced she wouldn’t be welcome. I doubt that the church involved would have cast her out, but that was a concern to this person.

Maybe it is because I am a Minister, but I find many people I speak with are ashamed about something in their life, or guilty about something they have done or not done. I understand that. But we are justified/ saved/ put right with God by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ – not by anything we do or don’t do. And with salvation comes peace and freedom.

We are then free to be ourselves, our true selves, the person God created us to be. That doesn’t mean we do whatever we want, it isn’t license to hurt or destroy people or creation.

[a box with ‘grace’ written on it, some tags attached]

See this box, for some people it has tags on it saying –
if you are good enough,
if you are bright enough,
if you pay enough money,
if you follow certain rules,
if you believe certain doctrinal statements…
[Remove tags]

The gospel, the good news, is that grace is gift from God - free of “if’s”

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a consequence to this amazing gift, a consequence of accepting that we are fully known by God, fully and completely loved, that God’s love knows no boundaries – not even the boundaries we would like to place on God’s love and grace. This grace includes everyone. I can remember an article I read years ago, and the person writing it talked of the people of God as being like a family, and just as you don’t get to choose your family members, you don’t get to choose who else is in the family with you.

I wonder in what ways we have rejected the grace of God for ourselves or for someone else.

---

[i] Cousar, Charles B., Galatians, Interpretation,1982,  p 51

[ii] Cousar, p53

[iii] Jaime Clark-Soles, working preacher; Alicia Vargas, Working Preacher

[iv] Kathryn , U.C.C. SAMUEL

[v] Karoline Lewis, Working Preacher

[vi] Karoline Lewis

an introduction to Galatians

God called me through his grace. [Audrey West]

The letter from Paul to the churches in Galatia starts with Paul introducing himself. This was standard for letters at that time. You couldn’t send of an email, or a quick postcard. A letter would take time to be delivered. Often letters were written by skilled people, at times helping with phrasing of the letter as well as the physical writing of the letter. Paul would have dictated his letters to such a person, in chapter 6 we will read where Paul puts pen to paper himself.  

A letter would start with who the letter was from, and then who it was written to, Paul would usually include a greeting, such as:

May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

In many of Paul’s letters there is a prayer of thanksgiving, such as in Philippians 1:3

“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, …..” [NRSV]

But no prayer of thanksgiving for the churches in Galatia, instead we get:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ..” Gal 1:6

Paul is an interesting person in many ways. He was born in Tarsus, in what is now Turkey. Tarsus was what we might call a cosmopolitan city – there were philosophers and street preachers, mystery religious cults and it was a centre of Greek culture. [LTJ 261]

But Paul was also a Jew, with impressive credentials. His family followed the custom of circumcision on the 8^th day, and he was from the tribe of Benjamin.  As a young man he studied the Law with a school of Pharisees. [LTJ 261, 2]

And he was a Roman citizen, which means his family were likely to be socially prominent. [LTJ 261] being a Roman citizen had its advantages.

We first meet Paul in the book of Acts, he is the young man who looked after the coats of those who stoned Stephen, and Luke notes that Saul approved of the killing of Stephen. [Acts 7: 58, 8:1]

We read of his transformation on the road to Damascus in chapter 9 of Acts.  Paul would have known quite a bit about Jesus, from his time as a persecutor of the early church. [Loader]

But back to the place of letters and chapter one.

From this letter we see that Paul had met the people he was writing to, and as with other letters Paul wrote, he is responding to a particular situation. In this case it seems that someone has come after Paul has left, teaching a different ‘gospel’, though as Paul points out, there is only one gospel.

Paul is known as a missionary to the gentiles. There were many in Jerusalem who thought that to be a follower of Jesus, you needed to first become a Jew. The focus of the letter to the Galatian churches is that God acts in our lives and that the love and mercy of God are not dependent on our works, or our goodness, or our struggles, or our Jewishness, or culture, or anything else.

This letter shows Paul’s concern and anger that the people are moving away from the gospel of grace and freedom that he taught them, but as sending a letter is not a quick thing, he needs to be clear, and not hot headed, as the letter is written. He also needs to make sure he covers all the arguments that would have been made against him, such as not being one of the apostles and that he never met Jesus in the flesh.  

Paul is clear that it was God who called him, not any person; that Jesus was revealed to him so that Paul would proclaim the message to the Gentiles.

And the message he proclaims is that

“God is compassionate to all, offering a right relationship to all, Jew and Gentile, without discrimination. So Paul argues from the nature of God, from the heart of the gospel.” [Loader]

It can be hard to accept, that we are loved, that is the very nature of God, not our own doing.

“It is why we are so hard on ourselves, and insist we must keep rules: no one deserves to be given a love such as this.” [Andrew Prior]

I wonder how often we are pulled away from the gospel of grace.

It is easy to judge people, to judge ourselves.

I can remember thinking I wasn’t good enough for God, or anyone else, to love me. I thought my friends were just being nice to me because they were such good people – I mean who would want to spend time with me?

An encounter with Jesus changed that – I knew that I was a loved daughter of the living God. A person loved by God, not because I am good enough or bright enough or know enough of the bible. We are all loved by God because that is the nature of God.

Isn’t that awesome!

There are still some people who try to put limits and boundaries on God’s love and grace.  These days it isn’t about becoming a Jew before you can be a Christian, but I have been told that as a woman I shouldn’t be preaching or teaching, that this puts me outside God’s grace. At times I have heard of a whole lot of boxes that must be ticked to ensure our salvation:

• Going to church
• Not taking drugs or drinking alcohol
• Sexual purity
• Keeping the ten commandments
• And I am sure you can think of some more

Being held in God’s love and grace is about the nature of God, it isn’t about how good you are or how well you keep the rules. Paul could show what a wonderful Jew he had been, how diligent he had been at defending God.

There are signs of our freedom in Christ, but they are our response

• to being set free from shame and guilt
• to knowing, deep down, that we are loved by God

Our living is a response to God’s grace, not a pre-requisite.

Do you find it difficult to accept that you are loved by God?

Do you find it difficult to accept that all people are loved by God?

Notes:

LTJ: The Writings of the New Testament by Luke Timothy Johnson

Loader: http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/lectionaryindex.html

Audrey West: https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2883

Andrew Prior: https://onemansweb.org/theology/the-year-of-luke-2013/how-free-is-your-grace-galatians-1.html

Transformed into you

In thinking about Pentecost, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, I am aware that for many people this is a bit of a weird day. After all, we are not part of a Pentecostal church, generally we don’t raise our hands as we sing praises to God, we don’t speak in a special prayer language, and we rarely talk about the Spirit in our lives.

But here we are, the church decorated in red and many of you wearing red or orange. Even though we are not a Pentecostal church, we are a church that believes in the activity of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the world.

The reading from Acts is dramatic. I wonder in our technological world if we recognise how amazing this was to be part of, or even to hear about.  We see things on video and film and we are used to all sorts of special effects. But this was no special effects extravaganza from a Hollywood director. This was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into people’s lives. An amazing, incredible, awe inspiring experience!

We have heard many passages about the disciples in the Gospels. How they left their jobs and communities to travel with Jesus;

how they took time with Jesus to learn from him;

how they understood – or didn't understand -  what Jesus did;

how they questioned some of his ideas.

We also have heard about the night Jesus was betrayed,

we have sensed the anxiety of the disciples as Jesus was brought to trial;

the fear when he was crucified,

the doubt and amazement of resurrection.

The joy and relief of seeing him again.

This morning we heard the passage from Acts that features each year on Pentecost Sunday.

The disciples and other followers of Jesus were together in a house, and the wind blew, and flames appeared to be on the head of each person.

For me, more important than the amazing way the Spirit came into the lives of the disciples – in wind and fire - was what happened next.

Just as after the resurrection, the faith of the disciples was renewed, so with the coming of the Spirit, the disciples have been transformed.

Not only did they praise God, but people from various parts of the known world heard the disciples speaking in a language they could understand.

It could be translated today as:

Filipinos, Chinese, Czech, and residents of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, France and Germany, Russia and Brazil, Egypt and Africa and South America, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Europeans and Arabs - in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power.

The movement of the Spirit in the lives of the disciples that day, was not only for the disciples, but for the world.

Just like the popcorn earlier this morning, and the lives of the disciples, our lives are also transformed by the Holy Spirit.

I wonder what that transformation looks like.

Paul, writing to the church in Rome:

All those who dance to the Spirit’s tune are God’s beloved children. We were not sold into slavery where we would grovel timidly in the dust, afraid to put a foot wrong. Rather we were adopted into a family full of love and joy. Like eager children crying, “Daddy! Mummy!” we come running to God, and with loving arms, God’s Spirit gathers us up, demonstrating clearly to whom we belong.

©2000 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

Just as the disciples moved from fear to faith after the resurrection, Paul is reminding the church in Rome that the spirit has not returned us to slavery, but we are children of the living God.

John records that Jesus told the disciples that the Spirit would come.

“When I'm gone, your new defence counsel — the Holy Spirit who the Father will send on my behalf — will take over, teaching you everything and keeping all I've said fresh in your minds. The gift I'm leaving with you is peace; my kind of peace, not the mere easing of hostilities that the rest of the world offers. So don’t go dropping your bundle or getting all fearful.”  ©2001 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

It is easy for us to live in fear, to be enslaved by fear. The more we watch the news, the more we listen to popular commentators, the more we hear about fear:

Fear of young people

Fear of Muslims

Fear of people with lots of money

Fear of poor people

Fear of what will happen if this or that political party gets elected.

It seems that keeping people in a state of fear helps politicians and companies – when we fear a possible terrorist attack, we don’t ask about the erosion of civil liberties

When we fear a takeover by foreign companies we don’t look at the behaviour of local companies.

Fear is easy.

But remember what Paul wrote, we are not given a spirit of slavery and fear, rather “God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are.” [Romans 8 the Message]

The Spirit of God, flowing through us; sometimes in a surprising rush, and sometimes like a gentle breeze; confirms who we really are – children of God. Each one amazing and unique. Each one with something special and individual to bring to the community of faith and all of God’s wonderful creation.

This [a wooden whistle] looks like a stick, well it is a stick with a hole in one side, and part of one end blocked off. What might it be used for? I could burn it, or throw it for a dog to fetch – but is that its true role in life?

No, it is a whistle.

And just as it needs breath blowing through it to be what it was created to be, so we need the Holy Spirit blowing in our lives to be who we were created to be.  

We are transformed from fear to joy and confidence, to be who we are – children of God.

Where have you felt the transforming action of the Spirit in your life?  

expectations and freedom

Paul gets into trouble with the authorities in many places. This time Silas and Paul are put in prison for ‘disturbing the city’, that is for not acting like a Roman, even though Paul is a citizen of Rome.

Even though they are shackled and locked up, Paul and Silas are singing hymns and praying. I wonder what hymns you would sing when in prison after being flogged.

After the earthquake, seeing that the chains and doors were unlocked, the jailer ‘was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped’. And Paul says wait!

There is a lot going on in this passage.

Even though the reason given for Paul being in prison was because he was disturbing the city, the people who complained about Silas and Paul, were concerned because the slave girl was worth more with a spirit in her, and Paul had cast out the spirit.

Her ‘owners’ were concerned about the loss of trade, not the welfare of the girl and not the peace of the city.

We might think slavery is a thing of the past, but there are many people bought and sold in the world today. There are people who harvest chocolate and tea, people who make clothes, people trafficked for the sex trade. Some are kidnapped, but many are lured by false promises of good jobs, and parents often send a child with a kindly ‘uncle’ from their village, who has promised funds and a good education or a job for the child.

Exploitation, oppression and slavery still exist. If you want to know more about this look at a website of an organisation called STOP THE TRAFFIK. It suggests ways of reducing your involvement by looking at what you wear and what you drink. For example look for Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance or UTZ certified products.

The theme that has kept coming to me this week is that of expectations and burdens.

• The owners of the slave girl expected her to make money for them.
• The people expected Paul and Silas to act in certain ways
• The jailer is so concerned that he will be in trouble that he sets out to kill himself.

And I wondered what expectations people in our community feel burdened by.

• Dressing a certain way
• Owning a house
• Getting married
• Having children
• How our children will behave
• Having a car
• A certain level of education
• Not failing
• I am sure you can think of many other things

Here are a few examples from my life:

A few years out of school, and some people queried me when I started to study engineering – was I becoming a male?

At times I was asked when Ian and I were planning on having children, and I usually managed to deflect the conversation. I wasn’t sure how to say ‘we are doing our best!’ 

When we were leaving Dubbo to move to Sydney so I could start training to be a Minister, some people who were not associated with a church, questioned how I could be training for ministry, as women can’t be ministers.  

There is still an expectation on young people to get married and have children; and on a day like Mother’s Day, the expectation of family to do ‘something special’.

People have a mental image of what a woman is, or a man is, or what constitutes a family, or a successful life.

And for people who are outside that expectation, life can be very difficult. I can still remember comments about what some of the immigrant children had on their lunch; or comments about men who did hairdressing or ballet or infants teaching.

And unfortunately for some people the burden of being different, of living into the expectation of others leads to health problems, and at times suicide.

Fear,
the fear of failure,
the fear of losing face,
the fear of ridicule,
the fear of exclusion.
The fear of the jailer almost led to death. All too often these fears do lead to death. Physical death, or emotional or spiritual death. In 2009 2,132 deaths by suicide were recorded in Australia, at the same time there were 1417deaths from road accidents.  [http://www.livingisforeveryone.com.au/uploads/docs/LIFE-Fact%20sheet%203.pdf]

The fears, the burden of expectations can weigh heavily on us, and we hide our true selves in the hope of not being found out.

Where is the good news in all this?

The jailer asks: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

They answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."

Last week we heard about Lydia, a woman who heard about Jesus, invited Paul and Silas into her home, and her whole household was saved. Today we hear about another household. Again the household was baptised. Again the response is hospitality, welcoming Paul and Silas into the family home, feeding and washing their wounds.

How are we saved from the burdens people place on us?

What burdens do we place on other people?

This isn’t just a story from the early church, it is a story about today. We are in the long line of women and men who have heard the good news, and responded. Responded to God’s love and mercy with hospitality and generosity. And we are also people who tell of the good news. We are in the long line of witnesses to saving grace of Jesus Christ.

While expectations, burdens and fears can hold us back from being who God calls us to be; the freedom we have in Jesus Christ enables us to live in freedom.

What burdens or fears have you been freed from?

How have you responded to God’s grace?

New ife, Last words

In the reading from Acts we meet Lydia.
Lydia is a business woman,
the head of a household,
someone who has moved to Philippi,
and she is a worshipper of God.
We know only a little about Lydia.
Lydia was from Thyatira, in the Asian province of Lydia. Is Lydia her name? Or a reference to where she comes from? We don’t know for sure.
We do know that she sells purple cloth. Purple is an important colour, only the wealthy and nobles could wear purple. This means Lydia would know some of the important people in the area.

Lydia was God worshipper, and with other people who worshipped the God of the Jews, she met by the river, outside the city gates, to worship, which is where Paul finds her along with others. She hears the story of Jesus, and she responds.
Lydia is baptised, offers accommodation to Paul and Silas. This isn't the end of Lydia’s story, we hear of her offering hospitality to the Paul and Silas again later in chapter 16.

Lydia is thought to be the first European convert. An unlikely choice, she is not of Jewish heritage, she is female and there is no mention of a husband.

Where do seekers gather today?
Where do we go to tell the stories of our faith?
Outside the boundaries of polite society?
There is a Baptist church in Woolloomooloo who offers assistance to marginalised women including street prostitutes. They are “about creating a safe space where women who are experiencing marginalisation or are in vulnerable situations, can access support and care.” [http://hopestreet.org.au/Women%27s+Services/p/3/]. Our own Uniting Church operates a harm minimisation program: the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre.
Both of these services are outside the mainstream of society, but offer grace and hope to people who are often in despair.

The passage we heard from John’s gospel this morning, is part of a long section of Jesus teaching and praying for his disciples. It comes after the foot washing at the last supper and before the betrayal in the garden. Chapters 14 to 17 cover many topics. Last week we heard the end of chapter 13, where Jesus tells the disciples he is going to be glorified, and that the disciples cannot go where he is going, so love one another.
In the next few chapters we hear:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” [14:1]
 “I am the way and the truth and the life.” [14:6]
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” [14:9]
“If you love me you will keep my commandments” [14:15]
“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate, to be with you forever” [14: 16]
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” [14:27]
“Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” [14: 27]
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. [15:1]
Abide in me as I abide in you. [15:4]
My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. [15: 8]
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. [15:12]
It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. [16:7]

Jesus is preparing the disciples, as best he can, for his death. And that preparation includes how to keep on living the Jesus life, when Jesus isn't walking beside them.

Don’t be afraid.
Love one another.
Don’t be afraid.
Abide in me.
Love one another.
I am sending the spirit, the advocate, the helper.

If you have ever sat with someone who knows they are dying, last words can be important. Sometimes people will write a letter to a loved one, sometimes it is ‘I'm sorry’ or ‘I love you’.

Listen to some of the last words of Jesus again:

"I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” [14: 25-27]

These themes are repeated in these 4 chapters.

Don’t be afraid.
Love one another.
Don’t be afraid.
Abide in me.
Love one another.
I am sending the spirit, the advocate, the helper.
Peace I give to you.

Did the disciples understand? It seems not, but that isn’t unusual in the gospels. “First Peter (John 13:36), then Thomas (14:5), then Phillip (14:8), and then Judas (not Iscariot) (14:22) ask for clarification about what Jesus is telling them.” [Elizabeth Johnson working preacher]

Do we understand?

We aren’t sitting with freshly washed feet, listening to Jesus ramble on about loving each other, trusting in him, and the Holy Spirit that is to come – wondering what on earth he is talking about.
We are sitting here over 2000 years later, hearing a passage that will be familiar to many of us. And ye know that Jesus dies, and that Jesus was buried, and that three days later the tomb was empty.

We also know that the disciples didn’t know what to do, then there were sightings of Jesus, and the disciples putting the pieces together, and the growth of the early church, and questions about Jewishness and Christianity.   You know the story.

And among the first words of Jesus to the disciples after the resurrection: “Peace be with you.”  Three times in eight verses. Peace be with you. [John 20: 19, 21, 26]
Peace, Jesus’ peace, “is more than the absence of conflict. The peace that Jesus offers us is a profound and holistic sense of well-being.” [Elizabeth Johnson working preacher]


A quote I came across this week from St. John Paul II – “Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”

We are Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
The spirit flows in our life,
Don’t be afraid.
Love one another.
Peace I give to you.

I wonder what that looks like for us.

I wonder how the peace that we are offered by Jesus; is evident in our lives?

Come, Holy Spirit, renew our hearts

We have always done it this way!

I hear it in the church today, and Peter heard it over 2000 years ago. Peter went back to Jerusalem and was criticised for travelling with and eating with uncircumcised men.

This was a new thing in the early church, when many still saw themselves as Jews, and therefore the purity laws of Judaism were still important.

Peter didn't just ignore the purity laws.

Peter had a vision,

A vision of food, at least some of it not kosher, and he tells God he can’t eat such animals.  And this happens not once, not twice, but three times. But each time the voice returns and reminds Peter that God made all of creation.  "What God has made clean, you must not call profane.' [Acts 11: 9b]

In the beginning the spirit blew over the waters, and the earth was created. And that God saw that it was good.  

And Peter asks: “… who was I that I could hinder God?" [Acts 11:17b]

This passage is full of references of God speaking to people, in visions, and through the Holy Spirit.

Peter saw the vision of the animals, the men came to Peter from Caesarea in response to a vision of an angel giving them a message. Peter travelled with them in response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

Talk of visions and voices, angels and dreams, responding to the movement of the Holy Spirit can seem a bit alien, even in the church. This is not language we use very often. But read through the book of Acts, and see how often people are moved by the Holy Spirit.

The theme of the Synod meeting was ‘Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts’. The worship, the reports and discussions were all around this theme.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts.

And the prayer we prayed earlier had three parts:

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew your Church

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew the Earth

What would it look like if the church was renewed by God?

How would you know?

What would change?

Would we still be saying:

We have always done it this way!

We have never done that before!

What do you mean change?

      Women elders! What next women Ministers?!

     

What would it look like if the church was renewed by God?

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew your Church

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew the Earth

How can we be part of the renewal of the earth, of God’s creation?

In what ways does our living harm creation?

What could we change that would mean less waste.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew your Church

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew the Earth

I wonder what it would look like if our hearts were renewed by God.

What would it look like if your heart was renewed by God?

Is that something you are willing to pray for?

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Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew your Church

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew the Earth

We pray for renewal, not by plastic surgery or a marketing campaign. We pray for the Holy Spirit to come, to remake us, to cleanse our hearts, to inspire the church, to heal the earth.

We heard earlier from Margaret/Ian about their experience of Synod. We did discuss some important issues, and you can read about them on the Insights website or in the next Insights magazine, but some of the things that stood out for me were:

·        The number of younger people, under 30 years old, who participate in the meeting.

·        The increasing ethnic diversity

·        The participation of members of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress

·        The moderator, Rev Myung Wha Park and Diane Torrens (UAICC NSW/ACT Regional Chairperson) sitting together throughout the meeting

·        The prayerfulness of the moderator

On Monday evening we were asked to name something inspiring from the session, and then on Tuesday morning we went around the room, naming something we would take away from the Synod meeting with us. One thing for me was the worship and bible study.  The other thing I took away from Synod was the way the meeting itself has changed since the first meeting I attended thirty years ago. You can read about that in the Grapevine.

It is inspiring to be around people

·         who can name the positive things about the Uniting Church,

·         people who look to the future with anticipation of what new thing God will do

·         people willing to be an answer to the prayer for renewal

I know change can be challenging.

But think about some of the major events of the past 30 years

•     1990 fall of the Berlin Wall

•     1994 end of apartheid in South Africa - Nelson Mandela became President of the Republic of South Africa after the first post-apartheid elections.

•     2008  Crowds around Australia watched broadcasts from the House of Representatives when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd led a parliamentary apology for the effect of past government policies on Indigenous people.

Amazing things can happen when we live for God’s world, for all of creation, for people everywhere.

From the closing worship at Synod:

Bec “There are some things we have learned together about what it means to live by the Spirit, and to be guided by the Spirit,”, “We have met at times with each other with vulnerability, at times with openness.”

“Because of this we have had conversations and we have had new beginnings, exciting ventures have emerged. We brought the mosaic along and thought we knew what it would look like at the end. Yesterday something was missing. Congress wanted to know, ‘Where is the hand?’ so we have added it in. We have changed it and added something knew.

Aunty Leena explained the significance of the hand and the importance of being open to live by the spirit in her language. 
“I belong to you, you belong to me we all belong to one another but most of all we belong to God almighty,” explained Aunty Leena

Bec continued “We share this sense of hopefulness of belonging to each other to belonging to God and that we are not alone. When we go back to our congregations and our churches may we hold the sense of hope and belonging, that we hold it for all creation and all things not just for us but the whole world,”

“God does not leave us. God does not leave God’s church, God keeps calling us to follow in the way of Christ Jesus.”

#SynodMeeting2016 #ComeHolySpirit #RenewOurHearts

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew our hearts.

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew your Church

Come, Holy Spirit, Renew the Earth

I wonder what it would look like if our hearts were renewed by God.

What would it look like if your heart was renewed by God?