Ordinary 13/Proper 8/Pentecost 6
Readings: Psalm 77: 1-2,11-20, 2 Kings 2:1-14, Galatians 5:1, 13-25, Luke 9:51-62
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY on June 27th 2010
Whilst I’m always ready to welcome all people to our church there are three particular characters I don’t encourage to show up. . The troublesome trio are known as Mr. Knowitall, Ms. Promise & Uncle Hangon. These characters showed up when Jesus was around. They turned up in our reading for this morning. Sad thing is, we sometimes find ourselves acting like them.
Let me tell you first of all about .....Mr. Knowitall.
You've met him I'm sure. There you were with the hammer in hand, waiting to hammer the nail in. You had worked it out. That was where the nail should go. He comes around the corner. "You don't want to be doing it like that. Here let me show you the proper way".
You were explaining something to a friend. It's a delicate matter so you're trying to be diplomatic. He comes round the corner, "Nah… that’s not how it was. This is what really happened”.
You were talking about where to go for your holidays, what you were going to name your first child, where you were going to invest some cash, where you were going to get the groceries, here he comes.. "No you don't want to be doing it like that".
Mr. Knowitall is a particular expert in religious matters. He is quite convinced that whatever your religious beliefs are they are incompatible with true belief in God. Ask him a question like.. "Well how come there's so much suffering in the world?" and he'll shake his head. "Nah, nah, nah, You don't want to be asking that sort of question. That's not for you to know".
And he's convinced he knows exactly who is going to burn in the pits of eternal damnation and who is going to be greatly rewarded in heaven. I don't have to tell you which group he thinks he's in with!
Maybe you didn't notice it, but he was... or at least his attitude was.... there with the disciples in our gospel reading. They had been with Jesus for quite a while, but though they'd heard a lot of His teaching it hadn't really sunk into their hearts. They still operated on the idea that they knew who the holy ones were and who the bad guys were.
Samaritans... definitely bad guys. Particularly ones that didn't welcome Jesus. So when they find out that Jesus went to a Samaritan town and didn't find much of a welcome... read what Mr. Knowitall has to say... "Do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" (Luke 9:54).
The reason Jesus hadn't stayed in the village in Samaria had nothing to do with the bad Samaritan. It just wasn't the place or the time. Jesus had set His face to Jerusalem and wasn't slowing up for anybody. He had told the disciples all about the urgency of His mission, His impending betrayal, death and resurrection. Did those knowitalls have a clue?
Seems not. We read, "He turned and rebuked them; "You do not know what kind of spirit you are of: the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them" (verse 55-56).
In the name of religion bad things take place at the hands of Knowitalls. Before you rush into a situation thinking you know the facts... before you say a word or take an action you may regret, before you point an accusing finger at anyone or anything... think about Mr. Knowitall. We need to realize how little we know and how much less we actually are capable of.
Salvation, Christian discipleship is an exercise not in certainty but of grace. I don't believe that there is one of us here deserving of heaven. Not one child, or adult or 'somewhere in between' of us has successfully loved in the way God requires us to. Not one of us has come near the holiness, the truth and the wisdom that was the mark of the life of Jesus. It's a matter of grace. We need to read and apply the words of Jesus to our lives.
Abandon any pretension to knowing it all. Instead open your heart, your mind, your soul to the love that is God. Mr. Knowitall has a sister.
Ms. Promise.
"Leave it to me.. I'll do it" she says.
It's three weeks later and you're still waiting.
"Yes, I'll be there" she said. But she never turned up.
"Don't worry, I'll get it sorted" And it's still a mess.
She means well enough. When she says," Leave it to me, I'll be there, I'll do it", she really means to be there and get things done. It's just that somewhere between the promise and action things haven't connected.
Don't be too hard on her though. There is a bit of Ms. Promise in all of us. Her spirit was there with the disciples. Read verse 57. "And as they were going along the road, someone said to Jesus, "I will follow You wherever You go!" I'm sure they really, really, really meant it when they said those words. Just as we really, really, really mean the promises at the time we say them.
Promises we make when we become members of a church, marriage vows, commitments we make after a sermon that's touched us and we say, "Yes Lord, let's go for it, I promise I'm going to stick with it this time".
I've worked with youth for more years now than I care to count, and the amount of times on retreats one will say, "I've fallen out of going to church, but now believe me, I'm going to get back into it". Then you see them the next year. ""I've fallen out of going to church, but now believe me I'm going to get back into it". And the next year. And it's not just the young ones who will say that either.
There was a saying in Britain. "Promises are PieCrust". They look good. But they are easily broken. The meat of the pie lies below the crust. It's the meat that gives the flavor. Pure pastry pies have never caught on. The promise is the PieCrust. The meat is seeing it through.
Knowing the fallibility of promises could be why, in the sermon on the mount, Jesus tells the people, "Let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'; and anything beyond these is of evil.” (Matthew 5:37) It could be that God recognizes the problem we have with keeping promises better than we do.
There is something very final and decisive about the words "Yes" and "No". They don't mean "maybe, possibly, plausibly, presumably or probably". They mean "YES" and "NO". How much simpler life could be if we could let our 'yes' mean 'yes' and our 'no' mean 'no'. (Do you know what I'm talking about - Yes or no?)
Jesus said, when His disciples spoke about following Him what ever may happen, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay His head." Again the disciples weren't sure what they were asking. For Jesus the time for promises had past. He had set His face to go to Jerusalem and suffer an agonizing death. "Yes" He was going ahead with it. He knew that was more than He could ask of His disciples . "No", it wasn't there mission right then. Their time would come later.
So look out for Ms. Promise. Don't let her words rest too easily on your lips. Be sure what you are committing yourself to. And if you have any hesitancy or doubt, don't say the words; just get on with the actions. In that way your 'yes' will be a 'yes' or your 'no' will be a 'no' without you having said a word.
Thirdly, let me introduce… Uncle Hangon.
Uncle Hangon never got to be a disciple. Jesus asked him too, but he never made it.
"Hang on" he said, "I've got to bury my father first". One presumes that his father had died, but even that's not clear from the text. He is a symbol of all those who hear the call of Jesus but always feel they have something to lay to rest before they can whole heartedly commit themselves.
Here he is again. "Follow me" says Jesus. "Hang on... I just want to say good-bye to a few people… y'know I've got a lot of commitments, it will take a while to unravel myself. Just hang on... you don't know what you’re asking".
Don't be fooled. Jesus knows exactly what He is asking of us. Hear His Word. "No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (verse 62).
When it comes to discipleship of Jesus, you can't hang on. Every moment you hang on is a moment that is lost to all eternity, a moment when you place yourself beyond the fullness of Jesus love, a moment in time when your life is not being what God wants it to be.
Jesus was moving on. God is moving on. What about us? Where are we going? Moving on with Him or holding back saying "Hang on... don't go so fast.. I've got other things to do".
Don't be taken in by Mr. Knowitall. He'll throw all kinds of doubts, and "You don't want to be doing that" sorts of questions in your direction.
Don't be fooled into imitating the actions of Ms. Promise. Let your promises become actions and your actions bring glory to God. Be real before God… no pretense or false humility... no play acting Christianity or fooling around with that holy, precious, beautiful thing God believes that your life is.
Don't even waste your time with Uncle Hangon. He'll lead you nowhere but into frustration, disillusionment and cynicism. He'll keep you hanging on and holding back till it's too late to reach where God wants you to be.
As we travel through the week ahead
May the awareness of God's presence
flow through all we do and say.
That Glory may be given to God's Holy Name.
AMEN.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
The Legion of Demons
Reading: Luke 8:26-39
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin on June 20th 2010
When you fly into this country from abroad, if you are a non-American, there are a series of questions you have to answer on a form on the plane. Some of them are fairly straightforward, such as “Why are you coming to our country?”
Others are a little peculiar. There are some questions along the lines of, “Are you an international terrorist coming to our country to overthrow the government?” Seriously! Can you imagine Abdub Miklabbawah, a crazed international terrorist actually sitting there and thinking, “Oh yes. I am an international terrorist. I must check this box, otherwise I will be in trouble”.
Then there’s the one you get asked sometimes by inspectors whose command of English isn’t what it should be. “Are you carrying anything in your luggage that somebody has placed there without your knowledge?” Go figure that one out!
Whenever you answer questions, you have to sort out what the questioner is actually looking for. A question that often appears on psychological tests is: "Do you sometimes hear voices?" The correct answer, unless you are totally deaf, is yes, you do, especially when people are talking to you. But obviously, that is not the right answer, because from the point of the view of the test, a simple’ ‘yes’ without any explanation might suggest that you are insane.
Voices in the head. Demons. Madness. That’s what our reading from Luke’s gospel was about this morning. A man said to be possessed by a legion of demons, living like a wild animal, unclothed and uncontrollable, making a home in the local graveyard. He sounds like a character in some low budget horror movie. He’s certainly bad news and the local people are afraid of him. But Jesus looks on the man with compassion.
Jesus asks the man his name and the man replies, "Legion." A legion was literally six thousand soldiers. This poor man had a mob of screaming demons clawing at him from all sides, pulling him this way and that, and confusing him to the point that he had totally lost his identity. He no longer knew who he was.
Demons. In our modern scientific age is it reasonable to believe in the existence of demons? When we read of people like this man in our story, would we not today put their problems down to some form of psychological imbalance and attempt to treat them with drugs or some form of therapy? Is this, like a Stephen King novel, an account of fiction rather than revelation?
I suggest to you this morning that we should not dismiss these biblical stories so easily. Maybe we don’t believe in demons and angels and the saints and a whole lot of other things, in the way that theologians of the Middle Ages did. But to deny the existence of evil and to refuse to name it for what it is, opens some dangerous doors.
A demon in the Bible appears as the personification of a force or a power that renders a person unable to live the life they are capable of. To see a demon in that way is to see that we live in a world full of demons. Demonic forces are all those forces that seek to destroy, cheapen and steal the spark of God’s love from our lives.
You can easily observe the effects of the demons upon this poor man called Legion. We’ve noted one of them already. The demons steal away his identity. He is no longer known by his name, but by his problem. He is the madman. He is the Demoniac. He’s the crazy one who lives amongst the tombs.
He is no longer recognizable as some ones child, or even as a human being. He is not treated as an individual who has been created by God in his mother’s womb before the beginning of time and who has the potential to change the world. He is just a beast, a monster.
Notice also how possessive the demons are. Notice how every time the man is restrained, he escapes and returns to his graveyard. These demons want him all to themselves. They tolerate no other influences, no other voices. Their future depends on being able to feed from his shattered life. He is theirs and they have no desire to share. They do all they can to keep him away from any who could help him.
Notice also how well the demons twist the facts. They recognize Jesus' power over them. They make the man say, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me." They accuse Jesus of being the tormenter, when in fact it was they who were tormenting the man. That’s how demons are. They make healing seem like sickness and sickness seem like health.
So where are these demons today? All around us and sometimes within us. Think for a moment of the word we use to describe the Prince of all demons, namely the Devil. Just take away that first letter, drop the “D” and what you have left is the word evil. Anybody who denies the real, brooding and often overwhelming force of evil in today’s world must be living on another planet.
There are things that are good, there are things that are bad. There are things that have no moral or ethical dimension to them at all and there are many things that fall into gray areas. And alongside all of those there are things that are completely and demonstratively evil.
One can think of the images of the death camps of Nazi Germany, or can read of horrific acts of child abuse and exploitation, of acts so destructive and beyond the definition of any sane persons assessment of right and wrong that they can only be described as demonic. But not all demons are so obvious. Sometimes they parade as angels of light and only reveal their true nature when their darkness has captured the soul.
Take drugs as an example. I think it is a safe bet to say that there is not one person in this room who has never been on drugs. Now let me be clear here, I’m not talking about the illicit, illegal kind of drugs, I mean those things that the doctor prescribes or that you buy from the pharmacy to relieve aches and pains.
I’m talking about medicine, things we take to cure us of an ailment or to escape from pain. Such drugs we welcome and we thank God for. But we know there are the other kind of drugs, the kind the kids in school are more knowledgeable about than their parents. Sometimes they are taken to escape or relieve pain or sometimes just to get a high or a buzz.
Do you know what is so attractive about those illegal drugs? They work. They do what their pushers promise. That stressed out kid smokes some cannabis and suddenly life’s not so complicated. That kid who can’t stay awake takes some amphetamines and now they can keep going, going, going like they were the energizer bunny. That party goer takes some Ecstasy and they’re in love with the world and everything’s beautiful as they dance the night away.
Now I’m not saying that every child who experiments with drugs is going to end up a crack-cocaine-heroine junky and go to an early grave, but some of them will. And the high that such drugs offer soon diminishes, and if that is what a person is looking for, then it’s easy to see how what they thought was a bit of fun ends up as a horrible addiction.
What are the signs of addiction? Remarkably similar to the symptoms of the posessed man in the cemetery who encounters Jesus. The person loses their identity, not only to themselves, but also to those around them. They are no longer Jimmy or Rosie, but become the junkie or the crackhead – the madman.
Addicted drug users, like the demoniac, find they need to be alone with their habit and away from those who would seek to help them break it. The drugs take control and their cravings can become insatiable. Like the demons whom accuse Jesus of being the tormenter they make healing seem like sickness and sickness seem like health.
I’m using users of illicit drugs only as an example. Drugs come in many forms. Alcohol. Gambling. Shopping, Pornography. Promiscuity. Money. Power. Oh yes.. and we mustn’t forget the Pharisees favorite drug …….. religion.
We live in an age when we would be far healthier if we could recover a biblical understanding of demons. In the category of demons maybe we should include such things as cancer, despair, AIDS, road rage, the fear of failure, terrorism, obsessive-compulsiveness, racial prejudice, abusiveness, tuberculosis, and greed and so much more.
All such demons compete for the mastery of our lives. If we let them gain control, they drive us into outrageous behavior and isolate us among the tombs of death and deadness. They destroy our friendships. They alienate us from our families. They become so powerful that eventually they even take over our identity.
Jesus separated the demons from the person. He did not, like the villagers, call him a Demoniac. He addressed the demons and called them out by name. He restored the man’s identity. In today’s terms He would not say to Mary, “Mary, you are a hopeless anorexic”. He would say to Mary "It appears as though anorexia is trying to take over your life." That gives Mary the opportunity to see how it is that anorexia creeps into her life and to explore ways in which she might be able to hold anorexia at arm's length.
The overwhelming positive note in the passage; the most important point of all, is that Jesus is greater than all the demons. For all the power that demons have, there is a power far greater than all of theirs put together. Even though a hundred demons may come at us at once, they can be sent packing through faith in Jesus Christ. It is for us to confront the demons in our society and within ourselves with prayer and devotion and the desire to be followers of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
There is much in life that would seek to take us under it’s control. Christ came to set us free. The account of Jesus casting evil out of a man possessed by a legion of demons is a powerful picture of the ability of Jesus to renew even the most hopeless of lives. The gospel that is entrusted to our care is a gospel that proclaims freedom, deliverance and hope.
In a world where demons are legion may we seek to live lives that reflect the freedom that Christ died to give us. To God’s name be the Glory! For Jesus is greater than all the demons.
Rev Adrian Pratt
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin on June 20th 2010
When you fly into this country from abroad, if you are a non-American, there are a series of questions you have to answer on a form on the plane. Some of them are fairly straightforward, such as “Why are you coming to our country?”
Others are a little peculiar. There are some questions along the lines of, “Are you an international terrorist coming to our country to overthrow the government?” Seriously! Can you imagine Abdub Miklabbawah, a crazed international terrorist actually sitting there and thinking, “Oh yes. I am an international terrorist. I must check this box, otherwise I will be in trouble”.
Then there’s the one you get asked sometimes by inspectors whose command of English isn’t what it should be. “Are you carrying anything in your luggage that somebody has placed there without your knowledge?” Go figure that one out!
Whenever you answer questions, you have to sort out what the questioner is actually looking for. A question that often appears on psychological tests is: "Do you sometimes hear voices?" The correct answer, unless you are totally deaf, is yes, you do, especially when people are talking to you. But obviously, that is not the right answer, because from the point of the view of the test, a simple’ ‘yes’ without any explanation might suggest that you are insane.
Voices in the head. Demons. Madness. That’s what our reading from Luke’s gospel was about this morning. A man said to be possessed by a legion of demons, living like a wild animal, unclothed and uncontrollable, making a home in the local graveyard. He sounds like a character in some low budget horror movie. He’s certainly bad news and the local people are afraid of him. But Jesus looks on the man with compassion.
Jesus asks the man his name and the man replies, "Legion." A legion was literally six thousand soldiers. This poor man had a mob of screaming demons clawing at him from all sides, pulling him this way and that, and confusing him to the point that he had totally lost his identity. He no longer knew who he was.
Demons. In our modern scientific age is it reasonable to believe in the existence of demons? When we read of people like this man in our story, would we not today put their problems down to some form of psychological imbalance and attempt to treat them with drugs or some form of therapy? Is this, like a Stephen King novel, an account of fiction rather than revelation?
I suggest to you this morning that we should not dismiss these biblical stories so easily. Maybe we don’t believe in demons and angels and the saints and a whole lot of other things, in the way that theologians of the Middle Ages did. But to deny the existence of evil and to refuse to name it for what it is, opens some dangerous doors.
A demon in the Bible appears as the personification of a force or a power that renders a person unable to live the life they are capable of. To see a demon in that way is to see that we live in a world full of demons. Demonic forces are all those forces that seek to destroy, cheapen and steal the spark of God’s love from our lives.
You can easily observe the effects of the demons upon this poor man called Legion. We’ve noted one of them already. The demons steal away his identity. He is no longer known by his name, but by his problem. He is the madman. He is the Demoniac. He’s the crazy one who lives amongst the tombs.
He is no longer recognizable as some ones child, or even as a human being. He is not treated as an individual who has been created by God in his mother’s womb before the beginning of time and who has the potential to change the world. He is just a beast, a monster.
Notice also how possessive the demons are. Notice how every time the man is restrained, he escapes and returns to his graveyard. These demons want him all to themselves. They tolerate no other influences, no other voices. Their future depends on being able to feed from his shattered life. He is theirs and they have no desire to share. They do all they can to keep him away from any who could help him.
Notice also how well the demons twist the facts. They recognize Jesus' power over them. They make the man say, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me." They accuse Jesus of being the tormenter, when in fact it was they who were tormenting the man. That’s how demons are. They make healing seem like sickness and sickness seem like health.
So where are these demons today? All around us and sometimes within us. Think for a moment of the word we use to describe the Prince of all demons, namely the Devil. Just take away that first letter, drop the “D” and what you have left is the word evil. Anybody who denies the real, brooding and often overwhelming force of evil in today’s world must be living on another planet.
There are things that are good, there are things that are bad. There are things that have no moral or ethical dimension to them at all and there are many things that fall into gray areas. And alongside all of those there are things that are completely and demonstratively evil.
One can think of the images of the death camps of Nazi Germany, or can read of horrific acts of child abuse and exploitation, of acts so destructive and beyond the definition of any sane persons assessment of right and wrong that they can only be described as demonic. But not all demons are so obvious. Sometimes they parade as angels of light and only reveal their true nature when their darkness has captured the soul.
Take drugs as an example. I think it is a safe bet to say that there is not one person in this room who has never been on drugs. Now let me be clear here, I’m not talking about the illicit, illegal kind of drugs, I mean those things that the doctor prescribes or that you buy from the pharmacy to relieve aches and pains.
I’m talking about medicine, things we take to cure us of an ailment or to escape from pain. Such drugs we welcome and we thank God for. But we know there are the other kind of drugs, the kind the kids in school are more knowledgeable about than their parents. Sometimes they are taken to escape or relieve pain or sometimes just to get a high or a buzz.
Do you know what is so attractive about those illegal drugs? They work. They do what their pushers promise. That stressed out kid smokes some cannabis and suddenly life’s not so complicated. That kid who can’t stay awake takes some amphetamines and now they can keep going, going, going like they were the energizer bunny. That party goer takes some Ecstasy and they’re in love with the world and everything’s beautiful as they dance the night away.
Now I’m not saying that every child who experiments with drugs is going to end up a crack-cocaine-heroine junky and go to an early grave, but some of them will. And the high that such drugs offer soon diminishes, and if that is what a person is looking for, then it’s easy to see how what they thought was a bit of fun ends up as a horrible addiction.
What are the signs of addiction? Remarkably similar to the symptoms of the posessed man in the cemetery who encounters Jesus. The person loses their identity, not only to themselves, but also to those around them. They are no longer Jimmy or Rosie, but become the junkie or the crackhead – the madman.
Addicted drug users, like the demoniac, find they need to be alone with their habit and away from those who would seek to help them break it. The drugs take control and their cravings can become insatiable. Like the demons whom accuse Jesus of being the tormenter they make healing seem like sickness and sickness seem like health.
I’m using users of illicit drugs only as an example. Drugs come in many forms. Alcohol. Gambling. Shopping, Pornography. Promiscuity. Money. Power. Oh yes.. and we mustn’t forget the Pharisees favorite drug …….. religion.
We live in an age when we would be far healthier if we could recover a biblical understanding of demons. In the category of demons maybe we should include such things as cancer, despair, AIDS, road rage, the fear of failure, terrorism, obsessive-compulsiveness, racial prejudice, abusiveness, tuberculosis, and greed and so much more.
All such demons compete for the mastery of our lives. If we let them gain control, they drive us into outrageous behavior and isolate us among the tombs of death and deadness. They destroy our friendships. They alienate us from our families. They become so powerful that eventually they even take over our identity.
Jesus separated the demons from the person. He did not, like the villagers, call him a Demoniac. He addressed the demons and called them out by name. He restored the man’s identity. In today’s terms He would not say to Mary, “Mary, you are a hopeless anorexic”. He would say to Mary "It appears as though anorexia is trying to take over your life." That gives Mary the opportunity to see how it is that anorexia creeps into her life and to explore ways in which she might be able to hold anorexia at arm's length.
The overwhelming positive note in the passage; the most important point of all, is that Jesus is greater than all the demons. For all the power that demons have, there is a power far greater than all of theirs put together. Even though a hundred demons may come at us at once, they can be sent packing through faith in Jesus Christ. It is for us to confront the demons in our society and within ourselves with prayer and devotion and the desire to be followers of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
There is much in life that would seek to take us under it’s control. Christ came to set us free. The account of Jesus casting evil out of a man possessed by a legion of demons is a powerful picture of the ability of Jesus to renew even the most hopeless of lives. The gospel that is entrusted to our care is a gospel that proclaims freedom, deliverance and hope.
In a world where demons are legion may we seek to live lives that reflect the freedom that Christ died to give us. To God’s name be the Glory! For Jesus is greater than all the demons.
Rev Adrian Pratt
Monday, June 7, 2010
COMMUNION AND ENCOURAGEMENT
Readings: Psalm 146, 1 Kings 17: 8-24, Luke 7:11-17, Acts 27:27-44
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, June 6 2010
The closing chapters of the Book of Acts give us the stories of Paul's missionary journeys as he seeks to bring Christianity to the whole wide world. Our passage this morning dealt with his transportation to Rome, where he was going to be put on trial for crimes against the state. The Jewish authorities had wanted him taken to Jerusalem to be tried for treason. But Paul, knowing his rights as a Roman citizen, had appealed for his case to be heard in Rome.
So there he is on a boat in the Mediterranean sea, on the way to Rome, when an almighty storm starts to brew. Everyone on board, except Paul, panics. He stays calm, and prophecies that none of them will come to harm. The ship would be driven ashore to an island, which, when it happened, turned out to be the island of Malta.
Paul had the sort of faith that believes in a God who is Lord, even of the storm. He saw the hand of God in the midst of that threatening tragedy. Right in the middle of the hysteria, we read; "Paul took some bread, gave thanks to God before them all, broke it, and began to eat. They took heart, and everyone of them also ate some food" (Acts 27:35-36).
The power of the storm, the wind and the waves, they are reoccurring themes in the New Testament. The very first disciples were fishermen well aquainted with the mysterious and sometimes deadly forces of nature. Jesus is pictured by the gospel authors as one who can hush the wind and calm the waters, even walk upon them.
The act of breaking bread reminds us of other occurrences of sharing bread that brought an unknown peace and sustenance to those present. Think of occasions such as the feedings of the 5000 and the 4000. Think of the experience of the two men on the Emmaus road, where the resurrected Christ became known to them at the end of their journey as He broke bread with them.
For those on the ship with Paul, their journey was far from over. Worse was to come. Through Paul's encouragement they faced it with a renewed confidence and assurance that somehow amongst all this craziness, disaster and madness the hand of God was at work and they need not fear, just trust Him.
A number of years ago there was a film that had the title, "It's a mad, mad world". When you read or listen to the news you can get the impression that whoever came up with the phrase knew exactly what they were talking about. For even the bible pictures a world where chaos rather than creation reigns, where the forces of darkness seem to win the day, not the grandeur of light. A world which is a fallen world. A world of fear and struggle and toil whose lord is a prince of darkness, the Devil, the great deceiver and father of lies. A world of sin and sinners who care nothing about the love of God and are positively hostile towards His gentle claim of love upon their lives. A mad, mad world.
It was that sort of mad, mad, world that Jesus stepped right into the midst of. A dark, stormy world that laughed at Him, mocked Him, spat upon Him and crucifies Him afresh in every generation. That is one of the messages that the bread and wine present to us. Jesus, God's precious beloved son, came amongst us. He touched us. He laughed and cried with us. He healed us. He taught us. He showed us with great love and care that He represented the Living God who had not abandoned the world but worked to restore and renew it.
So, for that, we crucified Him, broke His body, hammered nails through His flesh and hung Him up for all the world to see. His blood poured out as He prayed "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing". And it is quite clear in the storm of the crucifixion, that darkest moment in the pages of the worlds history, people didn't know what they were doing. Still less did they understand how God could be mixed up in it all; that He was about to turn tears into laughter and death into resurrection and disaster into triumph!
The storm continues to rage and roar around us. The mad, mad world continues in it's mad, mad way. BUT if you and I can somehow embrace the message of Christ's victory and allow Him to live His life in our lives through the Holy Spirit's power, then we have nothing to fear. On the contrary, we have every reason to rejoice, for He offers new hope and forgiveness and strength to serve Him.
You may say to me, "But, Adrian, I am dismayed, my heart is laid low, you can't be serious, everything's gone wrong!"
I know it is so hard to do, but in all humility I say to you, "Stop looking at the storm". Stop looking at the storm. Stop looking at the storm. I'm not saying ignore it. I'm not saying that it is going to go away. I'm not pretending that storms don't still cause shipwrecks and tragedy. But when everything around us is out of control we need to hear the still small voice of calm, the voice of God saying;
We must let Him be in charge. Let Jesus be Lord of our circumstances, our worries, our problems; our joys and successes as well. Share them with Him, take the time to pray over these things with Him, talk to Him about them, listen to Him, meditate on what His Word offers us.
It wasn't a luxury cruise that Paul was on as he sailed to Rome. He was potentially under a death sentence. He was a prisoner. The storm wasn't just a passing wind, it was the sort of storm that had hardened sailors fearing for their lives and had atheists on their knees praying to unknown gods. The sort that caused ships to crumble before the merciless pounding of it's waves. It was in that situation;
"Paul took some bread, gave thanks to God before them all, broke it, and began to eat. They took heart, and everyone of them also ate some food"
That phrase there, "They took heart", is one of those Greek words that it is hard to give the exact English equivalent for. It appears in Hebrew form in the Book of Proverbs 15:15 which reads, "Happy people enjoy life". Not evade life or endure life, but enjoy it. It can mean "to raise your spirit up, to be encouraged, to feel better about things, to pluck up courage and be of good cheer."
That's what happened on that boat as Paul broke bread. That's what happened when he was able to bring them from a position where all they could see was the storm of a mad, mad, world, to a position where they were able to sense that beyond the storm was the hand of a God who hadn't abandoned them but would carry them through the wreck they were about to be faced with.
Today, on this Communion Sunday, people will be breaking bread in the midst of many stormy situations, many places where things will get worse before they get better. But as they break bread and share wine they will be encouraged for they will remember there is a God who is greater than the storm.
We are not alone. We are in the company of friends and brothers and sisters who form a chain of prayer and hope that circles and criss-crosses the mad, mad world. We are in the company of angels and the company of saints, a vast crowd of unseen witnesses who testify that there is a safe haven beyond the storm.
Remember Paul and how he broke bread in the midst of a storm. Remember how that simple action brought those who participated in it to the presence of God and lifted them to His presence. Now it's your turn.
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, June 6 2010
The closing chapters of the Book of Acts give us the stories of Paul's missionary journeys as he seeks to bring Christianity to the whole wide world. Our passage this morning dealt with his transportation to Rome, where he was going to be put on trial for crimes against the state. The Jewish authorities had wanted him taken to Jerusalem to be tried for treason. But Paul, knowing his rights as a Roman citizen, had appealed for his case to be heard in Rome.
So there he is on a boat in the Mediterranean sea, on the way to Rome, when an almighty storm starts to brew. Everyone on board, except Paul, panics. He stays calm, and prophecies that none of them will come to harm. The ship would be driven ashore to an island, which, when it happened, turned out to be the island of Malta.
Paul had the sort of faith that believes in a God who is Lord, even of the storm. He saw the hand of God in the midst of that threatening tragedy. Right in the middle of the hysteria, we read; "Paul took some bread, gave thanks to God before them all, broke it, and began to eat. They took heart, and everyone of them also ate some food" (Acts 27:35-36).
The power of the storm, the wind and the waves, they are reoccurring themes in the New Testament. The very first disciples were fishermen well aquainted with the mysterious and sometimes deadly forces of nature. Jesus is pictured by the gospel authors as one who can hush the wind and calm the waters, even walk upon them.
The act of breaking bread reminds us of other occurrences of sharing bread that brought an unknown peace and sustenance to those present. Think of occasions such as the feedings of the 5000 and the 4000. Think of the experience of the two men on the Emmaus road, where the resurrected Christ became known to them at the end of their journey as He broke bread with them.
For those on the ship with Paul, their journey was far from over. Worse was to come. Through Paul's encouragement they faced it with a renewed confidence and assurance that somehow amongst all this craziness, disaster and madness the hand of God was at work and they need not fear, just trust Him.
A number of years ago there was a film that had the title, "It's a mad, mad world". When you read or listen to the news you can get the impression that whoever came up with the phrase knew exactly what they were talking about. For even the bible pictures a world where chaos rather than creation reigns, where the forces of darkness seem to win the day, not the grandeur of light. A world which is a fallen world. A world of fear and struggle and toil whose lord is a prince of darkness, the Devil, the great deceiver and father of lies. A world of sin and sinners who care nothing about the love of God and are positively hostile towards His gentle claim of love upon their lives. A mad, mad world.
It was that sort of mad, mad, world that Jesus stepped right into the midst of. A dark, stormy world that laughed at Him, mocked Him, spat upon Him and crucifies Him afresh in every generation. That is one of the messages that the bread and wine present to us. Jesus, God's precious beloved son, came amongst us. He touched us. He laughed and cried with us. He healed us. He taught us. He showed us with great love and care that He represented the Living God who had not abandoned the world but worked to restore and renew it.
So, for that, we crucified Him, broke His body, hammered nails through His flesh and hung Him up for all the world to see. His blood poured out as He prayed "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing". And it is quite clear in the storm of the crucifixion, that darkest moment in the pages of the worlds history, people didn't know what they were doing. Still less did they understand how God could be mixed up in it all; that He was about to turn tears into laughter and death into resurrection and disaster into triumph!
The storm continues to rage and roar around us. The mad, mad world continues in it's mad, mad way. BUT if you and I can somehow embrace the message of Christ's victory and allow Him to live His life in our lives through the Holy Spirit's power, then we have nothing to fear. On the contrary, we have every reason to rejoice, for He offers new hope and forgiveness and strength to serve Him.
You may say to me, "But, Adrian, I am dismayed, my heart is laid low, you can't be serious, everything's gone wrong!"
I know it is so hard to do, but in all humility I say to you, "Stop looking at the storm". Stop looking at the storm. Stop looking at the storm. I'm not saying ignore it. I'm not saying that it is going to go away. I'm not pretending that storms don't still cause shipwrecks and tragedy. But when everything around us is out of control we need to hear the still small voice of calm, the voice of God saying;
"I am the Lord of the storm. Be encouraged.
Things are not out of control. I, the Lord your God, I am in control"
Things are not out of control. I, the Lord your God, I am in control"
We must let Him be in charge. Let Jesus be Lord of our circumstances, our worries, our problems; our joys and successes as well. Share them with Him, take the time to pray over these things with Him, talk to Him about them, listen to Him, meditate on what His Word offers us.
It wasn't a luxury cruise that Paul was on as he sailed to Rome. He was potentially under a death sentence. He was a prisoner. The storm wasn't just a passing wind, it was the sort of storm that had hardened sailors fearing for their lives and had atheists on their knees praying to unknown gods. The sort that caused ships to crumble before the merciless pounding of it's waves. It was in that situation;
"Paul took some bread, gave thanks to God before them all, broke it, and began to eat. They took heart, and everyone of them also ate some food"
That phrase there, "They took heart", is one of those Greek words that it is hard to give the exact English equivalent for. It appears in Hebrew form in the Book of Proverbs 15:15 which reads, "Happy people enjoy life". Not evade life or endure life, but enjoy it. It can mean "to raise your spirit up, to be encouraged, to feel better about things, to pluck up courage and be of good cheer."
That's what happened on that boat as Paul broke bread. That's what happened when he was able to bring them from a position where all they could see was the storm of a mad, mad, world, to a position where they were able to sense that beyond the storm was the hand of a God who hadn't abandoned them but would carry them through the wreck they were about to be faced with.
Today, on this Communion Sunday, people will be breaking bread in the midst of many stormy situations, many places where things will get worse before they get better. But as they break bread and share wine they will be encouraged for they will remember there is a God who is greater than the storm.
We are not alone. We are in the company of friends and brothers and sisters who form a chain of prayer and hope that circles and criss-crosses the mad, mad world. We are in the company of angels and the company of saints, a vast crowd of unseen witnesses who testify that there is a safe haven beyond the storm.
Remember Paul and how he broke bread in the midst of a storm. Remember how that simple action brought those who participated in it to the presence of God and lifted them to His presence. Now it's your turn.
Break Bread.
Drink wine.
Take courage.
Take heart.
For the love of Jesus Christ
Is greater than the storm.
Drink wine.
Take courage.
Take heart.
For the love of Jesus Christ
Is greater than the storm.
Adrian Pratt
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
TRINITY SUNDAY
"LIVING THE TRINITY”
Reading: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, Psalm 8, Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, on May 30th 2010
Today in the church calendar is Trinity Sunday. And we know what the Trinity is… right? It’s that doctrine that tells us that God is One yet at the same time is three… or is it that God is three and at the same time One. It’s that thing about God being Father, Son and Holy Spirit and how that’s not three separate things… but all the same thing … but actually different things… but all at the same time.
We are all crystal clear about that aren’t we? It’s something our minds can deal with, right? Now why is it, I’m standing here and some of you are shaking your heads and looking a little confused? It’s Trinity Sunday! We are here to proclaim that we believe in God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit… One God.
The Trinity. Did you know that the word “Trinity” never once appears in Scripture? Not once, in anything that Jesus says or that Paul or any other of the biblical writers teach us are we told to believe in something called the Trinity.
Now before any of you are about to report me to the ‘Presbyterian Heresy Committee’ I can tell you that the bible does speak about God as our Father, about Jesus as being uniquely the Son of God and the Holy Spirit being both the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God. The Bible also uses other images of God, such as Creator, or as one who has a motherly concern for us, or as our Sustainer, but I’m focusing on the traditional orthodox view that the church has lifted high over the centuries, God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
I can remind you of what we read this morning, some of the things that Jesus said. In verse 15 He says, “Everything that the Father has is mine”. In verse 14 he says of the Holy Spirit “He will take from what is mine and declare it to you”. Back in Chapter 14 Jesus has told the disciples; “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” In John 17:21 Jesus prays for His disciples “That they may all be one, as You, Father, are in me and I in You, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that You sent me.”
Whilst the word ‘Trinity’ isn’t used, throughout the New Testament the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is pictured as being a unity. Each person of that unity has distinct attributes and functions, but they are never separate from the other persons. That’s the idea the word ‘Trinity’ attempts to communicate to us. It’s a shorthand word to explain that the nature of God’s revelation has come to us in three distinct yet united ways and seeks to speak of a great mystery; God is a Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
It is a great mystery. Things that are a mystery tend to be difficult to understand. My favorite way of trying to get my head around the idea of God as Trinity is to think about the sun. (That’s sun… S.U.N.).
We know that the sun, up there in the sky, is essential to life. In fact our solar system revolves around the sun. It is the center of our little bit of the universe. We also know when we look up to the sky that there is only one sun. Yet we experience that sun in three distinct ways.
We know that the sun is a vast ball of molten rock, gases and heat that is out there, way beyond us and impossible for us to penetrate. If we sent a spaceship it would burn up before it even got near. Nobodies ever actually been to the sun but without the sun nothing else could be.
But how does the sun get to us? Well, you’ve heard about light speed. The light of the sun travels to us at the speed of light. Sunshine illuminates our lives. In a literal sense the suns rays come down from the heavens to light our way here on earth.
How do those rays affect us when they reach us? As they light our way, they also give us warmth. That warmth spreads throughout our whole being. When people say they enjoy sunbathing they don’t mean that they have flown for countless centuries through the solar system and dived headlong into a molten pool of rock, they mean that the light of the suns rays is warming them through.
Although we understand the sun in three distinct ways; as the physical mass around which we revolve, as rays which bring light to the earth and as heat that warms the earth; the body, the rays and the heat are not separate from each other but all part of one sun.
So how does that help us understand God as a Triune God?
Sometimes the Old Testament pictures God as a consuming fire, way beyond us. We cannot travel to God in a spaceship nor completely immerse ourselves in all that God is. God is out there whilst we are down here. We know we couldn’t exist without God, but neither can we fully contain God or enclose God.
God has chosen to reveal Himself to us through sending a bright ray of light to us, Jesus Christ, “Who came from the Father and returned to the Father”. The way Jesus lived and the things He did reveal to us the nature of God’s love. ‘God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son so that whomsoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life’.
We experience the love of God in Christ through the warmth of the Holy Spirit acting in and around our lives. The Holy Spirit and the work of Jesus Christ, like heat and light, are closely related. Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish them. In fact we may even just choose, as at times do the biblical writers to say that ‘God is at work in us’.
The physical sun, the suns rays, the warmth of the sun. Three things yet one thing. God our Father, Jesus our Savior and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Three things yet one thing! Such is the way the Scriptures speak to us of the God we are called to trust our lives too. But… that being said, how do we live the Trinity? After all Christian doctrine isn’t just meant to tickle our imaginations, but help us live as faithful disciples. How can the idea of the Trinity help us do that?
With it being Trinity Sunday, let me suggest three ways.
Firstly, understanding God as beyond us can help us accept that to be a disciple we don’t have to know everything or do everything for ourselves. For myself the idea of God as my Father communicates to me both the distance of God from myself and the nurturing love that seeks to mould the way I live. The idea of Father reminds me that I am a child who has a lot to learn. And whilst, as Jesus bids me, I can sometimes use the familiar words of childish babble, ‘ABBA’, my ‘Father’, I also need to respect that the Fathers ways are higher than my ways, my father’s thoughts higher than my thoughts.
If you are fortunate enough (and I know there are many in our world who are not) to have had a loving and stable two parent family, then you can identify with the experience of a small child who look upon their father in complete awe. That childlike heart that looks up and thinks; “Dad, if I can grow up to be half the person you are, then I’ll be some body”.
Even if such a father figure is absent from our lives, I believe God opens the doorway to other ‘Father-like’ figures around our lives, people, female or male, parent or mentor, teacher or friend, to whom we look up and think, “I want to be like them”. I know that when Jesus speaks of God as Father He doesn’t mean for us to bring God down to the level of any earthly parent, but directs us towards a heavenly Father whose perfect love is beyond anything we can conceive. Understanding God as that perfect Father, nurturing us, yet beyond us, helps me to aspire to greater things.
Secondly, understanding Jesus Christ as One who “Came from the Father and returns to the Father” helps me understand that I constantly need the light of Christ to guide my steps. The Bible speaks to me of that light in a way that nothing else can do. Trinitarian faith is biblical faith. The scriptures tell us how the prophets of old foreshadowed Jesus coming, what He did when He came and how the church sought to carry on His mission.
This idea of coming and going reminds me that being a disciple is a process. We see something, we understand a little more, and it leads us to the next step. We can’t say, “Well that’s it. I’ve arrived. I’ve met Jesus and that’s the end of the story”. Yesterday’s light is not much use for us today. We need the suns light to light up where we’ll be traveling today.
Thirdly, understanding the Holy Spirit as the present influence of Jesus Christ, as the presence of God within me and around me, reminds me that faith is something that I live, not an intellectual exercise that somehow validates my life before God. Presbyterians have been described as “God’s Frozen Chosen”. If that be so, then its time we got out of the freezer and sat by the fire.
The Holy Spirit is the flame that ignites my love and my passion for God and the mission that God is calling us to. I don’t just need to understand that I am to love God with all my heart, mind and soul and to love my neighbor as myself, I need to experience that love in tangible, practical ways. I need to feel the heat!
Now putting all that back into our scripture reading of John, and I hear it in a different way. When I hear Jesus saying, “Everything that the Father has is mine” then because I have a Trinitarian understanding of God, I look at that and think, “Wow!
When I hear Jesus speaking about the Holy Spirit who “Will take from what is mine and declare it to you” then again it’s a “Wow”. Through Jesus Christ we get a glimpse of what the heart of God desires for this world in which we live out our days. We are not left alone and abandoned.
When I read of Jesus praying for His disciples “That they may all be one, as You, Father, are in me and I in You, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that You sent me.” Then again I am caught up in awe, that our lives, we who seek to be the church of Jesus Christ empowered and inflamed by the Holy Spirit, that the ordinary lives of everyday people like you and me are in some mysterious way participating in something so much greater than ourselves.
And yes, all that is a great mystery! It’s all about as easy to explain and decipher as the doctrine of the Trinity itself. The best way to explain it is to live it!
Reading: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, Psalm 8, Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, on May 30th 2010
Today in the church calendar is Trinity Sunday. And we know what the Trinity is… right? It’s that doctrine that tells us that God is One yet at the same time is three… or is it that God is three and at the same time One. It’s that thing about God being Father, Son and Holy Spirit and how that’s not three separate things… but all the same thing … but actually different things… but all at the same time.
We are all crystal clear about that aren’t we? It’s something our minds can deal with, right? Now why is it, I’m standing here and some of you are shaking your heads and looking a little confused? It’s Trinity Sunday! We are here to proclaim that we believe in God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit… One God.
The Trinity. Did you know that the word “Trinity” never once appears in Scripture? Not once, in anything that Jesus says or that Paul or any other of the biblical writers teach us are we told to believe in something called the Trinity.
Now before any of you are about to report me to the ‘Presbyterian Heresy Committee’ I can tell you that the bible does speak about God as our Father, about Jesus as being uniquely the Son of God and the Holy Spirit being both the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God. The Bible also uses other images of God, such as Creator, or as one who has a motherly concern for us, or as our Sustainer, but I’m focusing on the traditional orthodox view that the church has lifted high over the centuries, God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
I can remind you of what we read this morning, some of the things that Jesus said. In verse 15 He says, “Everything that the Father has is mine”. In verse 14 he says of the Holy Spirit “He will take from what is mine and declare it to you”. Back in Chapter 14 Jesus has told the disciples; “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” In John 17:21 Jesus prays for His disciples “That they may all be one, as You, Father, are in me and I in You, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that You sent me.”
Whilst the word ‘Trinity’ isn’t used, throughout the New Testament the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is pictured as being a unity. Each person of that unity has distinct attributes and functions, but they are never separate from the other persons. That’s the idea the word ‘Trinity’ attempts to communicate to us. It’s a shorthand word to explain that the nature of God’s revelation has come to us in three distinct yet united ways and seeks to speak of a great mystery; God is a Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
It is a great mystery. Things that are a mystery tend to be difficult to understand. My favorite way of trying to get my head around the idea of God as Trinity is to think about the sun. (That’s sun… S.U.N.).
We know that the sun, up there in the sky, is essential to life. In fact our solar system revolves around the sun. It is the center of our little bit of the universe. We also know when we look up to the sky that there is only one sun. Yet we experience that sun in three distinct ways.
We know that the sun is a vast ball of molten rock, gases and heat that is out there, way beyond us and impossible for us to penetrate. If we sent a spaceship it would burn up before it even got near. Nobodies ever actually been to the sun but without the sun nothing else could be.
But how does the sun get to us? Well, you’ve heard about light speed. The light of the sun travels to us at the speed of light. Sunshine illuminates our lives. In a literal sense the suns rays come down from the heavens to light our way here on earth.
How do those rays affect us when they reach us? As they light our way, they also give us warmth. That warmth spreads throughout our whole being. When people say they enjoy sunbathing they don’t mean that they have flown for countless centuries through the solar system and dived headlong into a molten pool of rock, they mean that the light of the suns rays is warming them through.
Although we understand the sun in three distinct ways; as the physical mass around which we revolve, as rays which bring light to the earth and as heat that warms the earth; the body, the rays and the heat are not separate from each other but all part of one sun.
So how does that help us understand God as a Triune God?
Sometimes the Old Testament pictures God as a consuming fire, way beyond us. We cannot travel to God in a spaceship nor completely immerse ourselves in all that God is. God is out there whilst we are down here. We know we couldn’t exist without God, but neither can we fully contain God or enclose God.
God has chosen to reveal Himself to us through sending a bright ray of light to us, Jesus Christ, “Who came from the Father and returned to the Father”. The way Jesus lived and the things He did reveal to us the nature of God’s love. ‘God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son so that whomsoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life’.
We experience the love of God in Christ through the warmth of the Holy Spirit acting in and around our lives. The Holy Spirit and the work of Jesus Christ, like heat and light, are closely related. Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish them. In fact we may even just choose, as at times do the biblical writers to say that ‘God is at work in us’.
The physical sun, the suns rays, the warmth of the sun. Three things yet one thing. God our Father, Jesus our Savior and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Three things yet one thing! Such is the way the Scriptures speak to us of the God we are called to trust our lives too. But… that being said, how do we live the Trinity? After all Christian doctrine isn’t just meant to tickle our imaginations, but help us live as faithful disciples. How can the idea of the Trinity help us do that?
With it being Trinity Sunday, let me suggest three ways.
Firstly, understanding God as beyond us can help us accept that to be a disciple we don’t have to know everything or do everything for ourselves. For myself the idea of God as my Father communicates to me both the distance of God from myself and the nurturing love that seeks to mould the way I live. The idea of Father reminds me that I am a child who has a lot to learn. And whilst, as Jesus bids me, I can sometimes use the familiar words of childish babble, ‘ABBA’, my ‘Father’, I also need to respect that the Fathers ways are higher than my ways, my father’s thoughts higher than my thoughts.
If you are fortunate enough (and I know there are many in our world who are not) to have had a loving and stable two parent family, then you can identify with the experience of a small child who look upon their father in complete awe. That childlike heart that looks up and thinks; “Dad, if I can grow up to be half the person you are, then I’ll be some body”.
Even if such a father figure is absent from our lives, I believe God opens the doorway to other ‘Father-like’ figures around our lives, people, female or male, parent or mentor, teacher or friend, to whom we look up and think, “I want to be like them”. I know that when Jesus speaks of God as Father He doesn’t mean for us to bring God down to the level of any earthly parent, but directs us towards a heavenly Father whose perfect love is beyond anything we can conceive. Understanding God as that perfect Father, nurturing us, yet beyond us, helps me to aspire to greater things.
Secondly, understanding Jesus Christ as One who “Came from the Father and returns to the Father” helps me understand that I constantly need the light of Christ to guide my steps. The Bible speaks to me of that light in a way that nothing else can do. Trinitarian faith is biblical faith. The scriptures tell us how the prophets of old foreshadowed Jesus coming, what He did when He came and how the church sought to carry on His mission.
This idea of coming and going reminds me that being a disciple is a process. We see something, we understand a little more, and it leads us to the next step. We can’t say, “Well that’s it. I’ve arrived. I’ve met Jesus and that’s the end of the story”. Yesterday’s light is not much use for us today. We need the suns light to light up where we’ll be traveling today.
Thirdly, understanding the Holy Spirit as the present influence of Jesus Christ, as the presence of God within me and around me, reminds me that faith is something that I live, not an intellectual exercise that somehow validates my life before God. Presbyterians have been described as “God’s Frozen Chosen”. If that be so, then its time we got out of the freezer and sat by the fire.
The Holy Spirit is the flame that ignites my love and my passion for God and the mission that God is calling us to. I don’t just need to understand that I am to love God with all my heart, mind and soul and to love my neighbor as myself, I need to experience that love in tangible, practical ways. I need to feel the heat!
Now putting all that back into our scripture reading of John, and I hear it in a different way. When I hear Jesus saying, “Everything that the Father has is mine” then because I have a Trinitarian understanding of God, I look at that and think, “Wow!
When I hear Jesus speaking about the Holy Spirit who “Will take from what is mine and declare it to you” then again it’s a “Wow”. Through Jesus Christ we get a glimpse of what the heart of God desires for this world in which we live out our days. We are not left alone and abandoned.
When I read of Jesus praying for His disciples “That they may all be one, as You, Father, are in me and I in You, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that You sent me.” Then again I am caught up in awe, that our lives, we who seek to be the church of Jesus Christ empowered and inflamed by the Holy Spirit, that the ordinary lives of everyday people like you and me are in some mysterious way participating in something so much greater than ourselves.
And yes, all that is a great mystery! It’s all about as easy to explain and decipher as the doctrine of the Trinity itself. The best way to explain it is to live it!
- To live in a way that brings glory to a Holy God, ‘Our Father’, Our Creator and the Righteous Judge of every human heart.
- To live in a way that is molded by the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, redeemed through His death upon the Cross and bathed in hope by the resurrection light that shines out of an empty tomb.
- To live in a way that is guided, comforted, enlivened, renewed and re-energized by the Holy Spirit, within us, around us, binding us together, communicating the love of God in Christ through our lives.
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