CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY
Readings: Jeremiah 23:1-6, Colossians 1:11-20, Luke 23:33-43
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on November 24th 2013
A printable PDF file can be found here
Jesus on the Cross. A sign placed over His head: “The King of the Jews”. In Luke 23:39 we read; “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at Him: "Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" A criminal facing death alongside Him showing nothing but contempt. He sees nothing in Jesus. His claims to be the Messiah are laughable. Save the people? He can't even save Himself! If He can't even save Himself, what kind of Savior can He be for anybody else?
In complete contrast, Paul, a one-time disbeliever and mocker himself, writes to the Church of Colossae, that Jesus is the One:- “In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:14-17)
To one Jesus is a tragic failure. To the other He is the cosmic savior. To one He doesn't mean a darn thing. To the other He is every-thing. To one He is an object of derision. To the other He's the Son of God who demands decision.
The criminals complaint is simple. If Jesus was God's chosen one, then how come He had chosen to do nothing about the suffering, evil and hatred that inhabited all of creation. Why had He allowed it to overwhelm Him? Some King!
Such questions have surely crossed our minds. Where is God when suffering comes? Why, if God is God, does God allow disasters and tragedy? Why, if Jesus is the healer, do we continue to live in a world where cancers take our loved ones? Why if Jesus is the peace maker do guns and bombs talk louder than words? Why, if Jesus is the just King of all creation do the rich get away with murder and the hungry die for lack of sustenance?
Indeed there are those who today ascribe significance to writings such as Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion' and the late Christopher Hitchen's 'God is not Great', who would suggest that not only are we Sunday by Sunday perpetuating a dangerous and illogical myth as truth but that we are deluded idiots to believe that Jesus Christ is anything more than the ultimate invisible friend. For them Paul's portrayal of Jesus as the King of all Creation, the One who can bring forgiveness and turn life around, is nothing more than misguided and potentially hazardous, wishful thinking.
Today is Christ the King Sunday. We may, like the thief on the Cross, be wondering, 'What kind of King is this, who does not use His power to get Himself off the cross? What kind of King is this who does not use His connections, influences, and resources to get you and me off the crosses we face? What kind of a King is this who allows so much immense suffering on this planet earth?”
Today we are at the very mystery of God, the mystery of the universe, at the very heart of the mystery of love. God chose to experience the place of the greatest pain, the cross. At the cross, we glimpse the mystery of God. At the Cross God chose not to avoid the suffering of this world. It has been said, “Where suffering is, love is. And where love is, God is.”
We are not God. We try to avoid suffering. When we are assaulted by forces beyond our control we complain, “Why me, God? ” We get angry at God; we become depressed, we become hurt, we no longer believe in God or that God intervenes in our lives.
One of the quirks of being human is that the whole world can be suffering, and we never ask the question, “Why?” but when something goes wrong with me, or with my family, or with my friends, or with my loved ones; when something goes wrong with my life, I then ask the question deeply and personally, “Why God? Why me? Why us? Why my loved one?”
The nature of God is not to avoid suffering. The nature of love is not to avoid pain or the places of pain. That’s the way love is. That’s the way Jesus has revealed God to us, He did not avoid pain, nor avoid the places of pain.
Loving people do not use their resources and connections to avoid the pain of their loved ones. The loving thing to do is to enter into the pain of those we love in order to help them bear it. That’s the way God is. That is the nature of love; to go and be with people in the midst of their pain and suffering. Such is at the love revealed to us through the Cross, the cross that had nailed to it the designation 'The King of the Jews'.
By becoming King, Jesus challenged the very notion of Kingship. He overturns our whole notion of power. His power is not dominating or controlling. The power He expresses is the power of redemption, the power to enter into another persons situation so totally and completely that their situation becomes a place, not of defeat, but of possibility. Paul states it clearly in Colossians. Jesus is the One 'In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.'
I have been in ministry long enough to have witnessed the power of God at work in desperate situations. I know that prayer can change things and that trust in God can turn peoples lives around. When people are desperate for direction, when people are in the midst of pain or turmoil, even that mysterious moment when people are transitioning from this life to the next... in these situations I have witnessed the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ entering in and bringing hope when... logically... there should be none.
To the mocker, to the unbeliever, to those who suggest that spiritual realities are false simply because they cannot be recreated in a laboratory or proved by statistical analysis, I have to wonder if they truly have ever experienced the deep mystery of love. And I don't mean the 'wishy-washy' emotional experience that the Western world defines as romantic love. I mean the depth of love that is found at the Cross.
There is an adaption of Psalm 23 that is found in our hymnbooks - Hymn 171 . I like it so much that Yvonne and I had these words as a hymn in our wedding service. (Though to the tune 174 – 'Dominus Regit Me', rather than 'St Columba' to which it is set in the Blue Hymnal – a much better match in my opinion – but I digress!)
The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His
And He is mine forever.
When we allow the 'King of Love', the Shepherd-King, the Servant-King, to take charge of our situation, when we allow Him to enter in, when we give up on thinking we can be in charge and allow Him to take charge, everything changes.
There is another criminal in our reading from Luke. Ch 23:40-43 “The other criminal rebuked him (that is, rebuked the one who mocked Jesus...) "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence?We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. " Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
This second criminal, warped, compromised, sinful as his life may have been (and we have no way of knowing what crime he had committed) at least recognizes that there is an integrity to the life of Jesus that he had not seen in others. He recognizes in Jesus a deep connection to God and the Kingdom of God. He somehow understands that what was happening then and there, at the moment, would not define how events would eventually turn out. He says to Jesus 'Remember me when You come into Your Kingdom'. In Jesus he sees hope beyond what was logical!
This mustard seed of faith the man has discovered in his final moments of life on this earth is enough for Jesus to promise him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." The word 'paradise' is only used three times in the New Testament, and in each case is associated with a state of being. We may be more familiar with the imagery of paradise from 17th Century poet John Milton's epic work 'Paradise Lost', in which the fall of humankind, and the loss of the innocence of the paradise of Eden, positions humanity in a state of experiencing guilt and shame.
What Jesus is promising the man is that through faith in Him, his state of being can be transformed – he will move from paradise lost to paradise gained. In our own lives, faith can also be a transforming experience. Indeed the faith we have encourages us and empowers us to seek transformation in our wider community.
On Christ the King Sunday, we are invited to remember that the 'Kingdom of God', to which Jesus constantly pointed, is as fully available now and always as it was 2,000 years ago. The question that remains is whether we will choose to live within it's boundaries, something we can only do through trust and faith and by nurturing our lives through the regular disciplines of worship and study, service and prayer.
Our readings today lay before us choices. We are offered a picture of two criminals. One cries out “Some King! Can't even save himself”. The other only asks to be remembered. We can choose to stand with the mockers, the disbelievers and the scoffers or we can put our trust in Jesus, that He was who He claimed to be and is still able to bring about transformation.
The questions will always remain with us. The 'why?' of suffering and the 'why me?' are not going to go away. But if we recognize that it is the nature of love to enter into suffering, and if we can sense that such is exactly what Jesus has done at the Cross, then maybe we'll even be moved to consider, as Paul does in Colossians, that the dimensions of the love of Jesus are greater than we could ever conceive.
We also have the benefit of the rest of the New Testament witness. We know the story didn't end with three crosses. Our faith also talks of the empty tomb and the resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit. We proclaim Jesus to be King, over all the forces of life that cheapen, destroy and disfigure, even King over death itself.
In Colossians 9:17 Paul writes that 'In Him all things hold together.' My belief is that if we put our mustard seed of faith and belief in Christ as King, then such becomes a reality for our lives. Beyond logic, beyond understanding, our experience becomes that through faith in the rule of Jesus over our lives 'All things hold together'. And to God's name be glory. Amen.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Monday, November 18, 2013
Patience!
Readings: Issiah 65:17-25, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13, Luke 21:5-19, Romans 8:18-27
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on November 17th 2013
A printable PDF file can be found here
I was looking through a cataloger that was advertising T-Shirts with Christian messages upon them. One of them caught my eye. It said simply, “Be Patient. God hasn’t finished with me yet”. Romans 8:25 in the Good News Version of the Bible reads, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”.
The context of the verse is a section in Romans that deals with freedom. Whilst the gospel promises to set those who embrace its message free, that freedom does not come in an instant. Deliverance can be a lifetime process that involves many struggles along the way. Paul urges us to persevere in the knowledge that God’s Holy Spirit is with us and working in our best interests.
Patience is therefore something essential to Christian life. We need patience with ourselves, with the Church and with God. This text relates patience to faith. It is not putting up with situations that never change, but believing that with God all things are possible, even when they take time!
Allow me then to ask you some rhetorical questions regarding patience. Firstly let me ask you;
Are you patient with yourself?
The hardest battle on our hands for many of us is the battle with ourselves. Much of our lack of patience with others is a projection of our own feelings about ourselves. We tend to give ourselves a lift by dragging someone else down. Attempting to be Christian people can make this worse! For part of turning to Christ is being ruthlessly honest about ourselves. And what that can reveal is the slowness of our growth in character.
We find that the same old problems and sins continue to haunt us. We find that attitudes we thought were dead and buried start to show their ugly head again. We discover things about ourselves that we hadn’t realized were there.
All this is part of Christian growth. That’s why the Christian life demands patience. Patience with ourselves. There is no instant-Christianity. We can go to the store and get instant everything from potatoes to thousand dollar loans, but there is nowhere that sells “instant disciple” programs.
You can buy books that say, “Learn to drive in 3 Weeks”, but I guarantee that if all a person does is the read the book and never gets behind the wheel then you are not going to be wanting to go any rides with them.
There are no short cuts to being a disciple. Yet, with a persistent and patient faith, there are also no limits to the heights of character that we could reach. There are no limits on the victories we could achieve if we could only learn to wait patiently and walk humbly before our God.
Patience is a strong and active virtue. It means perseverance when the times get rough, plodding on when we feel the situation is hopeless, pressing forward when others around us are throwing in the towel. It requires fixing our eyes on what is not yet seen, walking by faith that God knows best.
Are you patient with yourself? If not then remember that God hasn’t finished with you yet. A second question.
Are you patient with the Church?
I was going to ask, “Are you patient with others?” in a general way, but I think a more pertinent question in our day, and seeming as the church is the body of Christ, a place where we have a particular calling from God to get along with each other, it seems more focused to ask “Are you patient with the Church?”
It is fashionable today to be impatient with anything institutional. The church is no exception. Impatience with the church is as old as the church itself. Radicals and Reformers have been in evidence in every age. And rightly so.
But unless protest is subjected to the discipline of patient love then it is on shaky foundations. It is easy to pick fault with the church. So easy. But picking fault is neither radical nor reforming. What is difficult is rolling up your sleeves, throwing yourself wholeheartedly into service of others and working hard to put things right. Such is the demand of love that Christ lays upon us. Love never stands aside and criticizes.
We must be patient with the churches hypocrisies. I’m not saying we must approve of them, I’m saying we must be patient with them. No church is what it should be, by a long shot. There is a yawning gulf between the actual and the ideal. There is no church in all creation that perfectly embodies the life and teaching of Jesus Christ in all its purity and splendor.
And even if such a church existed I don’t think I know anybody who would qualify for membership. Fact is that the church is hewn from the rough material of human nature; nature that is being transformed by the touch of God’s Spirit. Jesus welcomes sinful, struggling, weak, slow, ungracious people! As He put it, “It’s not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick”.
We also need to be patient with the churches traditions. I’m not just speaking about the things that denominations enshrine into their way of doing things, but also the local churches ‘ways of doing things’. That can be hard because often we have come into those traditions as an outsider and carry our own thoughts and ideas about how things should be done. However we should recognize that the positive side of traditions, particularly those of the different denominations, are often things that were formed in the heat of dispute and conflict, which provided a way through difficult times that has been passed on from generation to generation. Such accumulated wisdom should not be dismissed.
Yet, a new and changing day demands new methods and new ways of doing things. The change from one to the other can be a difficult and painful process, and is certainly one that demands patience.
That also means being patient with the churches decisions. They are not always our personal decisions. I'm pretty sure they are not always God’s decisions! It is far more difficult for a community to decide what is right in any given situation than for an individual. And the church community, made up as it is of fallible and sinful humanity, has made and will make many more mistakes.
As a pastor I am well aware that I’m as prone to failure as much as any other member of this congregation. Thankfully the church is a whole lot more than a pastor or a session or any group within the church. It’s people. People who are being redeemed by the love of Jesus Christ, but have a way to go before truly being the folk God wants them to be. So be patient with the Church. God hasn’t finished with her yet! Let me ask you, thirdly;
Are you patient with God?
Many of us wrestle with God, baffled by God’s reticence, impatient with God’s slowness. We are in a hurry and God does not seem to share our concern. We bombard heaven with our prayers and complain about God’s absence when instant answers are not what we ordered we ask,. “Lord, don’t You know what life is like down here?”
We wrestle with God. But we had better hope to lose. The very greatness of God is in God’s long-suffering. The majesty of God is God’s mercy. The power of God is in God’s patience. Where would any of us be were it not for the divine patience that works lovingly and gracefully for our salvation?
Christian patience is rooted in the conviction that God’s time is always the best time, the right time and the only time. You cannot force the hand of a God who chooses to make His approach to us through a Cross on a hillside, who could break us with Divine power, yet rather stoops to win us over by love.
Here is the heart of the matter. Christ died for us whilst we were yet sinners and prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”. There is the divine patience. Oh, how we need that patient love to combat our impatient striving! How we need to grasp a vision of what God can do for our lives and the Church and for this world!
Be patient! God hasn’t finished with us yet! When they nailed the Son of God to that cruel cross, the words came from His lips, “It is finished”. That was not a cry of defeat, but of victory. For in that moment, God provided all that we need to be the people God wants us to be.
Living a faithful and patient Christian life depends not on which Church we go to, or who our pastor is, or where we live. It’s so much more. It’s about the reality of the empty tomb. ‘Christ is Risen”. Through His Holy Spirit He is transforming the most God forsaken lives, the only requirement being preparedness to go forward with Him, listening for His voice and patiently traveling on.
I was preaching one time when I noticed a spider crawling along the pulpit and to the end of the lectern. What was it going to do? Jump off, spin a web, turn back, go in a different direction? That little spider had no idea that it was in a pulpit of a Presbyterian Church. What did it know of elections and wars and debates on ethics and trying to balance the checkbook? How did it perceive its place in time and space?
I sometimes feel that our mental grasp of the love of God is as fractional as a spider’s grasp of the daily world in which we live and move and have our being. If the majesty and love of God is infinite, is it any wonder that from time to time we wonder what on earth is going on?
What is amazing is that Jesus, with all His divine authority, could say, ‘You do not now know, but one day you will understand all things” Paul speaks of how we presently see only ‘thru a glass darkly’, but one day all will be clear.
In the between time, let us exercise patience. Be patient with our self, with our church, with our God. Patience is nurtured through faith. Through having an inner conviction, that no matter what, God will work things out in the end, in God’s time and in God’s way. Patience comes through focusing, not on others, not on ourselves, but on God, on the way God has worked in this world through Jesus Christ and can work in us and through us in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 8:25, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”. Be patient. God hasn’t finished with us yet. All around us may change. People come and go all around our lives. Everything changes. That’s life. Yet with our focus on the love of God, and the possibilities that the ways of God’s love open up to us, we can set our sights high and rejoice that a life lived in the knowledge and love of God is a life well lived.
May God, through the action of the Holy Spirit, build into our lives a gentle and patient spirit, that reflects the nature of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on November 17th 2013
A printable PDF file can be found here
I was looking through a cataloger that was advertising T-Shirts with Christian messages upon them. One of them caught my eye. It said simply, “Be Patient. God hasn’t finished with me yet”. Romans 8:25 in the Good News Version of the Bible reads, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”.
The context of the verse is a section in Romans that deals with freedom. Whilst the gospel promises to set those who embrace its message free, that freedom does not come in an instant. Deliverance can be a lifetime process that involves many struggles along the way. Paul urges us to persevere in the knowledge that God’s Holy Spirit is with us and working in our best interests.
Patience is therefore something essential to Christian life. We need patience with ourselves, with the Church and with God. This text relates patience to faith. It is not putting up with situations that never change, but believing that with God all things are possible, even when they take time!
Allow me then to ask you some rhetorical questions regarding patience. Firstly let me ask you;
Are you patient with yourself?
The hardest battle on our hands for many of us is the battle with ourselves. Much of our lack of patience with others is a projection of our own feelings about ourselves. We tend to give ourselves a lift by dragging someone else down. Attempting to be Christian people can make this worse! For part of turning to Christ is being ruthlessly honest about ourselves. And what that can reveal is the slowness of our growth in character.
We find that the same old problems and sins continue to haunt us. We find that attitudes we thought were dead and buried start to show their ugly head again. We discover things about ourselves that we hadn’t realized were there.
All this is part of Christian growth. That’s why the Christian life demands patience. Patience with ourselves. There is no instant-Christianity. We can go to the store and get instant everything from potatoes to thousand dollar loans, but there is nowhere that sells “instant disciple” programs.
You can buy books that say, “Learn to drive in 3 Weeks”, but I guarantee that if all a person does is the read the book and never gets behind the wheel then you are not going to be wanting to go any rides with them.
There are no short cuts to being a disciple. Yet, with a persistent and patient faith, there are also no limits to the heights of character that we could reach. There are no limits on the victories we could achieve if we could only learn to wait patiently and walk humbly before our God.
Patience is a strong and active virtue. It means perseverance when the times get rough, plodding on when we feel the situation is hopeless, pressing forward when others around us are throwing in the towel. It requires fixing our eyes on what is not yet seen, walking by faith that God knows best.
Are you patient with yourself? If not then remember that God hasn’t finished with you yet. A second question.
Are you patient with the Church?
I was going to ask, “Are you patient with others?” in a general way, but I think a more pertinent question in our day, and seeming as the church is the body of Christ, a place where we have a particular calling from God to get along with each other, it seems more focused to ask “Are you patient with the Church?”
It is fashionable today to be impatient with anything institutional. The church is no exception. Impatience with the church is as old as the church itself. Radicals and Reformers have been in evidence in every age. And rightly so.
But unless protest is subjected to the discipline of patient love then it is on shaky foundations. It is easy to pick fault with the church. So easy. But picking fault is neither radical nor reforming. What is difficult is rolling up your sleeves, throwing yourself wholeheartedly into service of others and working hard to put things right. Such is the demand of love that Christ lays upon us. Love never stands aside and criticizes.
We must be patient with the churches hypocrisies. I’m not saying we must approve of them, I’m saying we must be patient with them. No church is what it should be, by a long shot. There is a yawning gulf between the actual and the ideal. There is no church in all creation that perfectly embodies the life and teaching of Jesus Christ in all its purity and splendor.
And even if such a church existed I don’t think I know anybody who would qualify for membership. Fact is that the church is hewn from the rough material of human nature; nature that is being transformed by the touch of God’s Spirit. Jesus welcomes sinful, struggling, weak, slow, ungracious people! As He put it, “It’s not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick”.
We also need to be patient with the churches traditions. I’m not just speaking about the things that denominations enshrine into their way of doing things, but also the local churches ‘ways of doing things’. That can be hard because often we have come into those traditions as an outsider and carry our own thoughts and ideas about how things should be done. However we should recognize that the positive side of traditions, particularly those of the different denominations, are often things that were formed in the heat of dispute and conflict, which provided a way through difficult times that has been passed on from generation to generation. Such accumulated wisdom should not be dismissed.
Yet, a new and changing day demands new methods and new ways of doing things. The change from one to the other can be a difficult and painful process, and is certainly one that demands patience.
That also means being patient with the churches decisions. They are not always our personal decisions. I'm pretty sure they are not always God’s decisions! It is far more difficult for a community to decide what is right in any given situation than for an individual. And the church community, made up as it is of fallible and sinful humanity, has made and will make many more mistakes.
As a pastor I am well aware that I’m as prone to failure as much as any other member of this congregation. Thankfully the church is a whole lot more than a pastor or a session or any group within the church. It’s people. People who are being redeemed by the love of Jesus Christ, but have a way to go before truly being the folk God wants them to be. So be patient with the Church. God hasn’t finished with her yet! Let me ask you, thirdly;
Are you patient with God?
Many of us wrestle with God, baffled by God’s reticence, impatient with God’s slowness. We are in a hurry and God does not seem to share our concern. We bombard heaven with our prayers and complain about God’s absence when instant answers are not what we ordered we ask,. “Lord, don’t You know what life is like down here?”
We wrestle with God. But we had better hope to lose. The very greatness of God is in God’s long-suffering. The majesty of God is God’s mercy. The power of God is in God’s patience. Where would any of us be were it not for the divine patience that works lovingly and gracefully for our salvation?
Christian patience is rooted in the conviction that God’s time is always the best time, the right time and the only time. You cannot force the hand of a God who chooses to make His approach to us through a Cross on a hillside, who could break us with Divine power, yet rather stoops to win us over by love.
Here is the heart of the matter. Christ died for us whilst we were yet sinners and prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”. There is the divine patience. Oh, how we need that patient love to combat our impatient striving! How we need to grasp a vision of what God can do for our lives and the Church and for this world!
Be patient! God hasn’t finished with us yet! When they nailed the Son of God to that cruel cross, the words came from His lips, “It is finished”. That was not a cry of defeat, but of victory. For in that moment, God provided all that we need to be the people God wants us to be.
Living a faithful and patient Christian life depends not on which Church we go to, or who our pastor is, or where we live. It’s so much more. It’s about the reality of the empty tomb. ‘Christ is Risen”. Through His Holy Spirit He is transforming the most God forsaken lives, the only requirement being preparedness to go forward with Him, listening for His voice and patiently traveling on.
I was preaching one time when I noticed a spider crawling along the pulpit and to the end of the lectern. What was it going to do? Jump off, spin a web, turn back, go in a different direction? That little spider had no idea that it was in a pulpit of a Presbyterian Church. What did it know of elections and wars and debates on ethics and trying to balance the checkbook? How did it perceive its place in time and space?
I sometimes feel that our mental grasp of the love of God is as fractional as a spider’s grasp of the daily world in which we live and move and have our being. If the majesty and love of God is infinite, is it any wonder that from time to time we wonder what on earth is going on?
What is amazing is that Jesus, with all His divine authority, could say, ‘You do not now know, but one day you will understand all things” Paul speaks of how we presently see only ‘thru a glass darkly’, but one day all will be clear.
In the between time, let us exercise patience. Be patient with our self, with our church, with our God. Patience is nurtured through faith. Through having an inner conviction, that no matter what, God will work things out in the end, in God’s time and in God’s way. Patience comes through focusing, not on others, not on ourselves, but on God, on the way God has worked in this world through Jesus Christ and can work in us and through us in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 8:25, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”. Be patient. God hasn’t finished with us yet. All around us may change. People come and go all around our lives. Everything changes. That’s life. Yet with our focus on the love of God, and the possibilities that the ways of God’s love open up to us, we can set our sights high and rejoice that a life lived in the knowledge and love of God is a life well lived.
May God, through the action of the Holy Spirit, build into our lives a gentle and patient spirit, that reflects the nature of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
Monday, November 4, 2013
An Open Invitation - Communion Service
Readings: Psalm19, Isaiah 55, Philippians 3:4-14, Matthew 11:25-30
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on November 3rd 2013
A printable PDF file can be found here
I remember when my kids were growing up one of them received an invitation to a party. “Oh” said the other, “That’s not fair!. Why can’t I go?” The next day the other one received an invitation to a different party and this time the first was not invited. That seemed to balance things out. Having received exclusive invitations the problem was solved.
Today I am not making an exclusive invitation. Whilst my invitation is personal, it is also an open invitation to come and share in bread and wine and remember the living love of Jesus Christ in such a way that our lives are renewed by the Holy Spirit.
Usually when invites are sent out to any occasion a guest list is made. A communion celebration is no exception. Who is on the guest list today?
1. The Heavy Laden. (Matthew 11:28) "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
2. The Thirsty.( John 7:37-38) "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.”
3. All those who want to be near to God. (Isaiah 55:6) “Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.”
1. "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
Are there things that are weighing you down? Are the worries of the world heavy on your shoulders? Are you going through a tunnel and have yet to see the light at the end of it?
Then hear these precious words of Jesus. “Come to me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest”
This is not an invitation to the self-sufficient. This is an invitation to those who are aware of their need. If we can but see ourselves in the light of God, then we would see that we are all in a situation of need.
Sometimes our need is for forgiveness. We just can’t believe we could be so stupid. We need to know ourselves forgiven so that we can move forward. Sometimes our need is for encouragement. Sometimes our need is for healing or for guidance.
Hebrews 7:25 says of Jesus that ‘He is able to save completely those who come to Him’. I like the way the Message Bible paraphrases these verses from Matthew.
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
This table of communion is a place to bring our burdens to God, to bring all our sorrows, all that weighs heavy upon us. Jesus invites us here. “Come all who are heavy laden, I will give you rest.” Next on our guest list:-
2. "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.”
He wasn’t talking here of drinking water. Nor was He talking of drinking wine. He was talking of drinking in His life giving Holy Spirit. John 7:39 states quite clearly, “Jesus said this about the Spirit.”
Christian life is spiritual life. Christianity is not a code of or morals or ethics. Christianity is not the Ten Commandments. Christianity is not just being nice to people or helping them. Whilst being part of a community of faith is vital for Christian life and growth, Christianity is not just about going to church or singing hymns or saying prayers. All these are good and positive things, but they are not the bottom line.
The bottom line is that Christianity is about having a life-giving relationship with God as our Father, made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in the power of His Holy Spirit. Everything else in Christianity flows for that source.
“Whoever is thirsty should come to me and drink, who ever believes in me, streams of life giving water will pour out from his heart”.
Without God’s Spirit life is dry, religion is empty, stewardship is a burden and worship is self delusion. ‘Let everyone who is thirsty come to me.” With these words Jesus puts into a new framework the words of Isaiah in Chapter 55; 1-2
“ Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.”
Unless our Christianity is a spiritual thing it will offer little strength for living out our faith in the real world. We will remain hungry, unsatisfied, burdened and thirsty. But the richness of God’s grace can feed the hungriest of hearts.
On the communion table are bread and wine. Everyday things. What fills them with meaning are the spiritual realities they represent for us. The body and blood of Jesus Christ.
Here are symbols of love... a love prepared to abandon itself to save us, love offered without expecting reward, love that is not ashamed of rebuke or rejection. Love as fragile as a snowflake yet more powerful than a nuclear explosion.
If you are thirsting for that depth of love then you are thirsting for a deeper experience of the Holy Spirit. You have come to the right place. God’s Spirit empowers and enlivens, encourages us and guides us, lifts us up when we have fallen, strengthens us when we are weary. “Ho.. everyone who thirsts… come to the waters”.
Third on our guest list… Staying with Isaiah 55… verse 6 tells us;
3. “Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near”
There is no magic about communion. It’s not a conjuring trick or short cut to God’s blessing. But I’ll tell you what it is. It is something special. Why? Because Jesus said, 'Remember me' in this way, ‘Remember me’ by breaking bread and drinking wine together in fellowship.
Over the centuries, to our great shame, Christian people have argued and fought over what actually is happening here. At different times the table has been hedged with superstitions and prohibitions.
‘You shouldn’t be here’
‘You have to do this and this and this before you are welcome here’
‘These things aren’t meant for you, you don’t make the grade,”
The tragic thing is that a lot of these arguments have arisen because people recognize this simple feast as something special. In the process they seem to have made something essentially simple unfathomably complex.
Now I speak personally… (and this is my opinion not Presbyterian doctrine)… I believe that we are not meant to understand why communion is special, nor are we meant to understand how it is that so many people over the centuries have testified that when they share in bread and wine with other Christians that God feels especially near.
We are not meant to understand it… we are meant to receive it, because real love, the love we nailed naked and bare to the cross of Calvary, the love that burst forth like an explosion of joy from the empty tomb, real love, is too deep to put into words.
It is something we have to taste, something whose touch we feel in the most secret places of our hearts, something that when it touches us is like a bubbling stream that flows through us… renewing us and opening up within us even greater depths to be filled.
'Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.” This is a special invitation, to special feast, at a special time.
Revelation 3:20 pictures Jesus declaring; “Listen! I am standing at the door knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.”
So this morning I offer an open invitation. Come and feast on the love of God. Allow God to speak to you in whatever way God chooses as we share together in these elements of bread and wine.
This is also the last Sunday in our Stewardship season. Consider in what tangible ways you are able to respond to the inviting love that is offered here, through your time, talents, treasures and influence. How can your life be an invitation for others to taste and see that the Lord is good?
Who is on the guest list?
I invite you to come, just as you are, bringing nothing but your honesty and need, that here, at this table, your life may be nourished by the Holy Spirit at work in our midst. To God’s name be the glory as we remember Jesus in the way He invited.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on November 3rd 2013
A printable PDF file can be found here
I remember when my kids were growing up one of them received an invitation to a party. “Oh” said the other, “That’s not fair!. Why can’t I go?” The next day the other one received an invitation to a different party and this time the first was not invited. That seemed to balance things out. Having received exclusive invitations the problem was solved.
Today I am not making an exclusive invitation. Whilst my invitation is personal, it is also an open invitation to come and share in bread and wine and remember the living love of Jesus Christ in such a way that our lives are renewed by the Holy Spirit.
Usually when invites are sent out to any occasion a guest list is made. A communion celebration is no exception. Who is on the guest list today?
1. The Heavy Laden. (Matthew 11:28) "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
2. The Thirsty.( John 7:37-38) "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.”
3. All those who want to be near to God. (Isaiah 55:6) “Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.”
1. "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
Are there things that are weighing you down? Are the worries of the world heavy on your shoulders? Are you going through a tunnel and have yet to see the light at the end of it?
Then hear these precious words of Jesus. “Come to me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest”
This is not an invitation to the self-sufficient. This is an invitation to those who are aware of their need. If we can but see ourselves in the light of God, then we would see that we are all in a situation of need.
Sometimes our need is for forgiveness. We just can’t believe we could be so stupid. We need to know ourselves forgiven so that we can move forward. Sometimes our need is for encouragement. Sometimes our need is for healing or for guidance.
Hebrews 7:25 says of Jesus that ‘He is able to save completely those who come to Him’. I like the way the Message Bible paraphrases these verses from Matthew.
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
This table of communion is a place to bring our burdens to God, to bring all our sorrows, all that weighs heavy upon us. Jesus invites us here. “Come all who are heavy laden, I will give you rest.” Next on our guest list:-
2. "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.”
He wasn’t talking here of drinking water. Nor was He talking of drinking wine. He was talking of drinking in His life giving Holy Spirit. John 7:39 states quite clearly, “Jesus said this about the Spirit.”
Christian life is spiritual life. Christianity is not a code of or morals or ethics. Christianity is not the Ten Commandments. Christianity is not just being nice to people or helping them. Whilst being part of a community of faith is vital for Christian life and growth, Christianity is not just about going to church or singing hymns or saying prayers. All these are good and positive things, but they are not the bottom line.
The bottom line is that Christianity is about having a life-giving relationship with God as our Father, made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in the power of His Holy Spirit. Everything else in Christianity flows for that source.
“Whoever is thirsty should come to me and drink, who ever believes in me, streams of life giving water will pour out from his heart”.
Without God’s Spirit life is dry, religion is empty, stewardship is a burden and worship is self delusion. ‘Let everyone who is thirsty come to me.” With these words Jesus puts into a new framework the words of Isaiah in Chapter 55; 1-2
“ Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.”
Unless our Christianity is a spiritual thing it will offer little strength for living out our faith in the real world. We will remain hungry, unsatisfied, burdened and thirsty. But the richness of God’s grace can feed the hungriest of hearts.
On the communion table are bread and wine. Everyday things. What fills them with meaning are the spiritual realities they represent for us. The body and blood of Jesus Christ.
Here are symbols of love... a love prepared to abandon itself to save us, love offered without expecting reward, love that is not ashamed of rebuke or rejection. Love as fragile as a snowflake yet more powerful than a nuclear explosion.
If you are thirsting for that depth of love then you are thirsting for a deeper experience of the Holy Spirit. You have come to the right place. God’s Spirit empowers and enlivens, encourages us and guides us, lifts us up when we have fallen, strengthens us when we are weary. “Ho.. everyone who thirsts… come to the waters”.
Third on our guest list… Staying with Isaiah 55… verse 6 tells us;
3. “Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near”
There is no magic about communion. It’s not a conjuring trick or short cut to God’s blessing. But I’ll tell you what it is. It is something special. Why? Because Jesus said, 'Remember me' in this way, ‘Remember me’ by breaking bread and drinking wine together in fellowship.
Over the centuries, to our great shame, Christian people have argued and fought over what actually is happening here. At different times the table has been hedged with superstitions and prohibitions.
‘You shouldn’t be here’
‘You have to do this and this and this before you are welcome here’
‘These things aren’t meant for you, you don’t make the grade,”
The tragic thing is that a lot of these arguments have arisen because people recognize this simple feast as something special. In the process they seem to have made something essentially simple unfathomably complex.
Now I speak personally… (and this is my opinion not Presbyterian doctrine)… I believe that we are not meant to understand why communion is special, nor are we meant to understand how it is that so many people over the centuries have testified that when they share in bread and wine with other Christians that God feels especially near.
We are not meant to understand it… we are meant to receive it, because real love, the love we nailed naked and bare to the cross of Calvary, the love that burst forth like an explosion of joy from the empty tomb, real love, is too deep to put into words.
It is something we have to taste, something whose touch we feel in the most secret places of our hearts, something that when it touches us is like a bubbling stream that flows through us… renewing us and opening up within us even greater depths to be filled.
'Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.” This is a special invitation, to special feast, at a special time.
Revelation 3:20 pictures Jesus declaring; “Listen! I am standing at the door knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.”
So this morning I offer an open invitation. Come and feast on the love of God. Allow God to speak to you in whatever way God chooses as we share together in these elements of bread and wine.
This is also the last Sunday in our Stewardship season. Consider in what tangible ways you are able to respond to the inviting love that is offered here, through your time, talents, treasures and influence. How can your life be an invitation for others to taste and see that the Lord is good?
Who is on the guest list?
- The Heavy Laden - Come and find rest (Matthew 11:28)
- The Thirsty – Come and be filled with the life giving water of the Holy Spirit ( John 7:37-38)
- All those who want to be near God – Open your hearts, because God is nearer than we dare imagine. (Isaiah 55:6)
I invite you to come, just as you are, bringing nothing but your honesty and need, that here, at this table, your life may be nourished by the Holy Spirit at work in our midst. To God’s name be the glory as we remember Jesus in the way He invited.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
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