Reading: Psalm 124, Esther 7:1-22, Romans 11:33-12:8, Mark 9:38-50
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY on September 30th 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
In 1975 a French scholar of oriental and Christian traditions, Yves Raguin, published a book called ‘The Depth of God’. In the introduction he complains that Western Christianity has made God ‘Too obvious’. That theologians and church leaders have thought that by providing people with increasingly simplified definitions of what God is like they would bring God closer.
But the result had been, not to bring God closer, but make God seem smaller. The book suggests that the awesome, mystery, otherness and holiness of God, often spoken of in other religious traditions, is in danger of being lost.
It is about the depth of God that I wish to speak today and take for a text Romans 11:33 “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are His judgments and how unsearchable His ways! (NAB).
To me these words of Paul speak about three things;
The Majesty of God
The Mastery of God’s Knowledge
The Mystery of God’s Ways.
The Depth of God…Majesty, Mastery and Mystery! Let’s look at the first of those.
The Majesty of God “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!”
Twenty First Century humanity is held captive by the belief that everything we need can be provided by our own efforts. We put our faith in the miracles of science and technology and human progress for our salvation. Many believe that one day we are going to work it all out and that when we do we won’t need God to fill in the gaps.
Such a world view elevates the place of humankind to that of being a deity. We are Lords of our own destiny, Kings of our own domains, Master’s of our own Universe. The problem is that we cannot enthrone humanity without dethroning God. The price of inflating ourselves is that we make faith in God seem shallow.
Back when Paul wrote to the Roman Christians he didn’t have that problem. As he thought about the majesty of God, his soul seemed to burst. The words flow out from him, “Oh… the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! Oh…The Depth.. the depth of God!
When I lived in Wales over in Great Britain I used to regularly travel a road that went from the place where I lived in Wales to my hometown of Moreton in England. It was called the A55 and it wasn’t the sort of road that you took your time on. It was the main four lane road that the big trucks took as they were headed to and from Ireland. It was the only road that led along the coast of North Wales. And it was usually extremely busy.
Summer travelers shared tales of lengthy traffic jams that had occurred when the annual road works created ten mile long hold ups. Accidents were regular. If you have ever driven in the British Isles you’ll be aware that some folk, as in some places in the States, interpret speed limits as being minimums rather than maximums.
Once upon a time it was a wee winding road that wove its way through seaside towns, past castles, and churches. But as it had been straightened and widened and a bypass added here and there, it had become much like any other busy highway. You got on it, set your controls for the heart of the sun… and zoom… away you went.
But one time, I can’t recall quite why, I pulled off onto one of the roadside lay-bys, and was astonished to see the panoramic view that I had so often sped by. It was a clear day and spread out before me was the River Dee, the gentle rolling land of the Wirral peninsular where I grew up and a glimpse of Liverpool with it’s two grand cathedrals beyond.
As I looked at the view I was suddenly awestruck at how much of my life had been shaped in that particular geographic area. That’s where I had found faith. That’s where on numerous occasions God had broken through to my life with His love. That’s where I had felt a call to minister. That’s where I had served in the city of Liverpool.
As I stood in that lay-by with the traffic rushing by, for a while I was in another place, I was oblivious to the noise and busyness. All I could think of was how great were the riches of God, that He, the Great Creator King, should send His Son to die upon a cross for a person like me, that He, the Lord of all, should desire somebody like me to share in the work of His Kingdom.
I was completely overwhelmed, almost numb. If an angel had descended into view and said, “Hey, how’s it going” I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised. As one of our hymns declares; ‘The things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of God’s glory and grace.’ Or as Paul says...“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” When we take time out to consider how awesome God is, it can profoundly affect our lives. How little room we allow ourselves for focusing on the majesty of God. Then there is;
The Mastery of God’s Knowledge. “How inscrutable are His judgments”.
Isn’t that a great word? ‘Inscrutable’. When I was a kid my dad used to talk about the ‘inscrutable Chinese’. (But I never could figure out why the Chinese should be more inscrutable than anybody else.)
However, the dictionary tells me it means “Difficult to fathom or understand, impenetrable, mysterious”. This verse tells us ‘How impossible to fathom, how mysterious, how inscrutable are the judgments of God, How deep are His wisdom and knowledge.”
To me God’s inscrutableness is like this. Nobody knows us as well as God does. God knows us better than we know ourselves. God knows exactly what is best for our life. God knows everything we are going through. God knows our temptations, our failures, our disappointments, our trials, our victories, our joys, our laughter, our thankfulness.
Sometimes when people are going through a hard time, you’ll hear them say, “God knows what I’m going to do now!” What they are actually saying is that they haven’t got a clue what they are going to do now because something bad has happened. That’s desperately sad. That the phrase ‘God knows’ has become equated with the fear that nobody can help! Say the phrase ‘God knows’ without faith in your heart and it is a cry of futility.
But proclaim 'God knows!’ with faith in your heart and it becomes a song of hope! God alone can truly judge the pros and cons of any situation. What looks to us to be a place of desperation, can be, through the eyes of faith, a great opportunity to encounter the grace of God.
In His life Christ demonstrated that 'God knows'. He was the healer. His touch bought peace. He was the One who forgave, even those who struggled to forgive themselves. He was the One who said to people, ‘Look for you this is right and for you this is wrong”.
He could do that because He knew peoples hearts and would sometimes speak a rebuke for their shallowness, at other times a great word of encouragement. The gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all point us to the God who knows.
The Acts of the Apostles, point us to the God who knows how to build His Church. The letters of Paul and Peter and John and all the others point us to how faith works out in given situations. The book of Revelation goes further and points us to the God who knows how it all turns out in the end!
The New Testament witness to an egocentric world which seeks to dethrone God is that we are fools to think that our understanding of God is anything compared to the depth of God’s knowledge of us. “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are His judgments”… The Majesty of God, the Mastery of God’s inscrutable knowledge… and finally mystery…
The Mystery of God’s Ways “How unsearchable” proclaims Paul “are His ways!”
Sometimes theologians give Paul a hard time. Accuse him of being dogmatic or judgmental. But that’s not the Paul who comes across in this verse. In the book of Romans Paul writes on the great themes of the law of God and of the grace revealed to us in Jesus Christ.
Then he reaches the eleventh chapter and it’s as though he has to pause and take a breath, as though he is totally aware of the enormity of his task, as though he knows that his words are an imperfect vehicle to truly convey the depth of God’s love towards us.
I saw a picture in a National Geographic magazine of people walking around the rim of a large still active volcano. They looked small, like little ants on the edge, gazing down into this pool of molten rock and heat, shielding their eyes as they looked over. They had climbed so far, but now all they could do was gaze in wonder at an environment they could never penetrate.
So Paul, having used all his impressive skills to penetrate the mystery of God and explain the glorious gospel of salvation, in chapter eleven pauses at the rim; “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are His judgments and how unsearchable His ways “
The depth of God! If this be the God we are encountering during worship, if this be the God who claims the love of our lives, then how foolish we are to think that we can solve our problems without reference to God's presence. How foolish we are when we refuse to abandon ourselves to God's love. Such an awesome God can handle whatever we throw at Him. Such an awesome God is one we can trust to hold us.
God has revealed God’s love through Jesus Christ. God sends love to be received in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. I invite us today to trust in the depth of God’s love to meet the deepest needs of our lives. Amen!
Adrian Pratt
Monday, October 1, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012
KNOWING GOD
Reading: Hosea 6:1-11, Psalm 133, I John 1:1-2:2, Mark 9:30-37
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY on September 23rd 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
I was reading the passage from Hosea. When I came to verse 6 “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices, I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me” I was reminded of a book by J.I. Packer titled ‘Knowing God' which had a great influence on my early Christian years.
Packer begins his book by asking us to imagine a house with a large balcony on its front, situated near a road. Along the road walk one group of people, whilst on the balcony sit another watching them go by. The two groups are described as ‘Balconeers’ and ‘Travelers’.
The Balconeers hear what the Travelers are saying and can even shout from the balcony and ask them questions. They sit together on the balcony and pass comments upon the way the travelers behave. They observe them from a distance. They remain on the balcony as onlookers and their problems are theoretical rather than practical.
The Travelers have to ask ‘Which way should we go?” and “How do we get there?” They face problems which call not just for understanding but for decision and action. The Balconeers and the Travelers may think over the same area, but their problems are different.
Along the road comes some person with evil on their mind. The Balconeers look on and wonder how such a person could be allowed on the road and how they should react. The Travelers have to encounter the evil face to face, master it and overcome it. Packer suggests that true Christian faith is the faith of the ‘Travelers’. As an example he considers the doctrine of the Trinity – the statement that we believe in ‘One God, Three persons.’
The Balconeer ponders; “Hmmm. How can one conceivably be three, and exactly what sorts of unity can three have and what precisely is the definition of personhood here being expressed?” The Traveler is asking, “Well if that’s the way God has revealed Godself, then how can I best live my life in a way that honors God?”
For one the problem is theoretical, for the other it is practical. One says “How can God be like that?’ the other asks, “If that is what God is like, how should I live?” As Christians we are called to be a pilgrim people, called to be Travelers not Balconeers. We need to not only know about God, but actually know God.
Which brings us again to Hosea’s words; “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices, I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me”.
It is possible to know a lot about a person without ever knowing them. Pick a name out of the telephone directory and you can find their address. If you know somebody who lives near them, they may know where they work or who their family is or what they do with their time.
You could go on the Internet and put their name into a search engine and maybe find out more than you need to know ‘about’ them. But to get to ‘know them’ you would have to encounter them, get to be friends, spend time with them and talk with them and so discover what they were really like.
It is no different with our relationship to God. It is a relationship which has to grow, it takes communication. It takes time to familiarize ourselves with the Word of God in Scripture. It takes commitment to communication through prayer and worship and service. There are no shortcuts. There is no quick fix. There exists no ‘Dummies Guide to God’, nor is ‘Everything You needed to know about God but were afraid to Ask’ available at Amazon.Com. Hosea declares:-
“I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices, I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me”
Two things I’d like to draw out of Hosea’s words at the start of chapter 6.
1. The danger of presumption
2. The need to put our relationship with God, before all other things.
The danger of presumption
Hosea Chapter 6 begins with the people coming before God with what seems like a sincere confession of faith. The words are all there… “Let us return to the LORD... He will heal us… He will raise us up on the third day…He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth."
Though it sounds good, the words are the confession of people who knew about God, but didn’t actually know God. Their prayer is uttered in a spirit of complete presumption. “Well, we’ve let God down before, but God has always come through for us, so let’s just go through the motions again, and God will come around to seeing things our way.”
These people had a form of faith but it had no reality to it. There is no real desire for God in their hearts. They are just looking out for number One. Things weren’t going well… so “Hey, let’s ask God for help”. There is with them no real commitment, no real experience of grace. They are ‘Balconeers’, looking on and offering a theory as to how things could be fixed, not ‘Travelers’ wrestling with their situation and seeking to have their relationship with God restored.
The response of God comes in verse 4. "What can I do with you? Your love is like morning mist, like a morning cloud that disappears.” Because their heart isn’t in it they do not experience the blessing of God, they receive the rebuke of God. “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices”.
Our opening hymn this morning contained the lines “As first light brings the sun's warm rays, Accept our sacrifice of praise”. Everything about our worship services is a sacrifice of praise, an offering to God...The Call to Worship, the Children’s Time, the Confession, the Hymns, the Anthem, the Offering, the Bible Readings, the Creeds, the Sermon… it’s all a part of a sacrifice of praise.
According to this bible verse, if we are offering up worship, and we are in any way being presumptuous regarding the love of God… if our hearts not in it… it’s not going to bring us God’s blessing. That if we presume we can just turn up on a Sunday and that somehow God is going to be impressed we better think again. If we think that it’s enough to know about God, without whole-heartedly seeking to truly know God, we better look again at what Scripture teaches.
If I think I can stand up here and preach a well-crafted grammatically correct sermon; but I haven’t sought for God’s anointing or blessing then God’s judgment is going to be “What do you expect me to do with that?”
If the choir is up here singing an anthem, and every note is in tune, and the organ part raises the rafters and the solo satisfies the senses, but they are just giving a nice performance then they would be better keeping quiet. If their offering is not an expression of genuine worship, it may impress people, but it is an offence to God. “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices.”
Same with our testimony and prayers and times of dedication. I can think back in my own experience of people who have stood up in church and given a marvelous account of how God has saved them, and how much they are going to do for God and so and so on. About some of them, I just have to ask (and I do so with real regret) “Where are they now? What happened to that faith they were bragging about?”
Let us not give voice to the greatness of our commitment if when the going gets get tough, we give up. Don’t say you are following Jesus Christ if when things don’t turn out as you had planned them in your play book, you throw in the towel. Because if we know God, we will know that’s not the way faith works.
This leads to the second thing I wanted to draw out of this passage from Hosea.
The need to put our relationship with God, before all other things.
But how do we do that… how do we move from knowing about God to knowing God?
We come to know God through Scripture Reading and Prayer. Rather than considering reading the bible for the knowledge that it may give or of prayer as a practice that benefits your personal health; think of them both as building a relationship. As Dr. Phil will tell you the important thing in a relationship is ‘Communication’. Reading the scriptures and times of prayer need to become a dialogue, not a monologue. “What is God saying to me? How am I going to act upon it?”
We come to know God through whole hearted worship offered in the presence of others. Worship throughout Scripture is a communal act. People tell me they can worship God just as easily on the golf course or taking a walk in the beauty of nature as they can by attending a service of worship. We forget so easily that worship isn’t about us… it’s about God and the Bible’s teaching is crystal clear that one of the key components of a healthy relationship with God is worshiping God in the presence of others.
We come to know God through service. We need to do something, to be involved with something that is nurturing the life of somebody else. We encounter the presence of God in the lives of others. ‘In as much as you did it for the least of one of my little ones,’ says Jesus, ‘you did it unto me’.
It’s about communication. Through prayer and Bible Reading we involve ourselves in a conversation. That conversation is enriched as we worship God in the presence of others. It is further enriched as we seek to reach out to others with the love of God.
It is not those who sit on the balcony and watch the world go by who find the way, the truth and the life that Jesus spoke of. It is those who are travelers, those who are committed to a journey that they will see through to the end, no matter what obstacles are in the way, or how much it costs.
Balconeers don’t follow, they watch. Only pilgrim people discover the joy, the peace, the hope, the healing, the resurrection and the light which Jesus promised to His followers. Such is a journey we are called to make together with His songs on our lips, His gospel in our hearts and His Holy Spirit as our strength.
So today I invite you not to become ‘Balconeers’, but ‘Travelers’, to be those who don’t just know about God, but know God. To put Christ first… and then let everything else follow on.
The path to knowing God? Hosea 6:6 “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices, I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me”.
Adrian Pratt
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY on September 23rd 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
I was reading the passage from Hosea. When I came to verse 6 “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices, I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me” I was reminded of a book by J.I. Packer titled ‘Knowing God' which had a great influence on my early Christian years.
Packer begins his book by asking us to imagine a house with a large balcony on its front, situated near a road. Along the road walk one group of people, whilst on the balcony sit another watching them go by. The two groups are described as ‘Balconeers’ and ‘Travelers’.
The Balconeers hear what the Travelers are saying and can even shout from the balcony and ask them questions. They sit together on the balcony and pass comments upon the way the travelers behave. They observe them from a distance. They remain on the balcony as onlookers and their problems are theoretical rather than practical.
The Travelers have to ask ‘Which way should we go?” and “How do we get there?” They face problems which call not just for understanding but for decision and action. The Balconeers and the Travelers may think over the same area, but their problems are different.
Along the road comes some person with evil on their mind. The Balconeers look on and wonder how such a person could be allowed on the road and how they should react. The Travelers have to encounter the evil face to face, master it and overcome it. Packer suggests that true Christian faith is the faith of the ‘Travelers’. As an example he considers the doctrine of the Trinity – the statement that we believe in ‘One God, Three persons.’
The Balconeer ponders; “Hmmm. How can one conceivably be three, and exactly what sorts of unity can three have and what precisely is the definition of personhood here being expressed?” The Traveler is asking, “Well if that’s the way God has revealed Godself, then how can I best live my life in a way that honors God?”
For one the problem is theoretical, for the other it is practical. One says “How can God be like that?’ the other asks, “If that is what God is like, how should I live?” As Christians we are called to be a pilgrim people, called to be Travelers not Balconeers. We need to not only know about God, but actually know God.
Which brings us again to Hosea’s words; “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices, I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me”.
It is possible to know a lot about a person without ever knowing them. Pick a name out of the telephone directory and you can find their address. If you know somebody who lives near them, they may know where they work or who their family is or what they do with their time.
You could go on the Internet and put their name into a search engine and maybe find out more than you need to know ‘about’ them. But to get to ‘know them’ you would have to encounter them, get to be friends, spend time with them and talk with them and so discover what they were really like.
It is no different with our relationship to God. It is a relationship which has to grow, it takes communication. It takes time to familiarize ourselves with the Word of God in Scripture. It takes commitment to communication through prayer and worship and service. There are no shortcuts. There is no quick fix. There exists no ‘Dummies Guide to God’, nor is ‘Everything You needed to know about God but were afraid to Ask’ available at Amazon.Com. Hosea declares:-
“I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices, I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me”
Two things I’d like to draw out of Hosea’s words at the start of chapter 6.
1. The danger of presumption
2. The need to put our relationship with God, before all other things.
The danger of presumption
Hosea Chapter 6 begins with the people coming before God with what seems like a sincere confession of faith. The words are all there… “Let us return to the LORD... He will heal us… He will raise us up on the third day…He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth."
Though it sounds good, the words are the confession of people who knew about God, but didn’t actually know God. Their prayer is uttered in a spirit of complete presumption. “Well, we’ve let God down before, but God has always come through for us, so let’s just go through the motions again, and God will come around to seeing things our way.”
These people had a form of faith but it had no reality to it. There is no real desire for God in their hearts. They are just looking out for number One. Things weren’t going well… so “Hey, let’s ask God for help”. There is with them no real commitment, no real experience of grace. They are ‘Balconeers’, looking on and offering a theory as to how things could be fixed, not ‘Travelers’ wrestling with their situation and seeking to have their relationship with God restored.
The response of God comes in verse 4. "What can I do with you? Your love is like morning mist, like a morning cloud that disappears.” Because their heart isn’t in it they do not experience the blessing of God, they receive the rebuke of God. “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices”.
Our opening hymn this morning contained the lines “As first light brings the sun's warm rays, Accept our sacrifice of praise”. Everything about our worship services is a sacrifice of praise, an offering to God...The Call to Worship, the Children’s Time, the Confession, the Hymns, the Anthem, the Offering, the Bible Readings, the Creeds, the Sermon… it’s all a part of a sacrifice of praise.
According to this bible verse, if we are offering up worship, and we are in any way being presumptuous regarding the love of God… if our hearts not in it… it’s not going to bring us God’s blessing. That if we presume we can just turn up on a Sunday and that somehow God is going to be impressed we better think again. If we think that it’s enough to know about God, without whole-heartedly seeking to truly know God, we better look again at what Scripture teaches.
If I think I can stand up here and preach a well-crafted grammatically correct sermon; but I haven’t sought for God’s anointing or blessing then God’s judgment is going to be “What do you expect me to do with that?”
If the choir is up here singing an anthem, and every note is in tune, and the organ part raises the rafters and the solo satisfies the senses, but they are just giving a nice performance then they would be better keeping quiet. If their offering is not an expression of genuine worship, it may impress people, but it is an offence to God. “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices.”
Same with our testimony and prayers and times of dedication. I can think back in my own experience of people who have stood up in church and given a marvelous account of how God has saved them, and how much they are going to do for God and so and so on. About some of them, I just have to ask (and I do so with real regret) “Where are they now? What happened to that faith they were bragging about?”
Let us not give voice to the greatness of our commitment if when the going gets get tough, we give up. Don’t say you are following Jesus Christ if when things don’t turn out as you had planned them in your play book, you throw in the towel. Because if we know God, we will know that’s not the way faith works.
This leads to the second thing I wanted to draw out of this passage from Hosea.
The need to put our relationship with God, before all other things.
But how do we do that… how do we move from knowing about God to knowing God?
We come to know God through Scripture Reading and Prayer. Rather than considering reading the bible for the knowledge that it may give or of prayer as a practice that benefits your personal health; think of them both as building a relationship. As Dr. Phil will tell you the important thing in a relationship is ‘Communication’. Reading the scriptures and times of prayer need to become a dialogue, not a monologue. “What is God saying to me? How am I going to act upon it?”
We come to know God through whole hearted worship offered in the presence of others. Worship throughout Scripture is a communal act. People tell me they can worship God just as easily on the golf course or taking a walk in the beauty of nature as they can by attending a service of worship. We forget so easily that worship isn’t about us… it’s about God and the Bible’s teaching is crystal clear that one of the key components of a healthy relationship with God is worshiping God in the presence of others.
We come to know God through service. We need to do something, to be involved with something that is nurturing the life of somebody else. We encounter the presence of God in the lives of others. ‘In as much as you did it for the least of one of my little ones,’ says Jesus, ‘you did it unto me’.
It’s about communication. Through prayer and Bible Reading we involve ourselves in a conversation. That conversation is enriched as we worship God in the presence of others. It is further enriched as we seek to reach out to others with the love of God.
It is not those who sit on the balcony and watch the world go by who find the way, the truth and the life that Jesus spoke of. It is those who are travelers, those who are committed to a journey that they will see through to the end, no matter what obstacles are in the way, or how much it costs.
Balconeers don’t follow, they watch. Only pilgrim people discover the joy, the peace, the hope, the healing, the resurrection and the light which Jesus promised to His followers. Such is a journey we are called to make together with His songs on our lips, His gospel in our hearts and His Holy Spirit as our strength.
So today I invite you not to become ‘Balconeers’, but ‘Travelers’, to be those who don’t just know about God, but know God. To put Christ first… and then let everything else follow on.
The path to knowing God? Hosea 6:6 “I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices, I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me”.
Adrian Pratt
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Sermon for Instillation of Rev. Elise Renee Neal “Administrators of mystery!”
Reading: Ephesians 3:1-9
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Fairmont, WV, Sunday 16th September, 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
These are anxious days for our churches. Within our society are many voices suggesting religion has had it's day. Within our religious institutions divisions run as deeply as those in the realm of politics. The game keeps changing. The goalposts keep moving. To survive we are called to embrace change. And if there is one thing that makes congregations anxious... it's 'change!'
But the teaching of Jesus is not a message that allows for complacency. Such notions as 'Taking up a Cross' and 'Being Born Again' and 'Losing ourselves in order to find ourselves' easily become railroaded by more pressing concerns such as the credentials required for ordination, figuring out how we are going to meet the budget and true burning issues such as 'what color the sanctuary carpet should be'.
The letter Paul wrote to the Ephesians was written from a prison cell. Paul knew a thing or two about change. He was changed from being the one who had it all together, who knew 'who was who' and 'what was what' into a blind man struggling to find his way. On the Damascus Road, in an instant, he went beyond 'We've never done it this way before' and 'We tried this and it didn't work' and 'It doesn't matter where you are from, believe me, this won't work here!” When Paul writes about change he writes in capital letters.
One of the things I love about the change that came over Paul's life was that it was a change that left him completely out of his depth. A change that left him completely reliant on God and in total awe of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 3:8 Paul writes 'Although I am less than the least of all the Lord's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ”
In the transliteration given in Eugene Petersen’s 'The Message Bible' we read “When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God's way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities. And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ.” I adore the way Paul is pictured as saying 'Here I am Lord, preaching about things … way over my head... inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ'
So, Elise, as you take the wheel of the good ship Fairmont, if there are moments when you feel completely overwhelmed and out of your depth and feel as though you are in way over your head, rejoice ...you've got a friend …. in Paul. If the challenge of these days, of the changing landscape of church and society, of these anxious times of change, seems completely overwhelming and you wonder how on earth all that stuff you learnt in seminary and in your last positions actually applies here, then take comfort from Paul who tells us, again from 'The Message' 'I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.'
In these anxious days it is good to remember that our gospel is a mystery. Paul tells us that everything proceeds according to 'God's secret plan'. Though we may have some days when we question if God's plan really is the best one.... (actually I shouldn't say 'some days'... maybe it's more like 'most days' we question God's will...) it remains an essential tenant of our belief that we do actually believe that God is in control.
An old friend and West Virginian Baptist pastor in Fayetteville, Rev. Harry Fuller, used to regularly have his congregation participate in an affirmation of faith that was short, sharp and to the point. So please repeat after me;
'There is a God.' 'There is a God.'
'And it isn't me' 'And it isn't me'
If we can try in our ministries to remember that simple thing, it will prevent us from running into a whole lot of trouble. Our vision can be so limited. Though not physically confined like Paul, we can be imprisoned by all sorts of things. Our calling practically guarantees it. We are constantly bombarded with peoples needs, our church buildings needs, our denominations struggles, our emotional needs, our financial needs, our families needs, our spouses needs, not to mention our own struggle for time for sabbath and self.
God does not have these limitations. God's secret plan is superior to our plans. God's plan is not limited to us, to our congregations, to our denomination, to our town or even our nation. God's plan is already at work. We may not recognize it or perceive it or sense it. That's the thing about secrets! They are .. well... secretive. It takes a while to realize what's going on. It took Paul a while to get in on the secret.. Why should it be any different for us?
According to verse 6 the secret is something is like this. 'The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.'
This verse makes ministry a little easier to do. It reminds us that we don't have to bring God to anyone or introduce Jesus to anybody. The Spirit is already working with them. Our task is to get them to realize it. I say all, but “All' is of course the tricky bit. Tricky, but not impossible. With God nothing is impossible. God has a secret plan! Always has. We just don't always see it.
I never saw it when many many moons ago when I went to my first youth retreats at Cedar Lakes and Bluestone. This Presbytery still has a wonderful thing called 'youth council'. When I first experienced youth council there was this crazy red-haired teenager trying to teach a whole bunch of us these odd things called energizers. 'Star-Trekkin across the universe' 'Jump up liking your whipping a horse” “There's Klingons on the starboard bow” 'Make like you're shakin' off a Klingon.' Say what? You do realize I'm British don't you! That crazy red head was a younger (but maybe only slightly less crazy) version of Elise. And God had a secret plan.
Didn't see that plan when she went off to Marshall. Was excited to visit PROWL and reconnect with some of the kids I'd met at Youth Council. A few years later, beyond possibility I am invited on a retreat with Marshall students at Myrtle Beach . Who has left college by then, but is working down there and comes to visit? Elise. And so it goes. On a number of other occasions our lives have crossed paths. That's how it seems to be when you swim in the Presbyterian sea! People cross your path. You lose touch. You get back in touch. God's secret plan.
And now...look at this! Elise being installed as pastor here at this wonderful welcoming church of Fairmont, WV. With a wonderful partner in Ryan and three delightful children Kaylen Rose, Knox Levin and Terryn Alexander. Who knows? Here's hoping they may grow up and be as wonderfully gifted and crazy as she is! God's secret plan. Best sometimes just to stand back and say “Allright!”
'This is my life work' writes Paul in Ephesians 3:6: 'Helping people understand and respond to the Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details.' Best to let God handle all the details. Best to let God work it out. For sure ask questions and take time to wonder and ponder and even try to think it all through. But never lose sight of the mystery of God's love for us. The love that's always been there, but which we took a time to wake up to!
There are ways that we get to participate in the mystery. There are ways that the secret plan becomes clearer to us. We have our church communities. God works through community. Pastors can only take their congregations as far as their congregations will go with them. And, again, these are anxious days that call for change. Change can cause us to want to stick in the mud or recreate the past or a thousand other avoidance strategies, rather than launch into unknown waters.
We participate in the mystery through applying ourselves to the understanding of the Scriptures. This is something we do best in community, be it our local church, a study group, or even these days some kind of internet forum. We have our Confessions as a guide. We have have each other to bounce our thoughts off.
We participate in the mystery through prayer. Elise's life has been surrounded by prayer. She was baptized by her grandfather Rev. Robert C. Steele in the Philippi Presbyterian Church. She has a family that have prayed for her. When, as pastors, we look back over the years, we realize our whole lives have been lived against the backdrop of peoples prayers for us. Such is a humbling thought that moves us to faithfulness.
So I encourage you as a congregation to pray for your new pastor. You can support your church financially, that's always good! You can support your church with your presence. That too is very important. But you participate in the mystery, you appreciate God's secret plan, only when you give yourself in prayerful support of your pastor, your church and your churches ministries.
With your prayerful support Elise can apply herself to the task that Paul claimed was God's calling. 'My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along.' (Ephesians 3:9) . Or as it reads in the NIV “To make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.”
In these days of change and uncertainty the model of being 'Administrators of Mystery' may indeed be a wonderful one to describe the teaching elders task. We do not know what the future church will be like. But we trust that God knows and is working it out. God's Secret Plan.
Elise, I wish you every blessing for the future and thank you for this opportunity to be a part of this special day, in the life of this historically faithful congregation, in this wild and wonderful corner of God's creation.
Finally; Love God, love people and never stop applying yourself to the discovery of God's secret plan.
May you truly be an 'Administrator of Mystery'.
Amen!
Rev. Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Fairmont, WV, Sunday 16th September, 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
These are anxious days for our churches. Within our society are many voices suggesting religion has had it's day. Within our religious institutions divisions run as deeply as those in the realm of politics. The game keeps changing. The goalposts keep moving. To survive we are called to embrace change. And if there is one thing that makes congregations anxious... it's 'change!'
But the teaching of Jesus is not a message that allows for complacency. Such notions as 'Taking up a Cross' and 'Being Born Again' and 'Losing ourselves in order to find ourselves' easily become railroaded by more pressing concerns such as the credentials required for ordination, figuring out how we are going to meet the budget and true burning issues such as 'what color the sanctuary carpet should be'.
The letter Paul wrote to the Ephesians was written from a prison cell. Paul knew a thing or two about change. He was changed from being the one who had it all together, who knew 'who was who' and 'what was what' into a blind man struggling to find his way. On the Damascus Road, in an instant, he went beyond 'We've never done it this way before' and 'We tried this and it didn't work' and 'It doesn't matter where you are from, believe me, this won't work here!” When Paul writes about change he writes in capital letters.
One of the things I love about the change that came over Paul's life was that it was a change that left him completely out of his depth. A change that left him completely reliant on God and in total awe of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 3:8 Paul writes 'Although I am less than the least of all the Lord's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ”
In the transliteration given in Eugene Petersen’s 'The Message Bible' we read “When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God's way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities. And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ.” I adore the way Paul is pictured as saying 'Here I am Lord, preaching about things … way over my head... inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ'
So, Elise, as you take the wheel of the good ship Fairmont, if there are moments when you feel completely overwhelmed and out of your depth and feel as though you are in way over your head, rejoice ...you've got a friend …. in Paul. If the challenge of these days, of the changing landscape of church and society, of these anxious times of change, seems completely overwhelming and you wonder how on earth all that stuff you learnt in seminary and in your last positions actually applies here, then take comfort from Paul who tells us, again from 'The Message' 'I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.'
In these anxious days it is good to remember that our gospel is a mystery. Paul tells us that everything proceeds according to 'God's secret plan'. Though we may have some days when we question if God's plan really is the best one.... (actually I shouldn't say 'some days'... maybe it's more like 'most days' we question God's will...) it remains an essential tenant of our belief that we do actually believe that God is in control.
An old friend and West Virginian Baptist pastor in Fayetteville, Rev. Harry Fuller, used to regularly have his congregation participate in an affirmation of faith that was short, sharp and to the point. So please repeat after me;
'There is a God.' 'There is a God.'
'And it isn't me' 'And it isn't me'
If we can try in our ministries to remember that simple thing, it will prevent us from running into a whole lot of trouble. Our vision can be so limited. Though not physically confined like Paul, we can be imprisoned by all sorts of things. Our calling practically guarantees it. We are constantly bombarded with peoples needs, our church buildings needs, our denominations struggles, our emotional needs, our financial needs, our families needs, our spouses needs, not to mention our own struggle for time for sabbath and self.
God does not have these limitations. God's secret plan is superior to our plans. God's plan is not limited to us, to our congregations, to our denomination, to our town or even our nation. God's plan is already at work. We may not recognize it or perceive it or sense it. That's the thing about secrets! They are .. well... secretive. It takes a while to realize what's going on. It took Paul a while to get in on the secret.. Why should it be any different for us?
According to verse 6 the secret is something is like this. 'The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.'
This verse makes ministry a little easier to do. It reminds us that we don't have to bring God to anyone or introduce Jesus to anybody. The Spirit is already working with them. Our task is to get them to realize it. I say all, but “All' is of course the tricky bit. Tricky, but not impossible. With God nothing is impossible. God has a secret plan! Always has. We just don't always see it.
I never saw it when many many moons ago when I went to my first youth retreats at Cedar Lakes and Bluestone. This Presbytery still has a wonderful thing called 'youth council'. When I first experienced youth council there was this crazy red-haired teenager trying to teach a whole bunch of us these odd things called energizers. 'Star-Trekkin across the universe' 'Jump up liking your whipping a horse” “There's Klingons on the starboard bow” 'Make like you're shakin' off a Klingon.' Say what? You do realize I'm British don't you! That crazy red head was a younger (but maybe only slightly less crazy) version of Elise. And God had a secret plan.
Didn't see that plan when she went off to Marshall. Was excited to visit PROWL and reconnect with some of the kids I'd met at Youth Council. A few years later, beyond possibility I am invited on a retreat with Marshall students at Myrtle Beach . Who has left college by then, but is working down there and comes to visit? Elise. And so it goes. On a number of other occasions our lives have crossed paths. That's how it seems to be when you swim in the Presbyterian sea! People cross your path. You lose touch. You get back in touch. God's secret plan.
And now...look at this! Elise being installed as pastor here at this wonderful welcoming church of Fairmont, WV. With a wonderful partner in Ryan and three delightful children Kaylen Rose, Knox Levin and Terryn Alexander. Who knows? Here's hoping they may grow up and be as wonderfully gifted and crazy as she is! God's secret plan. Best sometimes just to stand back and say “Allright!”
'This is my life work' writes Paul in Ephesians 3:6: 'Helping people understand and respond to the Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details.' Best to let God handle all the details. Best to let God work it out. For sure ask questions and take time to wonder and ponder and even try to think it all through. But never lose sight of the mystery of God's love for us. The love that's always been there, but which we took a time to wake up to!
There are ways that we get to participate in the mystery. There are ways that the secret plan becomes clearer to us. We have our church communities. God works through community. Pastors can only take their congregations as far as their congregations will go with them. And, again, these are anxious days that call for change. Change can cause us to want to stick in the mud or recreate the past or a thousand other avoidance strategies, rather than launch into unknown waters.
We participate in the mystery through applying ourselves to the understanding of the Scriptures. This is something we do best in community, be it our local church, a study group, or even these days some kind of internet forum. We have our Confessions as a guide. We have have each other to bounce our thoughts off.
We participate in the mystery through prayer. Elise's life has been surrounded by prayer. She was baptized by her grandfather Rev. Robert C. Steele in the Philippi Presbyterian Church. She has a family that have prayed for her. When, as pastors, we look back over the years, we realize our whole lives have been lived against the backdrop of peoples prayers for us. Such is a humbling thought that moves us to faithfulness.
So I encourage you as a congregation to pray for your new pastor. You can support your church financially, that's always good! You can support your church with your presence. That too is very important. But you participate in the mystery, you appreciate God's secret plan, only when you give yourself in prayerful support of your pastor, your church and your churches ministries.
With your prayerful support Elise can apply herself to the task that Paul claimed was God's calling. 'My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along.' (Ephesians 3:9) . Or as it reads in the NIV “To make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.”
In these days of change and uncertainty the model of being 'Administrators of Mystery' may indeed be a wonderful one to describe the teaching elders task. We do not know what the future church will be like. But we trust that God knows and is working it out. God's Secret Plan.
Elise, I wish you every blessing for the future and thank you for this opportunity to be a part of this special day, in the life of this historically faithful congregation, in this wild and wonderful corner of God's creation.
Finally; Love God, love people and never stop applying yourself to the discovery of God's secret plan.
May you truly be an 'Administrator of Mystery'.
Amen!
Rev. Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
God's Secret (Summer) Plan
Readings: Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9, Song of Solomon 2:8-13, Ephesians 3:1-9, Luke 4:1-13
Preached at Baldwin Presbyterian Church on September 2nd 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
I don't know what sort of summer you have had. I hope it's been a good one. I want to share with you this morning that whilst in many ways for myself it has been an unusual summer of highs and lows, it has also been one in which I have been very conscious of the presence of God and the support of God's people. As we come to the table this morning I want to share some of my own summer stories and focus on a verse found in the third chapter of Ephesians 'The mystery is... that through the gospel... we are sharers together in the promise...” (excerpt from Ephesians 3:6)
One of the lessons I have had reinforced for me over the summer is that there are our plans... and then there are God's plans. The two do not necessarily coincide. In fact sometimes God takes us through circumstances that are not at all what we expected or even wish to welcome. When that happens, the mystery of God's grace often surprises us in unexpected and surprising ways. I've said before that to me the miracle in events is not so much that they happen, but the synchronicity that is present in the where, when and how things happen. So I'm borrowing a phrase from our scripture passage and calling this sermon “God's Secret Plan”.
One of the first things I was involved in this summer was leading a youth camp at Bluestone Conference Center, which is a beautiful place, high up on a mountain, in my previous Presbytery of West Virgina. The plan was that I was to lead a High School group in conversations about worship. As the date grew closer registration was down, but the normal camp program was taking place so Mark Miller the director said 'Come along anyway'.
Instead of focusing on worship, the theme was changed to a curriculum prepared some years before that focussed on our denomination's Brief Affirmation of Faith. It had been prepared by a wonderful Christian Educator from Charleston, WV, called Lynn Wood, who sadly lost her battle with cancer this past December. Her husband Rev. Bob Wood, was a good friend of mine and I hadn't had a chance to see him since he lost his wife. I knew he was at the camp the week before me, so I kind of hoped to reconnect with him. We missed each other by six hours. Oh well. Things don't always go according to plan!
I was familiar with the curriculum as I'd used it before when I'd been leading a creative arts group and we had set much of the text of the Affirmation of Faith to music. I wasn't sure I'd have a chance to share any of the songs we'd done years before. But when I arrived at camp I discovered that the folk who had been leading the music at worship and song time weren't going to be there, so I found myself in the role of song leader! Naturally I taught them a couple of the songs we'd used some years before. One of them had the words, “In life and death we belong to God'. Another began 'We trust in God the Holy Spirit, everywhere the giver and renewer of life.'
Camp was fun. Until the last evening. It was the Friday night that the storm hit that knocked power out of much of Virginia and West Virginia. One moment we were sitting in a field enjoying the kids acting out there skits. Then we heard the wind coming. Sounded like a freight train. We shouted at the kids to run towards the chapel building. By the time we were half way across the field the dust was blowing in our eyes, trees were cracking and limbs falling and the wind blowing so strong that it was knocking some of the younger kids down. Some of the little ones (and not so little) were terrified as we herded them into the building and told them to sit in the middle away from the windows.
It was then a little group of them began quietly singing 'In life and death we belong to God' and 'We trust in God the Holy Spirit', the songs I'd been able to teach them. The words took on a new significance as these kids thought they really were in a life or death situation and the only one they felt they could trust in was God! As they sang, and as we told stories and said prayers, the storm quickly passed, and although it had taken the power out, an hour or so later we were enjoying a fireworks display that marked the close of camp. An interesting end to the week! Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan, but maybe God's secret plan!
But I kept to my plan and left around 3:30 in the morning. With us having lost communication with the outside world I had no idea of the extent of the storm. I wound down a narrow road where, thankfully, somebody had gone before me and cut a way through the fallen trees and debris. At one point I hit some fog and what I think were downed power lines scraped the top of my little Hyundia. I dread to think what could have happened if I were driving a larger vehicle like the Honda Element I usually took to camp! So I get to Hinton, the first town. Complete darkness. No power. I travel along the interstate to Lewisberg. Same story. Only then do I catch the news on the radio that most of the Eastern Seaboard up to Washington DC is out of power. My gas guage showed I had about 45 miles left of fuel. The nearest large town, which may or not have had power was about 50 miles away. 'Lord' I pray silently 'What now?'
I see a sign for gas and decide to take it. The gas station looks deserted but there is a white van parked next to the pump and a guy scratching his head looking at it. I pull up and shout over, 'Anything working?' He says he thinks so but his credit card was taking forever to clear. I give it a try. Sure enough it takes the card but then the screen goes blue. I notice the guy in the white van is now pumping gas and smiling. A moment later my card also clears and I'm able to fill up. Although the gas station is deserted apart from the two of us, there's a generator humming somewhere in the back... so I whisper a little thankyou and breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe I can get home!
A little while later I stumble across a McDonalds with a generator. Bear in mind I've been on the road since 3:30 in the morning. I need some coffee. It was crazy busy and as I chatted with people in line it became clear that this was a huge storm affecting a huge area and that I'd stumbled across one of the few places that actually was still working. Again, I said a prayer of thanks as I headed safely home.
The next week's camp had to be cancelled as it was a whole week before they got the power back on. For some folks it took even longer. Many folks that day were stranded, unable to get gas. I count it as something of a miracle of time and place that I made it back to Long Island not only with gas in my tank, but having had a good breakfast. Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan, but maybe God's secret plan!
My next engagement over the summer was being music leader at Trinity Youth Conference in Pennsylvania. For different reasons, this too turned out to be quite a trip. TYC, as its known, is for older High School and college age youth. I was delighted that one of our own youth, Brian Achille was able to attend. It is a humbling thing to listen to some of these young adults share their stories and their struggles. The pressure that a lot of our kids are under, from broken homes, unrealistic family expectations, pressure of finance and work, desire to be acceptable to their peers... can almost break your heart. I never grew up with that sort of pressure. Hold our young folk in your prayers.
TYC is a place where they find themselves, they find each other and in many cases find God is with them in the midst of their struggles. I would share some of their stories, but we make a covenant at TYC; 'What happens at TYC stays at TYC'. It's a safe place where they can be who they are, say what they want and ask questions without it getting back home or with fear of being judged. I can tell you this though. At TYC God works to restore what life has broken. And it is a beautiful and wonderful thing to observe. It's a place where God's secret plans connect with God's children.
On August 1st I'm sitting at the breakfast table. It is half way through the week, and I need coffee. So I head for the kitchen for a fresh brew. What I don't know is that back home my brother Steven has just called my wife Yvonne to pass on the sad news that my mum had just passed away. Knowing that at this camp cell-phones are not allowed and that I could be anywhere on the 150 acre site, Yvonne calls the camp, simply to see if they can find me. Her call goes straight through to the kitchen as I'm walking in to get my coffee wearing a label with my name on it. 'Could you find Adrian Pratt for me?' Yvonne asks this guy, whom I don't know from Adam. As he answers the phone, there I am, standing right in front of him. He looks at my name tag. 'It's for you' he says. Of course this is sad news for me to hear, but the amazing thing is, I'm right there to take that call. Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan, but maybe God's secret plan!
The week is over. Funeral plans are being made. But we had scheduled vacation time and set appointments to pursue the very wonderful task of Yvonne, daughter Helen and the bridesmaids shopping for a wedding dress in Virginia whilst I spent some time with my future son-in-law. What now Lord? It turns out that over in my homelands, various cousins and family are also having scheduling problems. So the funeral is delayed for a few days and we have time to go to be with my daughter, and get back in time for us to have time to travel back to England for the funeral.
First day we are spending with my daughter in Herndon, Virginia, I wake up with the words of an English folk song that reminds me of mum singing in my head. The words, particularly appropriate to my life situation, say “It's not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me, but my darling when I think of thee”. Obviously, I'm from Liverpool, I'm grieving and I'm missing my darling mum. Ever heard the song? On the radio maybe? No? Well I've never heard it, anywhere since moving to the USA many years ago.
'Where are we going to eat?' We decide on the local Irish pub. I'm sitting next to the little stage as a guitar and banjo duo are setting up. By now you can guess what's coming! What is the first song that they sing, that I've never heard this side of the big pond but was buzzing though my head that morning? You guessed! 'It's not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me, but my darling when I think of thee!” Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan, but maybe God's secret plan!
We travel to my homelands for mum's funeral. At one point I'm standing in the Moreton Methodist Church, the church my mum helped found and where she bought me to be baptized, my first Sunday School teacher is standing one side of me, my Presbyterian minster and mentor Rev. Barrie Redmore is standing the other side of me, and I'm thinking how strange it is to have all these spritual strands that have weaved their way though my life suddenly coming together at one time, in one place, through the normal everyday actions of drinking tea and sharing in conversation. I'm sharing with cousins I hadn't seen for years, rebuilding family connections and I'm just thinking, you can't plan this stuff, you can't make it up. Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan, but maybe God's secret plan!
After our trip to England for the funeral we return to Baldwin. It's dark and we're tired. But when we get up next morning we go outside and Building and Grounds have been at work in the flower beds at the manse. It looks great! That was so kind of you! We have a mail box later in the day filled with wonderful cards and expressions of sympathy. When I'm writing this sermon, I'm in North Carolina and James Taylor comes on the radio singing 'When you're down and troubled and you need a helping hand...You got a friend” So now here I am wanting to express to you, this congregation who have reached out to me friendship and concern and love, thank you for being a friend. Coincidence or God-incidence?
Finally. Last week I'm on study leave at Montreat Conference Center. I am not expecting to be meeting with anybody I know. At the first meal, who comes across to sit with me. Of course. Rev. Bob Wood. Whose late wife Lynn Wood prepared the curriculum I used up at Bluestone Conference Center, Bob, whom I missed seeing up there by a few hours. On Wednesday afternoon we get a chance to reconnect and renew a friendship... and even to grieve a little over the losses we've experienced. We spend more time together than we would have had a chance to had we been passing ships up at camp. Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan, but maybe God's secret plan!
Now let me say I have no desire to explain or suggest anything from all these connections other than that it seems to me that there is more going on in and around our lives than we are often prepared to acknowledge. It all proves nothing. But you see, that's what these elements of bread and wine on the table are all about. We are invited to share in the mystery of the fact that our lives can be blessed and nurtured and nourished and changed and are accompanied by the living influence of Jesus Christ, though the power of God's Spirit.
It has for me and mine been quite a summer. I'm thinking, 'Where did it go? What just happened?' But I'm also grateful to God. Grateful to God for a wonderful church family who have been there for me in a time of need. Grateful to God for the love and grace and joy I find through Jesus Christ. Grateful to God for getting me through. It's nothing I can earn. It's nothing I deserve. It truly is a mystery.
And, I'm thinking maybe there's been things that I've shared this morning that have resonated with things you have been going through. Maybe over the summer in your own life there have been things that made connections or caused more questions than answers. And maybe all of that is connected with our walk with God.
So in conclusion I share again the text from Ephesians 3:6 with which I began 'The mystery is... that through the gospel... we are sharers together in the promise...” And I ask you to ponder with St.Paul and myself as we come to the table together: Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan. God's secret plan! Amen.
Rev. Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
Preached at Baldwin Presbyterian Church on September 2nd 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
I don't know what sort of summer you have had. I hope it's been a good one. I want to share with you this morning that whilst in many ways for myself it has been an unusual summer of highs and lows, it has also been one in which I have been very conscious of the presence of God and the support of God's people. As we come to the table this morning I want to share some of my own summer stories and focus on a verse found in the third chapter of Ephesians 'The mystery is... that through the gospel... we are sharers together in the promise...” (excerpt from Ephesians 3:6)
One of the lessons I have had reinforced for me over the summer is that there are our plans... and then there are God's plans. The two do not necessarily coincide. In fact sometimes God takes us through circumstances that are not at all what we expected or even wish to welcome. When that happens, the mystery of God's grace often surprises us in unexpected and surprising ways. I've said before that to me the miracle in events is not so much that they happen, but the synchronicity that is present in the where, when and how things happen. So I'm borrowing a phrase from our scripture passage and calling this sermon “God's Secret Plan”.
One of the first things I was involved in this summer was leading a youth camp at Bluestone Conference Center, which is a beautiful place, high up on a mountain, in my previous Presbytery of West Virgina. The plan was that I was to lead a High School group in conversations about worship. As the date grew closer registration was down, but the normal camp program was taking place so Mark Miller the director said 'Come along anyway'.
Instead of focusing on worship, the theme was changed to a curriculum prepared some years before that focussed on our denomination's Brief Affirmation of Faith. It had been prepared by a wonderful Christian Educator from Charleston, WV, called Lynn Wood, who sadly lost her battle with cancer this past December. Her husband Rev. Bob Wood, was a good friend of mine and I hadn't had a chance to see him since he lost his wife. I knew he was at the camp the week before me, so I kind of hoped to reconnect with him. We missed each other by six hours. Oh well. Things don't always go according to plan!
I was familiar with the curriculum as I'd used it before when I'd been leading a creative arts group and we had set much of the text of the Affirmation of Faith to music. I wasn't sure I'd have a chance to share any of the songs we'd done years before. But when I arrived at camp I discovered that the folk who had been leading the music at worship and song time weren't going to be there, so I found myself in the role of song leader! Naturally I taught them a couple of the songs we'd used some years before. One of them had the words, “In life and death we belong to God'. Another began 'We trust in God the Holy Spirit, everywhere the giver and renewer of life.'
Camp was fun. Until the last evening. It was the Friday night that the storm hit that knocked power out of much of Virginia and West Virginia. One moment we were sitting in a field enjoying the kids acting out there skits. Then we heard the wind coming. Sounded like a freight train. We shouted at the kids to run towards the chapel building. By the time we were half way across the field the dust was blowing in our eyes, trees were cracking and limbs falling and the wind blowing so strong that it was knocking some of the younger kids down. Some of the little ones (and not so little) were terrified as we herded them into the building and told them to sit in the middle away from the windows.
It was then a little group of them began quietly singing 'In life and death we belong to God' and 'We trust in God the Holy Spirit', the songs I'd been able to teach them. The words took on a new significance as these kids thought they really were in a life or death situation and the only one they felt they could trust in was God! As they sang, and as we told stories and said prayers, the storm quickly passed, and although it had taken the power out, an hour or so later we were enjoying a fireworks display that marked the close of camp. An interesting end to the week! Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan, but maybe God's secret plan!
But I kept to my plan and left around 3:30 in the morning. With us having lost communication with the outside world I had no idea of the extent of the storm. I wound down a narrow road where, thankfully, somebody had gone before me and cut a way through the fallen trees and debris. At one point I hit some fog and what I think were downed power lines scraped the top of my little Hyundia. I dread to think what could have happened if I were driving a larger vehicle like the Honda Element I usually took to camp! So I get to Hinton, the first town. Complete darkness. No power. I travel along the interstate to Lewisberg. Same story. Only then do I catch the news on the radio that most of the Eastern Seaboard up to Washington DC is out of power. My gas guage showed I had about 45 miles left of fuel. The nearest large town, which may or not have had power was about 50 miles away. 'Lord' I pray silently 'What now?'
I see a sign for gas and decide to take it. The gas station looks deserted but there is a white van parked next to the pump and a guy scratching his head looking at it. I pull up and shout over, 'Anything working?' He says he thinks so but his credit card was taking forever to clear. I give it a try. Sure enough it takes the card but then the screen goes blue. I notice the guy in the white van is now pumping gas and smiling. A moment later my card also clears and I'm able to fill up. Although the gas station is deserted apart from the two of us, there's a generator humming somewhere in the back... so I whisper a little thankyou and breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe I can get home!
A little while later I stumble across a McDonalds with a generator. Bear in mind I've been on the road since 3:30 in the morning. I need some coffee. It was crazy busy and as I chatted with people in line it became clear that this was a huge storm affecting a huge area and that I'd stumbled across one of the few places that actually was still working. Again, I said a prayer of thanks as I headed safely home.
The next week's camp had to be cancelled as it was a whole week before they got the power back on. For some folks it took even longer. Many folks that day were stranded, unable to get gas. I count it as something of a miracle of time and place that I made it back to Long Island not only with gas in my tank, but having had a good breakfast. Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan, but maybe God's secret plan!
My next engagement over the summer was being music leader at Trinity Youth Conference in Pennsylvania. For different reasons, this too turned out to be quite a trip. TYC, as its known, is for older High School and college age youth. I was delighted that one of our own youth, Brian Achille was able to attend. It is a humbling thing to listen to some of these young adults share their stories and their struggles. The pressure that a lot of our kids are under, from broken homes, unrealistic family expectations, pressure of finance and work, desire to be acceptable to their peers... can almost break your heart. I never grew up with that sort of pressure. Hold our young folk in your prayers.
TYC is a place where they find themselves, they find each other and in many cases find God is with them in the midst of their struggles. I would share some of their stories, but we make a covenant at TYC; 'What happens at TYC stays at TYC'. It's a safe place where they can be who they are, say what they want and ask questions without it getting back home or with fear of being judged. I can tell you this though. At TYC God works to restore what life has broken. And it is a beautiful and wonderful thing to observe. It's a place where God's secret plans connect with God's children.
On August 1st I'm sitting at the breakfast table. It is half way through the week, and I need coffee. So I head for the kitchen for a fresh brew. What I don't know is that back home my brother Steven has just called my wife Yvonne to pass on the sad news that my mum had just passed away. Knowing that at this camp cell-phones are not allowed and that I could be anywhere on the 150 acre site, Yvonne calls the camp, simply to see if they can find me. Her call goes straight through to the kitchen as I'm walking in to get my coffee wearing a label with my name on it. 'Could you find Adrian Pratt for me?' Yvonne asks this guy, whom I don't know from Adam. As he answers the phone, there I am, standing right in front of him. He looks at my name tag. 'It's for you' he says. Of course this is sad news for me to hear, but the amazing thing is, I'm right there to take that call. Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan, but maybe God's secret plan!
The week is over. Funeral plans are being made. But we had scheduled vacation time and set appointments to pursue the very wonderful task of Yvonne, daughter Helen and the bridesmaids shopping for a wedding dress in Virginia whilst I spent some time with my future son-in-law. What now Lord? It turns out that over in my homelands, various cousins and family are also having scheduling problems. So the funeral is delayed for a few days and we have time to go to be with my daughter, and get back in time for us to have time to travel back to England for the funeral.
First day we are spending with my daughter in Herndon, Virginia, I wake up with the words of an English folk song that reminds me of mum singing in my head. The words, particularly appropriate to my life situation, say “It's not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me, but my darling when I think of thee”. Obviously, I'm from Liverpool, I'm grieving and I'm missing my darling mum. Ever heard the song? On the radio maybe? No? Well I've never heard it, anywhere since moving to the USA many years ago.
'Where are we going to eat?' We decide on the local Irish pub. I'm sitting next to the little stage as a guitar and banjo duo are setting up. By now you can guess what's coming! What is the first song that they sing, that I've never heard this side of the big pond but was buzzing though my head that morning? You guessed! 'It's not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me, but my darling when I think of thee!” Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan, but maybe God's secret plan!
We travel to my homelands for mum's funeral. At one point I'm standing in the Moreton Methodist Church, the church my mum helped found and where she bought me to be baptized, my first Sunday School teacher is standing one side of me, my Presbyterian minster and mentor Rev. Barrie Redmore is standing the other side of me, and I'm thinking how strange it is to have all these spritual strands that have weaved their way though my life suddenly coming together at one time, in one place, through the normal everyday actions of drinking tea and sharing in conversation. I'm sharing with cousins I hadn't seen for years, rebuilding family connections and I'm just thinking, you can't plan this stuff, you can't make it up. Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan, but maybe God's secret plan!
After our trip to England for the funeral we return to Baldwin. It's dark and we're tired. But when we get up next morning we go outside and Building and Grounds have been at work in the flower beds at the manse. It looks great! That was so kind of you! We have a mail box later in the day filled with wonderful cards and expressions of sympathy. When I'm writing this sermon, I'm in North Carolina and James Taylor comes on the radio singing 'When you're down and troubled and you need a helping hand...You got a friend” So now here I am wanting to express to you, this congregation who have reached out to me friendship and concern and love, thank you for being a friend. Coincidence or God-incidence?
Finally. Last week I'm on study leave at Montreat Conference Center. I am not expecting to be meeting with anybody I know. At the first meal, who comes across to sit with me. Of course. Rev. Bob Wood. Whose late wife Lynn Wood prepared the curriculum I used up at Bluestone Conference Center, Bob, whom I missed seeing up there by a few hours. On Wednesday afternoon we get a chance to reconnect and renew a friendship... and even to grieve a little over the losses we've experienced. We spend more time together than we would have had a chance to had we been passing ships up at camp. Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan, but maybe God's secret plan!
Now let me say I have no desire to explain or suggest anything from all these connections other than that it seems to me that there is more going on in and around our lives than we are often prepared to acknowledge. It all proves nothing. But you see, that's what these elements of bread and wine on the table are all about. We are invited to share in the mystery of the fact that our lives can be blessed and nurtured and nourished and changed and are accompanied by the living influence of Jesus Christ, though the power of God's Spirit.
It has for me and mine been quite a summer. I'm thinking, 'Where did it go? What just happened?' But I'm also grateful to God. Grateful to God for a wonderful church family who have been there for me in a time of need. Grateful to God for the love and grace and joy I find through Jesus Christ. Grateful to God for getting me through. It's nothing I can earn. It's nothing I deserve. It truly is a mystery.
And, I'm thinking maybe there's been things that I've shared this morning that have resonated with things you have been going through. Maybe over the summer in your own life there have been things that made connections or caused more questions than answers. And maybe all of that is connected with our walk with God.
So in conclusion I share again the text from Ephesians 3:6 with which I began 'The mystery is... that through the gospel... we are sharers together in the promise...” And I ask you to ponder with St.Paul and myself as we come to the table together: Coincidence or God-incidence? Not my plan. God's secret plan! Amen.
Rev. Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
Monday, August 6, 2012
EVERYDAY MIRACLES
Communion Service
Readings: Psalm 51:1-12, Exodus 16:1-15; Ephesians 4:1-16, John 6:24-35
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY August 5th, 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
Our readings focused on 2 incidents, "Manna from Heaven" and Jesus teaching that He was "Bread of Life". As we approach the table of Bread and Wine I'd like to offer some thoughts on what I'm calling "Everyday Miracles".
Let's start with the Israelites. You probably know the story of how Moses led them out of Egypt into the Wilderness and how once they were there they started to complain, "At least in Egypt we had something to eat! We're starving out here." Moses promises them that sustenance will come, meat for the evening and bread for the morning. And so it was quail for supper and manna for breakfast.
"Give us meat" they said. The quail came and everybody said it was a miracle.
Quails are found in countless numbers on the shores of the Mediterranean and their annual migration is still an event that causes great excitement as they move in vast flocks towards Africa. It's an exhausting flight, done in stages. When the birds stop to take a rest, they are so exhausted that they can easily be picked up and captured.
The miracle wasn't so much that the quail came but rather that, as they responded to the call of God, the Israelites were in that place, at that time, when the quails arrived. In that event the Hebrews saw the hand of God and the Deliverance of the Almighty.
In the wilderness where the Israelites camped lives an insect known as Najacoecus Serpentinus. The sap from the Tamarisk bush on which these insects feed is rich in carbohydrates but low in nitrogen. In order to aquire enough nitrogen for their metabolism to operate properly, the Najacoecus Serpentinus consume an enormous amount of sap. The excess from this process passes from the insect in the form of honeydew excretions which the desert air changes into clumps of sticky solids which turn a whitish yellow color.
These solid lumps are thought to be the manna that the Israelites collected and ate in the wilderness. The Hebrews called it a miracle. Yet, as with the quails, the miracle wasn't so much that the manna came, but that they were in that place, at that time, to receive it.
Our lives continue to be surrounded by everyday miracles, many of which, if we work hard at it, can be found to have a rational explanation. What we cannot explain though is how we happen to be in a certain place at a certain time when a certain thing which has a certain outcome takes place. That is the Grace of God. What we need to do is cultivate within ourselves the kind of spiritual sensitivity that discovers the sacred within the common occurrences of everyday life.
If we don't do that we will find ourselves in the same boat as the people in our New Testament reading who came to Jesus and said to Him, "What miracle will you perform so that we may see it and believe in you? You know, our ancestors had manna in the desert!"
There they were, talking with Jesus, who was a flesh and blood sign of God's grace and presence in their midst, and they couldn't see it. Instead they are saying, "Let God knock us off our feet, astound us... and then we will believe".
Wasn't it enough that Jesus had healed broken hearts, made outcasts acceptable and drowned fear with a flood of love? Had they not already had overwhelming evidence of His capabilities? Even if He had done some Divine magic trick, would it have made any difference? They saw nothing and they felt nothing because they lacked the capacity to discover the sacred within the common-place.
Jesus tells them, "What God wants you to do is to believe in the One He has sent". What God desired for them was not that they seek for some blinding light or dramatic experience but that they wake up to the fact that in the flesh and blood of human existence and in the everyday miracles of grace and life, they could discover the miracle of God's presence.
That is something that I believe we have to do as well. Because for most of us life goes on in a very ordinary fashion. We are aware that we are no more or less than flesh and blood, that this is a place of bricks and wood, and that we are meeting around a table laid with nothing more and nothing less than bread and wine.
We try, by having a communion table and a clean white cloth, by putting the bread on a special plate and the wine in a consecrated cup to show that these common things are special, but really it's just bread and it is just wine and it is just you and it is just me.
But here is the wonder of it all. Although it is just us and just another communion service, here and now, on this ordinary day, we can know the reality of God's love. The miracle is that we happen to be here, at this time, in this place. "What God wants you to do" says Jesus, "Is believe in the One He sent".
The Israelites cried out to God "Help us out here in the Wilderness". God already had it all figured out. The quails and the manna were there but it took an act of faith to realize it. The people cried out to Jesus, "Show us a miracle and then we'll believe." But the miracle had already taken place. He was there, in flesh and blood, standing with them. But they lacked the faith to believe it.
So what of us as we go about our ordinary lives? Will we trust God to meet us in our needs? Will we recognize Him in the everyday miracles that surround our daily lives?
We are here surrounded by the Grace of God in the presence of His people, past, present and to come. He has placed before us this opportunity to worship, to seek Him and share our lives with Him around this table laid with signs to point us to the greatness of His love towards us. Christ died for our sins and was raised to bring us new life.
This is no little thing. Unless our hearts make it so. We need to recognize that it is through the ordinary that God seeks to do the extraordinary. "What God wants you to do is believe in the One He sent".
Come to this table, receive bread and wine, believing in Jesus Christ.
Believe in the capability of God's Holy Spirit
to take the common things of life and make them miraculous.
Believe that the Christian message is the message for your everyday life.
Believe that being a community of faith in age of unbelief
is a challenge to be embraced and a goal to work towards.
As we share together in this service may God renew us that we may help others discover everyday miracles within them and around their lives. AMEN.
Rev. Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
Readings: Psalm 51:1-12, Exodus 16:1-15; Ephesians 4:1-16, John 6:24-35
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY August 5th, 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
Our readings focused on 2 incidents, "Manna from Heaven" and Jesus teaching that He was "Bread of Life". As we approach the table of Bread and Wine I'd like to offer some thoughts on what I'm calling "Everyday Miracles".
Let's start with the Israelites. You probably know the story of how Moses led them out of Egypt into the Wilderness and how once they were there they started to complain, "At least in Egypt we had something to eat! We're starving out here." Moses promises them that sustenance will come, meat for the evening and bread for the morning. And so it was quail for supper and manna for breakfast.
"Give us meat" they said. The quail came and everybody said it was a miracle.
Quails are found in countless numbers on the shores of the Mediterranean and their annual migration is still an event that causes great excitement as they move in vast flocks towards Africa. It's an exhausting flight, done in stages. When the birds stop to take a rest, they are so exhausted that they can easily be picked up and captured.
The miracle wasn't so much that the quail came but rather that, as they responded to the call of God, the Israelites were in that place, at that time, when the quails arrived. In that event the Hebrews saw the hand of God and the Deliverance of the Almighty.
In the wilderness where the Israelites camped lives an insect known as Najacoecus Serpentinus. The sap from the Tamarisk bush on which these insects feed is rich in carbohydrates but low in nitrogen. In order to aquire enough nitrogen for their metabolism to operate properly, the Najacoecus Serpentinus consume an enormous amount of sap. The excess from this process passes from the insect in the form of honeydew excretions which the desert air changes into clumps of sticky solids which turn a whitish yellow color.
These solid lumps are thought to be the manna that the Israelites collected and ate in the wilderness. The Hebrews called it a miracle. Yet, as with the quails, the miracle wasn't so much that the manna came, but that they were in that place, at that time, to receive it.
Our lives continue to be surrounded by everyday miracles, many of which, if we work hard at it, can be found to have a rational explanation. What we cannot explain though is how we happen to be in a certain place at a certain time when a certain thing which has a certain outcome takes place. That is the Grace of God. What we need to do is cultivate within ourselves the kind of spiritual sensitivity that discovers the sacred within the common occurrences of everyday life.
If we don't do that we will find ourselves in the same boat as the people in our New Testament reading who came to Jesus and said to Him, "What miracle will you perform so that we may see it and believe in you? You know, our ancestors had manna in the desert!"
There they were, talking with Jesus, who was a flesh and blood sign of God's grace and presence in their midst, and they couldn't see it. Instead they are saying, "Let God knock us off our feet, astound us... and then we will believe".
Wasn't it enough that Jesus had healed broken hearts, made outcasts acceptable and drowned fear with a flood of love? Had they not already had overwhelming evidence of His capabilities? Even if He had done some Divine magic trick, would it have made any difference? They saw nothing and they felt nothing because they lacked the capacity to discover the sacred within the common-place.
Jesus tells them, "What God wants you to do is to believe in the One He has sent". What God desired for them was not that they seek for some blinding light or dramatic experience but that they wake up to the fact that in the flesh and blood of human existence and in the everyday miracles of grace and life, they could discover the miracle of God's presence.
That is something that I believe we have to do as well. Because for most of us life goes on in a very ordinary fashion. We are aware that we are no more or less than flesh and blood, that this is a place of bricks and wood, and that we are meeting around a table laid with nothing more and nothing less than bread and wine.
We try, by having a communion table and a clean white cloth, by putting the bread on a special plate and the wine in a consecrated cup to show that these common things are special, but really it's just bread and it is just wine and it is just you and it is just me.
But here is the wonder of it all. Although it is just us and just another communion service, here and now, on this ordinary day, we can know the reality of God's love. The miracle is that we happen to be here, at this time, in this place. "What God wants you to do" says Jesus, "Is believe in the One He sent".
The Israelites cried out to God "Help us out here in the Wilderness". God already had it all figured out. The quails and the manna were there but it took an act of faith to realize it. The people cried out to Jesus, "Show us a miracle and then we'll believe." But the miracle had already taken place. He was there, in flesh and blood, standing with them. But they lacked the faith to believe it.
So what of us as we go about our ordinary lives? Will we trust God to meet us in our needs? Will we recognize Him in the everyday miracles that surround our daily lives?
We are here surrounded by the Grace of God in the presence of His people, past, present and to come. He has placed before us this opportunity to worship, to seek Him and share our lives with Him around this table laid with signs to point us to the greatness of His love towards us. Christ died for our sins and was raised to bring us new life.
This is no little thing. Unless our hearts make it so. We need to recognize that it is through the ordinary that God seeks to do the extraordinary. "What God wants you to do is believe in the One He sent".
Come to this table, receive bread and wine, believing in Jesus Christ.
Believe in the capability of God's Holy Spirit
to take the common things of life and make them miraculous.
Believe that the Christian message is the message for your everyday life.
Believe that being a community of faith in age of unbelief
is a challenge to be embraced and a goal to work towards.
As we share together in this service may God renew us that we may help others discover everyday miracles within them and around their lives. AMEN.
Rev. Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
Monday, July 23, 2012
SHEPHERDLESS SHEEP
Readings: Psalm 89:20-37, 2 Samuel 7:1-14, Ephesians 2:11-22, Mark 6:30-34
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on July 22nd 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
We can get so busy. There are a hundred things to do and not enough days to do them all. People’s needs press in on us and we are not sure if we can cope. We travel through different experiences and don't always have the time to evaluate them or consider how they have affected us.
The Good News is that God recognizes our need for time and space for ourselves, our need to be "far from the madding crowd". After their Missionary journeys, Jesus invites the disciples, "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest awhile".
The not so good news for the disciples was that this didn't happen straight away. Jesus recognized they needed a break. But then the crowds pressed in. Jesus could have sent the crowds away. Instead the heart of Jesus is moved with great love towards them. As Mark tells it, (verse 34) "He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd."
The disciples witness two great miracles - the feeding of the 5000 and Jesus coming to them across the water during a storm. At the time both of these happened, the disciples were still hoping for a break. In retrospect, they must have looked back and been glad that they didn't get one!
This passage tells us that there are times when compassion drives us to look beyond even our legitimate needs. It is not that God doesn't know we need space to be the people of God. But there are people with greater needs than us. If we look at them through the eyes of Jesus, we might just witness a miracle! Our time for renewal will come, but their time of need may not be able to wait.
The disciples had their lives in the care of the shepherd, but the crowds are described as 'shepherdless sheep'. The need of the crowd was deeper than that of the disciples. Though weary and exhausted, compassion is the adrenalin that motivates Jesus to teach the crowds of His Father's ways. The sheep needed their shepherd. To be a sheep without a shepherd was to live a precarious existence. Let me suggest three reasons, why shepherdless sheep are objects of God's compassion.
1. A Shepherdless Sheep easily loses the way.
Sheep are prone to wander. Sheep are pack animals that will follow any other sheep that appears to be heading somewhere, without questioning where they may end up. That is why the field a sheep lives is in enclosed by fences.
"All we like sheep have gone astray" laments the prophet Isaiah (53:6). There is an inbuilt tendency in all of us to drift away from God. We spend much of our lives looking for others to guide us, but we don't always take the time to consider where they may be leading us. Humans, like sheep, are pack animals. We are communal beings who need each other to live contented lives.
Life can be very bewildering. We reach a point of decision and don't know what to decide. We come to a crossroads and don't know which way to turn. We wait to see which way everybody else is going and join them, in the presumption that it must be the right way, because everybody else is headed there.
Sometimes we take the time out to consider questions like "Why am I here?" or "Where is my life headed?", but most of the time we don't. And even when we do we don't always have an answer. We can be like the motorist who stopped his car, looked around and said, "I don't know where I am, but wherever it is, it's not where I want to be!"
We need a shepherd to guide us. Jesus offers to be that Shepherd. His Word offers signposts that guide the Way. As we learn of the ways people of God before learned to live God's way, so we can walk in those ways for ourselves. As we discover how people of God have made their decisions, so we take confidence that God can also guide our decisions that we make the right choices, even when the crowd is heading off in the opposite direction.
If we allow Jesus to lead us, then we are no longer sheep without a shepherd.
2. A Shepherdless Sheep has a bad diet.
Sheep cannot consume anything they like without suffering the consequences. The professional sheep farmer ensures that the field in which their sheep live is free of plants that could harm them. The sheep’s diet is supplemented by different feeds that maintain health and help growth. Like humans, sheep are prey to many different diseases and receive inoculations and preventative treatment to avoid them.
Turn on the TV or pick up a magazine and you can be sure, sooner or later, food will get a mention. When it comes to food we are a diet conscious people. We want to know not only what tastes good and looks good but also what is good for us. We know that what we put in our stomachs effects the way we live. If we don't take care then we suffer for it.
We even have tablets to take when our lifestyle causes us to eat badly - numerous remedies for heartburn, indigestion, constipation, over eating, under eating and so on. Even when we have a bad diet, we take steps to supplement it so that appears to our stomachs to be a good diet!
The tragedy is that though we are so conscious of our physical diet, we can be so indiscriminate in what we feed our hearts, minds and souls upon. We fail to make the connection between the diet we spiritually consume with the condition of our health.
William Barclay writes in his commentary on Mark, "We need the strength which can keep us going, we need the inspiration which can lift us out of ourselves and above ourselves. When we seek it elsewhere our minds are still unsatisfied, our hearts are still restless and our souls are still unfed. We can only gain strength for life from Him who is the living Bread!"
There is a lot of mindless junk food to feed upon in the field of this world. If we are indiscriminate in what we feed upon, it will result in spiritual indigestion. Maybe we can take our guidance from the tablets Moses brought down from the mountain. The Ten Commandments certainly offer good boundary fences to surround our lives with.
Fences are important not just for what they keep in, but also for what they keep out.
A shepherdless Sheep easily loses its way.
A Shepherdless Sheep has a bad diet, and thirdly;
3. A Shepherdless Sheep is defenseless.
A sheep in Jesus time was easy prey for other animals. As an animal it has little to protect itself with. Mother nature has not blessed it with the greatest of defense mechanisms. It’s slow and wooly. It doesn’t have viscous teeth or claws. “Baa” is not a war cry!
A fence provides a boundary to enclose the sheep for their protection. In Jesus day the sheep would spend the night in the sheepfold and the shepherd would sleep across the door to prevent anything taking their lives. It was the shepherd’s job to guard the sheep.
It is good practice to build a fence around our own lives. Not literally, but I mean by setting boundaries. We can do that in all sorts of ways. One of the simplest ways is by cultivating good habits that slowly integrate their way into our lives. Making time in our schedule every day for devotion and prayer, keeps us focused on the God who is always present. Regularly supporting a particular cause or concern keeps us focused on situations outside of ourselves. Regular attendance at church gives our week a focus that we otherwise easily lose.
But there are even simpler things. Like always counting to ten before we respond to a situation that's aggravating us. Like slowing down. Like being more aware of our surroundings. Like allowing God to be the One who makes the judgment calls, rather than setting ourselves up as God's authority. Like listening before we give our opinion. Like practicing simple virtues such as kindness and courtesy and tolerance.
Such simple practices build a fence around our lives in the sense that they nurture us spiritually and help us to see situations in a different light, because we are coming from a safe place, a quiet place, rather than from a place of turmoil and anxiety.
We also need to recall the promises of scripture in such a way as we make them our own. Words of Jesus. 'I will never leave you or forsake you' “I am always with you' 'I am the Good Shepherd who lays His life down for His sheep” . There is no shortage of words and phrases that we can call to mind when we are going through difficult times... or even when we are enjoying the best of times.
We'll be using the 23rd psalm as our affirmation of faith this morning, and one of the features of that wonderful poem is the way it is appropriate for so many different occasions in our lives, from their beginning to their end. I have heard it read at Christenings, at Baptisms, at Weddings, at the bedside of those critically ill, on battlefields, at picnics, at funerals, on occasions of national celebration or mourning, at times of dedication... the list goes on.
The Psalm is an affirmation that we are not shepherdless sheep. We do not walk through this world alone. There is One to guide us, lead us, protect us, feed us, heal us, inspire us, move us, shake us, restore us, hold us, comfort us, clothe us, eat with us, protect us, and surround our lives with goodness and mercy and righteousness.
Jesus looks with compassion on all people.
Jesus has compassion for us.
Jesus wants to be our shepherd.
Will we let His Word be our Guide?
Will we guard ourselves from feeding on the empty diet of this world and seek to be nourished by His Holy Spirit?
Will we allow God to surround our lives by resting our lives in the palm of God’s hand?
None of us need to be shepherdless sheep. We have a Savior in the Lord Jesus Christ.
To God's name be all the glory. Amen.
Affirmation of Faith: 23rd Psalm.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil; for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Rev Adrian Pratt
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on July 22nd 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
We can get so busy. There are a hundred things to do and not enough days to do them all. People’s needs press in on us and we are not sure if we can cope. We travel through different experiences and don't always have the time to evaluate them or consider how they have affected us.
The Good News is that God recognizes our need for time and space for ourselves, our need to be "far from the madding crowd". After their Missionary journeys, Jesus invites the disciples, "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest awhile".
The not so good news for the disciples was that this didn't happen straight away. Jesus recognized they needed a break. But then the crowds pressed in. Jesus could have sent the crowds away. Instead the heart of Jesus is moved with great love towards them. As Mark tells it, (verse 34) "He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd."
The disciples witness two great miracles - the feeding of the 5000 and Jesus coming to them across the water during a storm. At the time both of these happened, the disciples were still hoping for a break. In retrospect, they must have looked back and been glad that they didn't get one!
This passage tells us that there are times when compassion drives us to look beyond even our legitimate needs. It is not that God doesn't know we need space to be the people of God. But there are people with greater needs than us. If we look at them through the eyes of Jesus, we might just witness a miracle! Our time for renewal will come, but their time of need may not be able to wait.
The disciples had their lives in the care of the shepherd, but the crowds are described as 'shepherdless sheep'. The need of the crowd was deeper than that of the disciples. Though weary and exhausted, compassion is the adrenalin that motivates Jesus to teach the crowds of His Father's ways. The sheep needed their shepherd. To be a sheep without a shepherd was to live a precarious existence. Let me suggest three reasons, why shepherdless sheep are objects of God's compassion.
1. A Shepherdless Sheep easily loses the way.
Sheep are prone to wander. Sheep are pack animals that will follow any other sheep that appears to be heading somewhere, without questioning where they may end up. That is why the field a sheep lives is in enclosed by fences.
"All we like sheep have gone astray" laments the prophet Isaiah (53:6). There is an inbuilt tendency in all of us to drift away from God. We spend much of our lives looking for others to guide us, but we don't always take the time to consider where they may be leading us. Humans, like sheep, are pack animals. We are communal beings who need each other to live contented lives.
Life can be very bewildering. We reach a point of decision and don't know what to decide. We come to a crossroads and don't know which way to turn. We wait to see which way everybody else is going and join them, in the presumption that it must be the right way, because everybody else is headed there.
Sometimes we take the time out to consider questions like "Why am I here?" or "Where is my life headed?", but most of the time we don't. And even when we do we don't always have an answer. We can be like the motorist who stopped his car, looked around and said, "I don't know where I am, but wherever it is, it's not where I want to be!"
We need a shepherd to guide us. Jesus offers to be that Shepherd. His Word offers signposts that guide the Way. As we learn of the ways people of God before learned to live God's way, so we can walk in those ways for ourselves. As we discover how people of God have made their decisions, so we take confidence that God can also guide our decisions that we make the right choices, even when the crowd is heading off in the opposite direction.
If we allow Jesus to lead us, then we are no longer sheep without a shepherd.
2. A Shepherdless Sheep has a bad diet.
Sheep cannot consume anything they like without suffering the consequences. The professional sheep farmer ensures that the field in which their sheep live is free of plants that could harm them. The sheep’s diet is supplemented by different feeds that maintain health and help growth. Like humans, sheep are prey to many different diseases and receive inoculations and preventative treatment to avoid them.
Turn on the TV or pick up a magazine and you can be sure, sooner or later, food will get a mention. When it comes to food we are a diet conscious people. We want to know not only what tastes good and looks good but also what is good for us. We know that what we put in our stomachs effects the way we live. If we don't take care then we suffer for it.
We even have tablets to take when our lifestyle causes us to eat badly - numerous remedies for heartburn, indigestion, constipation, over eating, under eating and so on. Even when we have a bad diet, we take steps to supplement it so that appears to our stomachs to be a good diet!
The tragedy is that though we are so conscious of our physical diet, we can be so indiscriminate in what we feed our hearts, minds and souls upon. We fail to make the connection between the diet we spiritually consume with the condition of our health.
William Barclay writes in his commentary on Mark, "We need the strength which can keep us going, we need the inspiration which can lift us out of ourselves and above ourselves. When we seek it elsewhere our minds are still unsatisfied, our hearts are still restless and our souls are still unfed. We can only gain strength for life from Him who is the living Bread!"
There is a lot of mindless junk food to feed upon in the field of this world. If we are indiscriminate in what we feed upon, it will result in spiritual indigestion. Maybe we can take our guidance from the tablets Moses brought down from the mountain. The Ten Commandments certainly offer good boundary fences to surround our lives with.
Fences are important not just for what they keep in, but also for what they keep out.
A shepherdless Sheep easily loses its way.
A Shepherdless Sheep has a bad diet, and thirdly;
3. A Shepherdless Sheep is defenseless.
A sheep in Jesus time was easy prey for other animals. As an animal it has little to protect itself with. Mother nature has not blessed it with the greatest of defense mechanisms. It’s slow and wooly. It doesn’t have viscous teeth or claws. “Baa” is not a war cry!
A fence provides a boundary to enclose the sheep for their protection. In Jesus day the sheep would spend the night in the sheepfold and the shepherd would sleep across the door to prevent anything taking their lives. It was the shepherd’s job to guard the sheep.
It is good practice to build a fence around our own lives. Not literally, but I mean by setting boundaries. We can do that in all sorts of ways. One of the simplest ways is by cultivating good habits that slowly integrate their way into our lives. Making time in our schedule every day for devotion and prayer, keeps us focused on the God who is always present. Regularly supporting a particular cause or concern keeps us focused on situations outside of ourselves. Regular attendance at church gives our week a focus that we otherwise easily lose.
But there are even simpler things. Like always counting to ten before we respond to a situation that's aggravating us. Like slowing down. Like being more aware of our surroundings. Like allowing God to be the One who makes the judgment calls, rather than setting ourselves up as God's authority. Like listening before we give our opinion. Like practicing simple virtues such as kindness and courtesy and tolerance.
Such simple practices build a fence around our lives in the sense that they nurture us spiritually and help us to see situations in a different light, because we are coming from a safe place, a quiet place, rather than from a place of turmoil and anxiety.
We also need to recall the promises of scripture in such a way as we make them our own. Words of Jesus. 'I will never leave you or forsake you' “I am always with you' 'I am the Good Shepherd who lays His life down for His sheep” . There is no shortage of words and phrases that we can call to mind when we are going through difficult times... or even when we are enjoying the best of times.
We'll be using the 23rd psalm as our affirmation of faith this morning, and one of the features of that wonderful poem is the way it is appropriate for so many different occasions in our lives, from their beginning to their end. I have heard it read at Christenings, at Baptisms, at Weddings, at the bedside of those critically ill, on battlefields, at picnics, at funerals, on occasions of national celebration or mourning, at times of dedication... the list goes on.
The Psalm is an affirmation that we are not shepherdless sheep. We do not walk through this world alone. There is One to guide us, lead us, protect us, feed us, heal us, inspire us, move us, shake us, restore us, hold us, comfort us, clothe us, eat with us, protect us, and surround our lives with goodness and mercy and righteousness.
Jesus looks with compassion on all people.
Jesus has compassion for us.
Jesus wants to be our shepherd.
Will we let His Word be our Guide?
Will we guard ourselves from feeding on the empty diet of this world and seek to be nourished by His Holy Spirit?
Will we allow God to surround our lives by resting our lives in the palm of God’s hand?
None of us need to be shepherdless sheep. We have a Savior in the Lord Jesus Christ.
To God's name be all the glory. Amen.
Affirmation of Faith: 23rd Psalm.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil; for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Rev Adrian Pratt
Monday, July 16, 2012
Beware the toxins of Herod!
Readings: Psalm 24, 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12-19, Ephesians 1:3-14, Mark: 6:14-29
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, July 15th 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
In many Bibles and commentaries, our gospel passage from Mark is given the title 'The death of John the Baptist'. But it's not really about John. It's about King Herod. We may, in our better moments, wish to identify with John. John is the victim. John is the one who has done nothing wrong and makes a stand for what is right. John is the hero and the martyr.
Most of us here today are neither victims or likely to become martyr's. We are the ones with power. Power to choose. Power to decide. Power to create lives that have meaning and influence. If our life situation is to be identified with anybody in the account it should probably be Herod.
Whilst we may identify with Herod's situation we probably don't want to be identified with his character. Though incredibly powerful he turns out to be weak, compromised and dangerous. The word 'toxin' when used in chemical terms, describes a substance that is capable of causing injury or death. Hence our sermon title: “Beware the Toxin's of Herod”.
In the life of Herod we observe a whole trinity of toxins!
The danger of toxic relationships
Pop-Diva Britney Spears has a hit song called 'Toxic' in which she sings of the attraction she has for the wrong sort of guy. With poetry that you only find in dance charts she sings; 'With a taste of your lips, I'm on a ride, You're toxic, I'm slipping under! With a taste of poison paradise, I'm addicted to you, Don't you know that you're toxic?' I was going to invite the choir to make that the anthem this morning, but... maybe not.
Herod was in a toxic relationship with his wife Herodias. Actually Herodias was his brothers wife... and that's where all the trouble started. Because when John the Baptist found that Herod had taken his brother's wife as his own, he spoke out about it. Herodias didn't want to hear what John had to say, and through her incessant nagging, she persuaded Herod to have John arrested and put in prison.
When it came to John, King Herod was completely paranoid. He was drawn to John's message like a moth to a flame. He knew John was in the right.
Verses 19 and 20 in the Message Bible picture the tensions in the story quite clearly. “Herodias, smoldering with hate, wanted to kill John, but she didn't dare because Herod was in awe of John. Convinced that he was a holy man, he gave him special treatment. Whenever he listened to him he was miserable with guilt—and yet he couldn't stay away. Something in John kept pulling him back. “
For his birthday Herod throws a party and everybody who is anybody is invited. As she witnesses Herod's behavior, Herodias finds an opportunity to have John silenced for good.
The whole sad story begins with a relationship that never should have been; Herod's relationship with Herodias. The lady is toxic. In church we often talk about reaching out to everybody with the gospel and how all are welcome at our table. We don't always talk about boundaries and the danger that exists when relationships go bad.
Maybe we are not aware of the statistics regarding domestic violence, maybe we naively believe that somehow we are a strong enough character not to allow toxic people to influence our decisions. But the truth is that certain relationships can be a curse rather than a cause of celebration. We have to take care that our relationships do not cause us to compromise what we believe. Herod believed John to be in the right. Because of his desire to be in a relationship with Herodias, he did the wrong thing. He ignored his own conscience and went along with her.
We need to be careful who we make our closest friends. We need to get out of relationships that are dragging us down. Relationships that are causing us to compromise on what we know is right. Relationships that are causing harm. Once things start going crazy, it's not just ourselves who are hurt, but conflict spills over into every other relationship that we have in our life, including our relationship with God.
Which leads into a second observation. We need to be aware of...
The delusive power of toxic environments
Singer/Songwriter Randy Newman had a song that was a number 1 hit in 1970 for Three Dog Night 'I've seen so many things, That I ain't never seen before, I don't know what it is, But I don't wanna see no more... Mama told me not to come, Mama told me not to come, She said that ain't no way to have fun, Mama told me not to come.”
I'm fairly sure that Randy Newman wasn't writing about this particular passage in Mark, but I tell you, if I was at a party where following a dancing girl they bring out a prophets severed head on a silver plate... I'd be singing along, '.Mama told me not to come.” It is not enough to just watch who we're knowing. We also need to watch where we're going.
There are parties... and there are parties. I don't believe there is anything wrong with having a dance to celebrate a birthday with friends or a good company and a glass of wine. But there was something more than an innocent celebration going on here. Things were getting out of control.
Whilst the text doesn't suggest their was anything salacious about the young girls dancing, it appears to have been interpreted that way by Herod. His judgment is impaired by too much drink. He has no idea that he's being manipulated. He starts making promises that he couldn't possibly fulfill. 'Just dance for me one more time ... I will give you anything you desire”
No sooner has he said it than Herodias sweeps down like an eagle on her prey. “Ask for the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter” she goads the daughter. Herod looks around at his guests. He's afraid of what people will make of him if he goes back on his word.
So, with a wave of the hand, it's done. Executioners are sent to do the dirty deed and return with their gruesome prize. What happened next at the party we don't know. I'm not even sure I want to know! 'that ain't no way to have fun, Mama told me not to come
Sometimes we find in ourselves in situations where we feel we're out of our depth. We feel pressure from family, friends or peers to behave in certain ways. We may let our guard down more than we should by relaxing more than we had intended. At such times we should remind ourselves that there are situations when we just have to walk away. And there is no shame in doing that.
And that doesn't just apply to parties. In the workplace, in a school or college setting, when people are joking around, even just being out with friends or colleagues, if something in our spirit witnesses that this just isn't right, it's OK to walk away. It doesn't mean that we don't care or that we are being judgmental.
Events can turn toxic. And when they do, we don't need to be there! Just as there are toxic relationships that we need to avoid so there are toxic situations we need to walk away from. Or better still avoid getting into in the first place.
We also need to be alert to the simple truth that not everybody has our best interest at heart. I admit it, I can be “Mr. Gullible”. I often presume the best about people. If they spin me a sad tale as to why they need my help, I don't always ask the right questions. And then I have those “DANG” moments when I realize I'm being taken for a ride.
Herod thinks he's being generous offering this dancing girl whatever she wanted. He's just being had. He's just being taken advantage of. Never underestimate peoples powers of persuasion. Remember the old adage “If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is!' And once our guard is down... then we make bad decisions. This account also warns us about...
The dilemma of toxic choices.
One of Herod's failings is that when he is called upon to compromise he get's his priorities completely messed up. About marrying his brother's wife? No compromise. About locking up John. Total compromise. Herod knows he's doing the wrong thing.
And then there's the question of his honor. Should he have made a compromise and declared that the death of a good man was more of a wrong than losing face with his guests? Yes. That's what he should have done. But rather than compromise on a drunken promise, he instead has a man executed!
The choices we make can be toxic. Maybe not quite as toxic as Herod's but nevertheless, we are daily faced with choices about what we support, where we shop, what causes we support, how we spend our leisure time... and on and on. Herod is not a puppet. Throughout the whole story Herod has choices. As do we. But he's weak. He makes all the wrong decisions.
The story starts out with him choosing what he's going to believe about Jesus Christ. People tell us that it doesn't matter what we believe. That's not true. Because if we get it wrong about Jesus then that decision effects everything else we do.
Some days after the party King Herod is learning about Jesus. People are expressing their opinions about who Jesus is. 'He's a prophet' 'He's a phenomenal teacher' 'He's a healer' 'He's Elijah”. Herod is fixed on his own idea. Jesus wasn't any of those things. Jesus was John the Baptist, raised from dead, and come back to haunt him.
Herod is riddled with guilt and remorse for his actions. He can't get John out of his mind. His disturbed mental state means he has no comprehension of the Kingdom Jesus was bringing into being. He is so pre-occupied with his own assumptions that he gets it all wrong about the one who could have been his savior.
The question of who we believe Jesus may be and how we deal with all the conflicting information we hear, is one that each of us has to work through. There is always a danger of being blinded by our assumptions or of reflecting too much on our own failures, that we fail to see how God can help us. I personally believe that if we turn honestly and openly towards God, God's Holy Spirit can help us make the right decisions and reveal to us things we may be missing.
So there we have it! We've covered some ground this morning. Britney Spears, Three Dog night. Dancing girls. Parties. Silver plates. Beheadings and Beliefs. I'm not really sure how to conclude other than repeating again my sermon title 'Beware the toxins of Herod!'
Be alert to the danger of toxic relationships. Get out of them.
Be aware of the delusive power of toxic environments. Avoid them.
And be sensitive to the dilemma of toxic choices.
Put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
Unlike Herod, you can trust in Jesus! Amen.
Adrian J Pratt B.D.
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, July 15th 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
In many Bibles and commentaries, our gospel passage from Mark is given the title 'The death of John the Baptist'. But it's not really about John. It's about King Herod. We may, in our better moments, wish to identify with John. John is the victim. John is the one who has done nothing wrong and makes a stand for what is right. John is the hero and the martyr.
Most of us here today are neither victims or likely to become martyr's. We are the ones with power. Power to choose. Power to decide. Power to create lives that have meaning and influence. If our life situation is to be identified with anybody in the account it should probably be Herod.
Whilst we may identify with Herod's situation we probably don't want to be identified with his character. Though incredibly powerful he turns out to be weak, compromised and dangerous. The word 'toxin' when used in chemical terms, describes a substance that is capable of causing injury or death. Hence our sermon title: “Beware the Toxin's of Herod”.
In the life of Herod we observe a whole trinity of toxins!
- The danger of toxic relationships
- The delusive power of toxic environments
- The dilemma of toxic choices.
The danger of toxic relationships
Pop-Diva Britney Spears has a hit song called 'Toxic' in which she sings of the attraction she has for the wrong sort of guy. With poetry that you only find in dance charts she sings; 'With a taste of your lips, I'm on a ride, You're toxic, I'm slipping under! With a taste of poison paradise, I'm addicted to you, Don't you know that you're toxic?' I was going to invite the choir to make that the anthem this morning, but... maybe not.
Herod was in a toxic relationship with his wife Herodias. Actually Herodias was his brothers wife... and that's where all the trouble started. Because when John the Baptist found that Herod had taken his brother's wife as his own, he spoke out about it. Herodias didn't want to hear what John had to say, and through her incessant nagging, she persuaded Herod to have John arrested and put in prison.
When it came to John, King Herod was completely paranoid. He was drawn to John's message like a moth to a flame. He knew John was in the right.
Verses 19 and 20 in the Message Bible picture the tensions in the story quite clearly. “Herodias, smoldering with hate, wanted to kill John, but she didn't dare because Herod was in awe of John. Convinced that he was a holy man, he gave him special treatment. Whenever he listened to him he was miserable with guilt—and yet he couldn't stay away. Something in John kept pulling him back. “
For his birthday Herod throws a party and everybody who is anybody is invited. As she witnesses Herod's behavior, Herodias finds an opportunity to have John silenced for good.
The whole sad story begins with a relationship that never should have been; Herod's relationship with Herodias. The lady is toxic. In church we often talk about reaching out to everybody with the gospel and how all are welcome at our table. We don't always talk about boundaries and the danger that exists when relationships go bad.
Maybe we are not aware of the statistics regarding domestic violence, maybe we naively believe that somehow we are a strong enough character not to allow toxic people to influence our decisions. But the truth is that certain relationships can be a curse rather than a cause of celebration. We have to take care that our relationships do not cause us to compromise what we believe. Herod believed John to be in the right. Because of his desire to be in a relationship with Herodias, he did the wrong thing. He ignored his own conscience and went along with her.
We need to be careful who we make our closest friends. We need to get out of relationships that are dragging us down. Relationships that are causing us to compromise on what we know is right. Relationships that are causing harm. Once things start going crazy, it's not just ourselves who are hurt, but conflict spills over into every other relationship that we have in our life, including our relationship with God.
Which leads into a second observation. We need to be aware of...
The delusive power of toxic environments
Singer/Songwriter Randy Newman had a song that was a number 1 hit in 1970 for Three Dog Night 'I've seen so many things, That I ain't never seen before, I don't know what it is, But I don't wanna see no more... Mama told me not to come, Mama told me not to come, She said that ain't no way to have fun, Mama told me not to come.”
I'm fairly sure that Randy Newman wasn't writing about this particular passage in Mark, but I tell you, if I was at a party where following a dancing girl they bring out a prophets severed head on a silver plate... I'd be singing along, '.Mama told me not to come.” It is not enough to just watch who we're knowing. We also need to watch where we're going.
There are parties... and there are parties. I don't believe there is anything wrong with having a dance to celebrate a birthday with friends or a good company and a glass of wine. But there was something more than an innocent celebration going on here. Things were getting out of control.
Whilst the text doesn't suggest their was anything salacious about the young girls dancing, it appears to have been interpreted that way by Herod. His judgment is impaired by too much drink. He has no idea that he's being manipulated. He starts making promises that he couldn't possibly fulfill. 'Just dance for me one more time ... I will give you anything you desire”
No sooner has he said it than Herodias sweeps down like an eagle on her prey. “Ask for the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter” she goads the daughter. Herod looks around at his guests. He's afraid of what people will make of him if he goes back on his word.
So, with a wave of the hand, it's done. Executioners are sent to do the dirty deed and return with their gruesome prize. What happened next at the party we don't know. I'm not even sure I want to know! 'that ain't no way to have fun, Mama told me not to come
Sometimes we find in ourselves in situations where we feel we're out of our depth. We feel pressure from family, friends or peers to behave in certain ways. We may let our guard down more than we should by relaxing more than we had intended. At such times we should remind ourselves that there are situations when we just have to walk away. And there is no shame in doing that.
And that doesn't just apply to parties. In the workplace, in a school or college setting, when people are joking around, even just being out with friends or colleagues, if something in our spirit witnesses that this just isn't right, it's OK to walk away. It doesn't mean that we don't care or that we are being judgmental.
Events can turn toxic. And when they do, we don't need to be there! Just as there are toxic relationships that we need to avoid so there are toxic situations we need to walk away from. Or better still avoid getting into in the first place.
We also need to be alert to the simple truth that not everybody has our best interest at heart. I admit it, I can be “Mr. Gullible”. I often presume the best about people. If they spin me a sad tale as to why they need my help, I don't always ask the right questions. And then I have those “DANG” moments when I realize I'm being taken for a ride.
Herod thinks he's being generous offering this dancing girl whatever she wanted. He's just being had. He's just being taken advantage of. Never underestimate peoples powers of persuasion. Remember the old adage “If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is!' And once our guard is down... then we make bad decisions. This account also warns us about...
The dilemma of toxic choices.
One of Herod's failings is that when he is called upon to compromise he get's his priorities completely messed up. About marrying his brother's wife? No compromise. About locking up John. Total compromise. Herod knows he's doing the wrong thing.
And then there's the question of his honor. Should he have made a compromise and declared that the death of a good man was more of a wrong than losing face with his guests? Yes. That's what he should have done. But rather than compromise on a drunken promise, he instead has a man executed!
The choices we make can be toxic. Maybe not quite as toxic as Herod's but nevertheless, we are daily faced with choices about what we support, where we shop, what causes we support, how we spend our leisure time... and on and on. Herod is not a puppet. Throughout the whole story Herod has choices. As do we. But he's weak. He makes all the wrong decisions.
The story starts out with him choosing what he's going to believe about Jesus Christ. People tell us that it doesn't matter what we believe. That's not true. Because if we get it wrong about Jesus then that decision effects everything else we do.
Some days after the party King Herod is learning about Jesus. People are expressing their opinions about who Jesus is. 'He's a prophet' 'He's a phenomenal teacher' 'He's a healer' 'He's Elijah”. Herod is fixed on his own idea. Jesus wasn't any of those things. Jesus was John the Baptist, raised from dead, and come back to haunt him.
Herod is riddled with guilt and remorse for his actions. He can't get John out of his mind. His disturbed mental state means he has no comprehension of the Kingdom Jesus was bringing into being. He is so pre-occupied with his own assumptions that he gets it all wrong about the one who could have been his savior.
The question of who we believe Jesus may be and how we deal with all the conflicting information we hear, is one that each of us has to work through. There is always a danger of being blinded by our assumptions or of reflecting too much on our own failures, that we fail to see how God can help us. I personally believe that if we turn honestly and openly towards God, God's Holy Spirit can help us make the right decisions and reveal to us things we may be missing.
So there we have it! We've covered some ground this morning. Britney Spears, Three Dog night. Dancing girls. Parties. Silver plates. Beheadings and Beliefs. I'm not really sure how to conclude other than repeating again my sermon title 'Beware the toxins of Herod!'
Be alert to the danger of toxic relationships. Get out of them.
Be aware of the delusive power of toxic environments. Avoid them.
And be sensitive to the dilemma of toxic choices.
Put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
Unlike Herod, you can trust in Jesus! Amen.
Adrian J Pratt B.D.
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