Isaiah 6: 1-8

Psalm 29
Romans 8: 12-17
John 3: 1-17

“In the year King Uzziah died”. The way in which this passage begins could be a simple chronological reference, otherwise known as 742 BC, but I doubt it; it sounds a little ominous. It sounds as if the readers know what that reference means without any elaboration, but it’s lost on us!

Since King Uzziah was the last of the truly powerful monarchs this reference is an “it goes without saying” kind of statement; a “code” to the readers that the future will not be as glorious or secure as the past had been. For the readers, far in the future, it was an indication that this was when “the good times were all gone and the hard times had come.”

For the modern generation I might start a sentence with the phrase, “On the morning of September 11, 2001 nothing appeared to be unusual.” You will, of course know, that the day of which I spoke will turn out to be anything but ‘a usual day’!

Isaiah’s call was to come at a critical time in their history, even if the most of the people did not realize it at the time. Unfortunately Isaiah’s call was to be a ‘bad news’ prophet. There were hard times ahead and the nation would be in special need of God’s grace in those times.

When Isaiah had his vision his first reaction to this encounter with the Holy God was that he was a sinful mortal in the presence of the “utterly holy”. He felt fear and inadequacy when faced with this holiness. After the burning coal is used as a symbol of purification Isaiah can exercise the ministry to which he has been called.

In the passage I read from John’s gospel, we hear that Nicodemus has sought Jesus out under the cover of darkness and receives some rather surprising news about encountering the ‘holy’ from the carpenter of Nazareth.

There has been much speculation about why Nicodemus came at night. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a person who would have been morally righteous. There is no indication of hypocrisy here. There is no doubt that he was doing everything he should have been according to his traditions. Yet, he was still seeking light and so his coming at night is a symbol of the darkness surrounding his life, despite all outward appearances to the contrary. He was seeking enlightenment, a new way, and he knew where to find it. But was he prepared to accept the message?

He received the shocking message that he, of all people, needed to be reborn. He takes it literally and objects, since a grown-up cannot possibly be born a second time (at least not in the same was as the first time). I suspect that his objections went much deeper though. He was a pharisee; no doubt from one of the best families in the village. He has as high a birth as one could expect, outside of the royal palace! To suggest that he needed a higher birth likely offended his upper class sensibilities.

Yet, that is what Jesus said to him. Yes, Nicodemus, even someone like you needs to be “born of God”; even d\someone as worthy as you needs to be made ‘a child of God’.

To recognize this need was, in part, to recognize that social status and human achievement counted for nothing in God’s kingdom. The implications were: a) that even he wasn’t already ‘good enough’ and that, b) when this happened, he would be equal to all the others who had received this new birth, despite where they had originated, or who their people were, or what they had achieved in life.

Aside from these factors, this ‘new birth’ was also something Nicodemus could not control; it would be God’s doing, just as his first birth was beyond his control or ability to manage. Maybe it was these things that fuelled his objections as well as the impossibility of it all. Maybe he was afraid of all of these implications. Maybe.

Isaiah’s encounter with the Holy God left him responding in faith, albeit with some fear, while Nicodemus’ encounter left him with a great deal to consider. While we do know about the work of this man we call Isaiah, we are not really sure if the man named Nicodemus was able to accept this new life offered by Jesus.

So, all these years later we too are invited into an encounter with the holy and through it we are also offered our new identity and issued our call to serve.

As a people of faith we are told that we cannot operate by this world’s values. We are called to operate by a different identity, that of God’s children, and to allow ourselves to be born from ‘above’. If we do not we will be like Nicodemus was, living in the dark about our true potential and true identity.

When one comes to the light, says this passage, it becomes clear that the ministry of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit are ways in which God is at work in the world which God loves to show love and the way of life to that world.

It’s not that the people of the world need to be saved in order to get it to heaven when their time comes, but that the world itself needs to be saved from sin; the world needs to be saved from itself, so that the world can be who and what it was created by God to be. In order for the world to be able to fulfil the purpose for which it was created the world needs the message of Jesus; which is one of equality, justice and compassion, among other things.

It is clear to me that this passage is about life here and now and what it can be, if we accept our identity as God’s children and (by logical conclusion) as brothers and sisters in Christ. This passage is about life here and now and how it can be made more whole and brought in line with God’s will and intention for it.

I really don’t think that “life after death” was as much of a concern to Jesus as was “eternal life”; a quality of life begun in the here and now, and which would last forever.

As a people of faith we are called into that encounter with the Holy which frees us from the restrictions of our human condition, of family of origin, of nationality, of social status and all of that and gives us what we need to live as God’s beloved children. The things that give us status in the world are of no account; what matters is our willingness to accept this new identity and to live as God’s children and follow the guidance of the Spirit in all of our living.

Amen.

1 Samuel 17: 32-49
Psalm 9: 9-20
2 Corinthians 6: 1-13
Mark 4: 35-41

“Facing our Giants”

In our Vacation Bible School one year we sang, “Only a boy named David/ Only a little sling ....” In Bible School for the first time that year was a little boy named David and the teachers tried to make him feel special when that song was being sung. However, I doubt that any of us wanted him to emulate the song. We certainly did not want his slingshot aimed at a grown-up because of his or her height.

Like a number of stories from this part of the Bible, it is a violent story. It’s a war story; a man is killed; and, for good measure, beheaded; and many of his comrades are also killed.

For today I don’t want to focus on the violence, because it’s a really good story and not mere history; it works on a completely different level. It has a different purpose. If it was mere history it would go something like: “David used a slingshot to kill a Philistine Giant named Gloiath and cut off his head.”

As I see it, the story has two purposes: ONE to show how great this King David was, even when he was a kid. But it’s more than that and it can be more than that for us.

TWO: It’s a story about the God of David and his tribe; it’s a story about the God of the people of Israel. It’s a story about the God of heaven and earth. And, ultimately it’s a universal human story. It can be our story.

I can imagine this story being told by the campfire in a pre-literate culture. First the story teller gives the essential elements:

Goliath was a enemy soldier.

He was over nine feet tall. (Some early manuscripts of the Bible say that he was only just over 6 feet, but by the standards of the day he was REALLY TALL. Even a grown-up soldier would have to look up to stare him in the eye.

To stress the intimidation factor we learn that:

his armour weighed 125 pounds,

his spear point weighed 15 pounds.

He stood on the hillside taunting the army of Israel. Send someone to fight me, ha, ha, ha. Like a wrestler from a travelling carnival, the young men of the surrounding areas are invited to prove their strength. But in this case, the fight will be real and to the death. There’s more at stake here though: winner gets to control the army and territory of the loser.

For 40 days the giant taunted our army but no one would fight him and he would not go away. Who would risk his life and the freedom of Israel? No one, or so it seemed.

Now, you can imagine the young eyes widening and the collective with-holding of the breath as the community gathered on a cold night around a warm fire, and this story was told and preserved it for yet another generation.

The story teller continues: Just then David, the youngest of the eight sons of Jesse, was sent by his father to take some food out to the troops and to bring back some news. Actually the amount of supplies is quite astounding and it could not have been carried in a few grocery bags either! ; 5 bushels of grain \ten loaves of bread and ten cheeses. He is clearly thrilled with the chance to be sent to ‘where the action was’. Like all younger brothers, he want to be grown up and in the know and get to do all of the exciting stuff. So when he arrived at the battlefield he checked his stuff with the quarter-master and ran to the front lines. He discovers that they need a soldier and he asks: “can I help, c an I, can I, please, please? “

The next scene is funny and even cartoon-like as David tries to wear Saul’s armour and can hardly walk.

I remember attending a highland games competition in Pugwash one year and we were invited to inspect, up close and personal, some of the things they compete with - like the hammer and the caber. I could throw a claw hammer quite a distance but not that kind of hammer and I would not attempt to lift a caber, let alone toss it anywhere!

But David decides that he does not need any of this and he chooses to go and fight with just his slingshot and a few carefully selected stones.

Despite his youth David recognizes what is at stake; but he knows that Goliath has defied not just a weaker nation but none other than the ‘living God’.

The youth speaks with confidence and the giant taunts the boy. He is a soldier and they have sent a mere boy.

The children around the campfire are holding their breath. Their hearts are pounding. How does David win this one? The ensuing action could hardly be more astonishing. A simple shot and Goliath is on the ground. Obviously the people of Israel are saved from the horrible sea-going people known as the Philistines.

Many people are fascinated with the lives of famous people and almost every biography you pick up has a ‘childhood/young person story’ section. We want to know, “What were they like as a child?”

This is one of those stories we have traditionally regarded as an essential for the Sunday School curriculum, most often because it’s about a young person. Beyond that we must do a great deal of work with them to use as guiding stories for the community of faith in 2006.

Any explanation of this story, when I was a child, tended to focus on just where the stone had to hit Goliath in order to kill him! I don’t think that this was terribly edifying to my five and six year old friends. Then the part, that wasn’t read today about David using the giants own sword to cut off his head didn’t help us much either.

In many ways it sounded a lot like “Jack and the Beanstalk” but since it was in the Bible we were supposed to treat it differently. But what did it mean to our lives?

Maybe David didn’t know enough to feel defeated before he started. He wasn’t a trained soldier like his brothers, like the others. He was a shepherd boy. He was too small even for the armour that could provide a small amount of protection - so he took what he had and what he knew and the giant fell.

The movie “ Beethoven” is not about that famous deaf composer, but about a giant St Bernard who worms his way into the lives of the family with whom he has come to live and who eventually saves the ‘world’ from the evil people who are doing illegal experiments on stray dogs.

I refer to one scene in the movie in which the young boy with the big glasses is on his way somewhere and he is confronted by a group of bullies. Kids with glasses get picked on a lot! I know! I’ve worn glasses since I was six! He puts up his fists as if to fight and they run away. As he looks at the departing boys his chest puffs up and he straightens his back: obviously he thinks he’s pretty good. What he does not know and never finds out is that Beethoven had appeared behind him and bared his big teeth and slobbering jowls and that is what the bullies were afraid of. He has backup! And it’s the backup that counts.

So perhaps the story of David and Goliath is about having “God for backup” or as is more commonly stated, “Having God on your side”.

Many times we assume that God is on our side. However, I think that the question we need to ask before we do battle with our giants or anyone else’s is, “Are we on God’s side?”

When I started theological college, over 20 years ago now, I was introduced to what was called, “the preferential option for the poor”, which basically said that God was on the side of the oppressed, the poor and the downtrodden AND not on the side of the victors, the well off and the well fed.

This leads me to ask: What giants is God calling the people of faith to do battle against in 2006?

One of the most impassioned pleas that you can hear these days is that of Stephen Lewis, who is trying to get the rich western world to do something concrete and lasting about the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Many of our health care dollars are being spent on the possibility of a flu pandemic and perhaps they should BUT our brothers in sisters in Africa are battling a giant that they cannot defeat by themselves. We have the resources to do this, says Lewis, we merely need the will. But, it’s ‘over there’, not ‘next door’. However, ringing in my ears is the question” “Who is my neighbour?”

I think it was the Rev Martin Luther King Jr who said “ In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. ” The world has suffered to much from the silence of good and caring people; and the world needs those of us with the will and means to speak up before it’s too late.

I was listening to a radio call in the other day about life in cities around the world and it’s absolutely astounding the amount of space our average household takes up, compared to the people in the developing world. Environmentalists tell us that the planet has had all it can take. No one can save the planet on his or her own but we have this story about small stones and a child’s toy. Maybe if there were more David’s in the world there would be far fewer Goliaths.

Yet, all too often we are like that army of Israel, cowering on the hillside before the battle has begun. The answers lie not in th power of one person, per se, but in the power of God that lay behind us all. The answer is that we are not all that powerful, but together with God we can do the most amazing things.

Look at what we did with our steeple campaign? Look at what happens when people walk and cycle and line pennies up in hallways and when a country gets behind a one-legged runner with a dream.

It’s not all about winning; its about each one of us acting in faith; making small changes in our lives; advocating that our governments use some of our common resources to help others and trusting that we are following the ways of our God.

Amen!

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
Psalm 130
2 Corinthians 8: 7-15
Mark 5: 21-43

Once upon a time, at a world renowned seminary the prospective preachers were to give their graduation sermons. There wasn’t a great deal of time between the students receiving the assigned passage and the time and place of delivery which was also assigned.

If they had consulted with one another though the students would have noticed that their passages were all the same and that on the way to their designated classroom, each and every one of them encountered a homeless person who asked for help and who had appeared to have been beaten. Only 2 out of about 40 students stopped to talk to this person or to attempt to offer any kind of assistance.

Ironically and sadly, the passage was Luke 20: 29-37, otherwise known as the “Parable of the Good Samaritan”.

The students had important work to do. They had to pass their preaching course. They had to graduate so they could be ordained and obtain a position at a church so that they could do what they believed God called them to do. Maybe they didn’t notice. Maybe they didn’t want to get their preaching clothes dirty. Maybe they thought that someone else with more time would notice and call a doctor, or security, or something like that!

Not that long ago a mountain climber made the news because he gave up his climb 200 metres from the summit of Mount Everest so that he could assist an injured and dying climber, abandoned by others in their quest to stand at the top of the world

We all have our schedules, we all have our important things to do. Efficient time management is the key to getting your job done and the kids to hockey and soccer and the housework and grocery shopping done. Efficient time management is one of the keys to success in any profession, especially any profession where the work is never done, where the expectations and needs of others are endless, especially if you want to have time to recharge your batteries, or have time for family, or even just to do the laundry and the vacuuming.

Jesus was constantly being asked to do this or that for someone else and he had to be very firm about his mission and ministry. Sometimes he just could not meet their need or their want; that was not who he was or what he was supposed to be about. Sometimes he had to say no because he had to go away by himself, to connect with God in prayer and meditation and to have the opportunity to teach his disciples in private.

Yet, I think there is something in seeing these 2 passages as a lesson in being open to the calling of the Spirit when one has other plans, another agenda, and a very worthwhile agenda at that.

So Mark has set these two stories together, one inside the other so that they must be considered together. There are other issues in these stories: issues of issues of ritual purity, issues of the value of women’s lives in a very patriarchal culture and I have preached on some of these in other sermons, but this time I would like to take a broader view, and perhaps a view that is more relevant as we desperately seek the summer as a time to relax and get away from it all.

I recall a tv commercial that was one quite a bit at least 25 years ago, if my memory serves me correctly. The dad is working late at home and his son asks him to go and look at something outside. He says “later”, but the boy insists. Finally he agrees to go. When he climbs into the camper he notices that it has been ‘packed’ and he asks, “Who put all that stuff in here?” Just then, the door slams shut, the boy runs to the passenger seat, the truck starts to move and we realize that the mom and the son have succeeded in kidnapping the dad for a weekend of camping. Obviously, it was the only way they could get him to take the weekend off.

You have probably all heard of the song, “Cat’s in the Cradle”. The dad singing the song realizes too late in life that he has placed his priorities in the wrong place and sings this melancholy song about losing what is most important while focussing on success and providing and all of those things dads (and moms) we get caught up in providing for their children.

So we have officially entered the lazy, hazy days of summer. We hope to have some vacation, some time away from all the stuff we spend our lives doing. Our clubs and activities have had summer barbeques and we hope that we can have a summer away from our regular responsibilities.

Yet we know that the needs of many go on. There may be fewer visitors at the food bank because most seasonal workers are working, but I don’t think it’s closed due to lack of need. There will still be lonely people whose loved ones are not coming to visit this summer, for whatever reason. There will be those recovering from surgery, those whose lives have become overwhelming and many needs too numerous to mention.

Sometimes they are persistent and call for every little thing and you could have a full time job looking after them, if you let it go that way, but often their needs are stated in roundabout ways, in ways that you have to really look to see, really listen to hear and be really intuitive to know what to do.

I’ve discovered that in many cases you don’t ahve to do much to make a real difference. Now we aren’t Jesus, but a lot of what made him so popular was that he refused to exclude people and keep them on the sidelines because of their illness, or their social status or their reputations or their “past”. I feel that this unconditional acceptance provided much of the basis for the healing that took place in the people’s lives and it enabled them to walk in new ways and to make different choices in the future.

Unlike the man who gave up the climb on Everest, few of us will be asked to give up a life long dream this summer in order to pay attention to one of the people or situations that interrupts our lives or schedules this summer but even though it is summer, even though it is a needed time of rest and relaxation, we are called always and everywhere to be people who seek to follow Jesus of Nazareth.

So as we journey a little slower, or in different places let us be open to the cries of those who seek healing and companionship and love.

Amen!

2 Samuel 5: 1-5, 9-10
St James Psalm 48
2 Corinthians 12: 2-10
Mark 6: 1-13

Sent Forth With God’s Blessing

“YOU Are Called”

Why are we here today? Why have we come to this place?

Some of us have come out of habit, and I want to say that some habits are good ones (like brushing our teeth or getting some exercise every day and eating your vegies). Some of us come to recharge our spiritual batteries. Some of us come to meet people they don’t get to see all week.

However, the one thing that I can say is that - we all come, to leave.

Yes, you heard me, we come, so that we can go. We hope that we will leave with more energy than we came with. We hope that we will leave with more spiritual insight than we had when we arrived. We hope that we will leave with a clearer sense of direction in our lives as disciples. I’ll repeat - we don’t come to stay.

Of course, this has always been the case. Christians have always been called to live their lives in the community. Much of the disciples’ time with Jesus was spent in ‘community’- in listening, in discussion, in travelling from place to place. In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark we are told of the first ‘mission trip’ on which the disciples were sent away, without Jesus.

It seems to me that this was a bit of a ‘practice run’ but with the advantage of being able to discuss the results with Jesus. After Jesus’ death they would be doing this all the time, but now, they would have the advantage of Jesus’ presence to talk about what worked and what did not, before they had to do it on their own after Jesus’ death.

They were to travel light, very light in fact, and not to spend time on those who were resistant to them or to the message.

It seems to me that these instructions are still of value even though the church is very different in 2006.

When we look at the traveling light part, the first thing we need to keep in mind is that the early church fully expected the return of Christ and the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven in all of it’s glory within the lifetime of those who made up the early church. All of their plans were for the short term. It’s like making the living room into a ‘hospital room’ while someone recovers from a broken leg, say - as opposed to making a permanent change because it is anticipated that the person in question will never be able to climb the stairs to his or her old room.

Once the church realized that it had to change it’s outlook and prepare for the ‘long haul’, some of these instructions had to be changed. Church communities developed the need for buildings, especially when they were no longer welcome to worship with their Jewish brothers and sisters in the synagogues. As time went on more and more structure seemed necessary and more and more time and resources had to go into maintaining it.

Yet, we are called to keep these instructions in mind. How many of our resources go into what we might call maintenance and now many go into actual ministry?

How often to we venture forth in faith, despite the fact that our resources are limited, and trust that the needs will be met and the ministry will be accomplished. These fishermen and tax collectors were not accomplished speakers and healers BEFORE they ventured forth in faith, but only after they had done it by relying on the Spirit and the Spirit guiding the new communities of faith.

Though it seems that the two sections of the gospel passage are unrelated I think there is a connection, and that can be seen as the connection between faith and openness. There are many “blocks to hearing the gospel”, and in some ways the second part of the poassage addresses those.

It seems that the people of Jesus hometown were too familiar with “Jesus the Carpenter”. In addition, the implication of referring to him as “Mary’s son” is that they questioned whether or not Joseph was his real father. Regardless of how many houses he had built, how many dinner tables he had crafted and how many rooves he had repaired, they weren’t about to take their religious instruction from him, DESPITE what they had heard about him. It seems that part of Mark’s message was: “oh, what they missed”.

Once a youth group was touring and performing some new gospel based music. A man in the congregation said, “If one of them has long hair, a beard and plays the guitar, I’m leaving.” Well one of them did have long hair and the person who uttered those words did walk out. The young man with the long hair is now an ordained Luteran minister. We have many pictures of Jesus which depict a bearded man in clean robes and beautifully combed hair, but I suspect the reality was a little more ‘scruffy’ shall we say. How often do we reject the message because of the means in which it comes to us? Or because we have heard it so often that we forget to pay attention to it.

What about when it is un-families though? We could also talk about missed opportunities when we speak of changes in the musical style of a church. In the course of my travels for Presbytery and Conference I have the opportunity to visit many sanctuaries and I am surprised by the number of drums I see as a more or less permanent part of the musical instruments in use in congregations. Not all that long ago it was piano, organ and the occasional guitar and that was it! I have talked to some ministers lately who never have organ music in worship anymore. Much of the newer music being written today isn’t suitable for piano or organ. Can the gospel still be proclaimed? Most certainly. It is worth noting that many of our familiar hymn tunes are based on ‘pub’ songs and hymns were written to them as a way of evangelizing the unchurched. It is also worth noting that ALL of our ‘familiar and best loved hymns’ were once new! How open are we to other ways of making a joyful noise?

So the disciples were sent out in pairs to preach the gospel and to extend Jesus’ ministry of love and healing. Who were these disciples? Some might have said of Peter or Andrew, “Why he’s just a fisherman”, or of Matthew, “He’s a TAX COLLECTOR!” Those are probably two of the most destructive words in the church in terms of enabling ministry: and the words to which I refer are: “just a” .

We can all say “no” when asked to offer our talents or services with the excuse, “I’m just a .......” but the truth is that all of the disciples were just regular people – even Jesus would have been regarded by many, at least initially, as just a ‘regular guy, a carpenter”. However, it’s the regular people who are the backbone of the church. It’s the regular people who make up the bulk of the church. Throughout the scriptures we are told the story of ordinary messengers doing extraordinary things because of their faith.

Often I hear the objection: I don’t have enough faith. NO, we don’t but I firmly believe that if we act in trust we will be given it. Faith is not knowledge or beliefs but trust. Faith is going forward despite the circumstances, faith is acting in trust despite the obstacles. As far as I am concerned their faith was nothing more than trusting that God would be with them. But, as the scriptures say, “if God is for us, who can be against us?”

We are told of the link between faith and casting out demons. When the gospels talk about demons I don’t think they mean the kind of thing we see on “the Exorcist” or some grade B horror film that moves objects in the night and scares the wits out of people, but rather it means all of those things that prevent people from enjoying fullness of life.

Alcoholism, drug addiction, excessive shyness, a diagnosis of a serious disease and many more things which can keep us from fullness of life and full participation in the community. Through the healing power of God and no small amount of work some of these can be overcome but some can just be managed, but in such a way that they no longer hold sway over the person in the ways they once did.

We don’t need to rely on our own strength or our own gifts, because on our own we are right, WE CAN’T, but rather need to rely on God and when we do miracles happen.

AA talks about the higher power, as do all 12 step programs. The gospels talked about it long before any 12 step program was invented. BE OPEN to the Spirit and the leading of the Spirit. GO forward in faith. TRUST in God and miracles will happen.

Amen.