Participating with God in New Creation Communities

A message for a Sunday when we celebrated baptism, based on 1 Peter 3: 13 -22

I begin this morning with a story that some of you have heard before. I tell it often because it helps us understand what happened when we were baptized. It reminds us of what it means to be Jesus’ disciples in a world that has forgotten what it takes to be in relationship with one another.

The story begins in the early years of the fifth century. It is set in the dying days of the Roman Empire. In the spring of 410 A.D., a powerful tribal chieftain from northern lands, Alaric the Goth, had led his troops into the city of Rome. They ransacked the city, taking away its gold and silver and all the treasures that they could carry. They rounded up and carted off all its slaves. 

The raid was not the end of the Roman Empire but it signalled the beginning of the end. By the fall of that year, boatloads of refugees had begun arriving in the port cities of North Africa. In one of those cities, the young governor of the province, Volusianus, stood on the dock watching the refugees arrive. He saw them get off the boats, carrying all they had left in the world in makeshift bags and sacks. He saw the looks of numbed shock on their faces. 

Questions began to fill his mind. “Was this the end of everything? Why? What had gone wrong? Could anybody have done anything about it?” At the time, Volusianus was considering baptism as a Christian. So, he wrote a letter to his bishop, a priest named Augustine. Augustine replied to him, “Rome may be dying, but time is not dying. God is not dying. Even as this City of Man dies, there are those within its streets who are called to be the builders of the new city.”

Even as the world as we have known it is dying, there are those within its communities that are called to be the builders of God’s new creation, God’s new community. Even as the world around us is struggling with unsolvable crises, even as many of our structures and systems are failing and falling apart, God is at work, making a new creation. That’s what Jesus’ death and resurrection signals to us. 

God is not some vague energy force that simply surrounds us. The God who meets us in the stories of the Bible is an active agent in the world. The God who reveals Godself in Jesus of Nazareth confronts the forces in the world that work against God’s good and holy purposes. Those forces and powers cannot defeat God’s power for life. In the midst of our dead ends, God is making new beginnings.

When you are baptized into Christ Jesus, you join the community of God’s people who have been called to participate with God in building a new creation, a new world in the midst of the old. 

For the past few weeks, we have been reading Peter’s letter to the early Christian Church. In it, he describes the old world, the world that is dying. It is a world in which people lack integrity. They act maliciously. They are full of envy of what others have. Their speech is full of hurtful talk; they lie. They repay evil for evil; they respond to abuse with abuse. 

In the midst of all that, Peter says to the early Christian communities, “Conduct yourselves honourably. Don’t lie. Do good with tender and compassionate hearts. Don’t seek revenge; instead, respond to evil and abuse with a blessing. And, be always ready to explain to people why you are behaving the way you are. Just make sure you do that with gentleness and reverence.”

How is that going? 

Peter knows that the kind of behaviour that he is laying out for us is not going to be easy. It is hard to tell the truth in a culture that is drowning in lies. It is hard to respond to someone who crosses you with a blessing. It is hard to keep doing good when you know it will cost you.

Peter asks, “Who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good?” He knows that the answer is, “Plenty of people.” His whole letter is about the suffering that followers of Jesus encounter because they are trying to do what is right and good. 

To be a disciple of Jesus is costly. Building new communities where all people can thrive and flourish, where all peole are cherished and treated with dignity doesn’t just happen because you think it is a good idea. There are powerful forces working against goodness and truth and Christ-like love. They have a grip on our world and they do not let go easily.

Indeed, there will be times when the forces working against goodness and truth and Christ-like love will seem so strong that we shall grow weary in resisting them and confronting them. We shall get discouraged. We shall be pretty sure that we are not up to this task that God has given us.

That, too, is what it means to worship a living God. God is always pulling us toward more life — more love, more joy, more courage, more hope than we think is possible for us. There will be times when we shall encounter obstacles that are grater than our own strength. Peter says, “Even if you do suffer for doing what is right, remember that you are blessed.” 

Suffering comes with the territory but you are blessed because the one who has given you this holy work to do also suffered. He was willing to go to hell and back so that everyone could get in on God’s salvation. Remember that he has already won the victory over the powers that work against God’s purposes. He is with you in your suffering — to sustain you and to give you the courage you need to keep going.

That means that you don’t need to be afraid. You don’t need to be intimidated. You don’t need to shape your life around your fears. Instead, says Peter, “in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord.” Approach every situation remembering that there is nothing in all creation that can ever separate you from God’s love for you, from God’s purposes for your life (Romans 8: 28). Live into every place where you are afraid remembering your baptism. God has called you by your name and will never let you go.

Do you remember Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He was the head of the Anglican Church in South Africa at the time of the fiercest battles against the racism and injustice of the system of apartheid. He worked for it to be dismantled. He was persecuted for speaking out aginst its evils. He was asked, “Don’t you ever get discouraged?” He replied, “God does not break God’s promises. Remember your baptism.”

This morning we baptized Bryce into a community that lives by the promises of God. In the midst of all that life might throw at him, the Risen Christ will be there, giving him the courage and strength he will need to live in the new future God is creating. Together with him we get to be part of be part of God’s new community of love in the world. We are, indeed, blessed. Thanks be to God.

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The Church’s act of resistance

A message to Shiloh Inwood United Church on April 16 2023 as we celebrated baptism
Scripture: 1 Peter 1: 1-9

The congregation celebrates that, today, we get to baptize two of our children. We celebrate that we get to proclaim God’s love and grace and claim upon their lives.

We celebrate also because, at every baptism, we get to remember who we are and whose we are and to whom we belong.

At the end of the service we shall sing a song that, even though it is based on verses from the First Testament (Isaiah 55) , sounds very much like a baptismal song. It is part of a message from the prophet Isaiah to God’s people who were living in exile in Babylon.

“I have called you by your name;  you are mine.
I have gifted you and call you now to shine.
I will not abandon you; all my promises are true.
You are gifted, called and chosen; you are mine.”

(I Have Called You By Your Name, Daniel Charles Damon, 1995, (C) 1995 Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188.)

That’s who we are. We are a community that has been chosen by God to shine the glory of his love and faithfulness and grace in the world. We remind ourselves of that at every baptism because we live in a culture that works very hard at making us forget. When we forget, we lose our way. So, today, we remember. 

Throughout your life, other people, other groups, other forces will try to tell you who you are. They will try to define for you what your life should be. They will tell you, “You are a success when you have a great job or lots of money; you are worthy of being loved when you are beautiful or famous; your life counts when you are healthy and productive and can get for yourself whatever you want or desire.”

Did you notice that the identity which the Church gives you at your baptism doesn’t have any of those conditions? You are a “child of God; a disciple of Christ; a member of the Church.” You are “gifted, called and chosen, you are God’s.” 

Who you are is a gift of a good and gracious God who has wonderful plans for your life. This God will be at work unceasingly to draw you deeper and deeper into God’s great and creative love and life. It is all gift. You get to live into that gift for the rest of your life. You get to be part of a community that is learning to grow into who we are declared to be on the day of our baptism. That is the heart, the core, of your identity.  You may not always feel that way. You may not always act that way but, because it is God’s gift to you, not something you earn, it is the unshakeable truth about you. 

“Through Jesus’ resurrection from the dead”, said Peter in today’s scripture reading, “you have received this inheritance that can never perish or spoil or fade.”

Mathin Luther was one of the reformers of the Church in the sixteenth century. He challenged the corruption of the institutional church, calling them to greater faithfulness to who they really were. The institutional church did not appreciate being called out, so he was often in trouble. Because he was often in trouble, he was often troubled. He would have bouts of anxiety and fearfulness; he struggled with many doubts. It is said that, in the midst of those episodes, he would trace the sign of the cross on his forehead and say, “Remember, Martin, you are a baptized person.” Whatever else was happening, whatever worries or troubles he was having, he was a child of God, claimed by the risen Christ as Christ’s own, gifted with God’s Holy Spirit, beloved member of Jesus’ family. That is who he was. The identity that had been given to him in his baptism could not perish or spoil or fade.

That identity cannot perish or spoil or fade but it is so rich, so deep, so challenging, that it takes a lifetime for any of us to grow into it. It was a custom in the early Church to have a candidate for baptism take off the clothes they usually wore and put on a new gown. The Church said to them, “You are now a member of a community that has ‘put on Christ’. You are now clothed with the goodness and grace and love and truth of Jesus your Saviour.” Every day, you get to put on your new gown. You get to see how you are doing in growing into its largeness, its grace, its truth about you.

Baptism is the beginning of a life of learning to be who God has declared you are. The promise is that, as those identities shape the way you live in the world, you will find a life that is worth living, a life in which you have been given holy work to do. Through your baptism, God gives you some task that is worthy of your commitment and devotion, your time and your energy.

In baptism, God claims us for a high and holy purpose. Peter describes Christians as those who have been “chosen and destined by God the Father”. We have been made holy — set apart – by the Holy Spirit. We have been given a new birth into a living hope.

Baptism is the Church’s act of resistance against the hopelessness and despair and cynicism that is so rampant in our culture. It is our act of resistance against the aimlessness and the lostness that diminishes and destroys so many lives these days.

What we have done here today reminds us that we, too, have been claimed for a high and holy purpose. We need reminding because the life of faith is neither safe nor easy. 

We get to join in God’s work as God is overcoming the power of evil; as God is transforming the brokenness; as God is healing the wounds. That’s the promise of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus has gone to the deepest depths and done battle with the power of evil and he has won the victory over it. God raised Jesus to new life and so we inherit the promise that no evil can overwhelm the good that God intends for God’s creation.

The work God is doing in the world is also happening in our spirits. God is refining them, says Peter. God is making us stronger, purer, more able to bear the glory of God. In all that happens, God is moving us deeper and deeper into trusting this God who has claimed us as God’s own. In all that happens, even when you can’t not see it or understand how, you are being protected by the power of God. You are being rescued and redeemed and made holy.

One writer put it this way, “I have faith. I lose faith. I find faith again, or faith finds me, but through it all, I am grasped by the [hope] that it is all true: I am in good hands; . . . [love is the wide net spread beneath the most dangerous of my days]; God will have the last word”. (Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life, p. 10)

Henry and Lucy, through your baptism, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, you have been given a glorious life. God has given you good work to do through your life. You get to shine the light of Christ’s love and grace and truth and power into a world that yearns for all of that.

Your journey has just begun into a living hope. Today, you were baptized into a marvellous adventure that will make your life holy, a blessing to others, a life worth living. Your journey has just begun into the joyful destiny of deep friendship with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

Thanks be to God who has given you to us to share this journey together. 

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The promises of baptism: telling the story

In our tradition, when we baptize someone, the congregation promises to nurture that person in the Christian faith. However, when the person being baptized is an infant or small child, and the parents seldom bring that child to worship after the baptism Sunday, congregations can struggle with how to fulfill that promise.

I read the other day (I hadn’t marked down the source) about an African-American congregation that held a family-night event with the focus on “Stories In and Through Hard Times”. Participants were invited to recall proverbs, sayings, or songs that hey had heard while they were growing up. They were then to share a story of how that wisdom had helped them through hard times.

Some of the proverbs shared were, “God didn’t bring us this far to leave us,” and “Hold on to God’s unchanging hand”, and “Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy comes in the

The children and youth were then invited to ask questions of the adults and to add their own stories.

I am thinking that this might be a way for congregations to live into the promise they made at baptism. In the “Children’s Time” spot in worship (or before or after a psalm that prays to God about trouble), the people in the congregation could be invited to share a proverb or phrase from a favourite hymn that has helped them hold on in difficult times. If they were comfortable doing so, they could tell the story of the experience in which that proverb or hymn was helpful. If the musician(s) were comfortable with playing hymns without much notice, the congregation could also sing the hymn. The children could be invited to ask questions.

And then, what about creating a “wall of hope” on which was written the proverbs or phrase from the hymns that people shared. The wall of hope would grow over time as the proverbs/phrases were shared.

 

 

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Great is your faithfulness

A prayer based on Luke 7:36 – 8:3

Great is your faithfulness, O Lord, our Saviour,
Faithful in loving us
Faithful in finding us when we lose our way
Faithful in forgiving us
and healing us
and bringing us home to you.

Great is your faithfulness, Lord,
and we are grateful.

There are times when each moment
shines with your grace and your goodness;
we know ourselves bathed in your holy care
and our hearts sing out your praise.

There are times when we struggle
to keep going
and you shepherd us,
holding us with a love
that does not let us go,
feeding our souls
with your presence,
speaking your truth
that gives us strength and courage
for one more step,
and we gasp out our
‘thank you’, ‘thank you’, ‘thank you’.

But there are also times when we
barge through our lives
oblivious to your presence,
your gifts,
your call;
unaware of all we have received
from your abundant love.

Speak to us today:
speak the words that
draw us back to you;
words that recall all you have done;
words that deepen and renew
our love for you.

We open our and our minds
to your Spirit’s work,
for you are the one
whose broken body
and poured out life
are the food and drink
we need.

Amen.

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“Take us with you as you pray”

God of mercy,
Saviour of the world,
Healer of our souls,
you come to us in our brokenness and sin.
You invite us to follow you into your realm of
love and reconciliation.

We open our lives to you
so that your Holy Spirit may do for us
what we cannot do for ourselves.

There are days,
weeks,
sometimes months,
when the sin and violence of this world overwhelm us;
when the hurt and anger silence our songs of praise to you.

On those days, Lord Jesus,
take us with you as you pray.
Show us your glory that even death cannot defeat.
Write deep into our lives your truth and love:
the truth,
the love,
that will one day
rule the world
and is
even now
making all things new.
So may we receive your grace and your courage
to keep us on this journey in faith.

As in our baptism you cleansed us and made us new,
so, today, we ask you to cleanse us again:
heal our lack of trust in your grace;
help us to start again where we have stumbled and fallen down;
restore in us the joy you have prepared for all your children.

Your claim upon us summons us into your promised newness.
Now we live in the wide open spaces of God’s steadfast love and mercy.
Thanks be to God!

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Lord, we lift your name on high

A prayer for the Baptism of our Lord Sunday based on Psalm 9 and Luke 3: 15-22

Lord, we lift your name on high.
We sing your praises.
We tell of your wonderful deeds.

We are your creatures
met by your holiness
in ways that surprise us
yet give us life and hope.

You take our fatigue
and give us strength;
you take our despair
and turn us toward hope;
you take our dead ends
and bring your new beginnings.

By the cross of Jesus,
through the brooding of your Holy Spirit,
you ache and hurt and care over us
and with us
and beyond us
till we are made new;
till we are drawn deeper into your love.

So, we lift your name on high,
yielding our lives to your good care,
in the name of your Beloved,
your Delight, Jesus,
who draws us into the waters of baptism
where your love floods over us
and give us Life.

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Live into your Baptism

In the Christian calendar, this Sunday is a feast day called “the baptism of our Lord”. Jesus began his public ministry by showing up at the Jordan River and being baptized by his cousin, John the Baptizer. The Feast of the Baptism of our Lord used to be a more important celebration than Christmas. A surprising number of icons painted by the early church depict Jesus’ baptism.

For early Christians, baptism was a life-defining act. If you decided you wanted to become a follower of Jesus, you presented yourself to a local congregation. They would question you. Then, you would embark on a programme of preparation of baptism that would last two years.

During those two years you would learn the stories of Jesus and participate in the worshipping community. Mentors would teach you to pray. They would help you examine your life and learn to live the odd, peculiar ways of Jesus’ community.

Being baptized was neither automatic nor easy. It was also dangerous. For much of the first three centuries of the church’s existence, Christians were a persecuted minority. You made a very intentional decision. It changed who you were. It gave you a new identity, a new life. You became different from others around you.

Then, all that changed. One night, the Roman Emperor, Constantine, had a dream, or a vision, of a cross in the sky. He heard a voice that said, “By this sing you shall conquer.” When he woke up, he decided that everyone in the Roman Empire was going to be a Christian. Roman soldiers would come to a village, herd everyone into a lake and everyone would emerge baptized.

The soldiers themselves had to be baptized. They did not know much about being a follower of Jesus, but they did know that it means renouncing violence. They knew Jesus had said, “Turn the other cheek.” This created a problem for soldiers. How could they be baptized as followers of Jesus and still fulfill their duties to the Emperor?

Some of them came up with a solution: as a soldier was being immersed in the waters of baptism, he would hold his sword arm out of the waters. That meant that the soldier had been baptized — all of him except the hand which held his sword. With that arm he could serve the Emperor.

We all do it. We all hold some portion of our lives out of the waters of our baptism. God can be Lord of our lives on Sunday but, when we get to work on Monday, we operate by a different set of rules. We can let Jesus comfort us when we are troubled or suffering but, in those times when we are strong and feel like we are in control of our lives, we figure we do not need to refer to him.

In the 1940’s, Clarence Jordan founded a community in Americus, Georgia. In the deep south of the United States, he founded a community that was to be a living sign of and witness to the Kingdom of heaven which Jesus had inaugurated. It was a community where everyone was welcome — blacks and whites, rich and poor.

People ridiculed them. They found themselves embroiled in a number of legal battles because it was against the law for blacks and whites to share meals together, much less raise their children together.

Clarence’s brother was Robert. At the time he was just a country lawyer, but he would eventually become a state senator and a justice in the Georgia Supreme Court. Clarence asked Robert for help with a legal battle. Robert replied, “I can’t do that. You know my political aspirations. If I represented you, I might lose everything.”

Clarence replied, “We might lose everything too. Why is this so different? When we were boys, we joined church on the same Sunday.”

Robert said, “I follow Jesus up to a point.”

“Would that point by any chance be the cross?”
“That’s right. I follow him to the cross, but not on the cross. I’m not going to get crucified.”

“Well, Robert,”  said Clarence, “I don’t think you are a disciple of Jesus. I think you are an admirer of Jesus. I think you ought to go back to the church you belong to and tell them that you are an admirer of Jesus, not a disciple.” (Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew, p.57)

We are not used to making such a harsh distinction. Our traditions around baptism were shaped largely by a time when everyone was baptized as a matter of social custom. We tend to think of it as a ritual that mostly involves babies and little children.

If you ask the parents who still seek baptism for their children, “Why do you want your child baptized?”, they are, for the most part, unclear about it. They are unsure not only about why they are asking for baptism but also about what baptism means.

That might be true for most of us. That can be partly explained because the cultural understanding of what baptism is, is changing. It is no longer something everybody just does as  matter of course. As the church moves back to being on the margins of society, we are becoming more like the early church. Baptism is again taking a more central role in the identity and mission of the church. Once more, it is becoming the gateway into a community of people whose lives are shaped by commitments and convictions that are different from much of the rest of the culture. We are a community that becomes different from the world as we participate in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Baptism is not just something that happened to us when we were babies. It initiated us into a way of living where we are continually turning, or orienting, our lives toward to God who is revealed to us in Jesus of Nazareth. It happens once but it takes a whole life to live into it. It shapes our spirituality. It forms our identity. We are a baptized and baptizing community of faith.

Martin Luther lived in the sixteenth century and was a leader in the Protestant Reformation. The spirituality that was shaped by his baptism led him to confront the abuses and corruption of the church in his day. He was often in trouble. He was often troubled. When he was troubled, he would trace the sign of the cross that had been marked on his forehead in his baptism. He would say to himself, “I am a baptized person.”

He didn’t say, “I was baptized.” He said, “I am a baptized person.” It reminded him that God had called him to speak truth to power. It reminded him that the Holy Spirit surrounded him and kept him in the midst of trouble.

A few years ago, I led a study group that looked at the meanings of baptism. I invited the participants to go through the week saying, “I am a baptized person” and to trace the sign of the cross on their foreheads, either literally or simply in their minds.

They came back the next week and many of them reported how amazed they were at the difference it had made in their lives. One woman said, “I was in situations where I was tempted to be petty or mean — to join in office politics and gossip. I would visualize the sign of the cross and say to myself, “I am a baptized person”. That enabled me to turn away from all of the meanness and to live into a the better standard that I cherish for myself.”

Another person found the ritual enormously comforting. It reminded her that nothing that happened to her could take her outside the realm of God’s redeeming power and gracious love.

Baptism is a gateway into a way of life that is shaped by God’s claim upon us. This is both wonderful and rightening.

It is wonderful because God has a good and holy purpose for our lives — a purpose that lifts us up and gives dignity and hope and meaning. In baptism God gives the Holy Spirit to empower us for all that that entails.

It is wonderful because, when we learn constantly to turn our lives toward Jesus Christ, we experience the presence of God in amazing and life-giving ways.

It is frightening because we are often afraid that God may demand more of us than we are ready to give. God may ask us to make changes that we do not want to make. We may be afraid that God will judge us for not measuring up, not being good enough, not doing enough.

Both the wonder and the fear are gathered into the waters of our baptism. As you live into that powerful event, you rise again and again to hear more and more deeply the words first spoken to Jesus, “You are my Beloved. You are my delight.” (Matthew 3: 13-17)

That is who you truly are. It is a gift that will see you through all your days. It is a gift you get to offer to others.  We are a community called to flood the world with the love we have received. This week, whenever anyone or anything makes you feel small or insignificant or alone, remember your baptism. Live into your high and holy calling. It is the gift of God’s grace for you. Thanks be to God.

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Who is Jesus?

A sermon based on Luke 3: 51-22 for Baptism of our Lord Sunday

If someone were to ask you, “Who is Jesus?”, what would you say?

Is he an interesting human being or is he the Son of God?

Is he a great spiritual leader among the world’s other spiritual leaders or is he Lord of lords and King of kings, Very God of Very God?

Is he the person in the picture on a wall from your childhood or is he your Lord and Master and saviour?

Is he someone you have bet your life on?

When we try to say who Jesus is, we tend to use titles, names, and ideas. When the gospels try to tell us who Jesus is, they tell us stories. In those stories, it is never completely obvious who Jesus is. Different interpretations are always possible. Who he is is always open to debate.

We think we have trouble knowing who Jesus is because we know so much. Modern science tells us how the world works — what is possible and what is not possible. It teaches us to be sceptical about the claims that Jesus healed a leper or fed 5000 people with five loaves and two fish. Besides, we are in contact with people from other faiths who worship other gods. What do you do with someone who claims, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through me.”

We think we have trouble with Jesus because we know so much more than the people of Jesus’ time. “No,” say the gospels, “Jesus’ identity has always been contested. It has always been uncertain.” A few people believed that he was the Saviour of the world. Most thought he was crazy and wanted him dead.

A few people said, “This is God in the flesh, living among us full of grace and truth.” Most people thought he was an arrogant trouble-maker who ought to be silenced.

Even those who followed him — his friends and companions — were not always sure what to make of him. Mostly, they just caught glimpses that left them awestruck and wanting more.

The gospel writers do not just give us titles for Jesus. They do not give us definitions or explanations. They tell us stories. Stories, it seems are a much better vehicle for telling the truth about who this Jew from Nazareth is. Stories are deeper and more complex than definitions, just like Jesus is.

One story all four gospels tell is the story of John the Baptist. They all tell that story at the very beginning of Jesus’ adult ministry. If you want to know who Jesus is, you have to get past John first.

John is always out in the wilderness, in the desert. The wilderness is a place where survival is at risk. There are not a lot of resources easily available for you to live. When the gospels tell you that John is in the wilderness, they are not speaking about geography as much as they are doing theology. They are saying that you probably won’t really figure out who Jesus is until life takes you to a wilderness place. There is something about Jesus that is simply not compelling to people who are comfortable with the way things are. People who are at ease in the world do not seem to find him of much interest.

You don’t really start getting to know who Jesus is until you get news from the doctor that shatters your comfortably settled world and you find your life turned upside down.

You don’t really start wrestling with this Saviour until you realize that there is a dark and dangerous wilderness in the middle of a quiet city where innocent people can be kidnapped and killed.

You don’t work too hard at figuring out who Jesus is until your church is two thirds empty Sunday after Sunday and all the programmes and solutions you try don’t work to turn things around and you start wondering whether or not your church is going to survive.

That’s when you really start having to have an answer to the question, “Who is Jesus?”

The gospels take you deeper into your wilderness and introduce you to Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptizer. John the Baptizer was a wild, eccentric character. He was preaching out in the wilderness, saying out loud what everybody knows: “Things aren’t working anymore, folks. The economy isn’t working and there is no easy fix. We’ve messed up creation with our greed and carelessness and now floods and storms and earthquakes are shaking up our world. Relationships are broken — between individuals and between communities and between nations. If we keep heading in the direction we are heading, we shall just encounter more troubles. It is time to turn around. It is time to head into a different direction.”

The crowds loved it. They go worked up and started thinking, “Maybe he is the one. Maybe he will be able to lead us out of the mess we are in. Maybe he will be able to fix what is wrong.”

John says, “Not me. I am not your Saviour. I am just here to point you to the one who is your Saviour. He is mightier than I am. His power is so great that I am not worthy even to be his slave. When he shows up, then things will really change. He will tell truth so scorching that every feeble excuse you make, every lie you have been telling yourself, will burn up and blow away. The words he speaks will expose your idolatries. He will shake your world and disrupt all the complacent defences you are putting up against God. That’s who Jesus is.”

Then there comes the best line in the whole story: “So, with many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people.” Does John’s speech sound like ‘good news’ to you?

Not everybody wants a Jesus as powerful as what John describes. Herod didn’t want as much truth as even John told and Herod put him in prison. Within three years, he would do the same and worse to Jesus.

It is a curious way to introduce us to Jesus, don’t you think? If I were going to introduce you to Jesus I would tell you that Jesus is a steady anchor when everything else in your life is in chaos and turmoil.

I would tell you that Jesus, the living Christ, can be your sure and steadfast friend when life takes you to the depths of loneliness.

I would tell you that the resurrected Christ is God’s promise that even our dead ends won’t stop God’s good and loving purposes.

But, I am not the one telling the story here. The gospel writers are. They are people who bet their lives on this Jesus and they begin by telling you that Jesus will tell you the truth about your life so powerfully that he will knock your socks off. It is a curious way to introduce us to Jesus, unless this Jesus really is God’s beloved Son, with whom God is well-pleased. It is a curious way to introduce us to Jesus unless Jesus really is the one upon whom the Holy Spirit rests and the truth he tells is the truth that will give you life in all its fullness. The truth he tells is truth that heals your brokenness and sets you free from the fears that bind you. The truth he tells gives us God’s glory and power and love.

If that is the truth, perhaps then, the real question is not “Who is Jesus?” Perhaps the real question is, “Will you let him near?”

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You can’t just sit there

Larry Walters was thirty-three years old, living in Los Angeles, when he decided that he wanted to see his neighbourhood from a new perspective. He went to the local army surplus store one morning and bought forty-five used weather balloons. He strapped himself into a lawn chair. Several of his friends filed the balloons with helium and then tied them to his chair. Larry took along a six-pack of beer, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a BB gun. He figured he could shoot the balloons one at a time when he was ready to land.

Larry assumed that the balloons would lift him about one hundred feet into the air. He was caught off guard when the chair he was seated in soared more than fifteen thousand feet into the sky — smack into the middle of the air traffic at Los Angeles International Airport.

He shot a few of the balloons but then dropped the gun.  He stayed airborne for more than two hours, eventually landing in Long Beach neighbourhood.

Soon after he was safely grounded and cited by the police, reporters asked him three questions.

Were you scared? Yes.

Would you do it again? No.

Why did you do it? Because you can’t just sit there.

(http://www.markbarry.com/lawnchairman.html)

The writer of the Gospel of Matthew would have liked Larry’s answer. When God invades the world in Jesus Christ, Matthew says, “You can’t just sit there. You have to do something to respond to this amazing event.” Matthew tells the Christmas story differently from Luke. Luke’s story has  Mary receiving a visit from an angel. It has  a decree from Caesar Augustus  that sends Jews across the country. Shepherds hurry to a stable after receiving news from angels in the sky.

Matthew, on the other hand, tells us a great deal more about Joseph, Mary’s fiancé. For one thing, Joseph is a dreamer.

Three times, Joseph dreams a dream. Three times, in response to the dream, Joseph changes his plans and gets moving in a different direction.

Joseph is a devout Jew and so, when he finds out that Mary is pregnant, he is prepared to follow Jewish law. He makes arrangements to break the engagement. However, as a devout Jew, he also knows that mercy is to temper justice. Out of love or consideration for Mary, he decides he will break the engagement quietly. He will save her from public humiliation. Then, the dream changes his carefully made plans. In obedience to the word he receives in the dream, he marries her and calls the child his own.

After the baby Jesus is born, it appears that Mary and Joseph have settled into life in Bethlehem. Then, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream, warning him of danger. He finds himself taking his young family on an unexpected trip to Egypt.

They settle into Egypt. Again, an angel in a dream sets him on the move again. This time, they are headed back to Israel. Even then, they do not go back to Bethlehem but to Nazareth in Galilee. All of this is done in obedience to a word from God.

When God comes onto the scene, says Matthew, nobody remains untouched. Nobody remains unchanged. Joseph finds his life turned upside down. Magi from Syria find themselves on the move to worship and bow down to a Jewish baby. Even Herod, ruler in Israel, cannot ignore what is going on. He is moved to murderous jealousy and resists God’s invasion with all the powers at his disposal.

In Jesus, people are confronted with the truth of God. You can trust and obey him or you can reject his rule but you cannot remain neutral.

This is a very hard word for us to hear. We are not accustomed to hearing truth talked about in this way. The prevailing myth is that all truth is subjective. Truth is relative. It is something we choose. You may choose differently from me and it does not really matter as long as we are tolerant of one another.

Matthew says truth is not a collection of statements to which we might give assent and others might not. Truth is not a group of convictions we choose according to our personal inclinations. Truth is a person we encounter. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We do not shape our truth. Truth shapes us and leads us where it will. We don’t ‘have’ the truth. The truth possesses us and transforms the direction of our lives.

When we encounter the truth that Jesus is, we can be rather like the officer in the navy who had always dreamed of commanding a battleship. He finally achieved his dream and was given command of the newest and best ship in the fleet.

One stormy night, as the ship plowed through the seas, the captain himself was on duty on the bridge. Suddenly, off to port, he spotted a strange light, rapidly closing with his own vessel. Immediately ordered the signalman to flash a message to the unidentified craft. The message read, “Alter your course 10 degrees to the south.”

Only a moment passed before the reply came, “Alter your course 10 degrees to the north.”

The captain was determined that his ship would not take a back seat to any other ship. He ordered a second message sent, “Alter your course 10 degrees. I am the captain.”

The message cam back, “Alter your course 10 degrees. I am Seaman third class Jones.”

Infuriated, the captain grabbled the signal light with his own hands and fired off, “Alter your course. I am a battleship.”

The reply came back, “Alter your course. I am a lighthouse.”

We live our lives, choosing its course, commanding it values and goals. Then, we encounter the Light that Jesus is and discover that he is truth which cannot be shaped for our own purposes. Rather, he is Truth that shapes us.

In baptism, you decide to adjust the course of your life to the lighthouse of Christ. He gives your life direction that it would not otherwise have. Then, you are no longer just sitting here, putting in time. You let his truth shape your life and the little story you call “my life” gets caught up in the great and holy work God is doing in human history. You become a part of God’s work, healing God’s world and bringing the lost home.

 

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The Changing Shape of the Church ~ The Way Forward

The report of the United Church’s Comprehensive Review Task Group, “United in God’s Work” recommended that the United Church “make a commitment to supporting new ministries and new forms of ministry through an initiative that tentatively would be called Chasing the Spirit” . It frames the purpose of this initiative in terms that come from the Missional Church conversation: “The task group believes the challenge, risk, and hope for the church lie in joining what God is already bringing to life”(p. 13).

The language of the missional church conversation is being heard in many places in the United Church. There is lots of talk about engaging the neighbourhoods around church buildings. However, the term ‘missional’ is often applied to congregational mission projects rather than connoting a genuine shift in identity: mission is seen as something the church does rather than what the church is.

The Missional Church conversation recognizes that the the Church does not have a mission; rather, it participates in God’s mission in the world. That mission does not just happen in distant places; the Holy Spirit is at work everywhere, including the neighbourhoods in which congregations exist. God works through the everyday, ordinary lives of the people of the church and through the congregation as a local expression of the Body of Christ. Baptism is a person’s ordination into ministry and mission. The church is not a ‘place’ where spiritual consumers come to get their needs met. It is an outpost of the reign of God from which disciples of Jesus are sent into the world. It understands itself to be both gathered and sent for the sake of God’s mission of reconciliation and grace. The conversation is not about, “What can we do to get more people into our church”; it is about, “Where is God already at work and in what ways are we being called to participate in that work?” As congregations make this shift in identity, the role of the ordered ministry personnel shifts from being “the minister” to being a leader who equips disciples of Jesus for their ministries in the world and who cultivates a congregational environment that “nourishes this work of discernment, experimentation, learning and engagement with God at work in their neighbourhoods” (The Missional Network website).

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