Leaving Everything

Text: Mark 1:14-20
          Elections are odd events. I remember when Barack Obama was elected. The way the CBC – Canadian public radio – portrayed him, his candidacy and then the events of his election and inauguration you would have thought that there was a world-wide feeling that a new day had dawned, a new era in peaceful and just global relations. This man, Barack Hussein Obama, was to be the harbinger of change who would end wars, turn the global economy around, bring about environmental solutions, end the dominance of big money cronyism in Washington, and on and on the hope list went. The hopes and expectations placed on Obama were of messianic proportion and I don’t think I’m exaggerating.
          Well, I've brought all this Obama stuff up because noting all that hope in a new day dawning that surrounded his election in a small way can help us understand what was going on in Jesus' day. I am in no way equating Barack Obama to Jesus the Christ. I'm just drawing a meagre analogy. Many Americans and more than quite a few people globally were hoping that with Obama a new era characterized by peace, justice, equity, and prosperity would come into being. Such also was the expectation of most of the people of Israel in Jesus' day; except for those who had power to lose. People were hoping, indeed expecting that any day the Messiah that God had promised would come and run out their Roman oppressors and the corrupted Jewish monarchy and temple authorities and at last establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. They were expecting peace, justice, equity, and prosperity to become a reality in their lives rather than the poverty, oppression, religious fanaticism, and constant rebellion they were living with. Most people, some more than others, were really expecting the Day of the Lord and the Messiah to come at any moment.
          And then, in the midst of that tumult of despair and apocalyptic hopes comes Jesus of Nazareth proclaiming, “The time has come; the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe this good news.” Jesus taught with an authority that the religious authorities simply did not have. He healed every sickness and disease. He cast out demons. He did these miraculous feedings. The Kingdom of God truly was at hand, the hand of Jesus. By him a new day was dawning.
          Indeed, the time had come. The Greek word that we translate as “time”, kairos, means a decisive moment in history that demands a response. Jesus himself is that decisive moment. The demanded response is to repent and believe, to leave everything behind and enlist your life in Jesus’ work of bringing in the kingdom of God, falling in behind him and following. He would say, "Come, follow me" and people would.
          I’m not sure if I’m letting us off the hook in noting this, but according to the Gospels there were only twelve people whom Jesus asked to follow him and the result of that was leaving everything behind (thirteen if count the rich young man who went away sad). There were others who did this without being asked. I’m thinking of several women and some of them were the wealthy women who supported Jesus’ ministry. At times there were crowds who left what they were doing for a time to follow him around to see what he would do. Nevertheless, following Jesus always results in leaving some things behind from the extreme of everything for always and to the lesser extent everything for a while.

          Of these twelve, the first four were fishermen. Why fishermen? The only thing that I could think of was that somehow fisherman would intrinsically understand the nature of the work involved in God’s bringing in his kingdom through Jesus. It’s a lot like fishing. To begin with and speaking allegorically, casting a net is the means by which people are brought into the kingdom. Essentially, the net is the proclamation of the gospel by the church.
          As a matter of review, in the Roman world a gospel was note a four-point plan by which someone gets saved. A gospel is an imperial pronouncement from the emperor or concerning the emperor that was considered to be good news like the birth of a child or a victory in battle. And, since the emperor was considered to be closely connected to the gods or sometimes even a god, they believed a gospel was somehow imbued with divine power. Similarly, in the Christian faith the gospel is a divine, imperial announcement from God. It was/is essentially that Jesus is the Son of God and the Lord and has delivered his creation from the powers of sin, evil, and death and the evidence of his Lordship, the Kingdom of God, is breaking into the present through the working of the Holy Spirit until Jesus returns to resurrect everyone from the dead and create all things anew at which point all peoples will be evaluated with respect to how well they lived in the kingdom while it was coming in order to determine their place or status or ranking in the new world. That Gospel was and is empowered by the Holy Spirit and like scooping fish out of the water with a net, so it brings people into the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ.
          So then, the work of the kingdom that these fishermen would intrinsically understand was casting and preparing the net. These first four fisherman fished by casting a net not by bait and lure. The kingdom spreads by the simple proclamation of the gospel in word and action not by gimmicky whatever’s to try to attract people and work a decision out of them. I don’t know what became of Andrew other than he’s the one who found the little boy with the five loves and two fish and according to John’s Gospel he initially brought Peter to meet Jesus. Peter, on the other hand, became a great caster of the net in the early years of the church. He went up into Syria and southern Turkey and eventually to Rome.
          James and John, on the other hand, were preparers of the net. Jesus found them in their boats preparing the nets. James became the head of the church in Jerusalem until he was martyred. John was the longest lived of the Twelve and became something similar to a bishop in Ephesus watching over the churches of western Turkey. If you’re catching my analogy here, a great deal of work, often the most tedious work is preparing the net, or rather building up the church, the body of Christ, that it might make and live the gospel proclamation.
          Well, for all of us Jesus and his kingdom is the most decisive moment in our lives and as such a moment Jesus and his kingdom require from us the response of faith and repentance, of leaving behind what we’re doing and enlisting our lives in Jesus and his work of bringing in the kingdom of God by falling in behind him and following. This in turn means that the primary responsibility in our lives is the work of either preparing or casting the net. The Holy Spirit has gifted us each with abilities for ministry that by working together we may prepare and cast the gospel net here in our very community. The question that then follows is what are your gifts and where do they fit into the life of Christ’s body.
          Some of you may be thinking that this stuff about the Holy Spirit empowering you with gifts for ministry is a bit weird. After all, our tradition tends to stress faithful following of Jesus that demonstrates itself through being morally upright and ethically compassionate. We don’t know what to do with those charismatic gifts that Paul lists in First Corinthians 12 that includes things like speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues, prophecy, words of wisdom and knowledge, performing miracles, and healing. We tend to relegate those to the Pentecostals and call them weird. Fortunately, Paul later gets a little tamer in Ephesians 4 where the gifts become offices of ministry such as apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher, and evangelist. In Romans he gets even more practical talking about the gifts of hospitality, compassion, administration, helping and so on.
          Yet, this talk of gifts for ministry doesn’t have to sound so foreign. All we need do is remind ourselves that like Peter, Andrew, James, and John everything we have done in our lives has prepared us intrinsically for our work in the church. Speaking for myself, my preparation for ministry began a long time before seminary? I’ve be a son, a brother, a grandson, a nephew, a cousin, a friend, a best friend, a student, a musician, a retail clerk in an automotive store and a hardware store, an assistant manager in a steakhouse, an immigrant, a divorcee, a husband, and a father. Those relationships are where I learned the relational skills necessary for this call. I’ve been a seminarian, a minister in small town West Virginia, and a presbyter in West Virginia. My work as a minister there necessitated that I get steeped in the area of congregational redevelopment and as a presbyter there I was exposed to the nature and needs of small churches and started looking in that direction instead of the big church for a career. I wound up a minister in a small church in Caledon for ten years. My whole life has been Holy Spirit school preparing me for ministry.
           Now with respect to you each, I would encourage you to look at who you are and what you’ve done and are doing with your life and ask how the Holy Spirit has been preparing you for work in the Kingdom.  The highest priority of our lives is being a Christian. The life of Christ is in us each and through us every relationship we find ourselves in. Being a Christian, being a living proclamation that Jesus is Lord is our number one priority. This priority affects what we do with our lives and how we prioritize them. Who those first four were and what they did as fisherman along with time spent with Jesus prepared and gifted them for what they would be doing for his churches. Take this thought home with you: through every relationship of your life and everything you have done and are doing the Holy Spirit has been preparing and gifting you for the ministry that is going to happen through this congregation in the next several years. It is your giftedness for ministry, not some minister’s, through which Christ Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit will be primarily working to cast the Gospel net. Start thinking and praying about who he has made you to be and what he has gifted you to do because each of you are integral and necessary to what he is going to do here. Amen.

Seeing through Resurrected Eyes

Text: 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

            I think we all know that suddenly discovering that one’s time is short has a very profound effect on a person.  It certainly did with my father when he began his struggle with cancer.   I remember a few months before my he died he came up with a quote which I think sums it all up.  We were driving around looking at the countryside and he made the comment, “You never know how beautiful a tree is until you’ve seen it through a dying man’s eyes.”  When you know that your time is short you truly do begin to see life from a whole new perspective.

            This way of looking at life, a dying man’s perspective I’ll call it, is in my estimation a healthy way to approach life.  You see, we’re all terminal and its a basic fact of life that we will not be settled in this life until we come to grips with the fact that sooner or later we’re going to die.  Acceptance of that fact forces a person to come to grips with what is really important in life.  It makes you value your time and prioritize what you do with it.  There’s a sense of urgency to get the important things done.  It stings you with the joy of gratitude for each day you still have but also with the pain of regret as you reflect on the things you have done and the things you have left undone and the things you’ve said and left unsaid. Can things be mended with the people you have treated badly or been hurt by. 

Eventually we must all come to the point in our lives when we begin to see the world through dying man’s eyes.  This new perspective can come upon us at any age preferably sooner than later and preferably without having been told we have a terminal illness or anything like that.  If we are to be given the grace of contentment in this life sooner or later we will come through an anxious part of our lives to a point where we accept the life that we’ve been given and how we’ve lived it.  We find the strength to forgive ourselves and others, and we just get ready to face the rest of our days with a profound sense of gratitude.  That’s seeing the world through a dying man’s eyes.  It comes upon us when we are not expecting it.  It is, I believe, a gift from God for we cannot come to this point on our own.

That in mind, let’s turn to our passage in 1 Corinthians.  Here the Apostle Paul writes about how we should live our lives knowing that the time is short. God has put a time limit on his creation as it is in its present state of by oppressed by the futility of sin and death.  The end of this broken world is drawing near and the Trinity is going to make all things new.  Knowing this should cause us to begin to value our time and our use of it differently but not so much in the same way that we would seeing the world through a dying man’s eyes.  That’s stopping a bit short of the full meaning of where Paul is taking us with talk of time being short for present form of this world is passing away.  Things are different now that God the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit raised Jesus the Son from the dead. The power of re-Creation, of New Creation, Creation being healed from Sin and freed from Death and Evil, the power – the love of God in Jesus Christ – is changing this world starting with us, the ones who are being made new in union with Jesus in his now resurrected humanity by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  We, in Christ, see the world through the resurrected man’s eyes.  We see it in its created beauty.  But we also see it in its state of futility.  Yet, we also see it knowing that the day is coming when it will be set free from this futility just as we know we ourselves are for the power of that New Day is dawning on us now as a foretaste of what’s to come and, indeed, the evidence of it.

Reflecting on Paul’s life, the New Day dawned on him when he met Jesus, our resurrected and ascended Lord, while on the road to Damascus on his way to round up Christians to bring them back to Jerusalem to be tried by the Temple authorities for blasphemy.  Jesus met him in a bright light and called him by name confronted Paul as to why he was persecuting him. Jesus said, “Saul.  Saul.  Why are you persecuting me?”  Paul answered, “Who are you, Lord?”  “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”  Who…are…you…Lord?  Paul’s confession there – his calling Jesus Lord – was the same as calling Jesus the LORD God of Israel.  Paul’s being able to do that was evidence that he, Paul standing there blinded by the light, had been thusly made alive, called, a chosen instrument of Jesus who would suffer much for him.  No one can call Jesus Lord except by the power of the Holy Spirit.  In that bright light, in that personal confrontation with Jesus Paul stepped into the New Creation and knew Jesus to be the LORD of it.

After Paul met Jesus raised from death on the road to Damascus he began to see the world and the worth of his time differently.  Yet not from the perspective of a man who was going to die soon, but rather through the eyes of a man who had died and been born from above in Christ Jesus by the power of Holy Spirit.  Therefore, living life now was living his life in Christ, for Christ, through Christ, by Christ because Jesus Christ was living in him.  The life of Christ lived in faithfulness according to the way of the cross was his new orientation.  His new striving.  Paul says as much in Galatians writing, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

For Paul, life can only now be found and lived in striving for Christ and coming to know the transforming power of Jesus’ resurrection.  He writes in Philippians, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as manure, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through the faithfulness of Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith with the result that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”  Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end of the new humanity that is in him.  It is in his resurrected life that we now find our new life.  The old life and everything in it needs to be left behind.  The Trinity did not create a new religion called Christianity by what he did in, through, and as Jesus Christ.  He created a new humanity, new human being that will effect all creation for life as Adam, the old humanity, did for death.

The way Paul and many of the very first Christians came to understand life was that we are dead to the old life and all its social institutions for it is nothing more than the fallen, broken, futile life of Adam that culminates in death.  Now, because we are made alive through Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and his Spirit lives in each of us uniting us to his new human being we must become missionary vessels of the new life, the kingdom of God that lives in each of us.  They began to prioritize their time and their actions around spreading the Word of what God had done and is going to do for all creation by raising Jesus from the dead.  They announced this new reality and lived accordingly by creating communities where all people – slave, free, Jew, Gentile, white, black, yellow, brown, male, female – were welcome, loved as family, and treated with honour. 

Everyone was a missionary, an ambassador for Christ, and that task took precedence over all others.  The old life was gone.  As Paul wrote in our passage today, if you are married live as though you are not married.  If you are a widow do not complicate your mission by seeking another spouse.  If you are not yet married, stay unmarried.  He goes on with his extreme sounding views. If you are saddened by the loss of the people you love, put it behind you.  You can not let that keep you from Christ’s work.  If you’ve found happiness in this life, put it behind you and get on to the suffering struggles of a missionary for Christ.  If you have wealth, leave it behind.  If you conduct a business, leave it behind.  In Christ’s kingdom the only priority that a follower of Christ can have is announcing the coming of this Creation’s one true Lord of creation.

 That’s a pretty radical way of approaching life.  But it is Christ’s call to each of us whom he has called to be his followers.  We must put our lives behind us and take up our crosses and follow him in his new resurrected life.  But how do we do this for we just can’t pick up and leave everything behind, can we?

Well, Paul gives a bit of an answer to that question a few verses earlier.  He writes: “Let each of you lead the life that that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you” (v. 17).  And a little further down the page: “Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called” (v. 20).  If every Christian literally left home and job and everything behind to become traveling missionaries for Christ, there would have been some serious social upheaval.  It would be even worse today if all the people of the world who call themselves Christians literally left everything behind to do mission trips all the time.  The gist of Paul’s advice to them and it is advice that we must also take to heart is that we are all missionaries or ambassadors for Christ right where we are at – at home, at work, among our neighbours.  That is God’s way of reaching out to everyone. 

Each of you is a missionary for Christ.  If you are a parent, live the life of Christ before your children and teach them the faith.  If you are a student, live the life of Christ before your friends.  Live the life of Christ before your neighbors.  If you own a business, let Jesus use that business to be a vehicle of Kingdom of God justice and equity rather than simply some way to make you rich.  Live the life of Christ before your employees and co-workers.  Don’t be gaudy or offensive about it or act like you’ve been brainwashed by Jesus.  Most people just find that offensive.  But, most people don’t mind if you let them know you’re praying for them when they have troubles.  Most people don’t mind an occasional invitation to church.  Most people don’t mind that if while you’re talking to them that you mention you happened to enjoy church last Sunday.  Most people don’t mind if you ask their opinions on matters of faith that you don’t quite understand yourself.  Having faith in Jesus Christ is nothing to be ashamed of.  Be his missionaries wherever you are at.  Amen.

Come to the House of God

Text: John 1:40-51

Jesus’ conversation with Nathanael is one of the more enigmatic dialogues in John’s Gospel.  We need a bit of first century rabbinic tradition to get it.  They are: the meaning of the name Nathanael, what Jesus meant by a true Israelite, what it meant to be under the fig tree, and the significance of angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.  In the end, you will see that Philip had a very special friend named Nathanael whom some of your friends may resemble and they are worth the humbling effort of an invitation to come to the house of God.

  First, the name Nathanael means “gift of God”.  So, the first thing that we need to know about Nathanael is that by his namesake he was to be a blessing to others.  This is significant because God’s promise to Abraham was to bless him and his descendants so that they would be a blessing to the nations.  Israel was blessed not for its own sake, but rather to be a blessing.  Such became Nathanael as an Apostle.

Second, a true Israelite in John’s Gospel is a true Jew.  Jesus refers to Nathanael as “a true Israelite, in whom there is no deceit.”  This is the only time in John’s Gospel where someone of Jewish descent is called “an Israelite” rather than one of “the Jews”.  John used the term, “the Jews” to refer to the corrupted religious and political establishment in Jerusalem as well as the power hungry and power wielding leadership of the synagogues spread throughout the nation and the Roman Empire.  On the other hand, Jesus saying that Nathanael, the one who is a blessing from God, is a true Israelite means that Nathanael was a true Jew sincerely searching for and living for God and his kingdom.

Third, what does under the fig tree mean?  When Nathanael, the blessing from God who is sincere about searching for and living for God and his kingdom, asks Jesus how he knows who he is, Jesus tells him that before Philip called Nathanael, before Philip summonsed Nathanael to come and follow Jesus, Jesus saw him under the fig tree.  “Sitting under one’s own vine and fig tree” was a common phrase in ancient Israel.  It symbolized well-being or shalom due to the blessings of God.

The prophet Micah used this phrase when speaking about the coming kingdom of God.  “In the last days the mountain of the LORD's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it.  Many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.’ The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.  He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.  Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty has spoken.  All the nations may walk in the name of their gods; we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.  "In that day," declares the LORD, ‘I will gather the lame; I will assemble the exiles and those I have brought to grief.  I will make the lame a remnant, those driven away a strong nation. The LORD will rule over them in Mount Zion from that day and forever’” (Jn. 4:1-7).

By using this symbolic phrase, Jesus indicated to Nathanael that he knew this deep desire of Nathanael’s for the Lord to come and establish his kingdom and that Philip’s calling Nathanael to come to Jesus was its fulfillment.  Nathanael hears this as Truth and responds immediately with the confession, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”  He knows that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God come to fulfill God’s promise to Israel to establish his kingdom.  Nathanael, the blessing from God who is sincere about searching for and living for God and his kingdom, has now found himself in the presence of the Messiah.

The fourth image is that of angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man alludes to the dream the patriarch Jacob had while fleeing from his brother Esau.  In this dream Jacob saw a ladder from earth to heaven with the angels of God going up and coming down on it.  Above the ladder stood the LORD God who made to him the promise that he had made to both Abraham and Isaac.  When Jacob woke up he thought the place was the house of God and the gate to heaven.  So, he names the place Bethel meaning the house of God for he had met there his Lord, his God, the God of his father. 

So, with this allusion to Jacob’s dream Jesus is telling Nathanael that it is not such a great thing that he believes Jesus to be the Messiah.  Rather, Nathanael is going to see, is going to know that Jesus is God with us.  Jesus is Bethel, the house of God.  Jesus is the gate to God.  Jesus is the LORD God himself with his people.  Nathanael, the blessing from God who is sincere about searching for and living for God and his kingdom and who has now found himself in the presence of the Messiah is going to see in no uncertain terms that Jesus is the LORD God become human flesh and the way to God himself.

I wish to point out that that Jesus did not call Nathanael.  Philip did.  It is safe to assume that Nathanael was a friend of Philip’s and that Philip, knowing the heart of his friend, did of his own initiative invite Nathanael to come and meet Jesus, the house of God, whom Philip knew was the fulfilment of Nathanael’s hope.  Philip had a relationship with Jesus and he knew that it was a relationship for which Nathanael himself was longing.  With a bit of initial reluctance Nathanael indeed came and saw and was known by Jesus and believed.  Jesus is the house of God and Nathanael had entered in.  Jesus is the gate to heaven and Nathanael entered in not of his own initiative but by trusting the word of his friend.

Let me close with this.  You folks have been built to be the household of God.  Paul writes: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Eph. 2:19-22).  You are the temple in which God lives.  In you all is the gateway to God.  I am reasonably sure that you all have people in your lives whom you know who like Nathanael are searching for God and who just might on the strength of their trust in you come here and here come to see Jesus and find in him the Truth and the Life and the Way they have been seeking.  They may hem and haw and it may take 1,000 attempts, but what’s there to lose.  They may even pull a Nathanael and say, “Church, can anything good come from the church?”  Let’s face it.  They are right in saying that.  The Church even this church over the years has blown it completely and radically.  Yet, on the hand you know Jesus is here and on the other you know people who truly are searching for the Truth.  It doesn’t take a Darwin to see the missing link.  Invite them and I will boldly say that it is likely come to meet the Jesus whom you love and know to be here.  Amen.

P.S.  Nathanael is only mentioned in John’s Gospel.  In the other Gospel’s he goes by the name of Bartholomew.  St. Bartholomew took the Gospel to India and then established the church in Armenia.  Tradition has it that the Armenian king, Polymius, became a Christian and in jealousy his pagan brother, Astyages, ordered Bartholomew’s execution.  He was skinned alive and crucified head down.

Faith not Fate

Text: Genesis 1:1-5

            A common phrase in our vocabulary is to wish good upon someone by saying “Good luck.”  It is likely that throughout this very week we have all wished someone “luck” at least once and that makes me wonder whether we are just being polite or do we really believe in luck?  What is luck?  The concept of luck is ancient.  I assume it derives from the ancient Greek beliefs in fate or fortune.  Both of these assume that there are specific gods who determine the outcome or destiny of human life.   The Fates were a set of three Greek goddess sisters who determined the events of human life.  Fortune is how that plays out in one’s life.  To wish someone good luck is to invoke the power of the gods to look favorably upon that person’s efforts; thus, good fortune or luck.

In this system of belief, which in essence is faith in fate, for something to have gone wrong in a person’s life they must either have been cursed, have done something to offend the gods, or just plane are not in line with fate.  One needs religion or superstition to get fate on one’s side.  You must do something that will please the gods usually this involves bargaining with fate by giving something up or saying something using the right words.  Also, you must come up with some sort of way of determining when you are in good fortune or as gambler’s put it, “on a run” and when you’re not. 

Life in the world of fate is pretty miserable.  The pursuit is usually for material or some other personal gain.  You have an ideal that you “feel” to be in the cards or in your fate and you begin to pursue it.  Unfortunately, the selfish motivation is entirely wrong.  It’s for the stuff you think you need to make you happy.  What often gets compromised in the end is character or integrity.  It becomes a very capricious life full of highs and lows the anxiety of always wondering whether or not you are in with your fate.  The costs of this foolishness accumulate and sooner or later you find your life is in the control of something or someone whose power over you is fear.

Many Christians get caught in the “fate game” even while thinking they are pursuing God’s will for their lives.  It is Christian teaching to say that since God is almighty and all-knowing he knows what’s going to happen in every event and has determined the end of everything.  Since there is free choice what happens may not be in his will, but he permits it and uses it.  People pray and discern trying to figure out what it is God wants them to do with their lives so that they will have his blessing. 

I’ve often questioned this teaching and mostly on the basis that it works out in practice more to resemble faith in the three Fates than trust in the God of the Bible.  God has a will for our lives.  It is for us to become like Christ, to be changed to be like him by participating in his life as we walk by the Holy Spirit through the relationships and situations of our lives.  The Bible doesn’t promise a blessed outcome of material wealth and happiness.  Rather, we are promised a most blessed outcome in the greater wealth of knowing God.  Jesus taught us not to worry about our material needs and I would even add emotional needs for our Father in heaven knows what they are and will provide.  We need not pursue those things or bargain with God for those things.  They are a given.  Rather, it is God’s will that we pursue Christ-likeness whole-heartedly.  Fate pursues a life unchallenged by suffering.  It seeks to escape to an unchallenged bliss.  Christian faith says that God will make us to be as he is even through suffering. The Christian pursuit is God-likeness not comfort.  It is to know and to be come like God in character.

The beginning of Christian faith is to confess trust in God not to try to get God to do something for us.  The Nicene Creed begins: “We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things seen and unseen.”  We believe in one God who is Creator, Ruler, and Sustainer of everything and this God we call our Father and we call him this because this is how he has revealed himself to us through Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit.  The meaning behind calling God Father is that we know God, by his personal involvement and working in our lives, has brought us into existence and called us forth as his people.  It means we know also by his personal involvement and working in our lives that he will provide for us in life now and with an inheritance in the day to come, an inheritance which we have begun to experience through the presence and working of the Holy Spirit in our lives now to make us like Christ. 

To call God Father is to know that he is faithful not fateful.  God’s faithfulness means that he will work all things to the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose as it says in Romans 8:28.  To love God is the purpose we are called to.  John Calvin writes on the significance of knowing that God has created us: “There remains the second part of the rule, more closely related to faith.  It is to recognize that God has destined all things for our good and salvation but at the same time to feel his power and grace in ourselves and in the great benefits he has conferred upon us, and so bestir ourselves to trust, invoke, praise, and love him… (Institutes I.xiv.22).”  Basically, God has destined all things for our good and salvation.  Moreover, he works powerfully and graciously in us to make this good and our salvation a reality in us personally and in the events of our lives.  This working moves us to trust and love him, to pray to him, and to worship him. 

God’s work in us is as a Father rearing his children according to the utmost of love for us.  As God’s children we know and experience life in its totality as a lesson to learn deep in our hearts the nature and the ways of God’s family.  He rears us to shine forth his self-emptying nature as his children in Christ in the way we relate to each other and to all of his creation.  We learn to love and respect God for this work.

For God to be our Father also means that he has provided the way for us to be rightly related to himself spiritually speaking, which is in union with him through Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which is his gracious gift to us.  The Word of God by which he spoke the Creation into existence has become human and has passed through death taking our humanity back into God.  This New Creation, this new humanity, God graciously gives to us through the Holy Spirit.  What defines this new humanity is a new heart, a will that desires and welcomes the true and real presence of God in our lives no matter how painful it might be as he goes about his work of rearing, shaping and molding us to be like him.  Through the spoken Word of Jesus Christ God has saved us from an existence driven by the pursuit of fate.  By the gift of his Spirit we now have the free choice to desire God and his working in our lives where before we were oblivious to it.   We can now pray and worship freely in gratitude not having to worry about getting on God’s good side to get fate to work in our favor.  We already are on God’s good side and he destines all things for our good and salvation.  We just have to learn to live with this new reality.  We can now whole-heartedly trust God and love God for he is the unseen but present loving presence working in our lives for good, to save us from our false hopes, desires, and addictions.

We are children of the Maker of heaven and earth and all things seen and unseen.  We belong to the Almighty who is our heavenly Father.  This should be a great comfort for us in that all things that happen are his workings in our lives to create the nature of his Son in us.  Our Father who sees to it that even every little sparrow is fed and clothed the fields in beauty has as Jesus said numbered every hair on our heads that none should fall without him knowing of it.  All we’ve got to do is to learn to call on him in prayer, praise him, and enjoy him for there in lies our purpose.

I will close with a prayer from St. Augustine who lived back in the 400’s CE.  It is the opening to his classic work Confessions. “Grant me, Lord, to know and to understand which of these is most important, to call on you or to praise.  Or again, to know you or to call on you.  For who can call on you without knowing you?  For he who does not know you may call on you as other than you are…Let me seek you Lord by calling on you, and call on you believing in you as you have been proclaimed to us.  My faith calls on you, the faith you have given me.”  Amen.

The Wisdom of Old Folk

Text: Luke 2:21-40
          I have learned much in my friendships with the elderly. I once knew a woman named Katherine in a retirement community in Richmond, VA in which I interned during seminary. She was 104 years old and quite well known throughout the United Methodist Church community in south-central Virginia for the clay figurines that she crafted there in the residential hobby room. Katherine's most notable creation was a little froggy orchestra. I learned from her that if life takes something away from you, your purpose so to speak, you be creative, move on, and find something else. Katherine had never done anything with clay until she left home and everything behind and moved into the Hermitage Home at age 96. Within eight years people were coming from all over south-central Virginia to view and purchase her art. There was just something special about her little creations. They spoke a silent message of hope, the gentle reminder that no matter what, be creative.
          My grandmother, Grandma Cox, was in her seventies when she moved into a retirement community. At her home in Raphine, VA she lived a fairly isolated life making quilts and other sewing crafts. Then after having to leave her home for a retirement community, she became well known for her quilted and knitted things and beanbag monkeys. She also made the most of the opportunities available there at Sunnyside and even became a reigning shuffleboard champion. It takes a lot of courage to make the changes that she had to make. Yet, like Katherine she kept living and stayed creative and that's that. That’s what you got to do.

          Another thing I have learned from my elder friends is that somewhere between the years of 80 and 85 we are suddenly gifted with the authority to say whatever we want to whomever we want no matter how off the wall it sounds and it will be called wise and people will heed it. Again I fall back on my Grandma Cox. She absolutely did not like the shredded beef salad that they served just a little too often in the cafeteria...and you have to understand that Grandma was an excellent cook herself and had even worked in a school cafeteria for a good bit of her life and so she understood institutional food. One evening for dinner there at Sunnyside they served her the typical ice cream scoop of shredded beef salad on lettuce. Grandma looked at it and said, “This looks like something the dog threw up in the yard and I'm not going to eat it.” Well, the servers immediately gave her something else to eat and the beef salad there after appeared with less frequency. Grandma’s earthy but wise observation brought about a much-desired change for all the residents.
          So, there you have it. Just a couple of things I've learned from the elderly. One, strive to keep living and be creative as much as they are able. And two, at some point past the age of 80 we will suddenly be granted the gift of being able to say whatever we want to whomever we want and it will be dubbed wisdom and they will listen so just say it. It's with those lessons in mind that we turn to Simeon and Anna.
          Simeon was a very devout man whom the Holy Spirit had told that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. Simeon was moved by the Holy Spirit one day to go to the temple and there he found Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. I can imagine him taking Jesus with wrinkly, boney, shaking hands and with a raspy, joyful voice saying basically “Yes Lord, let me now die in peace for I have indeed seen your salvation.” Simeon had lived a very long life and since he had lived his life within the framework of faithfulness he did indeed know why he was so old and still alive. God had made him a promise and told him he would not die until he saw it fulfilled. There in his arms lay his answered promise - a tiny, weak, vulnerable baby. Simeon knows he can now die in peace. The Lord was indeed bringing about the deliverance of Israel and of all peoples from every form of oppression. He looked at Jesus and knew the prayer he was put here to pray was answered and he will die knowing God is faithful. Simeon is also well past the age of 80 and so he speaks bluntly to Mary concerning Jesus: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” I’m sure Mary was a bit befuddled and then up comes this old woman.
          Anna the Prophetess was 84 years old. She had probably married at the age of 14 or fifteen and was widowed after seven years. She then went to live in the temple courtyards (probably as a beggar), never leaving, and worshipped by praying and fasting night and day. Her life's purpose also was waiting for God's Messiah. At the same moment that Simeon knows his life's purpose had been fulfilled, Anna comes and begins to tell those who had gathered in the temple to pray for God to send the Messiah that he had indeed come.
          Well, to make a long sermon short, I think the obvious wisdom that Simeon and Anna have for us is that we will not know the Lord's purpose for us apart from knowing the Lord's Christ, apart from knowing Jesus. I've been around more than a few retirement communities and I've been asked more than a few times by people who have outlived most of their family and friends, "Why is the Lord keeping me here? Haven't I served my purpose yet?” They usually say that because they truly are reeling in the loss that life brings when due to the frailties of old age a transition must be made from the independence of one’s own home to “the home”. The only nutshell answer there can be to those questions is “You’ve lost much and I can see why you feel your life is pointless. I’d feel that way to. But you’re still alive. So, live. Keep praying. Indeed, pray more for everybody and everything and love and serve your neighbours while you wait. I suspect you will come to realize that’s why you’re still here. Our Lord has great plans for the healing and deliverance of the people he’s put in your life. So, pray for that and wait for it."
          Many congregations today find themselves in the situation of needing to make a transition to something else due to the physical and spiritual reality of its members growing old. It is safe to say that just over 40% of the churches in North America have fewer than 50 people in worship on a Sunday. It is also safe to say that about 80% of the churches in North America have less than 100 people on a Sunday. Old age and dwindling in size have made anxiety in the face of the future and corporate low self-esteem a constant debilitating factor in the predominant church of North America which is the small church of which you are one. Small is normal. Many of these small and aging congregations are asking “Why are we still here? What could possibly be our purpose here?” These small churches are still very much alive (just as you folks) are and so must live (just as you must). Certainly, these smaller churches have some institutional baggage to deal with and doing so will help them transition into the future. There is nothing in the Bible that says a church of Jesus Christ must have a building, full-time paid clergy, and programs of ministry in order to be the real deal. The churches of the New Testament met in homes, were led by gifted and well-tutored disciples, and their only program for ministry was proclaiming the love of God in Jesus Christ and living accordingly. We need to take to heart the wisdom of my friend Katherine and my Grandma Cox. When being a church can no longer be done the way we’re accustomed to, well, let’s just find something new to do with the abilities that we still have and be creative about it. The church of twenty years from now is going to be dramatically different from the church of twenty years ago because North American culture has changed so dramatically. I predict that the church twenty years from now will be based in homes rather than buildings, led by trained lay people, full-time clergy will be fewer and far between and shared by a number of congregations, and Jesus Christ will be a neighbourhood reality.
         But for today, the average age of the members of our congregations is now approaching the age of Simeon and Anna, which means we are collectively able to be gifted with the authority to say whatever we want to whomever we want and they will listen and call it wise. So, let us proclaim God’s salvation of the world through the reconciling love of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and let us do so because our eyes have indeed beheld him. We Christians are the only people on earth who know that God is faithful. May we like Anna, a crazy old widow, shout it out. Amen.