5th Sunday of August Healing Service

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus: Mark 10:46-52

⁴⁶ They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. ⁴⁷47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ ⁴⁸48 Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ ⁴⁹49 Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ ⁵⁰So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. ⁵¹51 Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher,^* let me see again.’ ⁵² Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.” *

It is, I think fair to say that every person will approach passages of scripture from their own perspective.  Some will find depths within the passages, others may not see.  On other occasions, we will get an insight into something we had not thought of before, even though we may know the passage very well.  This is I believe the work, or prompting, of the Holy Spirit.  Each revelation has its own purpose and meaning.  If we listen, the Spirit has a way of speak to us, just the words we need, when we need them.

Today we have a healing service, so remember always, that there is a difference between healing and curing.  We often confuse the two terms.  If we understand that healing is something that affects our spirit, our beings.  We may need healing for a past emotional hurt; or to help us come to accept the existence of an illness, disease or condition that may be with us for the rest of our earthly lives.  To be cured of an illness, disease or condition means that it has been completely removed from our physical bodies.  We can then see curing is something most often performed by the medical profession.  Miracles excepted, of course!  If we use these two terms in this way, then we can see that it is possible to be healed, and not be cured, of the illness, disease or condition we are suffering from.

In Mark’s telling of the healing we know a lot about Bartimaeus.  He was Timaeus’ son.  He was blind.  He was a beggar.  He lived outside Jericho.  He had a loud voice.  He knew who Jesus was.  He was not afraid to call out.  He knew he needed Jesus’ healing touch.

Does this sound like any of us? We have things in common with Bartimaeus.  We are someone’s child, we know who Jesus is, and we are, in some way also needing God’s healing touch.  Bartimaeus sought his healing through God’s mercy.  Do we also seek God’s mercy?  Are we certain that we can attain God’s mercy?  Do we perhaps prefer to listen to ourselves, or those around us who make us feel unloved, rather than seeking God’s love and mercy?

* Scripture is from: ‘New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.’

Do you shrink back from reaching out to God?  Do you think it is safer to be lost in the crowd?  Bartimaeus did not think or do this, nor should we.  Healing comes through seeking God’s mercy, not shrinking from it.  When Bartimaeus knew Jesus was near, and could have mercy on him, he shouted, standing out from the crowd.

Jesus heard Bartimaeus calling out to him and stopped.  Jesus told the crowd to call Bartimaeus forward.  The crowd listened and then encouraged Bartimaeus to go forward.  Perhaps there are times when we call out, but are not so certain that we have been heard.  We expect a response, a reply to our calling out.  When what we expect does not happen, how and when we want it, then we become disillusioned and perhaps even abandon our faith.

Bartimaeus did not know he had been heard.  It was the crowd around him, which told him to take heart.  Moreover, when Bartimaeus was called he went.  There was no hesitation, no delay no question.  He held fast to his faith.

Do we do the same?  Perhaps in love and mercy, God has answered your call for healing and you did not hear it?  Did you delay, question or just simply ignore the reply?  Be attentive for the reply (others may tell you of it) and then be decisive - go and do.  Hold onto your faith.  Remember, Bartimaeus took decisive action when he sought, and heard, God’s mercy.

St Mark tells us a lot about that Bartimaeus’ healing.  He received his sight, after Jesus had told him he was healed.  Jesus spoke the words of healing - Mark does not say Jesus touched Bartimaeus.  Then Bartimaeus followed Jesus along the road.

His faith that Jesus could heal him was all that Bartimaeus needed to be healed.  When we read this, it seems so simple.  Yet we like to make it all a lot more complicated for ourselves, why?  Perhaps we are not certain of our faith.  Perhaps we look for an ‘insurance policy”, a “backup plan.”  Just in case!  Bartimaeus was not content to be healed and then go back to his old place, his back up plan.  He was healed and so he started a new journey.  Is this our experience?  Is this what we do?  Do we follow along the road?

If it was our faith that brought us to God, to seek God’s mercy, love, and healing, surely we can do nothing else but be certain.  To do otherwise is to doubt.  So take heart, start, or re-start your faith journey.  It is a wonderful, mysterious and loving trip.

Remember, it was Bartimaeus’ faith that healed him.

Amen.

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, year B - Br. Andrew

Homily preached by Br Andrew e.f.o. at Springwood on Sunday 23rd August 2015

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Just frivolity:

I shall share with you something my mate Fr Dave Smith of Holy Trinity Dulwich Hill mentioned in his sermon last week which might clarify things in the end.

He said “Now, in case you’re not familiar with the different understandings that exist between the different Christian denominations when it comes to the Eucharist, the best way of remembering the distinctions, I think, was that given to me by my old mate, Tony Campolo (the great Baptist evangelist) who put it this way:

• In the Catholic understanding, the bread mysteriously becomes the body of Jesus and the blood mysteriously becomes His blood

• In the Anglican understanding, the bread remains bread and the wine remains wine, but to the person who consumes them in faith they become the body and blood of Jesus.

• In the Baptist understanding, he points out, the bread remains bread, and the wine magically becomes grape juice!”

At any rate, if you’re a good Catholic, you may well make an immediate association between this dialogue and the Eucharist – a sacrament that had its origin, you’ll remember, in the ‘Last Supper’ between Jesus and His disciples”

In this the fifth and final interlude of John’s Gospel within this part of the Markan year I intend to state the Non-conformist-middle point of view concerning the understanding of Jesus discourse at Capernaum.

While most agree that the event of the Feeding of the 5000 itself was representative of the first Holy Communion that is where the agreement ends. Protestant Commentators and Theologians such as Matthew Henry and Calvin, agree that Jesus’ teaching in the Synagogue was not about the Sacrament or Ordinance of Holy Communion / Eucharist. Therefore the true meaning intended by his words “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I in him.” John 6:56 are of a Spiritual nature and the instruction concerning His Body and Blood is to be understood figuratively.

Note there is no mention of wine.

Calvin commented that this discourse doesn’t relate to the Lord's Supper, but to the perpetual communication of the flesh of Christ, ["De la chair de Christ."] which we obtain apart from the use of the Lord's Supper. Communion alone does not grant us the Eternal life Jesus speaks of unless those that do so also follow His Words. It has been said by the theologians that they are saved who do not receive the Holy Communion and they are lost with it because it is not in the slavish keeping of the Holy Communion by which we are saved but in participating in this perpetual Communication of the flesh of Christ.

Matthew Poole writes, quote  “Feeding is to be meant believing in him; only here is a clearer discovery than was there in John 3:16-18, of the true object of that faith which justifies, namely a Christ crucified, for that is signified by the flesh and blood mentioned.”, end quote. While Albert Barnes draws our attention to the meaning ‘dining together’, had among the Jews, it was expressive of sharing in or partaking of the privileges of friendship.  The happiness of heaven and all spiritual blessings are often represented under this image, see Luke 14:15, “One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, ‘Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!’”

Poole also comments on the terrible and awful notion that Jesus intended us to take his words literally and speaks disparagingly of the Council of Trent and goes on to comment that the situation demanded Jesus use the figure of eating and drinking because that was the subject of the  discourse; because the Jews were very proud of the fact that their fathers had eaten manna; and because, Jesus had said that he was the bread of life, it was natural and easy, especially in the language i.e. the specific words,  which he used, to carry out the illustration, and say that bread must be eaten in order to be of any use in supporting and saving men.

At the murmuring of his disciples  at such ‘hard sayings’ Jesus asks them “Does this cause you to stumble what if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” John 6:62, a change of subject?

No, far from it, an illustration that points to the following year when Jesus would be crucified, dead and buried, rise from the dead and ascend into heaven. Meyer in his original language commentary uses these words “Will not this impending sight serve to offend you still more” for “Does this cause you to stumble” and says of it that he whom they believe to be mortal to Ascend into heaven is just as preposterous as literally and actually eating his flesh and drinking his blood. But for those future readers who have formed erroneous or heretical Eucharistic conceptions who are already aware that Jesus is God –They are to understand that their practices and understandings have gotten out of hand because the Son of Man has ascended in his flesh and is not here to be feasted upon.

The crux of this communication Jesus is making both to those in the Synagogue and to us is that Jesus intends all that he has taught them to be understood in the Spiritual context 6;63 “ It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life.”

When we and John’s readers, contemplate the spirit we are drawn past the Ascension to Pentecost when the Holy Spirit is given but  John’s subjects remain ignorant indifferent or curious and eager to understand. When those who partake in the perpetual communicating of the flesh of Christ have received this Spirit they will be taught by the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father has sent in the name of Jesus, who will teach them all things and will remind them of everything Jesus had said to them. They will find a deeper meaning than the carnal one as they compare manna from heaven and the Ascension of the Son of Man and will know that Jesus did not intend that the Holy Communion or the Communicating of the Flesh of Christ to be carnal but spiritual.

Any mother will tell you of the amazing experience of ‘quickening’ when she begins to know  her child is truly alive and developing.

This quickening by the Spirit is what brings us to Spiritual birth and keeps us alive in Christ if we “obey his word we will never see death." John 8:51

And "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” John 14:23

Next verse

But this is conditional on a person being called to perpetual communication of the flesh of Christ (to faith) by the Father for we do not choose God but he chooses us. For faith in Christ is the gift of God, and coming to him, is due to efficacious grace, and is not the practice of man's power and free will. It is truly the will of the Father that all who see Jesus and believe in him may have eternal life; and he will raise them up on the last day. John 6:40

From the pulpit commentary - Christ does not give the hunger, but the bread. From the beginning he saw the existence of the appetite after the bread which he came to bequeath. John 6:40

St Peter gives us the climax “We have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  After declaring there is nowhere else to go.

This Jesus in whom we believe is the very Son of God without whom we can live and so we feed upon Him in our hearts and by this we mean the continual communication between Him and His Body of all he is and has been to us while in the flesh and all he is now in Heaven.

And we keep his Holy ordinance as the New Covenant in His Blood because he asked us to but before hand or certainly at some time we need to harken to the voice of the Father and be led by him through sanctifying Grace into the eternal communication of love between  ourselves and Christ, of the communication of his flesh. United to His Body through the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Waking Up! Live Well, Live Blessed!

“Moses said to YHWH, “But, never in my life have I been a man of eloquence,

either before or since you have spoken to your servant.” Ex 4:10

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B: 

Waking Up! Live Well, Live Blessed!

 In Marks gospel (5:21-43) this week we meet two desperate people who took a risk on Jesus. One is Jairus "a synagogue official" whose 12 year old daughter had died and the other "a woman who had suffered from a haemorrhage for 12 years" poor and ostracised because of her condition. Both these people took a risk on the healing power of Jesus. The young girl's father, an important synagogue official, puts aside the possible official prejudices against Jesus and goes to him, even falling down on his knees before Jesus, to beg for his daughters life. Sickness and death have a way of cutting through the veneer of our self-importance and social standings. They touch us at our most vulnerable place, stripping away our illusions and reminding us that, no matter how important we are in our own or others' eyes, we are still limited and temporary here on earth. On the way to Jairus' an 'unnamed woman' in the crowd reaches out and touches Jesus' cloak and is healed. She had a need (possibly endometriosis), she saw a solution, she believed, she reached out, deed done. Jesus recognises that and asks "Who touched me?" The woman comes forward "frightened and trembling because she knew what had happened to her, she fell at his feet and told him the whole truth." Jesus recognised that she had risked possible stoning by even being in the crowd of men. I am sure he turned to her, and far from wanting to confront or condemn her, I think, he simply wanted to look into her eyes to affirm that she had indeed been healed through her faith. Her faith had conquered her fear of social consequences. Jesus says (and I para-phrase); "My Daughter, you took a risk in faith, and now you're healed and whole. Live well, lived blessed! Free of your complaint." "Live well, live blessed," were his words of praise and encouragement. Where are you or I in this story?
Now we turn to the raising to life of the 12 year old girl. Mark sandwiches the healing of the 'unnamed woman' inside that of Jairus' need to shine a light on the miracle to come. The Christian community saved this story and passed seeing more than a resuscitation in what Jesus did for the young girl because it is important and relevant for us whose lives are often touched by the death of loved ones. Can what Jesus did for the girl have meaning for us today? Our ancestors in the faith believed so. They point to the resurrection in telling this story. Jairus simply asks that his daughter be made "well" (make her better) and "live" (save her life). Both words had special meaning for the early church as they were used to indicate "salvation" and "eternal life." Our faith ancestors believed that in performing this miracle, Jesus shows that he gives "salvation" and "eternal life" to the dead. We need this faith story in a world of stories not about salvation and life but of loss and destruction through violence and addiction. Recently, I spoke with parents of an ice drug addict. They want to help their son get him off drugs, to find spiritual meaning for his life and the love and support that they have found in their faith-community. Like Jairus they want Jesus to take their sons hand and raise him from his "sleep" so that he can be "well" and "live." What Jesus says to Jairus, he says to the parents of the ice addict and to all of us "Do not fear, only believe." To have faith - which is the opposite of fear - is to have life.
There is a spiritual phenomenon described by the mystics as "waking up" or experiencing a deeper conversion. It may go like this. We get very busy with activity or we sedate ourselves too much television or social media. We give no time to cultivate an inner life until something usually something painful interrupts this deadening routine of dissatisfaction. The possibilities are many: maybe it's a moment of deep insight or perhaps someone close dies or gets very sick. Until an event like this happens we seem to be 'sleep walking.' We want "interesting," "exciting," "relevant" and "important" to make our live relevant, but we wake usually through pain from our deadly sleep. Someone has reaches out a healings hand and raises us up. Resurrection can happen, for the ice addict and for us. The crisis we experience proves to be a 'wake-up' call. To Jesus, death is as sleep to him and what he does for the girl he will awake us from our sleepiness. With faith in him, we can face our own death with courage. We live in a culture of death dealing and yet it denies death as it worships youth, health, success, and power. Death unveils these idols and exposes their false promises. It looked like it had the last word over Jesus as well but His resurrection reminders us that Jesus has the final word. We can look at life differently now that we believe our death is really a "sleep" from which Jesus will wake us.
Jesus says, "give her something to eat" as a convincing proof that the girl has returned to life? Her eating is not just a sign she has her bodily functions back. In their culture, eating in the family gave a strong sense of belonging and having life. We have life, not just as individuals, but as part of a community. The girl is given food by her family, and so she has been restored to full life. Who knows how long she had been sick and away from the family meal. When we have been "asleep" or "dead" to God because of sin, the living Christ "wakes us up" by forgiving our sins. We then restored as a living member of the faith- family the church. We can again come to the table for the faith-family meal, to take the life-giving body and blood of Christ. At this meal we put aside our superficial differences as we gather together and reach out for him. But he reaches back, takes our hand saying once more, "Time to get up, sleepy head."

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost YB- Br. Luke

Homily preached by Br. Luke efo at Springwood on Sunday 21^st June 2015

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

 

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Gospel: Mark4:35-41

The English composer Margaret Rizza has set to music these words of David Adam:

Calm me, Lord, as you calmed the storm; still me, Lord, keep me from harm.

Let all the tumult within me cease, enfold me, Lord, in your peace.

Calm me, Lord, as you calmed the storm; still me, Lord, keep me from harm.

Let all the tumult within me cease, Lord, enfold me in your peace.

Words which resonate with today's Gospel reading.  The hauntingly beautiful piece of music personalises for us the essence of wonder and turmoil we can sense in Jesus’ action in the calming of the storm. The disciples were in fear of their lives, and here was Jesus peacefully sleeping in the back of the boat. Now I don’t know about you, but as one who gets horribly seasick, I studiously try to avoid the sea, and even the Manly ferries when the Sydney Harbour looks rough, so the disciples have my sympathy and support in their fear.

When they woke him, Jesus dealt with the storm and then with them.  Mark says the disciples were afraid and we can read the verse as though they were afraid of Jesus. But I think this is too strong. They thought they were going to die and then with simple words Jesus ensures calm, peace and their survival. Of course we are not shocked by this, after all it was with words, his voice, that God created and Jesus is also known to us as the Word Incarnate.

So words are, and have always had, an integral part of our experiences and understanding of our faith and of our God. Yet here is a dramatic depiction of the interaction the creator has with his creation, both nature and human.

In our lives we experience all sorts of storms, tempests and fears. We can feel alone and adrift, while a storm rages around and batters us into some sort of submission. In the midst of this turmoil, we seek a haven, a place where we will be safe and calm. So we can certainly identify with the disciples fears and I think it is this yearning that we recognise in the lyrics I quoted earlier.

Now I have no doubt that we do seek, well maybe when we remember or are really desperate, the calm that Jesus can bring to our storms. But we have to have the very things that Jesus queried in his disciples – trust and faith. Not just platitudes, saying that we have them, but really having them. Knowing with certainty, with an unshakable conviction that Christ will bring calm into our lives. This is something we have to have in our hearts and not in our heads.

We have to know, not think, this knowledge. Now if we are honest with ourselves, we’d have to say we don’t do this all the time. We do it when we remember or are desperate. So our challenge, our task, if you like, is to move this knowledge from our heads into our hearts. I suspect that you are all now saying to yourselves, that’s all very nice brother, but how do we do this? How do we move knowledge from our head to our heart? After all isn’t knowledge a head thing?

My reply is, yes it is, if you think in two dimensions, something we all like doing. However, we have to think outside these dimensions. We have to think in three or even more dimensions. We have to see a depth in knowledge that takes our thoughts from our minds and places them into our hearts. Perhaps the most surprising thing is, that if you pause for a moment, you may realise that this is something we do every time we believe in something that is intangible.

It is not enough to just think that Jesus will calm the storm, we need to know it without thought. We have to have it as an inherent, an integral part of our life and being. Now I agree with you, it is not easy, it is very, very difficult.   To achieve it, we will have to abandon some, if not all of our natural instincts, to deny ourselves, ah now isn't that something we've heard elsewhere in the Gospel? Yet when we achieve this move, and yes we can do it, then we are expressing, we are living, our faith.

Here then is the essence of faith – an inherent, integral, yes an almost innate, heart based knowledge. We commence, continue and develop this movement of knowledge by something we do every day. By communicating both verbally and silently – with words. Yes I'm talking about prayer. It is not, or rather it should not be, any surprise to us that we read again and again that Jesus went off to pray. Or that the multitude of saints and holy people throughout the ages have all had an experience and the discipline of prayer at the centre of their lives.

Maybe then, it will not be as difficult or nearly as impossible as you may have thought.  We can achieve the head to heart knowledge movement. But we have to be diligent, to be committed to the practice of prayer. This is why, that though the centuries religious communities of friars, monks and nuns have had a daily regime of regular, frequent prayers built into the pattern of their lives. They knew, and they still know, that without this practice, we become distracted and that our heart knowledge will slowly start to reverse its movement. It will revert to once again residing in our heads. When that happens our faith weakens and in time it will dissipate.

So dear ones, be of good cheer and have great joy. Be assured that with, or rather through, prayer we can achieve the heart knowledge that Jesus will calm our storms.  Do not doubt that when, as David Adam so eloquently phrased it, we say: “Lord, enfold me in your peace”, Jesus – God, will do so.

Amen.

Fourth Sunday After Pentecost- Br Simeon's Sermon

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br. Simeon at Winmalee on   Sunday 6th July 2014: 

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST     

Gospel:  Mt 11:15-30 ( Sermon based on 25-30)

 “The Yoke of Faith"My Yoke is Easy, My Burden Light?"


May I speak in the Name of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

“Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  

Jesus here issues a wonderful invitation and makes a wonderful promise. “Come to me” is the invitation, and “I will give you rest” is the promise.

Few passages in the New Testament are as well known as the one we’ve just read from Matthew. And few of Jesus’ promises are as deeply satisfying as his promise to give us rest. It is a wonderful passage.

In Matthew 11:25-30, Jesus appeals to those who experience life as one unending chore. He offers rest and refreshment. His yoke is easy, he says.  His burden is light.

Let us be mindful though, that following Jesus does mean that you are foot-loose and fancy-free.  To be a disciple means to come under the discipline of a master.  It means voluntarily putting a yoke on ones shoulders, and walking in a direction set by the master.  It just happens to be the direction that the master knows will lead to pasture, refreshment, and happiness. But when oxen are told to move, they can't necessarily see the pasture at the end of the trail.  All they see is a long, dusty road leading to nowhere.
There are some masters that are harsh and overbearing.  When the oxen slow down due to fatigue or stubbornness, out comes the bull whip. The journey turns into a guilt trip. The Pharisees were such masters. But Jesus is not. He is gentle. Gentleness does not mean whimpiness.  He is strong and decisive, insistent on the direction to go and the pace to keep. Yet his strength is quiet, loving strength that builds up rather than tears down.

Have you ever wondered why Jesus uses the image of the yoke?  At least two oxen are hitched together by a yoke side by side. Oxen are called "beasts of burden." So why does he calls his yoke easy, his burden light?  Because he humbly yokes himself to us.  Simon of Cyrene helped carry his cross; he helps carry ours.


And he bears most of the weight, if we let him. That's why his yoke is easy.  

And he gives us His Spirit within (Romans 8:9-10) to give us the inner strength to bear our share of the burden, which is, of course, the far lesser share to begin with.

Easy yoke, light burden. You may reply that it sure doesn't feel that way most of the time. This could be for one of two reasons. What we are carrying may simply not be the Lord's yoke. Sometimes we deliberately disobey the Lord (that's called sin) and allow a tyrannical master to dominate our lives.  No problem.  That's what the sacrament of baptism is all about.  Renouncing an oppressive Pharaoh in favour of a liberating Lord.  If we've betrayed our baptism and gone back to the fleshpots of Egypt, we have the sacrament of penance to bring us back across the Red Sea to the Promised Land of Freedom.

The other reason the yoke may seem heavy is because we are not allowing the Lord to carry the weight.  Or because we are not keeping his pace.  We could be dragging our heels or racing ahead of him. Either way, we are chafing and straining.  Perhaps we need just to quiet down for a few moments in the green pasture of prayer and adoration, to attune our ears once again to the voice of the Master. The solution is easy: Let go and let God.

Today I extend to you that invitation that when you come to that place of the Holy Eucharist, when you present yourself to be fed of Christ's Body and Blood, bring your burdens to Him, and hand them over to Him. His invitation is an open one, listen as he calls you in the very depth of your heart and soul ““Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”.  It is a promise He has never failed to keep, and I know you won't regret it.

Amen.

Sts. Peter and Paul Apostles and Martyrs, 3rd Sunday after Pentecost -Br Andrew

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br Andrew, at Winmalee on Sunday 29th June: 

Sts. Peter and Paul Apostles and Martyrs, Third Sunday after Pentecost

Gospel John 21:15-22

Men of Faith,

Abraham, Peter and Paul

Our forefathers and mothers in the faith bear witness to the grace of a Faith filled life, faith  trusts and goes where God leads, unquestioningly despite the idiocy and insanity of the request:- because 11 Faith is being sure of what we hope for. It is being certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1 NIVR)

In today’s readings we have three men separated by some 3,000 + years who in exercising phenomenal faith made it possible for the world to be blessed through salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.

You noticed that I said faith is trusting despite the idiocy and insanity of the request. It surely must have appeared insane to Abraham to be told by God to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering when he was to be the only ancestor of the Congregation of Judaism; nevertheless he took his son to the foothills of Mount Moriah, piled the wood on the altar and laid his much beloved son upon it. In his faith Abraham reasoned that God could raise Isaac from the dead and with the sacrifice of the substituted Ram, so he did. Unspoken echoes of that perfect Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?

At the other end of the line there are Sts. Peter and Paul who are considered to be the Fathers of the Church, men of great faith, truly human, both sacrificed for their Faith in Christ. 

Peter was born in Bethsaida in Galilee into a family of fishermen, about the same age as Jesus, called by Jesus to the cryptic vocation of fishing for men, Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law at Capernaum  and later Ordained him in the rock of the church dialogue in Matt.16:18, he was one of the witnesses to the Transfiguration, denied Christ three times, was forgiven three times, his most famous sermon given at Pentecost, Peter was sacrificed for Christ in the year 67 AD in Rome during the  reign of Nero, he was crucified upside down considering himself not worthy of being crucified in the same manner as Jesus.

As we read in our Gospel today Jesus tells Peter cryptically of the manner of his death saying “when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you, and carry you where you don’t want to go.”[Matt 10:42]

Prior to our Gospel Peter has denied knowing Christ three times and after the third time “when the Lord turned, and looked at him. He remembered his Lord’s word, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows twice you will deny me three times.” 62 Peter went out, and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:61, 62).

That was the turning point in his life; much earlier Peter had asked him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus had replied, “you cannot follow now, but you will follow later." (John 13:36). Peter had not been in a fit state to follow Christ, because he had not reached the bottom of his barrel. He did not know his own depths, and therefore could not follow Christ. But when he went out and wept bitterly, then came the great change. Christ had already said to him: "When you are converted, strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:32). 
Here is the point Where Peter was converted from self to Christ – finally he knew himself for what he was, one whose Ego made grandiose claims his unsupported spirit could not achieve. He yet belonged to himself.

Now Christ reigned supreme and he no longer relied upon himself to achieve anything save in Christ alone.

Throughout his ministry Peter stressed the importance of dying to self and living for Christ, he had learned that many of us share the bottom of his barrel and for the same reasons, inordinate love of self.

He always referred to himself as Elder or servant and kept his promise to tend the Lambs and to feed and tend the sheep; he fed them with the Word of God and urged them to seek it out. In the last paragraph of his second Epistle he mentions the letters Paul had written to them saying 15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him;[2 Peter 3:15]

St Paul was a Roman Turk by nationality and a Hellenistic Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, anywhere between 6BC and 10CE, and first known to us as Saul.  He referred to himself as “a Pharisee, and the son of Pharisees” [Acts 23:6], he was brought up in Jerusalem and studied under Gamaliel, [Acts 22:3] – we first come across him at the stoning of Stephen the proto-martyr [Acts 8:1]. 

Saul was a zealot for Judaism and the Torah and confesses to the Galatians“13 you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how forcefully I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was progressing in Judaism ahead of many of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my forefathers. [Gal. 1:13-14 paraphrased] (NIV) 

Paul's conversion can be dated to 31–36 by his reference to it in his letter to the Galatians. Luke provides three versions of this in the Acts of the Apostles: Acts 9:1-31, 22:1-22, and 26:9-24. 

This took place on the road to Damascus, while on his way to arrest more followers of the way and take them captive to Jerusalem. He reported having experienced a vision of the resurrected Jesus which occurred as he neared Damascus when, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”5“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”[Acts 9:4-6 paraphrased] In the kJV the end of verse 5 reads “it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

Paul spent three days with Ananias during which he spent time in mystical union with Christ himself. As he later told the Galatians “15[…] God, set me apart from my mother’s womb has called me by his grace, (and) was pleased 16to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, [Galatians 1:15,16 paraphrased]

According to the wording in the kJV it rather seems that Paul’s zeal may partially have stemmed from self-doubt, and notice- to persecute a Christian is to persecute Christ, for whatever  you do to the least of these, my little ones you do unto me [matt.25:40]

When St. Paul became a little one he preferred to be known as the Apostle to the Gentiles and preached to them that Faith is a free gift given by the Grace of God, salvation came through Faith in Christ and his death and resurrection which dispensed with the Torah – (which Christ had fulfilled through his life death and resurrection Matt.5:17) Thinking, perhaps of the manner of his coming to Christ he taught that Faith had primacy over works.

Christian tradition holds that Paul was beheaded in Rome during the reign of Nero around the mid-60s at Tre Fontane Abbey (English: Three Fountains Abbey) In 2009 pope Benedict XVI announced excavation results of the probing of a sarcophagus at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls – the remains were carbon dated to the mid first to second century and declared to be those of St Paul.

When we through the Grace of God accept the free gift of Faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus for the remission of our sins we then can die to ourselves and live in Christ. Until we do this we are like Peter full of ourselves and a danger to ourselves in spiritual matters. Like Paul we may knowingly or unknowingly feel the jabs and the pricks of the calling of the risen Christ until the pain brings us to our knees and we are emptied of ourselves and free to believe in him who first loved us.

And never forget that Faith in Christ is illogical and if we expect it to be we are in the wrong religion.

29th May Ascension Day - Br. Simeon

Andre-Rublev's Saviour 

Sermon for Ascension Day By Br Simeon efo.

29/05/2014

Gospel: Matthew 28:16-20

"I am with you always - to the close of the age"

There is an ancient legend about Jesus’ ascension into heaven.

He is met by the angel Gabriel who asks him, "Now that your work is finished, what plans have you made to ensure that the truth that you brought to earth will spread throughout the world?"

Jesus answered, "I have called some fishermen and tax-collectors to walk along with me as I did my Father’s will."

"Yes, I know about them," said Gabriel, "but what other plans have you made? "

Jesus replied, "I taught Peter, James and John about the kingdom of God; I taught Thomas about faith; and all of them were with me as I healed and preached to the multitudes."

Gabriel replied, "But you know how unreliable that lot was. Surely you must have other plans to make sure your work was not in vain."

Jesus quietly replied to Gabriel, "I have no other plans. I am depending on them!! "

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer. Amen

The Gospel lectionary reading for today, Ascension Day and the celebration of the ascension of the Lord, offers us the opportunity to break open a most familiar text within the church.

Why did Jesus leave his disciples forty days after his resurrection? Forty is a significant number in the scriptures. Moses went to the mountain to seek the face of God for forty days in prayer and fasting. The people of Israel were in the wilderness for forty years in preparation for their entry into the promised land. Elijah fasted for forty days as he journeyed in the wilderness to the mountain of God. For forty days after his resurrection Jesus appeared numerous times to his disciples to assure them that he had risen indeed and to prepare them for the task of carrying on the work which he began during his earthy ministry.

Jesus' departure and ascension into heaven was both an end and a beginning for his disciples. While it was the end of Jesus' physical presence with his beloved disciples, it marked the beginning of Jesus' presence with them in a new way. Jesus promised that he would be with them always to the end of time.

He assured them of his power - a power which overcame sin and death. Now as the glorified and risen Lord and Saviour, ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven, Jesus promised to give them the power of his Holy Spirit, which we see fulfilled ten days later on the Feast of Pentecost (Luke 24:49 and Acts 2:1-4).

When the Lord Jesus departed physically from the apostles, they were not left alone or powerless. Jesus assured them of his presence and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus' last words to his apostles point to his saving mission and to their mission to be witnesses of his saving death and his glorious resurrection and to proclaim the good news of salvation to all the world.

Their task is to proclaim the gospel - the good news of salvation - not only to the people of Israel, but to all the nations as well. God's love and gift of salvation is not reserved for a few or for one nation alone, but it is for the whole world - for all who will accept it. The gospel is the power of God, the power to release people from their burden of guilt, sin, and oppression, and the power to heal, restore, and make us whole.

This is the great commission which the risen Christ gives to the whole church. All believers have been given a share in this task - to be heralds of the good news and ambassadors for Jesus Christ, the only saviour of the world. We have not been left alone in this task, for the risen Lord works in and through us by the power of his Holy Spirit. 

Today we witness a new Pentecost as the Lord pours out his Holy Spirit upon his people to renew and strengthen the body of Christ and to equip it for effective ministry and mission world-wide. Do you witness to others the joy of the gospel and the hope of the resurrection?

Amen.

Sermon Extra 3- Living in Faithfulness.

 Maroubra Presbyterian Church.

Living in Faithfulness.

Pastor: Rev. Johnnie Li

Good Friday  Maroubra Presbyterian Church

We are a Reformed Church at Maroubra Junction in Sydney, close to the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and holding to the Westminster Confession of Faith as our doctrinal standards. Our traditional worship is simple and dignified, focusing on the exposition of God's Word. Over the past 20 years or so we have the joy of fellowship with overseas students attending UNSW, building them up in the Reformed Faith.


My wife, Jessica and I had chosen the church to attend a Good Friday Service since our own proved too inaccessible that day.

I am presenting it here as a Sermon Extra because I was impressed with the passion  and Scholarship of the Preacher.

As a non-denominational Community it behoves us to pass on the thoughts and perspectives of others on the Christ Story.

Br Andrew

Second Sunday in Lent - Br. Andrew EFO

Holy Redeemer

St- Andre-Rublev's Saviour

In the care of the Ecumenical Franciscan Order

Homily preached at Winmalee on 2nd March 2014

by Br Andrew

Gospel

John 3:1-17

JapaneseTourists Drive Straight into the Pacific Thanks to His GPS

Three Japanese tourists in Australia found themselves in an embarrassing situation after their GPS navigation system lured them down the wrong path.

The three, who are students from Tokyo, set out to drive to North Stradbroke Island on the Australian coast Thursday morning, and mapped out their path on their GPS system.

As the three drove their rented Hyundai Getz into Moreton Bay, they found the GPS device guiding them from a gravel road into thick mud.  They tried to get back to solid ground, but as the tide rose they were forced to abandon their car.  Passengers on passing ferries watched in amazement.

“It told us we could drive down there,” Yuzu Noda, 21, told the local Bayside Bulletin. “It kept saying it would navigate us to a road. We got stuck . . . there’s lots of mud.”

Noda and her friends made it about 50 yards offshore before they realized they were stranded. A tow truck driver eventually gave them a lift back to the mainland. The students decided not to have the car repaired because of the damage. The car was insured, though Noda will still have to pay about $1,500 that was not covered.

The students will fly back home to Tokyo this weekend, but they said they plan to try a trip to the island again sometime in the future.

“We want to come back to Australia again,” Noda told the Bayside Bulletin. “Everyone is very nice, even today.”(source)

Faith

These readings occurring at the beginning of Lent are sent to help us examine the depth of our Faith in God, in those things beyond our comprehension.

1. To understand what this Faith is
2. And, a little back to front – our first time response to the gift of Faith in Jesus, the washing away of our sins in Baptism.

Here is one of St Paul’s definitions of Faith from the Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 7: vs 1, 2;

1 Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen. 2 For by this, the elders obtained testimony.

Abram had the hope that the Lord would lead him into the Land Promised to him and make his descendants a great Nation, blessing the entire world through him, sight unseen, his Faith was proof that these promises would be fulfilled. There was nothing he needed to do except live his life in the shadow of that belief. We know that he wasn’t always successful, that Sarai laughed and he wanted Eliezer of Damascus to be his heir because he could believe the inexplicable things the Lord had promised but not, what to him was irrationally impossible... do we all know what this was?

From Abram’s lapses into doubt emerged his life of great Faith that became a light illuminating salvation History ahead of him. Abram believed God and his Faith made him righteous before God.

Faith is a free gift by Grace

Paul was speaking to Jewish Christians in Rome, about the difference between a life enslaved by the Law and one lived in the freedom of faith - hence the terminology:

Abram achieved righteousness before he was bound by the circumcision of the flesh, before Judaism existed, In Deuteronomy 6 Moses said “The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants. You will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and you will live”

By Abram’s Faith his heart was circumcised and he became the Father of all the Faithful just as God promised.

Simply – the Spiritual circumcision of our hearts or instinctively knowing to keep the two great commandments is the inward reality for which the physical Circumcision ought to have signified. It is the Faith born of grace

Many times God offered this inward reality to his chosen ones who continued to prefer to exist under the Law and the penalty of the Law is death through sin- and only the spilling of innocent blood of Lambs or Kids temporarily paid the debt owed by sin.

 It was in propitiation once and for all of the accumulated sins of Israel and the world that Jesus was sent to die on the cross for us – the Perfect Lamb of God, the final shedding of innocent blood, taking away the sins of the world and making us At one with God.

No excuses any more, it is either Faith through Grace or pay at the checkout.

Baptism

As children, in some Denominations, baptism is a Rite carried out in infancy where the Witness to our turning towards Christ and forsaking all else is a vicarious one made on our behalf by our Godparents.

Other Denominations consider this only something the person can in reality do for themselves – in my particular spiritual journey I have done both.

Our Gospel

Offers us an insight into Adult Baptism, received after someone has been graced with the faith to believe in Christ as their Saviour and have accepted the offer to be born again according to the Spirit and cleansed in the waters of Baptism – sometimes a river.

Nicodemus came to Jesus in secret under the cover of darkness, he points out that the Pharisees, ‘we’ are aware that the Signs Jesus performs make him at least a teacher sent by God. There isn’t time to explain this fully right now.

According to the Author, Jesus, wrongly it seems, assumes Nicodemus to be more advanced in his own understanding of Jesus identity and tells him that he must be ‘born anew’

Now here we have the dilemma Nicodemus grasping with a physical and literal re-birthing experience contrasting with Abram grasping the concept of initiating a birthing for the first time around. Yet that is not what Jesus implied

Jesus ignores that scenario and continues; one must be ‘born anew’ of water and the Spirit in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

And as Paul does in our earlier reading, Jesus speaks of the difference between those born of flesh and those born of spirit, and to become one of those whose heart is Circumcised Baptism of water and the Spirit is necessary.

In speaking of the natural movement of the wind in response to  the change in barometric pressure Jesus makes the analogy between the fact that in the same way that they could not be sure of where the wind blew neither can we know upon whom the Spirit chooses to Land – because Faith is God’s free gift by grace.

Nicodemus says how?

Then Jesus gives us a very clear picture of who he is and what is his mission:

“13 No one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.  –Though the Son of Man descended from heaven, was born and lived on earth, ascended into heaven the son of Man never left heaven at all.

14 As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. – Just like the bronze serpent saved the Israelites from the poisonous ones in the desert so the Son of Man must be crucified to save us from the poison of sin that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Likewise, though the Son of Man hung on the cross and was lifted up he remained in heaven with the Father and the Spirit.

 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Yet the Son of God never left heaven

Once Jesus has paid the price for our sins and we by Faith through Grace believe in him and accept his gift of eternal life then we must be baptised through Water and the Spirit as the outward sign of our inward disposition toward the good, or our instinctive knowing to keep the two great commandments-This is in the presence of him whom we believe: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were
 ( Romans:4:17b adapted)

Br. Andrew