Finding Pains Purpose

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

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B:

 Finding Pains Purpose

The lectionary readings for this Sunday are rich in meaning for us. The young Ezekiel (2:2-5) is empowered by the Spirit to "stand up" before God and to listen. It can take great courage to listen deeply to what God wants of us and to follow God's mission for us in life. God assured the young Ezekiel that the unfaithful Israelite community "shall know that there is a prophet in their midst." A prophet is 'a truth speaker' with deep insight. I believe all of us can be an Ezekiel wherever we stand in life. The Spirit will give us the needed courage. In Mark's gospel (6:1-6), Jesus experiences rejection in his own "home town" because as he said "a prophet is only despised in his/her own country." The people who he grew up with thought they knew him and could not let him be for them who he was. They saw him as someone 'ordinary' and were "astonished" by his wisdom and power as a miracle worker. They could NOT BELIEVE and ACCEPT him as he revealed who he was to them. Rejection can be painful and I am sure Jesus felt their response to him deeply. "He was amazed at their lack of faith." What lenses of perception limit us?


In the reading from 2 Corinthians (12:7-10), Saint Paul learns through prayer that God's power is made perfect in his weakness: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (9-10) Paul who had been given so many special graces now has to endure what he describes as a "thorn in the flesh" the scripture scholars do not know exactly what the thorn was, although many have tried to have an educated guess. He realised that the 'thorn's purpose was to keep him humble and relying on God. It seems to be so easy for us who are striving to be spiritual to become 'ego inflated' and start thinking that we can somehow achieve spiritual holiness all by our own efforts. Helen Keller who was born deaf and blind said: "I thank God for my handicaps, for through them, I have found myself, my work and my God." It is all to easy to try and become something that we are not. All of us disciples of Christ have to come to terms with the fact that true spiritual growth comes from coming to terms with the pain of life's limitations. We have to be willing to move beyond what keeps us comfortable.


Our spiritual lives, begin in weakness and ignorance; we never suspect that anguish, a sense of loss, profound changes of heart and mind, dark nights of soul and spirit, the confusions of power and powerlessness of the soul’s unfolding journey. Like so many of life’s endeavours, if we knew what we were in for, we would probably never have begun. When pain comes into our lives it seems so easy for us to cry out to God for healing. I know a man who was a most energetic and gifted helper of others. When he had a stroke and became disabled, his self-image of being an able helper was shattered. But all through his rehabilitation he learnt the difference between healing and curing, self-will and God's will. He eventually came to learn despite his tears and tantrums, that healing does not mean going back to the way things were, but allowing 'WHAT IS' NOW to move one closer to God. Like St Paul and many others before him, he found the blessings that can only be found in the pain and limitation. "God does not see as humans see."


So to be like Ezekiel or Paul we need to the Holy Spirit for the strength for daring to find courage to set forth on the unknown path of faith. Somewhere along the way we will awaken to the immensity of our endeavour. Finally, we must summon a deep grace-inspired courage to continue and by God's grace to unexpectedly find ourselves with a deep acceptance of what is. The French poet Guillaume Apollinaire writes; "Come to the edge, he said. Come to the edge, he said. We are afraid, they said. Come to the edge, he said. They came to the edge, He pushed them and they flew. Come to the edge, Life said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, Life said. They came. It pushed them... And they flew.” The power of God's grace is given for us to help others, not ourselves, a power that does not force or coerce others to do our will. Like Saint Paul we learn to place our fate in God's hands accepting our weaknesses and limitations, and like Ezekiel to accept God's Spirit and the word God speaks that empowers us to "stand up" for truth.

5th Sunday of Lent year B - Br. Andrew

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br. Andrew at Blaxland on Sunday 22^nd March 2015

5^th Sunday in Lent year B

Text:

Hebrews 5:5-14, John 12:27,28

Hebrews 5:9a …having been made perfect,

The writer to the Hebrews is unknown to us, though both Barnabas and Apollos have been suggested, Barnabas because he was a Jew of the priestly Tribe of Levi (Acts 4:36) and Apollos as a man of learning with a thorough knowledge of the scriptures (Acts 18:24).

The Letter was written prior to 70 AD since references are made to the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. The Letter was written to Jewish Christians to remind them of true and legitimate Christian practises.

Through Prayer to Perfection

Our particular reading concerns the necessary Perfection of a Saviour/ Priest

Was not Christ ‘perfect’ already? In what way was the only Son of God imperfect? For the author writes “and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation” (Heb. 5:9NRSV)

In our reading we are given information concerning how someone becomes a High priest, it tells us that they are selected from among men, from among the Tribe of Levi and more specifically from the descendants of Aaron, it wasn’t something one just decided to be. They were called by God, just as Aaron was, ideally so anyway, since by the time of King Herod the Great they were appointed by him rather than elected.

In the same way Jesus didn’t just decide to glorify himself by taking upon himself the Office of High Priest, it was God who gave Him the glory of becoming a High priest because he says.  ‘You are a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchizedek.’” (Hebrews 5:5, c)

Point of order: Jesus was of the Tribe of Judah and the Royal House of David and not of the Tribe of Levi and therefore had no natural right to be elected to the Levitical Priesthood which is why he could not take it upon himself but must be made perfect to become the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him before being designated the Great High Priest by God

    

As I began I was musing over the fact of how or why Christ had to be made perfect. Surely the only Son of God was, is perfect and yet it tells us that  While Christ was on earth in his quest for perfection, to become the person he is meant to be he spent time in constant prayer, constant communion with the Father, even in tears, pleading with His Father for the strength and grace to submit his flesh to His final purpose, death on the Cross he learned obedience through his suffering and because of his reverent submission Jesus was heard.

St. Luke tells us that Jesus prayed regularly and records more about Jesus’ prayer practises in his Gospel than any other gospel writer. Prayer is the essence of anyone’s relationship with the Father and so it was the essence of Jesus’ own relationship with His Father.

Through Prayer Jesus became worthy to be called the Son of God, as the Father said at Jesus’ baptism ‘You are my Son, the Beloved;* with you I am well pleased. And again ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’ ;’( Mark 1:11b, Hebrews 5:5a NRSV) worthy to become our Great High Priest, our Saviour Priest.

The stages of Jesus’ journey into complete self-knowledge and utterly complete obedience to His Father’s Will are all marked by prayer, right up until the night before he died, and even upon the cross he prayed himself toward complete union with His Father as must we.

We can almost hear that purposeful voice telling his parents that he must be about his Father’s business and then we hear nothing of Jesus again until his baptism  where he prays just before the Holy Spirit comes upon him ( Luke 3:21,22) and afterwards in the wilderness. Scripture records that at each important junction in his life and mission Jesus prays. Before choosing the apostles (Luke 6:12-13); before His Transfiguration (Luke 9:28, 29).

Becoming through Prayer.

We celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration some 6 weeks ago, the last Sunday before Lent and between then and now we have been walking with Jesus towards Jerusalem and his death on the Cross. Jesus has been ratified by the Law and the Prophets in the figures of Elijah and Moses, of which he is the fulfilment. He has been transfigured before the eyes of Peter, James and John and once more acclaimed God’s beloved One. Jesus is now most definitely our Great high Priest he has become perfect through Prayer.

Today’s gospel finds us just after where we shall be next Sunday with Jesus’ triumphant ride into Jerusalem on the Ass and in language typically Johannine almost back in the clouds of the Mount of Transfiguration. Therefore I shall leave most of it for us to examine at our leisure on Thursday evening.

I want to finish here:

In verses 27 and 28 John quotes Jesus saying:

‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—“Father, save me from this hour”? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.’

At one and the same time Jesus is perfectly human and perfectly divine and so of course the human being is troubled but now the Integrated, fully self-Actuated Jesus and his Father are about to have a conversation for the sake of the listeners and not for any doubt of Jesus.

What Jesus inaugurates with his death and resurrection, this new Covenant, our At- One- ment with the Trinity brings us back to the Jewish Christians we left earlier who were still not well enough acquainted with the doctrines of the Resurrection that they were in two minds as to perhaps revert to Judaism.

As Jesus, brothers and sisters we owe it to any other believer the ministry of prayer and intercession so that none might be lost to the one Jesus calls the Prince of this world- so in us Jesus ministry of Prayer lives on whenever two or three are gathered together in His name.

7th Sunday After Epiphany - Br Simeon EFO

St- Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Holy Redeemer

In the care of the Ecumenical Franciscan Order

Homily preached at Winmalee:

 by Brother Simeon  Sunday 23^rd February 2014

Gospel:  Mt 5:38-48

“You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is Perfect”

“O Lord, open our eyes To behold your presence. O Lord, open our ears to hear your voice. O Lord, open our hearts to receive your love.
O Lord, help us to behold, to hear and to receive you in Word and Sacrament
That our mouths may proclaim your praise.” Amen.

 “You be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect”. This sounds like an impossible command but should we understand it as a command at all? Would it not be more helpful to consider it as an invitation to share in the life of God? Jesus is not ordering us to be perfect like some policeman ordering us to cross the road. He is sharing with us the secret of His life.

Jesus declared the highest possible standard for His followers: they must be “perfect.” “You be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). The righteousness that Jesus demanded is nothing less than complete conformity to God’s perfect law in everything a person is and does. Jesus is concerned, not only with our behaviour, but with the righteousness of the heart, also. The scribes and Pharisees considered only the outward compliance. With Jesus’ standard who would ever claim to have reached it?

The very nature of the kingdom of God as taught by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount drives us to despair of ourselves in living this kind of life so that we will turn in faith to Jesus Christ and find new life in Him to live as He lived.

The Holy Spirit produces this kind of life in the believer as we make ourselves available to His indwelling presence. God produces in us by His power what we cannot do ourselves. It is the product of the new life of Christ in us (Eph. 2:10; Phil. 2:13). This way only God can possibly get the glory because we can live it only by His power.

This righteousness is God given. But Jesus also went a step further and declared; “You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). The statement is in the form of a command; “You shall therefore be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

You may be asking, “Then why even try to become perfect?”

The main reason is because that is what God commands of us, “You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

To be perfect is to reach the goal for which a person was designed. Jesus calls His disciples to become mature, reaching the high standard God has for them. We are to be constantly pressing on toward attaining that goal.

Another reason is because with the new life of Christ in us we want to become like Christ. We are a new creation, and all things have been made   new. We have received as a gift from God an imputed righteousness that was purchased for us by Jesus on the cross. It is impossible for us to be saved without this righteousness that God alone provides for the believing sinner.

The only way we can be completely conformed to the law this side of eternity is by this imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. “Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). No human being can earn this righteous standing before God. There is nothing we can possibly do that will atone for our sins . There is no human detergent that can cleanse the guilty conscience and make a person right with God. Nothing can wash away our sin but the blood of Jesus. Jesus poured out His blood on our behalf.

Do we become sinlessly perfect so that we never sin again in this life? No. We will sin and God has provided a cleansing that works and restores our fellowship with God. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”.

Those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness” will be satisfied one day when we enter into glory with Christ Jesus in heaven. It will be realised in us when we see Jesus face to face in glory. It will be perfectly fulfilled when we see Jesus and not before then.

Jesus demanded the sincere devotion of the heart to God. We must love Him with all our mind, heart and personal being. If we truly love Him we will keep His commandments.

In the Christian life we always have before us something for which to strive. No matter how far we have progressed in our spiritual life there is still more to conquer. We must bring every thought, every attitude and every behaviour into subjection to Christ.

Though we will never be perfect in this life, we are to aim and strive at Christ-like character. By God's grace and the power of the Holy Spirit we are to move toward that goal every day of our life.

Our goal in ministry whether we are clergy or laity, or even just the ordinary Christian,  is that “we may present every man complete (perfect) in Christ”.

Amen.