The Dad Prayer

This is the text of the message I prepared for The Serviceton Church for proclamation on Sunday 24th July 2022.

Luke 11:1-13

In our reading from the Jesus traditions today we hear Jesus speaking not only about prayer but about the right relationships we have with God as Father. The prayer Jesus taught his disciples begins with this word “Father”, it could have begun with LORD Almighty, or Sovereign King, or Master of The Universe, or any of those other words and phrases from Jewish traditions that fit with God The First Person; yet Jesus goes with the one with the family inheritance. And yes Jesus does teach the disciples how to pray, the specific act of praying as a conversation with God where the human does some talking, and maybe God talks back, (are we listening?). However, by beginning with “Father” he sets that conversation and the worship and petitions within it within the framework of a Father hearing words of love from his responsible child.

Further on, in the teaching part from Luke 11:11-13, we get more about this fatherhood of God. God is not only a father but The Father is a good father, even more good than the men who are listening to Jesus at the time. “Some of you are dads,” says Jesus, “and you men know how to do good and bring good to your kids. How much more so then will this capital-F Father”, asks Jesus. The Father is all of those things Jesus didn’t list before, but we know God The Father to be LORD, Creator, Master, Defender, Sovereign. “That’s a dad you want to have,” says Jesus, “and that’s the dad whom you do have, the dad who is God and to whom you might pray with this relationship foremost in your mind.”

So, getting back to his prayer, for what is it that Jesus would have us ask the dad above all dads? Dot points here:

1. That his name be hallowed; (what does that mean?)
2. That his kingdom come; (and what does that mean?)
3. That he gives us each days bread on the day; (okay, that’s a bit clearer)
4. That he forgives us and assists us in forgiving each other; (tricky but useful)
5. That he steers us away from trouble; (yes, could have a bit more of that, ta)

In Matthew’s telling of the same story we get a few more lines of prayer, and in Protestant traditions of prayer we get a few more lines after that which seem to have been added by the Early Church as the gospels were being written down and circulated. But let’s look at this prayer again, through the lens of it being not “The Lord’s Prayer”, the prayer of our Lord and Saviour Jesus, or even “The LORD’s Prayer”, the prayer addressed to Adonai of the Israelites and now the Galileans, but the prayer of a responsible child (adult child?) speaking within the loving friendship with a dad who is still dad.

I am blessed to still have my dad in my life, The Reverend Robert J. Tann. I also have Judith, my mum, but it’s dads I’m looking at today. I grew up with my two grandfathers alive and living not far from my home in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. They both passed away when I was in my thirties and living in England. My brother is a dad, my sister is a mum and is married to a dad, and I am an uncle. My nephew and niece in Tasmania have another set of grandparents, their mum’s parents; my South Australian nephews don’t have another Grandpa or Grammy as my brother-in-law was orphaned at a very small age and he grew up in foster care. Family is very important to my family, and my parents are still parents for my siblings and me at times, even as I am now 50 years old. Much of the time when we get together we are very good friends who happen to be related by birth; other times even though I am not a child I am their child and I still love to love my parents as mum and dad. I know some of you have family like that. I know that some of you didn’t, or did once but don’t now, but you have seen a family or families like that. Some of you are nephews, nieces, and cousins attached to someone else’s parents. Some of you no longer have your parents, but you had them for a time and you remember them with joy. Okay so that was a long paragraph about families but I do want us to think about this prayer in this context. Let’s today think about The Lord’s Prayer as A Son’s Prayer and A Daughter’s Prayer, as appropriate to your situation.  Let’s go back to those dot points.

Jesus opens his model of praying to the Father asking that the Name of the father be hallowed. “May your reputation bring you joy, dad, and let me just begin by saying how awesome you are. I love you dad, I really love you, I don’t care who knows that I love my dad, in fact I want everyone to know that I love you and I want everyone else to love you too.” I don’t think this insight removes any glory from God The LORD, worthy of honour, that we speak of The Father like the world’s best dad. I have said before, in his hearing and not, that I have found my Christian life easier as a son of God because I am a son of Rob. My dad introduced me to Jesus when I was very small, I was raised in a Christian home even before my dad was ordained (I was 17 then). My dad also showed me love and affection; we still hug and say, “I love you”, and he taught me to be a good man through his lived example and direct instruction. That God is like my dad, but awesomer, should be taken as a compliment by God. The Father, (God, not Rob), is wonderful and amazing and worthy of all of the adjectives and affection. Hallowed be The Father.

That the Kingdom of The Father should come. I speak a lot about the Kingdom of God in my sermons and my written newsletters and stuff, so I won’t unpack it all now. But in the context of it being “The Father’s Kingdom” there’s two quick things to say. First is that the coming, or perhaps the rolling forth of the Kingdom is what the Father wants, so because I love The Father and want what he wants, then bring it on, roll it out dad, and be happy. Let what The Father wants be what happens, so that The Father is blessed. The second thing is that what The Father wants, the coming of the Kingdom, is literally the expansion of God’s reign, the widening of the Father’s family. We want the Kingdom to come a) because it’s what dad wants and we want to see dad chuffed, and b) because what dad actually wants is to have a bigger family, so there’s more awesomeness in the world and more sisters and brothers to share it with. Father, your Kingdom come.

That each day we receive from The Father the bread for that day. “Give us what we need LORD, not too much but also not too little. Oh God, be the dad who gives bread to us, and eggs and fish, and not stones or snakes or scorpions.” Getting back to my Rob, and I am sure this is true of Graham and Trav and Paul and Thomas and Garry too with your kids, my dad loves to make me happy, and he gives me good stuff. When I go “home” there’s a freshly made bed, with a towel on the end, and a little soap, and a block of Milky Bar, and usually some freshly washed undies and an ironed shirt from the last time I was home. (Okay, that’s actually mum.) And there’s meals while I’m there, mostly in front of the TV on our laps, but we often go out to McCracken on my last night. And of course there’s a Mum and Damie coffee date each time, and a Dad and Damo beer at the pub. Maybe you think beer is in the scorpion category, but the fellowship and the 1:1 time with my favourite bloke is precious. I need it, and my dad provides. Father, our daily needs.

Jesus asks for us and teaches us to ask that The Father forgives us and assists us in forgiving each other. Obviously, this is massive in itself, the forgiveness of God and the grace to forgive others is not something to be shoved into a paragraph; so again let me focus on this one point, this is something you are asking your dad for. Not denying at all that this is God the…well God!!…but in the sense defined today by Jesus that you are addressing “my Father”, imagine this as literally asking your dad for help. “Dad I’m sorry. Dad help me to do better. Dad my brother, sister, friend has really hurt me and I don’t know how to repair our broken relationship. Dad, daddy, help.” Father, forgive.

In Luke’s prayer Jesus ends with the petition that The Father steer us away from trouble. Matthew and the NRSV footnotes add something around rescue from the evil one, it doesn’t matter here. I mean, it matters, but we don’t lose anything today by not going that far down. “Father, dad, help me to make better choices. Don’t just rescue me from sin and be ready to pull me out of darkness but steer me away from even going there. Be the wall at the top and not the Ambulance at the bottom of the drop, dad. (And if I do stuff it up, well please let me jump back a paragraph, dad, to where we did the whole “forgive me” part.)” Father, lead me.

Undoubtedly this model of prayer is a useful model of prayer. As Protestant Christians we often recite it in church; and Roman Catholics and the national flavours of Eastern Orthodoxy do too. But today hear the invitation from Jesus to receive The Father’s welcome to pray as a son or daughter; enter into a deeper and more nurturing relationship with God, allow yourself to be formed into God’s likeness, and a more attentive and more passionate disciple of the God who loves you even more than you love your kids, and in that same way of looking upon the darling you made. Pray in a way that you bless God because you love God, that you want for God what God wants for Godself, that you want from God what God wants for you, that your relationship with God be unencumbered by tension, and that you are in a place to heed God’s advice and (if necessary) reach for God’s hand like a toddler face-down in a puddle.

And, having learned that, and adopted that as your faith, ask, seek, and knock. That door is your door, and your dad is waiting on the other side for you to come in full of expectation and empty if fear.

Amen.

Rips Given

This is the text of the message I prepared for email sharing amongst God’s people at Kaniva Shared Ministry for Sunday 2nd August 2020.  Still we were in Covid lockdown..

 Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21

I am speaking the truth in Christ – I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit, (Romans 9:1)  Well that’s a good way to begin an address, kind’a wish I’d thought of it actually.  Of course Paul isn’t beginning anything here, other than a new paragraph, but since we’re taking up where we left off last week it’s a good place for us to start.  This is the truth as confirmed by The Spirit says Paul.  It’s not the truth as Paul sees it, it’s not the truth as Paul would like to think the truth to be, it’s the truth that Godself confirms to be true, the truth of the one who says I am The Truth, (John 14:6b) or perhaps I AM, Truth.  When I AM speaks, or sends a messenger on God’s behalf to tell the truth of I AM it’s a jolly good idea to pay attention to what I AM is saying.  In Romans 9:2 what Paul says, with The Spirit attesting to the truth, is that he (Paul) has great sorrow and unceasing anguish in [his] heart.  This cry of grief from a truthful man, we are told in Romans 9:3-5, is Paul’s weeping before the LORD for the lost nation of the Jewish people, his own people. I wonder, how often do we weep with great sorrow and unceasing anguish in heart for our people?  Are you gutted by the lack of response by your fellow Australians, Victorians, people of West Wimmera?  Does grief stir your bowels at the presence of lost souls in your street, town, district and nation?  Or are you a bit disappointed but not much more.  Maybe you’re not bothered, because after all if you are saved and the unsaved are…well…unsaved, then that’s their problem and not yours.

I have told the story before so I shan’t share it in full again, but for those of you who have been listening to me for a while you might remember that I used to belong to Hillsong Church London, and specifically to the “New Christians Team”.  I’ve told you of the one service where I was “on” and there wasn’t a single hand raised in the congregation during the call to repentance, not one salvation for Christ in a room of 600 people.  I’ve told you of the desperation amongst “Team” as we looked for that lost soul; “even if there’s just one, Father, Oh God let there be even one,” but there was not even one.  I’ve told you of the desolation amongst “Team” after the service, of hot tears and real wailing that no one had “come to Christ” or even “come back to Christ”.  I’ve also told you that that is what, for me, makes Hillsong Church the church that Hillsong is; not for its smoke and mirrors, its loud riffs and even louder drums, its happy-clappy mezzanine and its bouncy-shouty downstairs (no jumping in the balconies!!), but the fact that it gives a rip for the lost of London and is abject in disarray when the gospel is proclaimed to six hundred people and not one responds to grace afresh.

I am speaking the truth in Christ – I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit – I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.  For I could wish that I myself were accursed, and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people. Do you remember praying like that?  “Oh God I’ll give up my own salvation if it means that Australia can be saved.”  Do you remember praying like that?  Nah, me neither actually, (and not just because I’d rather England be saved instead, not true).  But following from last week and last month really this is the groaning of Holy Spirit in us for the world.  If Australia were to be entirely saved by God then I would be saved along with it; even if we follow the Abrahamic method in Genesis 18 and only Victoria were saved, or West Wimmera, or Kaniva, or Commercial Street East, or just the odd numbered houses in the 90s, I’d be swept up amongst those I’m praying for – God does not need my salvation back so as to save my neighbours.  So if their salvation won’t actually cost me mine, then why can’t I just TELL THEM ABOUT JESUS????

Mea culpa as the Roman Catholics say, it’s my guilty fault.  I’ve neglected to “give a rip”: I am no longer being desolated hourly and hourly again that not one, not even one, has been saved by the ministry of Kaniva and Serviceton Churches of Christ and Uniting Church since before 1^st October 2018 (the day my contract began).

Phew!  Now before we go too far and start bring self-flagellation into the order of worship, (although that could be something new to try after we get back to church in September, and flails are currently 30% off at Koorong), God does not want us desolating ourselves hourly at the condition of Australia’s soul.  Some groaning in intercession is required, no doubt; more groaning from more of us in the present is warranted, but we’re not to build a Kingdom out of Romans 9:1-3 as if it were the entirety of scripture or even the complete package for discipleship.  We should grieve for the lost, we should seek for the lost, we should comfort the found (who were lost) and we should bring the found home where Jesus waits to meet them (where he wasn’t already with them keeping them company until we arrived).  What we should also do is celebrate our own found-ness, delight that we were each once the one and Jesus joined us to the 99; we should work on being the 99 to whom Jesus adds the ones, and twos, (and thousands if you’re a Hillsong franchise).

In today’s reading from the Jesus Traditions, from Matthew 14:13-21, we read of Jesus feeding 5000 men.  It’s a well told story, the only miracle performed by Jesus that all four gospels record, so I’m sure you’ve heard it before and from Matthew as well as his mates.  So yes, blah-de-blah 5000 men doesn’t include women and children so probably 20,000 mouths in total; blah-de-blah twelve baskets for the twelve tribes of Israel; blah-de-blah fish and loaves because Jesus is lord (LORD) of both sea and land; blah-de-blah leftovers because in Christ there is always more than enough; blah-de-blah a living parable because it actually happened in real life but it carries symbolic and metaphorical meaning as well; blah-de-blah-de blah.  Does this sound like the preaching of someone who gives a rip?  Well it should, because I do, because here’s how the otherwise blah-de-blah story fits with Paul’s anguish.

In Matthew 14:13a, we are told that when Jesus heard of it, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.  Heard of what?  Heard of the murder of John the Baptiser, Jesus’ prequel in prophecy and his cousin in flesh.  So he’s just heard about this, John is dead because Herod thinks with his pelvis and is an idiot of a king anyway, so Jesus withdraws for some alone time.  Maybe Jesus went off to pray so his alone time is also “Quiet Time” where The Son is with The Father, or maybe he went off deliberately so as to be in private when he pulled the wings off some newborn kittens and lined up a few torpedo punts from outside-50 in his grief and anger.  More likely the first option, but Matthew doesn’t tell us.  What Matthew does tell us is that the news of John’s death was the cause for Jesus to step away, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.  Now he’s alone in the boat, the Greek words “by himself” literally mean that no one was with him at all.  (Actually I have no idea about Greek words, but it’s clear enough in English isn’t it?)  What we do know is that a tradie from inland Nazareth goes out on the sea specifically without his fisherman mates from lakeside Capernaum; duh, maybe he wants to be alone (except for the kittens…).  Anyway the crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns, and not only did they do that none of the men (or women for that matter) bought any food with them.  So, Jesus is distraught with grief, he’s held it together just long enough to get the boat moving before he breaks his grieving heart out before The Father, and when he gets to the place of solitude he’s met by eleventy thousand people who have walked all day and between them have two sardine sandwiches and a scone.  So Jesus (after putting down the kittens) entered the vast crowd and with a heart moved with pity for them…he cured their sick.  We haven’t even got to the miraculous picnic yet but we can already see that Jesus gives a rip…about 20,000 actually (give or take an unaccompanied minor).

God’s message to us today is to give a rip, to care for the lost as Jesus himself cared for the lost, (and the hungry, and the wildly inconsiderate).  Are you tired?  God knows this.  Are you grieving? God knows this.  Do you have a bag of kittens nearby?  God knows this (and soon shall the RSPCA also know).  It is Covid season still, and whilst we are (more than) conquerors we are Victorians; where even Bordertown has thumping church-life today we have desolation.  I’m missing church so hard today that I don’t even feeling like going to church even if it was on, I am speaking the truth in Christ – I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit.  God knows this.  We cannot emulate Jesus fully: I could not have ministered to that crowd on that day that Jesus did, not with what Jesus had just been told; but Jesus did sustain that crowd and he’ll sustain our crowd too.

In Christ’s strength I am prepared to step up, in grief for Australia and fed-upness for Victoria’s lockdown, to minister where I am called.  Are you?

Give a rip, groan in prayer a little, and share your lunch.

Amen.

Pentecost 8A

This is the text of the message I prepared for Serviceton Shared Ministry for Sunday 26th July 2020.

So, how’d’ya go?  Last Sunday I set you the task of spending some spirit-searching time with God’s Spirit, to diagnose the condition of your faith and to discuss with God some therapeutic options for your growing in strength.  How was that?  For those who haven’t got to it yet there’s still time, (there’s always time with God), but there’s no time like The Present.

The parable of the Mustard Seed speaks to what some of us have done in the past week, and of course what we have heard in the past two weeks.  Once again Jesus speaks a farming parable, and he’s still in that boat just off the beach at Capernaum, the town where he lives and the hometown of Simon (Peter) and Andrew, and James and John.  The Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed says Jesus, it is the smallest of all the seeds which grows to become the greatest of shrubs in its day.  Perhaps this means that from little things big things grow (undoubtedly true) and that in the context of Christian faith you don’t have to have much of God to start with, but by the end of your life walk you’ll have become something big and fruitful as God has grown you up.  That is true from experience, but it’s not all that Jesus is saying here.

One of my commentators informed me  this week that in Jewish traditions trees often represented the rule of a king, and birds were symbols of the oppressed people of God.  So the story of a shrub that becomes a tree big enough for nests is not just about how big the shrub grows from its tiny seed; the story is saying that Heaven’s Kingdom is a kingdom where the oppressed find shelter.  The Kingdom of God is not just a massive empire, it’s a spacious sanctuary.  Today (Jesus’ day) is not looking good for the Kingdom, says Jesus: present day Jerusalem is full of Romans, and the Roman Empire is enormous and vicious; but that’s not the future.  No, says Jesus, the future is that the tiny presence of God’s new thing in the world, the Kingdom coming through Jesus Godself, will one day outshine Rome and the Romes to come (Byzantium, Russia, Britain, Spain, USA) to be a place of enormous influence and abundant shelter.

So, how do these two ideas relate, and how do they connect with us?  Well it is true that big things do grow from small, no seed is ever bigger than the tree it produces, so the idea that what we see now can and will be bigger in the future, with the right conditions, is clear.  That Jesus is using this as a metaphor for the rolling out of the reign of God, and that the world will be safer with more God presence evident in the world in no way undermines the idea that I can grow in faith from small faith to big and be a more effective disciple and witness.  I suggest that these are related ideas, the more Christians there are in the world and the bigger the faith inside each Christian the more effective and spacious the Kingdom to come will be.  And, going back to last week, the best way to build bigger Christians is that each one spends time with God assessing the growth and condition of his or her heart.

Christians who are conditioned by God’s close attention, especially at that Christian’s invitation, are chosen by God to be effective in the world.  God sends out those whom God trusts to speak the truth and to speak effectively: the whole point of the Kingdom according to today’s gospel is that it is effective in saving the world.  In the parable after the one about the mustard seed Jesus speaks of the Kingdom as being like yeast.  Once again the kingdom is small and secretive, but give it time and it will has great significance in the future thing.  Yeast is another one of those daily items that has metaphorical meaning; in Jesus time yeast was considered to be a contaminant.  When the Kingdom of Heaven comes in power the kingdom’s people (that’s us) will spoil and corrupt the Roman, Flesh world; that’s the story of the Parable of the Yeast.  But in the meantime, as with any parabolic saying of Jesus, shh!

So the Kingdom is small but influential, and when the time is right it will be massive and welcoming.  Jesus also tells his disciples in private that the Kingdom is precious, priceless, and pure.  The Kingdom is worth attaining.  “Sing out your song, but not for me alone; sing out for yourselves for you are blessed! There is not one of you who shall not win the kingdom; the sick the suffering, the quick the dead,” sings Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar, and this is true even if it is not scripture. Buy the field, buy the pearl, sell all that you have and throw everything at this one thing because it is the only thing worth having says Jesus in Matthew 13:44-46.  Even if it costs you all that you had, go and buy it.  In the privacy of the house (Matthew 13:36) Jesus tells the disciples that the Kingdom sweeps up everyone in its net (Matthew 13:47) and that the good fish who represent the righteous people will be separated from the bad fish, and that the bad influences will be removed and destroyed.  And the point is not to worry “oh but what if I’m a bad fish”; the point is to exclaim “thank God that one day I’ll be in a world away from those things that distract from the things of God, I am blessed!”  The disciples, the ones in the house with him, understand the points that Jesus was making (Matthew 13:51) and are able to teach the same stories.  The Empire of God will crush and destroy all other empires, not only Rome but systems of religious legalism and human barbarity and injustice as well.

But that does still sound a bit scary; I mean, what if I am a bad fish?  Or, okay so I am a good fish (I’m a Christian) but I have a lot of “the flesh” in me and I’m easily led astray, what then?  Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness offers Paul in Romans 8:26, in the context of prayer and repentance.  The one who searches the heart knows what is the mind of the Spirit, (Romans 8:27), and God is this one who listens to what the Spirit says about you.  “This one”, says the Spirit, “is a work in progress: not there yet but well along the way, and being cooperative towards change”.  Our job as Christians, as citizens and participants in the Kingdom of God, is not to be perfect but to cooperate with the Spirit who is perfecting us.  Your strength comes from God, your healing comes from God, but God is not yet finished making you strong and safe.  In all things (good and not good) God works for good for those who love God says Romans 8:28, and that means that God is not restricted by your offerings but is free to use the wealth of options provided through grace.  So even if you are a good fish with a lot of worldliness left in you God can still use you, and heal that worldliness while you are ministering to others.  This is grace, that God can do more.  If God is for us who is against us? asks Romans 8:31, you needn’t resist God’s work of restoration any longer when you know that God is kind and is working for your benefit even in the bad times.

God is for us; God is for us; and in all things we are victorious and then some because of the One who loves and guides us.  But, where does this lead us?  To two places I think.

1. When God searches for us in the world where we live, God is listening out for the noise of Holy Spirit at work in us. It is the Spirit’s groaning within us that draws God’s attention to the work of perfection going on.
2. We are not separated from the love of God. God does not not love us (a double-negative says that God loves us even if we can’t think it’s true), and God does not keep the work of the Spirit in the world secret from us, rather we are fully informed partners in that work.

Our role in God’s work is to allow Holy Spirit access to our hearts for the work of perfection, and that we join the Spirit in praying (interceding) for the world in its brokenness.  Holy Spirit groans in prayer not because prayer is extraordinarily hard work (although it is) but because it is grievous work, it is groan inducing in its reality that the world is so sick and so sad that God’s essence groans with compassion.  Where God has not separated us from God’s love not only are we loved by God, but we are grieved by what grieves God – we groan too at the condition of the world and we urge God with the fulness of our own guts to make the world good.

When the Kingdom fully comes there will be grace enough for everyone, and shelter and healing for all.  Right now the Kingdom is small and hidden; it is insignificant compared to the globe of turmoil and the universe of pain.  This small but belligerent Kingdom is God’s work and God’s solution; now heed God’s invitation for you to check your spirit with God’s Spirit for healing and perfection and answer God’s call to the purpose of being one of those who activate the Kingdom in the world.  If you didn’t do it last week then I encourage you to check in with God for some spirit-care; in fact even if you did do it last week check in again for some more.  And then, on the way to wholeness by God’s grace, partner with God to bring wholeness to the whole world.  Go and be yeast.  Amen.

Oh whatevs!

This is the text of my ministry message for the monthly newsletter for Kaniva and Serviceton Shared Ministry.

You all know that I once worked as a school teacher, and I know that many of you have done so too. In fact several of you still do. One of the questions I was often asked by my pupils was whether they would use this skill or topic as adults; a sometimes tricky question to answer. I suppose it depends upon what sort of adult the child would become and what sort of job he or she would have. I have made use of most subjects I learned at school primarily because I then went on to teach them; that‘s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy I guess. But Algebra in umpiring football: 6g+b=t (when g is number of goals, b is number of behinds, and t is total score), Syntax and Grammar in writing, reading, and preaching, and History and Geography in background to preaching have all come in handy at various times. Right now I‘m learning to read the New Testament in Greek, which I hope will be useful in study and not just as a distraction during this incarceration.

So imagine this situation: You‘re at ministry college in 2009 where you are learning to be a pastor and in your Preaching unit an assignment question reads Your Congregation is unable to meet on Sundays due to a pandemic, how do you continue to provide worship and instruction to a dispersed and homebound congregation? My first response would probably have been the title of this. Oh whatevs! as if that‘s gonna happen in Australia! My written response, much more respectful (and Distinction grade worthy), would probably have been something about home visitation for communion with shut-ins, emails with Bible study links, lots of Facebook posts, and regular updates of the church blog. Or maybe that‘s hindsight: in 2009 there was no thought about churches having their own YouTube channel (unless they were Hillsong), and a pastor could not assume that everyone in his congregation had access to the Interwebs anyway, even email.

Primary School prepares us for the wider world, and the world of the future, by teaching us basic skills which can be implemented and connected in new ways. Some of these connections are made at Secondary School, others in University (or TAFE), and others by experience in the world. I was never specifically taught how to minister in a global pandemic, and my plan above is unworkable because I am expressly forbidden from visiting you in your home with communion. We do not have a church blog, but while we do have a church Facebook page not all of you are online to read it. But college did equip me with skills to manage (and thrive) in this situation and I am honestly excited at the opportunity to see Church done in this new way. You also have been equipped for this, if you‘re ready, by the discipleship that Christ himself has been guiding you through in the past days and decades. Like homeschooling where we do not expect kids to sit at the kitchen table for six hours a day as if they were at school (an hour each of literacy, numeracy, reading, and home-cooking is probably enough) there is no expectation that you take hours today to do church stuff. What matters most to Christ, and to me, is that you are learning to love him and to follow him. Spend time with your Bible, use the notes I have prepared if they help or don‘t; spend time in prayer, again follow the KSSM plan or not; walk in your garden, or around the block, or a lap of the wetlands and enjoy Creation; drink good coffee and eat your favourite biscuits at 10:35 each morning; be a child of God who is also a woman or man of faith.

It seems likely that we will not be gathering as congregations until September, that will be six months of household worship (Acts 16:31). I pray that you can use this time to explore your faith and your hope in God in quietness and solitude with Christ. Not everyone is an introvert like me, so quietness might be uncomfortable for you; but that‘s okay because Christianity is a social religion and we are supposed to do it in groups. So please do get on the phone, or the social media, and share what you‘ve found about God.

It‘s April, and that means it‘s Easter. Today (if you‘re reading this new) is Palm Sunday, next week is Good Friday and then Resurrection Sunday. Then its seven weeks until Pentecost, (so you‘ll need to wear a purple top today, white thereafter, and red on 31st May, white on 7th June, then green), and who knows how long after that until we can gather. I encourage you to make use of the lectionary New Testament readings from Acts; they tell the exciting story of the Christians from the week after Jesus‘ ascension until the raising up of the second and third generations. Maybe we, like them, are pioneering a new way of being the Body of Christ in the dispersion. I look forward to the day when we can gather as one once more.

Damien.

What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?

This is the text of the message I prepared for KSSM for Sunday 2nd February 2020.  It’s not a lectionary reading.

Psalm 116

Recently I had the privilege of not only attending, but actively participating in the ordination of a dear friend. For reasons beyond her control this ordination took place on Australia Day; but that set up a happy coincidence, for me at least. The happy coincidence is that one of the readings which my good friend had chosen to be read on her special day was the entirety of Psalm 116, a special set of verses for her. As her friend I know that a good deal of her testimony is replayed in those words of scripture. Okay, great; so January 26 and Psalm 116 are coincidental: how exactly? Any takers? Well actually the coincidence comes tomorrow, because on Sunday 3^rd February 1788 Rev Richard Johnson, inaugural chaplain of the penal settlement at New South Wales preached the first Christian sermon in Sydney and Psalm 116:12-13 was his text. As it reads in the Authorised version which he used, What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. Johnson’s appointment was largely the work of John Newton and William Wilberforce, have you heard of them? Yes, well as you’d expect they were keen that an evangelical would take on the chaplaincy of New South Wales and so Johnson was appointed as minister and educator, and with his wife Mary he sailed with the First Fleet.

The news which comes later, after the landing at Port Jackson and that first service of worship under a tree at Sydney Cove, is that Johnson was not well attended to by the governors. Governor Phillip had more important things to focus upon than the building of a chapel, what with trying to house a starving population, so church took place out in the open. Later governors and lieutenant-governors were even less helpful, so in 1793 Johnson built a 500 seat chapel himself; at his own expense and with his own hands. With that building in place Richard and Mary were better able to run a school and as many as 200 children were in class. That building was destroyed by fire in 1798, probably arson, and in 1800 the Johnson family (now four of them with two Australia-born children) returned to England on a furlough, from which they did not return.

So you may or may not have heard the story of Richard Johnson before, and of course there is a lot more to tell. Much of their woe occurred during life in the colony and therefore after that first sermon was spoken out. But I’m sure that as Australians, even not as Sydney-siders, you have some understanding of The First Fleet and what went on to get those eleven ships into Botany Bay and then Port Jackson. It was not a fun time by any means; and there were no doubts aboard ship among anyone, marines and freemen included, that life in Sydney would be easy. As far as journeys go the First Fleet wasn’t the worst, the Second and Third Fleets were disease ridden and most unpleasant, but it was bad enough. So I wonder what Johnson was thinking, and more importantly what he was seeing (envisioning) as he prepared and then delivered that first sermon to the prison colony. Just think about it, imagine yourself if you’d like as a convict or a marine, or the surgeon, or the governor himself, or the tag-along wife of someone, imagine you’re Mary Johnson, and Richard gets up and says what shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me? I’m not entirely certain, and in this instance my background in sociolinguistics lets me down, but I’d say that was the first instance that the derogatory use of the word “mate” was used in Straya. I mean, you’ve been at sea since May 1787 and it’s now February 1788, not to mention (but I probably will) whatever prison-hulk or barracks-and-orders rigmarole went on before sailing. You’re standing under a gum tree in February, and you’re wearing rags (as a convict) or prissy England clothes (as a free person or marine), so you’re probably sweating like mad. You’ve been sleeping in a tent, or on the ground, or maybe you’re still going back to the ships to sleep. You’re here forever, or at least seven years, or at least until you’re re-called for re-deployment by the Admiralty, and even that is at least a year and a half away by the fastest ships. The last year has sucked, this year looks desolate and hungry, and next year might see us starving if we even make it that far. So, ah Rev, Richard-mate, what are these benefits unto me which the Lord has rendered? Maaate? Psh!

How’s your year looking Kaniva/Serviceton? How was 2019? What does 2020 have in store for you? Are you hopeful of even reaching 2021? Hopefully you’re feeling better than that mob who were standing on Eora Country 232 years ago, but just because a town exists here and you slept in sheets last night that doesn’t mean your future is rosy. My friend’s story, the friend who was ordained last Sunday, her story is hers to tell so I won’t even touch it: but it’s a doozy. You all know some of my story and many of the doozy bits (but not all of them) and I tell that in drabs. What’s your story, and how does this Psalm speak to you?

I’m going to ask that again, what’s your story, and how does this Psalm speak to you? In my research this week I discovered something which I think is every interesting, in Tanakh (the actual Jewish Bible rendered into English and used by some Jewish traditions, rather than one of the Old Testament translations of the Christian traditions) there’s a variant reading in Psalm 116:1-2. In the New International Version it reads I love the LORD, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me I will call on him as long as I live. Positive, praiseworthy, comfortable and comforting. In the Good News Bible (which is in your pew) it reads I love the LORD because he hears me, he listens to my prayers. He listens to me every time I call to him. More of a shift to continuing present tense, not only did The LORD hear my voice but God hears my voice: all good so far. In the Tanakh it reads I love the LORD for He hears my voice, my pleas; for He turns His ear to me whenever I call. Pretty similar to the Good News Bible, but without that “because” statement from the NIV. But, here’s the variant, Tanakh footnotes suggest this one I would love that the LORD hear my voice, my pleas; that He turn His ear to me whenever I call. Hmm. Anyone been there? “I’d love it if God would listen and could hear me right now”. Anyone there now: don’t put your hand up but do let me know later if I can pray with you. Maybe some of Sydney’s first congregation were thinking that, maybe Rev Richard was thinking that himself, just quietly. Or maybe you’re with the Orthodox Church where the translation reads I have loved, because the Lord shall hear the voice of my supplication; for He inclined His ear to me. And in my days I shall call upon Him. (Athanasius Academy Septuagint found in The Orthodox Study Bible). I have loved because… that’s something different again, and suggests that we love God because God loves us (true) and that by God’s love for us we become mature through carrying that love even in the dark places, and finding strength in it. That points us toward Psalm 116:12-13 which we looked at earlier, with the understanding that even with the depths of Sheol, and the depths of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans The LORD has been good thus far and we can be confident. We can be confident because we have trusted The LORD and The LORD has come through for us; therefore whatever lay ahead of New South Wales in 1788, and whatever lies ahead of the Wimmera and Tatiara in 2020, we can celebrate God and be thankful in advance. Interesting to me is that according to its lectionary the Orthodox Church reads this psalm on Palm Sunday, and we read it on Maundy Thursday.

Are you confident for what lies ahead? Maybe today you are in Sheol, or at least in fear of being there soon: feeling grave and overcome with tomb-like concerns. Maybe today you are in Cadi (Sydney Cove), and wondering how this place could ever be what London is, even Newgate Prison. Or maybe you are in the good place, with the harvest harvested and sent away to wherever the trucks and trains take the various outcomes of your work, and you are in the mood for exuberant praise and thanksgiving for the abundance of grace that The LORD has just poured over your head. Most likely you’re somewhere in between those poles, since most of the time we just live with contentment, without fear but also without celebration. The Psalmist says that a worthy response to all of those conditions is thanksgiving and praise. I would say the same, not only as a theologian who has just written a sermon on this but also as a man with a doozy of a story about Sheol and another about the Heavenlies.

And so, what shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits towards me? How can I repay The LORD for all His bounties to me? Well, as scripture exhorts us let us raise the cup of deliverance and invoke the name of The LORD. Tell people what has been done for you, show it to their own eyes, and tell them that it was The LORD Godself who did it for you. If you are in the mood to celebrate then celebrate: rejoice like the shepherd who recovered one of one hundred sheep, host a party like the widow who recovered one of ten coins, feast and drink like the father who received back one of two sons. And if you are not in the mood to celebrate then remember what The LORD has already brought you through, and trust that The LORD who is the same Lord will do it again and again. In all of those stories told by Jesus, and all of the doozy stories we tell of ourselves, the focus is on a corporate response to an individual crisis. I was in peril, now I will tell the whole congregation how amazing The LORD is to me. This is actually the point of the Psalm, not that the snares of death encompassed me, the pangs of Sheol laid hold on to me, (Psalm 116:3) woe is me I have a truly salty story; not even that gracious is The LORD and righteous, (Psalm 116:5); but I will pay my vows to The LORD in the presence of all his people (Psalm 116:14), and I will pay my vows to The LORD in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of The LORD, in your midst O Jerusalem (Psalm 116:18-19).

And so it is. Maybe Richard Jonson did feel like a bit of a dill preaching on The LORD’s providence under that tree at Sydney, barely a week after the tall ships had arrived: perhaps he spoke too soon when you consider all that he went through in the next twelve years, and all that Sydney has seen in the past 232. Or maybe he was on the right track, considering that all who gathered on that day had survived the journey to gather on that day, considering that as an evangelical he knew where and how to look for the goodness of The LORD and to find much for which to be thankful in song and word. May it ever be so with us. We no longer cry God save the King, okay mainly because we actually have a queen, but let us remember that God’s saviour is King, and that we have the responsibility to glorify his saving work and his reign in song and word, confident in him in all circumstances.

Amen.

2020 Vision

This is the text of my newsletter ,message for the January 2020 pewsheet at KSSM.  I was on leave for all of January so this is all the people heard from me.

All over the Twitface these past few weeks the pastors‘ networks which I follow have been abuzz with jokes around 20/20 vision, and local leaders‘ vision for their churches in 2020AD. As someone who has worn glasses for shortsightedness since age 6, and now has a pair of old-man glasses for reading, I‘ve never had 20/20 or 6/6 vision in either eye. But that hasn‘t stopped me learning to read, and then reading to learn, and every week I write around 1750 words of sermon after several hours of Bible and commentary study, mixed with a fair bit of imagination. The reason I can read without clear vision is of course because of my old-man glasses.

What is our vision for 2020 as the Kaniva and Serviceton Shared Ministry? The question we might ask is what can we see (since vision is about sight, not hope), and how is what we are seeing affected by what we are looking through. I continue to ask what God is saying to the West vWimmera and to the churches of Kaniva and Serviceton; today as I write this (wearing my old-man glasses) I‘m interested by what we see locally and how we think God sees it. Do we wear lenses supplied by God? Do we see what God sees and do we see how God sees: that the slave is our brother as the old hymn goes.

My prayer for us all for January is that we wil take a month of rest after Christmas and harvest and school and whatever else, and take time to refocus our eyes on the year ahead. Lift your heads Church, look up from the books and adjust your focus to look at the horizon: what can you see in the distance. And if you do that, come find me in February and tell me what you saw, and how you feel about that.

Damien.

Seek (WWHS)

This is the text of the message I prepared for the Day Centre chapel service at Kaniva Hospital (West Wimmera Health Service) for Tuesday 22nd October 2019.

Psalm 119:97-104; Luke 18:1-8

When we look into scripture we find a God who is just.

Love for scripture is one of the key identifying marks of the people who call themselves Evangelicals. Even people who don’t identify with that label, or indeed don’t identify with any form of Christianity, recognise that some level of dedication to the Bible and what it says is included within the Christian package. If you’re a Christian then the Bible is important to you; everyone knows that, even Atheists. And that is true of every religion which has a book, every religion has its Fundamentalists, (which can be a good thing where such people are attuned to the fundamental and foundational precepts), and generally fundamentalists love scripture and a focused way of interpreting it.

In Psalm 119:97 we meet a person committed to God’s law, and most commentators understand this man (probably) is speaking specifically about Torah, the Hebrew scriptures at the time when the Psalms were written. “I love the Bible” he says, and in Psalm 119:97b he says that not only does he love the Bible but that he chews it over all day long in his thinking. He wants to know what it means, what it defines, what it allows, what it promotes, what it forbids, and how its teaching should be put into practice; in Psalm 119:98-102 he says as much, and in Psalm 119:103 he says that this is all pleasurable for him. Reading and knowing the Bible promotes growth in this man’s spirit, you might expect that because the Bible is about religion; but he also speaks of growing in social relationships, in learning and applying truth and understanding, and in his emotional maturity. Pretty much everything is better and bigger for this man because of his dedicated reading of the Bible, with the possible exception of his biceps and glutes, but who knows. If this man is to be believed then knowing the Bible, and how to use its wisdom, is the best thing ever.

In our gospel reading today we heard Jesus telling a parable about perseverance. I’d have said nagging and bullying, but Jesus takes the higher road here. The point we are supposed to get is in Luke 18:7 where Jesus says that God honours those who are tenacious in their prayers, especially in their prayers of supplication or the ones where we ask for stuff. The psalmist is tenacious in his study, and I’m going to suggest tenacious in his worship and his prayers of adoration, which also seems to be going well for him in receiving God’s honour, and this is where I think today’s passages intersect. If you persevere in your relationship with God, especially in the conversational parts, God will make you into a bigger person. I’m not saying that growth is a reward, as if God gifts you with bigness just because you say nice to Jesus in your prayers, but that growth is a consequence of your relationship. Just like the consequence of exercise is bigger muscles, and the consequence of reading is a bigger vocabulary and a deeper understanding. God has a role in growing you up in the processes of your prayers and readings, God is not the passive resistance of a piece of gym equipment. Growth through spiritual practices is about engaging with God, not simply about receiving presents or having an inanimate object against which to do your press-ups.

And there is one more thing: which for me is the clincher in this whole scenario. When you persevere in prayer, and when you persevere in scripture and meditation upon it, you discover things about God. God’s character is revealed in conversation just as people discover new and extraordinary things about each other in conversation. What the psalmist and the widow each come to understand about God in these stories is that God is just. God pays close attention to the way the world operates, and God ensures that justice prevails. Even an ambivalent magistrate is no match for the persistence of a wronged woman, and even the enemies of God are no match for the confidence and wisdom of one of God’s beloved.

So, what do you need to know about God? Do you know what God is like? Do you know what God likes? The best way to find answers to all of our God-questions is to ask God those questions. However, you can’t ask God if you don’t know God, and you can’t know God if you haven’t engaged God in conversation. So I encourage you this morning to go, read, pray, sing, adore, ask. Seek, knock, and then you will find. Amen.

Celebrating The City (Pentecost 18C)

This is the text of the message I prepared for Sunday 13th October 2019, the 18th Sunday in Pentecost in Year C.  This was a combined service with all of the churches in Kaniva in celebration of Kaniva Agricultural Show which had been held the previous day.  We gathered in the Shire Hall in Kaniva for church: I was the preacher and a youth band from The Salvation Army in Geelong lead us in worship and song.  That band had been performing at the Show.

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7; Psalm 66:1-12; 2 Timothy 2:8-15

One of the great themes of the Hebrew scriptures is the story of God’s continued deliverance of Jews from their gentile enemies. There’s the whole story of the Exodus to start with, the many victories of the Judges, then the kings Saul, Solomon, and especially David, and Esther, who whilst a queen was actually a queen-consort in a foreign land. Outside the centuries covered by the Jewish scriptures, but well within Jewish history, is the Maccabean overthrow of the Syrians in 167 BC. Maybe we could add Israel’s wars in 1967 and 1973 to our list. One description I have heard of the Jewish festivals like Passover (Exodus) and Purim (Esther) is the phrase “they tried to kill us, but God delivered us, so let’s eat!” Jewish history inside and outside the Bible is the story of deliverance repeated.

So what happens when God does not deliver? What happens when God’s people are in the minority, in decline, in exile, and specifically not in Canaan? In Jeremiah 29 we can read Jeremiah’s letter which he addressed to the whole community of the first and second exiles, specifically including the priests and prophets amongst the people. Jeremiah is still in Jerusalem at this stage so we’re talking around the year 597 BC, but he’ll be in Babylon within a decade when Nebuchadnezzar’s armies return for another cartload or three of Judahites. Surprisingly in the context of all those stories where God has saved the people from their enemies, what Jeremiah says is that Babylon is the correct place for the People of God right now, and that it was God’s plan all along that they be there. It is always God’s desire that God’s own people are actively completing God’s work in the world, that is what discipleship is all about. God’s instruction to the Judahites of Jeremiah’s day was to settle down and live abundant lives: they were to engage with their Babylonian neighbours and build homes and families of their own, make new and deeper friendships and relationships, and not hide away in ghettos. In other words the Judahites and Israelites were to grow in every way imaginable, and to make sure that Babylonia grew because of them. Jeremiah encourages them to practice domestic life according to Jewish cultural patterns and to remain faithful to God, but they were not be isolated and angry. This is also true of us, the people of God’s nation should keep their faith and their religious and cultural identity, but they should share an abundant life with the people around them, especially those who badger and malign the faithful out of spite and ignorance, so that everyone may come to understand the grace and love of God.

In Jeremiah 29:7 we read in some English translations that God desires the peace and prosperity of the city to which the exiles have been sent, but in Hebrew this is “shalom” in all that that word conveys. Shalom is more than peace, it is restful and complete well-being, not only the absence of war but the absence of anxiety. “You are to work towards and intercede with me for the shalom of Babylon” says The LORD, because in Babylon’s shalom is the exiles’ shalom. More so Jeremiah adds in 29:8b that the exiles and the remnant in Judah are not to listen to anyone who tells them otherwise: this message of shalom is the correct Word of The LORD, as opposed to what the other prophets are saying. The truth is that the apparently bad news of exile is actually God’s news, and the supposedly good news of a near release is false hope and false prophecy. Hananiah says that the exile will be over in two years’ time, but he’s an idiot so don’t listen to him, and don’t go setting up a partisan resistance movement to overthrow the oppressors. Settle petals.

No, the correct response to recognising the place where God has put you is to sing praise and thanksgiving to God because of what God has done: for you and for us all. In Psalm 66 we are encouraged to actively remember and proclaim aloud the glorious history of the salvation of out nation; specifically how God rescued us (including each of us) from oppression and oppressors. This might seem an odd response to exile, but God is the true king and every other king and president is less than God is. God will overrule governments to preserve God’s people. God has kept us from death and destruction in the past and God has used hard times to refine us and to bring us through and make us better people than we would have been had we had an easier life. In Psalm 66:4 we read that all the earth bows down…sings praises, and the chosen nation is asked to pause and reflect (Selah) on this. What God has done for us God has done for all humankind (Psalm 66:5), but so far we are the only ones who know. Since God has caused us to grow, has growed us up, we must be adult about this and we must no longer be selfish: we must share the news, share the joy, invite everyone we know to the concert of adoration and thanksgiving. After a time of walking through the hard places, where God actually opened up a road through the sea, Psalm 66:8 tells us to “drop to your knees in adoration” and “shout out God’s glory” so that everyone knows about it. Like the exiles we were bound up and dragged away, we went through hell and high water (Psalm 66:12a) but we have been brought through, and we have been brought to a place of plenty (Psalm 66:12b). That is worth celebrating with songs of praise, isn’t it?

This is why Paul finds it possible to proclaim the gospel even in chains. The chains of imprisonment will not silence him and they cannot silence the good news of Jesus the liberator, because Paul’s task is to continue to proclaim salvation to those who do not yet know that they are saved. God is faithful to Godself, Paul knows and he says that God will never go back on a promise or fail to deliver those whose trust is in God. God is worthy of praise because God is faithful toward those who persevere for the sake of the good news. In 2 Timothy 2:14-15 we read why it is so important that Timothy teaches the message of perseverance directly to the church he pastors, and why Christians must never get caught up in jargon. Let every person who trusts God for deliverance plainly speak the truth that the world needs to hear, because that is the task set by God for each one of us. It’s not the job of the overseers to silence the people, but to instruct them in the good news (of what the gospel actually is) and to empower them to proclaim it by the word of their own story and testimony. Be zealous for the truth so that the gospel of Jesus Christ (the Son of David) is proclaimed, and nothing else. Paul specifically reminds Timothy about false teachers, and like Jeremiah six hundred years earlier he counsels him to stay away from the self-seeking idiots who have a different agenda. Listen to God, hold fast to the good news of salvation, and trust in God’s timing for the completion of the work which God has been conducting since time began.

Well that’s all great; God is faithful even in the hard times, and even if there seems to be more tunnel than light we are encouraged to stay faithful and not be looking for a sneaky, early exit. But what do we actually do about it? I can honestly say that I do not feel that my life in Kaniva is a form of exile: I hope you don’t either. Okay, so compared with Serviceton and Broughton it’s a bit of a dive, but I like Kaniva and I enjoy living amongst the Kanivan people. As Christians we might say that all life on earth is exile because Heaven is the home for which we long to return: I think that’s a bit simplistic in light of what we’ve heard from scripture this morning, but there is some truth in it. It’s not the whole truth, but it’s not wrong. But even if the Wimmera and the Tatiara, let alone Corio, are not exactly places of exile, they are places where God is not so central as God was in Jerusalem, or shall be in the New Jerusalem. Since we live in a place which is not all that God wants for us so we must pray for the shalom of our cities.

This morning, as many of the Church in Kaniva who have wanted to gather have gathered in this place. There is only one Church in Kaniva even though it meets in six buildings with six different surnames. There is a common purpose and a shared culture amongst us. Yesterday our town was filled with visitors, and today we have the mob from Geelong participating as sisters and brothers in Christ. As Church (singular with a capital-C) and churches (plural with a small-c) we are the God’s light in the world, in Kaniva and its districts. As Victorians whose state motto is “Peace and Prosperity” we pray for the shalom of our home. We pray for the shalom of Melbourne our capital, for Kaniva our town, for Servi and Broughton and Nhill and all the other places we live, for Geelong. We pray that God would bless us and our neighbours, somewhat anxious that God will want to bless our neighbours through us, thereby giving us jobs, yet hopeful that God will indeed look with favour on our homes and industries.

So together in Kaniva this morning we celebrate God’s goodness to us recalling that God’s record for coming through is 100%. The Jewish exiles from the land may have lasted for decades, centuries, and millennia at a time, but God always called the people home and we know from scripture that the call to all the world is still there. One day soon we will be home, but this day we pray for the place where we are today and we sow into this. Today as we pray we build homes, we build lives and families, we build and plant and put down foundations in the place where we are because the place where we are is the place where God is, and God is with us here.

Go, sow, build, grow, pray and praise: they need to see it and hear it so that they will know it, and grow and sow and build and worship too.

Amen.

Wail

Lamentations 1:1-6; Lamentations 3:19-26; Psalm 137

Well! In all of my years as a Christian in church I don’t remember ever hearing a sermon on Lamentations. That’s not to say it’s never happened; more likely the message as it was didn’t connect with me or appeal to me, so I didn’t take much notice. I hope that today is not like that for you. On the other hand I have heard sermons on Psalm 137:1 with its famous disco riff By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and we wept when we remembered Zion, popularised by Boney-M; less so on the notoriously misquoted Psalm 137:9 where God commands all Christians to bash out the brains of infants and rip the wings off newborn puppies. Yeah, that got your attention didn’t it!

And, like I did with Philemon last month, when I began my reading for this sermon I wondered why we need Lamentations in the Bible at all. I mean, isn’t there enough moaning and sighing going on in Psalms and all of the prophets, why Israel needs a specific book just to lament I don’t know. Well, I do know now, but I was wondering then. Like Philemon which in one way is about the specific message of reconciliation wherein it would be safe for Onesimus to return home, the big theme of the Jewish Bible is homecoming. You have messed up and you have been kicked out, but God is ready to welcome you home: be you Adam and Eve kicked out from Eden, or Saul kicked out from the kingship, or the entire nation of Judah kicked out from their land and into exile in Babylon. Exodus is about the journey home and Joshua and Judges is about how home is then made homely. Ezra-Nehemiah is a similar story. The stories of Kings explain why the exile happened, the messing up leading to the kicking out, and many prophets take up that story with the words of warning included. This is where Lamentations comes in, it is the sorrowful tale of the sorrowful people sorrowing: it is the explanation of why the people of Psalm 137 wept, and why God’s chosen nation had to remember Zion as a decimated past home rather than living in its glorious present. Sometimes it’s good to remember what was lost so that we appreciate it if we get it back: and even if we don’t get it back we are able to see with hindsight how faithful God has been to us, and we are prompted to worship.

In Lamentations 1:1 we read how the daughter of Zion mourns like a widow, how the much cherished princess is now a servant-girl. Her husband is not dead, rather he has left her and now he is threatening her with divorce, that’s why she’s a widow. All comfort is gone, everyone has betrayed her and abandoned her; the daughter of Zion is alone in her grief, except for her enemies who are abusing her we read in Lamentations 1:3. What a tale of woe for the one whom God has caused to suffer: by taking away all her strength and every means of rebuilding that strength the daughter of Zion has been utterly destroyed by God. The sobbing goes on for a bit, and we take it up again in Lamentations 3:19 where Zion is now characterised as a man, and he is speaking for himself rather than being described by a narrator as the daughter of Zion was. Zion speaks like Job here, bitterness is in his mouth and he is utterly desolate, but even in that there comes a spark of joy. Here, again, is the thought that even if God will not restore what we have lost that it was God who gave all the good things first, and God is faithful to God’s own character. God is worthy of worship, and beginning at Lamentations 3:22 that is what we hear and see. The song of Zion is returning to the mournfully abandoned man and he no longer feels betrayed.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases sings the son of Zion, perhaps with clenched fists and gritted teeth. “I will hope, I will hope,” he says, grasping at that small flicker of light, blowing on that one last bit of red in the coals and ashes of his incinerated life. Like Job he says “I am not cut off”: everyone and everything may be gone, every “thing” and every “one”, but not God. God is here because God is faithful, and not only faithful but steadfast, and not only steadfast but steadfast in love. I have hope, says the son of Zion, I have hope because God always brings the dawn and with the dawn God always brings my portion. Maybe the point has come in time where the son of Zion has confronted his exile, he’s taking account of his sins and recognises why he is in Babylon now and not in Zion. Not every disaster that befalls a believer in God is divine punishment, neither is distress always the plain consequences of sinful behaviour; however in this case it is the truth. God is faithful, and I am faithless: and because I am faithless I am here, in exile, and not in Jerusalem; and because God is faithful I am here, in exile, and not in Hell or otherwise dead. Where there is life there is hope; and even here, by the rivers of Babylon, I am living and I am alive, and God is present. Thanks be to God.

As someone who loves God fiercely, and who knows that he is loved by God with even greater ferocity, I like that the language of the Bible is bold. And as a man who has lived with illness and disability for all of his adult life, and much of that psychological and emotional, I like that the language is not only bold but dead-set blunt. Lamentations is honest in its grief, as is much of Job, and many of the psalms including Psalm 137.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and we wept when we remembered Zion; and it’s no wonder when you consider what we have just heard. They didn’t just weep, they lamented like the darling daughter who is shut out in the cold not only by daddy but by her fiance. They grieved like the king who has lost everything and everyone, and all he has is cold ashes and boiling memories. That’s what’s going on for them, so when the Babylonians say “hey, gissa song then, how about one of those songs where you boast about how awesome your God is and how Zion is impregnable, bahahaha”, they are not laughing. No, they are seething. First they whinge, and rightly so, about how it’s all a taunt and that even if it wasn’t there is no mood for joy and celebration when you’re living in exile. Then they grieve when they think of the songs themselves, songs about the land God gave them and the land they filled with crops and children, a land that is now desolate and abandoned. No-one wants to be reminded of what was once glorious but is now a ruin, yet these are hymns of praise to God and isn’t God worthy of praise even if the people have sinned and the land has been wrecked? Yes, God is worthy, and in signing God’s praises the memory of what has been lost comes to the forefront. Look at Psalm 137:4 and Psalm 137:7 where the poet refuses to forget God but the memory of God is also the memory of defeat. God’s beautiful city was destroyed by bogan pagans, and as a royal priest and a holy citizen that triggers rage in the poet, which is why he wants everyone and everything associated with the Babylonians dead. Again this is raw, honest, blunt language: but because it is these things it is also worship. To pray like this is to trust God completely, to trust God with your emotions and your vulnerability, to have the greatest respect for God, the God who laid you low in Exile but who hears your righteous rage at what has become of Israel.

The commentaries that I read all said about Psalm 137:9 that it’s good to vent. God doesn’t really want you caving in the skulls of toddlers and God is not going to be doing that sort of thing on your behalf: no children were harmed in the making of this story. If you’re that upset then have a good yell and a good spit and get it out there; however there’s more to it than that, and the commentators say more. The point is not only that it’s good to be raw and honest with God, although it is, but that God is not violent like that. Remember that God is steadfast in love; love doesn’t kill children, even the children of enemies, even the children of the Babylonians who had killed Judahite children. Even exile and slavery are not good reasons to kill people, says God.

To kill children is to kill hope. We see this in the church today where we wonder about the next generation; we wonder whether there will even be a next generation. God who is steadfast in love and alongside us in presence is the source of hope, and the promise to Abram back in the day was not only the land of Canaan but also the millions of descendants who would occupy it. What if God engineered the return of Israel and Judah from exile, just as God had caused the exodus from Egypt in the first place, but the nations had no children and so the nations died out in the land. “That’s not who I am,” says God, God is not the sort of personality to cut off hope from anyone, even from Babylon: neither is God the sort who repays an eye for an eye. As Christians we know that God is faithful to all who place their hope and trust in God, you don’t have to have had a Jewish mother for God to love you as one of the chosen: it seems this love and invitation extends even to the Babylonians. Hope must not be killed, babies must be allowed to live, God is to be glorified even in the depressing place of mockery and isolation.

Our hope lives because our God lives: this is the message of Lamentations and of Psalm 137. That we live in a hole of human construction is not God’s fault, but it is God’s concern. God is concerned because God’s people are suffering, and God’s remedy is coming just as sure as it did last time, in Egypt.

Even in a time of lamentation, of anger and bitterness and shame, we can rejoice in the steadfast love of God.

Amen.

Sunday 6^th October 2019

Serviceton Church of Christ

A Rite of Welcome

Good morning Church: know that you are welcome.

 

Know that you are welcome if this is your first time among us,

or your first time in a long time

or your first time since last week.

Know that you are welcome if you have been here since 8:59

or 9:29

or you’re not here yet but are on your way.

Know that you are welcome if you have arrived with peace,

or you have arrived with rush,

or you have not arrived at all.

Know that you are welcome if you have come alone,

or with friends,

or with family, including an untidy child.

Good morning Church: know that you are welcome.