Sermon: Prayer & Fasting

Beth - blogger, coach, consultantLeave a comment

This morning we are looking at Isaiah once again, but now a chapter towards the end.  You may recall that as a whole book, I explained that it can be viewed as 2 parts, chapters 1 to 39, and then from chapter 40 to the end.

As a whole, Isaiah addresses the Babylonian exile of the Israelites over about 50 years (more than 1 generation), and how this exile fulfilled God’s plan of judgment, but more importantly:  restoration.  The Israelites are now busy rebuilding their homeland, and yet they still don’t quite get it (does that resound with any of you?).

It seems like they’ve fallen back into the pits that the Pharisees continued suffering with over 500 years later! The tragedy is that they believe they are doing all the right things and that it’s God who is letting them down!

Let’s read verses 2 and 3 again:
Yet they seek me daily,
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that did righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.
3 ‘Why have we fasted, and thou seest it not?
Why have we humbled ourselves, and thou takest no knowledge of it?’

So, they are praying every day and reading their Bible “as if they were righteous and were obeying God’s rules” and they ask God for righteous judgments and delight to draw near to God.

But they’re confused.

They are even fasting, not just praying.

Fasting is good, right?

It shows how serious your prayers are!  And the Israelites are convinced that they will please God and bring favor. In fact, so much so, that they made this into an ancient practice and instructed it as a pious act – fast and humble yourself before God.

So, why is God rebuking them?  How could God possibly not be pleased?

Well, there may be one or 2 small issues that they need to review in their lives.  Small things like social injustice, failing to share what they have with those who have not, failing to bring the homeless into one’s house, or give clothing and shelter to the naked… maybe reconciliation issues pending with family or loved ones, and failing to help the afflicated.

God doesn’t have a little book in which there’s a checklist:

  • So… check – Reynaldo has fed the hungry one – so, he doesn’t need to do that again for 5 years.
  • Ah yes, Connie has given clothes to the poor – so she’s good now for 3 years.
  • Look, how sweet, Betsy has brought a homeless person into a restaurant and bought them a meal – she won’t need to do that every again in her entire lifetime.

It doesn’t work like that, does it?

These are more than one-time actions:  they are a way of life.  Behaviours with broad social consequences – actions that will restructure our relationship.

God couldn’t care less for singular, pious acts – he is looking at the Church to dismantle the entire structure of injustice!

And the Church doesn’t refer to this building.  The building isn’t called in Matthew to be the Salt of the Earth, and give flavor to everyone around it.

The Church is made up simply of the people that are in it!

Isaiah 58, verses 3 to 6 remind us:

Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,
and oppress all your workers.
4 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to hit with wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
will not make your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is such the fast that I choose,
a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a rush,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
and a day acceptable to the Lord?

There’s no point in going through the motions of a Christian life, if you are not becoming each day more like Christ.

Out of curiosity, have any of you EVER been accused of being too Christ-like?

Sometimes, being called a “Christian” can be more of an insult (referring to being sanctimonious rather than filled with the Spirit), but have you ever heard of someone saying about another Christian – “What I really can’t stand about him/her is that they are just too much like Christ?”

Traditions and systems are not all bad – but when they become rituals that are void of meaning, they lose their effectiveness.

Isaiah calls the people of Israel to a new way of life:  “the fast that God has chosen”.  It’s no longer a periodic fast day that is set aside to punctuate ongoing life – but it’s a new relationship with life and with all that it in it!

58:6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
58:7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Instead of stopping eating food for a day, or doing the fast of Daniel for 3 weeks, or giving up red meat for Lent, God calls the people of Israel to stop the daily practices which block their relationship with God and their fellowman:

  • Stop domination and taking advantage of others
  • Stop blaming others
  • Stop talking behind someone’s back
  • Stop complaining
  • Stop being so self-centered and focused on self-satisfaction
  • Stop your feeling of entitlement
  • Stop your blindness to your privilege

The fast that God is looking for in our lives is the one that calls for vigilance for justice and generosity- each and every day!

Verses 8 to 12 remind us that we work (actions) on our relationships with our fellow man, and THEN it follows that our relationship with God grows deeper.  The barriers that we build between ourselves and our fellow man and the very same barriers that block our relationship with God! It’s impossible to have a relationship with God without having a full relationship with each other!  Your piety or righteousness is not disconnected from everyday life.

The way that you treat the waiter, the security guard, the beggar is just as important as your prayers or reading the Bible.

58:8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
58:9a Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
58:9b If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
58:10 if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
58:11 The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
58:12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

We say to God “Lord, give me patience” and then are upset when he responds with, okay – this is the way that I teach patience.  “Here, have a 5 year old!”.

We say to God “Lord, give me abundance” and then you don’t understand when God asks you to be generous.

We say to God “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace”, and then fail to mediate a discussion in the office, or ask for forgiveness when another feels offended.

Prayer is so much more than just making our requests known to God – it’s going out into the World and LIVING the lessons each day.

Sermon: Handling Failure

Beth - blogger, coach, consultantLeave a comment

Last week’s sermon focused on Isaiah 49, verses 1 to 7 and in particular verse 4.

But my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose!

As part of that sermon, we looked at the warning that Jesus gave the disciples on the night of the betrayal, that on this night ALL of them would desert him.  Which they did after the was arrested, in spite of Peter’s assertion that while everyone else might desert Jesus, he would be faithful.  And we watched Peter fail.

I reminded  you that Jesus expected them to fail and wasn’t judging them for their weakness.  In fact, he knew it was a lesson that they needed to learn.  I ended that sermon asking the following 2 questions, that I would like to address this morning:

How do you handle failure? What do you do in the face of fear?

The first thing I would like to remind all of us is that we don’t grow through our successes:  we learn from our mistakes and failures.  Think of Peter, and his many mistakes and opportunities to learn:

  • This is the disciple that gets out of the boat and starts sinking when he takes his eyes off Jesus and looks at the storm
  • The one that rebuked Jesus for talking about his crucifixion and death
  • Was told “Get behind me Satan” by Jesus
  • Promised that he would never desert Jesus and yet denied him 3 times
  • Even doubted when he saw the empty tomb!

Failure… and yet this was the rock on which Christ chose to build the church!  Because he got back up and learnt from those mistakes.

John Maxwell wrote a book a good few years ago now titled “Failing Forward: how to make the most of your mistakes”.  If you haven’t read it, I would encourage you to scrounge a copy and take time to learn how to make better mistakes!  Sorry – how to make the most of the mistakes you’ve made.

I would start with looking at 2 aspects of the mistakes and failures in our lives:

  1. How do you view your failure?
  2. How do you respond to your failure?

HOW DO YOU VIEW YOUR FAILURE?

There are 2 ways we can look at our mistakes and our failures.

We can react like Adam and Eve:  It was the serpent’s fault, it was the woman you gave me who caused this, and play the blame game.  Maybe it was your staff’s fault, the secretary, the economy, the supplier that failed to deliver on time. Many times, we try to hide or conceal our failures, living our lives covering up or becoming prisoners of pretense.  It’s hard to learn from something that you are hiding from!

Or we can look at it like David: “I have sinned”, with true repentance in his heart.

The second part of looking at and viewing your failure, is whether you can look at it as actions and decisions and not circumstances or part of who you are.  When David says “I have sinned”, he talking about his actions and his decisions – he doesn’t say “I am a failure, my life is a disaster”.  He takes responsibility for his his actions, but doesn’t automatically assume that this is his entire life.  He doesn’t take this on as a complete way of being:  believing that therefore he can succeed at nothing!

How do you talk about your failure and yourself?

  • I just can’t keep going
  • I’m ready to quit, walk away and not look back
  • Why are people always doing this to me?
  • Why does God allow this to happen to me?
  • I’m just such a failure, idiot, etc.
  • I’m so stressed, I just can’t handle this.
  • There’s just not enough time, there’s no way I could get this done.
  • How could I be so stupid?  Look at the mess I made!

If you heard someone else talk about you the way you talk about yourself, you would probably stand up for yourself!  But we often talk toxicly without even realizing what we’re doing.  When you beat yourself up, a blunder or a moment becomes a hurricane of failure!

How you handle setbacks in life will shape you: will you focus on the failure or on the change that you need to make?  Will you allow it to define who you are, or choose to become someone that will overcome? Like I mentioned last week, most of the so-called heroes in the Bible were ordinary people who accomplished extra-ordinary things!  They were humans who overcame their weaknesses and mistakes and went on to learn to do greater things.

It’s one thing to identify the behavior, actions, attitudes that are wrong and another thing entirely to self-deprecate ourselves.  It’s not the same to say “I’m an idiot that just ruined my career”, as saying “That was a really poor choice of words and I could have done better”.  Life is much more than just an event or a series of events:  no one is a total failure and no one falls all the time.

This season, this moment does not have to be final: if you throw in the towel, it’s final.  But a ball game isn’t over until the last man is out!

I’d like us all to try a little experiment this morning, to show you the power of your words.

 

HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO FAILURE OR MISTAKES?

If you have viewed your failure as “it was inevitable”, or “there was nothing I could do” or “it was someone else’s fault”, there’s a strong possibility that you could allow anger, bitterness or resentment to grow inside, and be destined to repeat the same mistake again.  If we live on the defensive, like King Saul in 1st Samuel, justifying ourselves and our actions, it’s hard to learn the lessons.

In particular, when we look at King Saul, we find someone who never takes responsibility for his mistakes – I didn’t keep the animals alive, the people did.  I only did it because the people pressured me to do it.  And more so, his “repentance”, if you can call it that, seems to have no interest in the cause (or why he really did it) and therefore no cure for it!  One of the beauties of poor decision making is that if you can identify the cause of your weakness, you can make better decisions in the future.

Remember this:

“A mistake repeated more than once is a decision.”

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Or you can choose to learn from this, growing wiser and making better decisions in the future.  We can look at why we failed and when we failed.  We may have to follow back a chain of events to get to that first decision that set us up on the wrong path.  The decision we put off when we should have made a choice.

But when we admit our failures, we conquer pride.  There’s possibilities of change.

We read in Isaiah 9, verse 2 earlier:

“ºThe people who walked in darkness have seen a a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined.”

Now, it’s true that the process of learning, picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and getting back into the game may be painful.  I never promised that it wouldn’t hurt a little!  But I’m saying it will be worth it!  The kid on the bike may have grazed his knees, those of you who are still working out and getting fit as part of your 2017 resolutions are still feeling the pain in your muscles as you train!

Hebrews 12, verses 11 to 13 remind us:

“All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful;  yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.  Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight the paths for your feet…”

Become more like Christ will stretch you – and stretching will take you outside of your comfort zone.  It’s going to be uncomfortable and sometimes even painful.  God uses everything in our lives to transform us into the people He means for us to be – mistakes and failures should be responded to as learning experiences, rather than being considered character traits.  It’s not who you are – it’s what you did or what happened to you.

THERE IS ALWAYS A THIRD WAY – AVOIDANCE

Some people will do anything not to fail, even doing nothing.  The person who does nothing will certainly not fail… they risk nothing.  But there is no gain, no lesson, no wisdom to be gained in sitting on the sidelines!  They become just like the servant in Matthew 25 that hid his talents in the ground, well at least I’ll still have them!

They say that the only thing worse than a quitter is the man that is afraid to begin!  Achieving low aims, low goals, can be a greater failure than aiming for a higher target, and missing!   You will always miss 100% of the shots what you fail to take!

Have you ever heard anyone say:  “I achieved everything I have because I am a perfectionist.”?  Probably not!  That’s because it’s not until you are free to fail that you are free to succeed and do greater things!

 

I want to close this morning with the analogy of an acorn.  When an acorn looks at itself and the possibilities that life offers, it may see itself just as an acorn, or it may dream of one day becoming an oak tree.  So you take that acorn, and you throw it in the ground, maybe you put a little dirt over it.  It’s not very nice to have dirt thrown on you!

That acorn may choose that it’s not willing to change, and it’s not willing to let go of being an acorn.  But in order to become an oak tree, that acorn needs to die!  It has to die to its littleness and smallness and embrace the idea that God gave it the divine possibility of becoming a great oak.  But becoming a great oak means letting go of what it is right now.  Being willing to let God transform it into something completely new and different.

You can either choose to hold onto and embrace who you are today and your ideas of what you are, or you can embrace the vision that God has of who he would have you be, letting go of what you are today, risking failure in order to learn, moving outside of your comfort zone, and taking a chance of becoming that strong oak that God envisions you being.

Lets pray!

Sermon: Laboured in Vain

Beth - blogger, coach, consultantLeave a comment

I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing…

Over one hundred years ago, Teddy Roosevelt gave what would become one of the most widely quoted speeches of his career.  In addition to touching on his own family history, war, human and property rights, Roosevelt railed against cynics who looked down at men who were trying to make the world a better place.  People like Isaiah, trying to turn the people of Israel back to God, and yet failing miserably at it.

Teddy Roosevelt in this speech said:

“A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities—all these are marks, not … of superiority but of weakness.”

Life is made up of challenges – for each one of us they are different!  And there is always going to be someone on the sidelines criticising your performance, as you struggle to be “wonder woman” or “super man”.  And that intimation of failure often causes us panic, even despair.

Failure is considered an unpardonable sin in a world where we sanctify the successful and worship winners.  Everybody wants to succeed – no one wants to be considered a failure!  How many people do you know whose life goal is to fail?  But this emphasis on success can put an enormous stress on us.  No one wants to be called a failure.  If I fail, what will happen to me? What will others think?  Will they reject me?  Are they going to think I’m worthless?   And yet, our responsibility is to rise from mediocrity to competence, from failure to achievement.

Simply put:  your task on earth is to become your best version of you.  You are unique.  God made you specially just like you – there is no one else exactly like you – and you have a special purpose on this earth, otherwise God would not have made you and put you here! And if you haven’t done it already, you need to take a day or two and sit and medidate (in silence – and for pity’s sake, stop talking and turn off the mobile devices!), and listen to hear what that purpose is.  The Bible of full of examples of ordinary people who did extraordinary things. We’ll talk more about that next week!

The world has a few examples of failures that went on to do some remarkable things:

  • I’m sure you’ve all heard of that guy Henry Ford, bankrupted 2 automobile industries and ruined all his chances of good investors.
  • Or maybe that guy Fred Astaire.  His first screen test didn’t go so well: “Can’t sing. Can’t act. Slightly balding.  Can dance a little.”
  • Then there’s that guy that had trouble adjusting to the culture and classes at Yale, so he dropped out.  He went back again later, and it still wasn’t for him, so he dropped out again.  His name’s Dick Cheney.  Never going to amount to anything!
  • Or there’s that single mother on welfare who was trying to write.  I think her name was J.K. Rowling or something.
  • Or that kid whose teacher told his mother he was “too stupid to learn anything”.  He was unfortunate enough to be called Thomas Edison.
  • And there’s that guy who was so frustrated trying to write his first novel, that he threw away the entire first draft!  His wife found this manuscript for a book “Carrie”, and rescued it from the trash.  You might have heard of him – Stephen King.

There’s a reason you are in church this morning – maybe you are stuck in a place of despair, ready to give up, not sure how to keep up the good fight. But men and women can change: once again we have a Bible full of examples of people who stopped in their tracks and had a heart change, which became a totally new person.  To mention a few of the better know examples from the New Testament:  Saul who became Paul; Simon who became Peter; Jonah (in spite of his best efforts to the contrary); Levi the tax collector who became Matthew the disciple.

But on the road to that transformation, there are holes.  And if we’re not careful, that hole becomes a rut.  And before you know it, you’re stuck in that rut, and your following that rut instead of the path that you’re supposed to be on, because it’s much more comfortable to stay in the rut than to try to get out of it.  And let’s be honest, sometimes getting out of that rut looks impossible!  You tell yourself, it just can’t be done! This is is – the best I can do, the most I can be.

Isaiah is in a rut (and feeling sorry for himself), in verse 4 of our reading this morning:

“But my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose.”

This is the same servant that said:

“Before I was born, the LORD called me:  from my birth he has made mention of my name.”

He knew what his calling was! He was predestined to do God’s work!  There’s an amazing amount of expectations upon him! And God gave him all the gifts and tools he needed for the task.  Remember verse 2:

“He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me:  he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in His quiver.”

I was MADE for this.

But his progress report in verse 4 is not very encouraging:

“My work  is so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose.”

Probably a good time just to go back to bed! The task is too great!  I’m inadequate.  I can’t do it!

Now the whole book of Isaiah can be divided into 2 principle sections:

  1. Part one is chapters 1 to 39, which address Israel’s continuing sin and rebellion, where their hearts are so hardened that no matter the strength of Isaiah’s tone and words, nothing will turn them. They became self-centered and inward-looking; they forgot their covenant.  They forgot they were a people belonging to God. Finally, Isaiah brings a message of judgement and exile – the Old Jerusalem is condemned and will be no more.
  2. Part two, chapters 40 to 66, opens with words of consolation “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God”.  It finishes with the emergence of the NEW Jerusalem.

So we see in Isaiah a transformation – from the old to the new:  the old Jerusalem is torn to the ground and then rebuilt as a new Jerusalem.  You see, when everything is stripped away, our spirit starts to show through, and then our relationship with God and the eternal comes clearly into focus.  Maybe right now you’re sweating and you can’t see the results of all your hard work: and instead of giving up, maybe it’s time to take a small rest and remember WHO you are and WHY you were put on this earth!

1 Peter (2:9-10) reminds us:

You are a chosen people… a people belonging to God… Once you were not a people, but now you are a people of God…”

 

And I have another little gem for you, God expects you to fail!  Yes, you heard that right: God doesn’t expect you to get it right the first time. In fact, he has an expectation that you are going to fall!

How many of you have children and have taught that child to ride a bicycle?

The first time you put them on the bike – did they get it right?  How many chances did they need to learn?  How many got it on the 2nd time? the 3rd? What do you mean it took 54 times before they learnt?

Well, why are you so hard on yourself?  Why do you expect to learn in just one go?  Let’s go back to the kid on the bike:  you have a little hill (without a main road down the bottom!), it’s a safe place to learn to ride.  So you have this kid who has finally mastered balance and steering (for the most part), and they riding down the hill now pretty well!  So you finally reach the moment when you think they are ready, and instead of pushing the bike back up to the top of the hill again for the kid, you tell, well, why don’t you ride UP the hill now?  And what’s the first thing that happens?  They fall off!  Because it’s easy to ride the bike down the hill and keep your balance when you have a little momentum!  But when you meet resistance and you have to keep your balance AND pedal hard, and you’re new at this, you fall over the moment you push too hard on the left side without adjusting your balance on the right side to counterbalance the force you’re using to get yourself up the hill!  Right?

And God knows this!  God’s been watching us since the Garden of Eden.  How many people has he seen fall off the proverbial bicycle since the world was created?

Matthew 26 reminds us that on the night of the betrayal, when Judas betrays Jesus and gets him arrested, that Jesus said to ALL the disciples (not just one of them, not just Judas):

Tonight, all of you will desert me.

We all remember Peter’s response to that, right? Oh no, not me!  I’m good.  Even if everyone else does.  I won’t.  I’ll be the man.  And in the garden, when Jesus is taken, Peter tries to live up to his word, taking out his sword and cutting off the ear of one of the soldiers.  I’m sure he’s flabbergasted when Jesus heals the ear!

But there was one lesson that Jesus hadn’t taught his disciples yet, and they needed to learn it the hard way – enough with parables and teaching. They needed to experience this first hand.

How do you handle failure?  What do you do in the face of fear?  

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we are going to talk about next Sunday.

 

I want to leave you with one parting thought today from Teddy Roosevelt’s speech in 1910:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Let’s pray!

Sermon: 2017 plans

Beth - blogger, coach, consultantLeave a comment

Happy New Years! Welcome to Day 1 of failed New Year’s Resolutions… a little cynicism for you… How many millions resolve to make a change in the new year and then fail in the first week?  Most of us see the New Year as a perfect opportunity to start over or to change bad habits. How’s the new diet going?  Did you start exercising this morning, or have you already started with “I’ll start on Monday!”? Oh, that’s right – Monday’s a public holiday – I’ll bet you’re starting on Tuesday, right?

I’ve been reading a lot recently about how to make (and keep to) your New Year’s Resolutions:

  • 29 New Year’s Resolution Ideas – Make This Your Best Year Ever!
  • Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Like a Boss 2017 – The Decision-Driven Secret
  • 6 Ways to Create (and keep) New Year’s Resolutions in 2017

I’m sure, as you look at all of your New Year’s Resolutions for 2017, there is a common thread throughout – they are your version of YOU as a better person: exercise, less television or internet or social media, more prayer, giving, serving, practicing gratitude…

This New Years, I want to remind you of the disruptions that happen in life, and those who live with and around us whose lives have been disrupted.  Remember Joseph and Mary, living in Bethlehem – probably rebuilding their new life in Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus.  I wonder…   Where was Joseph working? Had they started to build their own home or were they living in a rental?

And suddenly, in the midst of whatever life and plans and dreams Joseph and Mary had now rebuilt, an angel appears in the middle of the night in a dream and tells Joseph to flee to Egypt and remain there until they are told they can leave, because Herod intends to search for the child and destroy him.   And we know what the collateral damage of Herod’s fear was:  all children under 2 years old in and around Bethlehem.  Now, maybe that was only 20-30 children, if Bethlehem only had a population of 1,000 or so people – but that’s 20-30 too many!

A few weeks ago you may have seen the image of a couple and their baby from Aleppo, the father wearing patched pants and mismatched clothes, carrying a baby in a blanket that was much too large for the child, with the baby in one arm and an IV drip in the other.  The look of determination, shock, and yet emptiness in the father’s face.  A mid-eastern couple and their child, fleeing from violence – just like Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus whose birth we have just celebrated last week. Displaced by a power struggle that really has nothing to do with them, and yet everything to do with them!

And how many displaced sojourners and aliens do we have in Panama at the moment?  People whose plans for their lives were disrupted by the situation in their homeland, who have now traveled to Panama, as Mary & Joseph traveled to Egypt, looking for a safer place to live, away from the imminent threat that their homeland held for them as a family.  There are over 90 verses throughout the Bible regarding the “sojourner” or the “alien”, and it’s good to be reminded of them:

LEVITICUS 19:33-34 ESV 

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

EXODUS 22:21 ESV

“You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

DEUTERONOMY 27:19 ESV 

“‘Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.’

ZECHARIAH 7:9-10 ESV 

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”

LEVITICUS 25:35 ESV 

“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.

Isaiah 16: 3-5 ESV

3“Give counsel;  grant justice; make your shade like night at the height of noon;
shelter the outcasts; do not reveal the fugitive;  4 let the outcasts of Moab sojourn among you;
be a shelter to them from the destroyer.  When the oppressor is no more, and destruction has ceased,
and he who tramples underfoot has vanished from the land,  5then a throne will be established in steadfast love,
and on it will sit in faithfulness in the tent of David one who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness.”

And yet, our world has become one in which we have all become like Herod, treating the outcasts and the sojourners and the aliens as if they were a threat to us – wanting them dead and out of our towns and countries: they should just go home, they don’t belong here!  They have come to take what is ours!  They are a threat to our comfort and power!  So we should destroy them before they destroy us.

And yet this is not what we are taught if we closely read everything that God ordered Moses and the people of Israel in the Old Testament, and certainly not in the light of today’s reading in Matthew: Jesus was that outcast, whose parents ran with him to Egypt as an alien and sojourner to escape the anger and threat of Herod.

This New Years, I invite you to remember:

“As one person, I cannot change the world; but I can change the world of one person.”

 

We are called to be Christ-like – to giving living water to the Samaritan woman, to heal the lepers, to feed the hungry, to dine with the tax-collector, to accept the Centurions’ request and command from afar…  Decide this day, what will you choose?  And each day in 2017, choose again and again!  One act a day to being the presence and love of Christ in this world!  Actively choosing each day to be this love.

Let us pray:

Creator God, today we remember that you taught us by your very example humility and simplicity in live.  As this New Year begins, focus our hearts on paying more attention to others and less on ourselves; listening first and talking later; offering constructive criticism, without complaining; performing acts of kindness each day.  We remember this day that you have granted us the gifts of the Holy Spirit so that we might show the fruit of the Spirit in this world, being the light and salt of the earth.  In the name of him who taught us by his very example. Amen.  

Sermon: He shall not judge…

Beth - blogger, coach, consultantLeave a comment

HE SHALL NOT JUDGE

ISAIAH 11:2-4

2 And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth…

December is upon us in Panama – with its terrible traffic, frustrations as you try to get more done than you have hours in the day, and little patience for all the barriers you may find along the way.

  • There are school functions, plays, ballet performances, and all kinds of events that require your time and attention.
  • Mothers’ Day presents to buy and dinners to plan.
  • Christmas parties for the office, with friends, PTA and end of year celebrations.
  • It’s that time of year when you may well find yourself seated next to that difficult person: the complainer or the proverbial GRINCH of Christmas!
  • If you have children, they may be adding to the stress of the season with their demands for presents and the heightened anxiety of “I want”.

Everything clamouring for your attention and adding extra stress to an already busy schedule. And we are, as Christians, expected to put our right foot forward – with the Christmas Spirit-being the bearers of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love, as expressed through our Advent Candles.

Our Gospel reading this morning in Matthew 3 indicates that Jesus’ coming promised a baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire – that will sift through the wheat (or good) in our lives and a fire that will burn through the chaff (or that which is not productive or of any value).

And how will God know what is good and valuable in our lives, versus that which is not productive? Well, as we see in the verses of Isaiah 11:2

…the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
Isaiah goes on to say in verse 3:
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide disputes by what his ears hear

And as Christ’s followers, we are all called to follow this example!

Not judge by what our eyes see or decide according to what our ears hear, but rather with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, that Spirit of counsel and might, and that Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON?

If I could sum it up in one word, that one word would be simply this: “empathy”!

Be kind, for everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about!

Kindness is a wonderful way to let another struggling soul know that there is still love in this world.

We are not to judge others simply by the impressions of what our eyes see (or our perceptions or misconceptions) or what our ears hear (whether that be gossip about a person or even what we think we heard them say)… But rather, we are to allow the Spirit, through wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and fear of the Lord guide us to what is right.

Our opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge: It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy – it requires that we suspend our egos and for a moment to live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding. (Bill Bullard).

Empathy is:

  1. Seeing with the eyes of another;
  2. Listening with the ears of another; and
  3. Feeling with the heart of another.

So, what would be wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and fear of the Lord look like at Christmas time?

The Spirit of Wisdom at Christmas time might be as simple as:

  1. looking after yourself, making sure you’ve given yourself enough time to get where you need to be, without being overly stressed about running late;
  2. having snack food in the car with you or in your purse, so you’re not in a bad mood from low sugar levels;
  3. taking a moment before you get to the mall or a shop to speak with your youngsters about what you will or won’t buy for them, so that they have clear expectations and are prepared for the “no” when you have to give it to them; and
  4. thinking through the obstacles (traffic, queues at the cashier, etc.) before you get started, so that you are already prepared to face them and take them in your stride as they appear.

The Spirit of Understanding at Christmas time manifests itself as simply:

  1. as giving your child 10 extra minutes of cuddle time when they are upset, realising that they need to feel heard, even though they are being completely irrational or unreasonable, because you care (even if the answer is still no);
  2. planning “alone time” or “down time” for the introverts in your household that need to recharge their batteries after being overwhelmed with too many sights, sounds, people and stimulations of the Christmas season;
  3. identifying that person that’s sitting off in a corner by themselves, and sitting down with them to have a one-on-one conversation for 10 minutes, because you realise that they are overwhelmed by crowds, but love to have one-on-ones, without trying to “draw them in” to the crowd, but rather meeting them where they are at; and
  4. giving the extroverts in your family the party and group time that they need to enjoy the festive season, even if you are feeling up to it.

The Spirit of Counsel at Christmas time requires that we take time to listen to God:

  1. It’s sitting in the car for 2 minutes, outside your home, and, before you get out, breathing deeply and allowing yourself to relax and be present:
    a. Identifying how you are feeling and why you are feeling this way;
    b. Breathing your way through leaving the day you have just had and any frustrations you were bringing with you, so that you don’t take those negative feelings home to your loved ones;
    c. Identifying who and what will be waiting for you inside, so that you are present with them when you walk in the door; and
    d. Praying for your loved ones before you walk in.
  2. The Spirit of Counsel is putting before God your concerns and worries, and then listening to God’s response – this means clearing your mind so that God can speak with you.

The Spirit of strength at Christmas time recognises that you are strong enough: Whatever today’s challenge is – you are strong enough – God promised to give you strength for today. If you will focus on today and today’s struggle and stop trying to deal with tomorrow’s struggle and adding tomorrow’s stress into the mix, you are strong enough! They say:

Depression comes from living in the past.
Worry and Anxiety come from living in the future.
The only place of peace is living in the present.

The only place you have any strength and power is in today – you cannot change the past and you cannot act in the future. Your spirit of Strength, this Christmas season, is when you are present in each day. When you focus your daily energy on what you need to get done today: therein lies your strength. If you need to have a conversation with someone today: have that conversation. If you need to have a conversation with someone tomorrow, program it today, and then leave it in tomorrow.

Give us this day our daily bread

It doesn’t say: give us this week or this month… just one day. Remember that this Christmas season – you are only given this much. The person standing or sitting in front of you is only given that much. All either of you have is today.

The Spirit of Knowledge at Christmas time –

  1. It’s using Waze to find out how long you are going to spend in traffic to be able to get to Atlapa for the Ballet presentation by 4.00 p.m., and leaving 2 hours beforehand, and having downloaded onto your iPod or phone on December 1st 12 hours of new Audiobooks, podcasts, meditations and other uplifting material so that you don’t feel like being stuck in traffic is a complete and total waste of time;
  2. It’s knowing the quirks of each one of your kids, nephews & nieces or other kids that you will be spending Christmas day with, and preparing yourself how to deal and interact with them to be a blessing to them; and
  3. It’s reading an article or book on a subject very close to the heart of a person that you will be spending time over the Christmas season with, so that you have a topic to talk to them about.

And finally the fear of the Lord is remaining humble… realising that you are no better than anyone else, that you are the product of all your experiences, decisions, and the people that God has put in your path each day of your life, that have made you into who you are today.

The fear of the Lord is what reminds us “there, but for the grace of God, go I”.

  • You are that child that is having a temper tantrum in the shopping mall;
  • you are that mother that doesn’t know what to do with her child who is hungry and tired and over-stimulated by all the sights and sounds;
  • you are that old man who’s in a bad mood and grumpy because he’d rather be somewhere else;
  • you are that young man behind the wheel beeping the horn because he’s in a hurry and frustrated that the traffic is not moving.

Whatever you are faced with over the coming weeks, remember that you are filled with the Spirit of the Lord: and this Spirit does not judge by what your eyes see or decide by what your ears hear.

You are called to be the light of the world – be LOVE this Christmas season.

Sermon: Raising the Dead

Beth - blogger, coach, consultantLeave a comment

Lectionary:

  • Luke 7: 11-17
  • 1 Kings 17: 8-24

I’d like to introduce you all this morning to a special artifact from our home that is of vital importance for dressing up as a fairy princess: the magic wand.

A couple of weeks ago, I helped little Miss Two dress up in a pretty dress, and put a little crown on her head, and this little wand in her hand.  She was parading round the house rather happily and looking at herself in the mirror, admiring her princess self when she exclaimed “Is broken”.

As any good mother, I asked what was broken, and was informed that her wand was broken “Is not working”, followed by the words any mother wants to hear about a magic wand “fix it mummy”.  Since she knows that broken cars are taken to a “car shop” to get fixed, she made mention of a”wand shop” in her request for fixing her broken wand.  Now, I don’t know how other mother’s do it, but we’re miles away from Diagon Alley, if I were even able to find platform 9 3/4, and there are no elves from the Little Kingdom that I can call on to fix the fairy wand, and I have no special abilities where expectations of what a magic wand is suppose to do are concerned.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still left wondering what was supposed to have happened when she waved her magic wand and what it failed to do.

Oh! to have the simple faith of a child that can believe anything is possible and doable!  Matthew 18:2-4 calls us to become like children,

“I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. 4 So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Mark 10: 14-15

14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

So, today I want to deal with an issue that I struggle with in my Christian faith: are Christians able to raise the dead through faith? In fact, are we supposed to believe in signs and wonders, like healing the sick and making the blind to see?  Is there a place for raising the dead in today’s modern world or is it just relegated to fables and myths and Game of Thrones?  If it is beyond our ability and powers, how should we live our lives as Christians?  What should we learn from today’s readings that we can really take out into this world and be the salt of the earth?

I’ve spent the better part of a week reading various points of view on raising the dead. I’ve discovered groups such as a group of Evangelicals who call themselves the “Dead Raising Team”. I’ve read about Saint Patrick’s 33 cases of raising the dead in Ireland, in order to convince the many pagans of the day to convert.  What is amazing about Saint Patrick is that in 30 years he converted an entire island (Ireland) to Christianity, when previous missionaries had been unable to convert towns, and he gave all glory for this to God and the moving of the Holy Spirit.

But when it comes to raising the dead, as Christians, we’re skeptical.

As one writer put it:

“Levitating saints, sure. Weeping icons and statues, yep.  … The dying healed through the intercession of the saints, of course. The world is filled with miracles. …. We’re supernaturalists, but most of us live by the normal (supernatural) means of grace. We go through life in the usual and sometimes God disrupts things with a special benefit.”

While I would love to believe that we could all participate in the supernatural, my rational thinking gets in the way, and I’m left searching for practical and rational ways that I can transform this world.

Most of what I’ve read about Luke 7 speaks to Christ’s compassion for the widow who has lost her only son, in a society where she would have been left completely unprotected and without any rights.

How are we to react as Christ when we see those in need and hurting?  As Christians, we are called to have the same compassion for our fellow man. We are called to look beyond just what we can see, and commit to life-changing actions in the lives of others. But do you have the time, energy & commitment for that?

The principle of compassion is the very heart of Christ. The ministry of Jesus flowed from His heart of compassion toward those in need.  Compassion is a word of action. It is not observing from the sidelines; it is the heartfelt care for another with both the intent and action.  The compassion of Christ carries the notion of tenderness and affection.

The uniqueness of Jesus’ ministry rests in His concern for persons — He truly loves people and considers them worthy of respect and compassion because of what they are — bearers of the divine image of God.

John challenges us to look to the needs of others,

“But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (3:17-18).

Loving others is one of the many ways we put our faith into action.

“People do not care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

So, how can we put this compassion into practice?  If we can’t do the supernatural, what can we do that will make life-changing differences?

I’d like to finish up with some practical examples of how we can help others to find new life and meaning, through compassion.
  1. Be considerate and present:  Practice having old-fashioned conversations (by that, I mean, without your phone), where you can give each person your full attention – use direct eye contact and keep your ears open to their needs.
  2. Do a body and feelings check regularly:  Check the motivation behind your words, actions and decisions. Always check in with your thoughts before they become words or actions to be sure your motivation is pure. If you catch yourself about to say or do something that isn’t coming from a place of integrity, or if it’s untrue, unkind, or unnecessary, think before you act. Every word and action generates a reaction. Be sure your ripple effect is positive and one that promotes a culture of compassion.
  3. Be affectionate:  Don’t forget the power of touch, especially for children, who thrive on feeling accepted as whole people. Give hugs and pats on the head or a squeeze of the hand.
  4. Communicate warmly:  Let your genuine interest in helping the other person show through heartfelt communication. You can make a world of difference by simply listening and talking in a warm, patient manner.
  5. Acknowledge people’s existence: Say good morning, good afternoon or hello to the people you walk past all the time – the concierge, the door man, the security guy, the homeless man that you prefer to ignore so he won’t ask you for cash, the elderly lady walking so slowly she’s slowing the pedestrian traffic. Get to know people.
  6. Practice acts of kindness:  Go out of your way to be kind.  Try  a 30-day kindness challenge.  Plan random acts of kindness – hold the door! (Put your arm around and comfort that Game of Thrones fan that just burst into tears, because I just said to hold the door!)
  7. Show empathy:  Empathy is showing that you understand another’s feelings or emotions; you identify with the situation and care enough to place yourself in another’s shoes. If someone is upset or acting unusual, consider why before you judge or get annoyed. There’s probably a backstory that would make you react differently. And when someone does share, you don’t have to have a perfect answer. You can just say, “I don’t know what to say, but I’m here for you.”
  8. Allow your heart to break:  Be aware of what’s going on around you. When you open your eyes to your world, you can often see more clearly where compassion is needed.  The world is full of what seem like intractable problems. Often we let that paralyze us. There are some people in the world that we can’t help, but there are so many more that we can. So when you see a mother and her children suffering in another part of the world, don’t look away. Look right at them. Let them break your heart, then let your empathy and your talents help you make a difference in the lives of others.  Be the difference you want to see in this world!
  9. Be an encouragement:  Be the person that holds others up, motivates them, brings them cheer. Instead of dwelling on everything people do wrong, use your voice to tell them what they are doing right and encourage them to continue working towards their goals.

Let us pray:

Creator God,
Give us compassion and humility in our hearts. Let us be kind, gentle, generous, loving, giving and forgiving wherever we may go. Allow pride to never get the best of us as You fulfill our dreams. Help us not to have a boastful tongue against our brothers. Let humility invade our souls.
In Jesus’ name. Amen

Sermon: the Helper

Beth - blogger, coach, consultantLeave a comment 
Lectionary Genesis 2:18-24

A HELPER WHO IS “JUST RIGHT”

You’ve all heard the 10 reasons why God created, Eve, right?

  1. God worried that Adam would always be lost in the garden because He knew men would never ask for directions.
  2. God knew that Adam would one day need someone to hand him the TV remote because men don’t want to see what is on TV; they want to see WHAT ELSE is on TV.
  3. God knew that Adam would never2. buy a new fig leaf when the seat wore out and therefore would need Eve to get one for him.
  4. God knew that Adam would never make a doctor’s appointment for himself.
  5. God knew that Adam would never remember which night was garbage night.
  6. God knew that if the world was to be populated there would have to someone to bear children because men would never be able to handle the pain of childbirth.
  7. As Keeper of the Garden Adam would never remember where he put his tools.
  8. The Scripture account of creation indicates that Adam needed someone to blame his troubles on when God caught him hiding in the garden.
  9. As the Bible says, “It is not good for man to be alone”, he only ends up getting himself in trouble.
    And the NUMBER ONE reason…
  10. When God finished the creation of Adam he stepped back, scratched his head and said, “I can do better than that.”

Seriously, there is so much debate now about the correct interpretation that we should give of the Creation story, and especially of the role and relationship between man and woman.  The Church is supposed to be shaped and guided by the Word of God, and yet it is clearly evident that our cultural norms and expectations have guided our interpretation of the Bible, and even come into play with respect to the translation of the Bible.

There is no question that gender issues have been shaped by our culture. In a patriarchal culture, the Church accepted and used passages of the Bible to justify male superiority and female servitude.As cultural views shifted, we have looked back at the translations and words used, and searched for a new understanding of the Bible – but we should ask ourselves, are we simply looking to once again “be right”, as opposed to being guided by the Word of God?  Are we simply now looking to justify a feminist or egalitarian perspective of the creation story that is acceptable in today’s society?  Or are we looking for the Bible to present to us an actual Biblical response to the question of “what is a Godly relationship between a man and woman?”

This morning, I would like to explore the verses of Genesis 2: 18 to 24, and  provide some insight regarding translation and meaning.  But this is merely one of many possible understandings and meanings that can be found, and I would venture to say only scratches the surface of a possibility of interpretations.  But there are lessons here for us!  While God created man & woman equally in His image, there is  no doubt that we are different – the same way that the males and females of all species are equal but different.

In Genesis 1 we find a chronological view of Creation – from day 1 in which God creates time, through to day 7 in which God rests.  On day 6, God is particularly busy, creating all creatures that habitat on land.  Great and small, he creates them, and when God is done, he declares that “it is good”. After this God – Elohim – the multiple nature of God, decides to create man in his image. God says:

“Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.”

And so, man is created, both male and female. In order to avoid confusion, I’m going to use the term “mankind” to refer to humans, and man to refer to the male gender.  To emphasize the godlike nature of mankind, God gives mankind dominion over the earth, and asks Adam to name all of the animals.

The creation story in Genesis 1 is repeated in Genesis 2, but told from a different perspective, demonstrating different facets of God’s character.  And so, in Genesis 2, we rewind a little, and are given more details regarding the creation of mankind, and in particular the differentiation of men and women.

Most versions of the Bible have simply translated verse 18 “It is no good for the human to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” or “a helper that is just right for him”. And because it was culturally acceptable and appropriate to define “helper” as an assistant or as subordinate to the man, the woman was interpreted as having a role of serving: somehow intended to be responsible for catering to the needs and demands of her husband.  Because if woman is the helper, man is the boss, right?   Even Paul says that the man is the head…

But much has been written about the translation of this section, especially regarding the original term “ezer” having been user rather than “azar”.  “Ezer”, with an e does not mean the same as “azar”. Azar does mean helper or servant, but ezer has a different meaning completely.

The word EZER is used in the Old Testament some 21 times, 2 in the context of Eve (women made in creation), 3 times in relation to man’s help and 16 in relation to God.  And the 3 times it’s used in relation to man’s help, it is referencing that help did not arrive such as that help which only God can provide.

So let’s see what other words and terms ARE used throughout the Old Testament that might have been used to describe women as servants or assistants, that would have clearly established woman’s role as being subservient to that of man:

  • The best word for helper or assistant in Hebrew is Azar – and it is used 82 times in the Old Testament, in contexts of helping, assisting or giving aid.  So, if God had wanted to say helper, he could simply have used this word, azar, instead of ezer, right?
  • And if we wanted to specify that woman was a servant-helper, a better word would have been ebed.  In fact, the word ebed is used over a thousand times in the Old Testament.  But that’s not what it says in Genesis 2.
  • Or then there’s the word sharath, which means high-ranking assistant, like Elisha was to Elijah, or like Joshua was to Moses.  But Genesis 2 doesn’t use sharath.

So, what does ezer mean, then?  Ezer is help from God: not only from a superior, but a miraculous help.  Divine intervention.

Before you go off thinking that women are witches and we really fly on broom sticks, let’s get into the translation issues a bit more closely.  Ezer means that God is the help.  Ezer conveys that it is never a servant, helper or assistant.

So, how does this help us?  Well, possibly because if we realise that this was Divine assistance, we will realise that maybe we’ve always been misunderstanding this verse.  It never was intended to say that the woman was the helper! In fact, it should not be ascribed to any human at all.  So, if she isn’t the helper, what did God make?  What does Genesis 2:18 refer to?

Let’s look quickly at the other word that rises in this verse – “suitable” or “right” or “companion”.  The word in Hebrew is kenegdo. Kenegdo arises from 2 words:  Neged refers to a mirror image or reflection, and ke refers to “himself” or “likeness”.  So, God has said he will make a likeness of his mirror image or reflection.  So, woman was supposed to be a mirror-image of man.

Going back in the verses in chapter 2 of Genesis we see what the story of the creation of Eve starts out with the only time God says about creation – “this ins’t good”.  And what isn’t good?  It’t not good that man is alone.  Man is incomplete – because unlike all of the creatures that he has just named, male and female, Adam is alone.

And so God says, I will help man by making his mirror likeness, a reflection of himself.  The solution for man’s loneliness is woman, made to reflect him. God did not create woman to be man’s servant, or assistant or subservient to him. He didn’t make Adam “the boss”.  But rather, God makes them one – flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.  Equal and together. In harmony and communion.

But, as with the fall in Eden, the moment we allow our self-interest to get in the way, we start to run into  relationship and control issues.  The moment we start to allow our egos to rule, we look at our differences, and then separation and domination begin to take hold, rather than unity and oneness.  Separation and domination was never part of God’s divine plan for men and women.

Lessons we can take away from Genesis 2 today:

  1. Companionship – It is not good that the man should be alone.  Human’s are social creatures – we need to connect with other people.  One of the most shattering emotions of which human beings are capable is that of loneliness – it consumes people: whether they be teenagers, struggling with acceptance, stay at home mothers or fathers who are thirsting for interactions, or the elderly who are feeling forgotten.  We need each other.  What are you actively doing to be part of the lives of those around you?  If you are a spouse, are you making sure that your other half doesn’t feel alone?
  2. Are you sharing the load and the burden?  Whether it be with your spouse, or a team member at work, or another volunteer in an organisation you have joined: is someone feeling that they have to do everything themselves and that they are not getting the support that they need?  What can you do to support that person?  What needs to change so that you become a team player?
  3. Are you taking care of your responsibilities?  In every team, each person has different functions and tasks: and your first priority should always be to have fulfilled your responsibilities first.  It’s  no good to be worried about what others aren’t getting done to the detriment of your own responsibilities.  You will always hear – finish  your own responsibilities before helping another – just like in an airplane you put on your own oxygen mask before helping someone else with theirs. AND FINALLY
  4. Acknowledge and rejoice in our individuality and differences.  They are not meant to separate us from each other – they are intended to complement each other.  Yes – women and men are different – women may be more emotional, or protective of our little ones – but that doesn’t mean the weaker sex! And some of us are black, white, yellow, pink or any other colour under the sun.  We come from different cultures and customs.  But these differences are to be enjoyed and celebrated, creating a diversity in our team work and fulfilling all of the needs.

Today I would invite all of you to explore how you were created to be “just right”, a Divine gift to help and connect with those around you.

Sermon: Living with the Consequences

Beth - blogger, coach, consultantLeave a comment 
Lectionary: 2 Samuel 11:26 - 12:13

Last week I spoke about David’s adultery, conspiracy and murder, how he broke at least 4 of the 10 Commandments:

  • murder
  • adultery
  • theft
  • covetting your neighbour’s wife

Today I’d like to continue with the lessons that we can learn from David.

Now remember, it wasn’t that David was starved for female companionship. By this time as a wealthy king, he has many women: Ahinoam of Jezreel, Abigail the widow of Nabal, Maacah daughter of a king from Geshur (east of Galilee), Haggith, Abital, Eglah — that’s six while he was living in Hebron — and then “David took more concubines and wives in Jerusalem, and more sons and daughters were born to him” (5:13). In addition he has Saul’s concubines in his harem (12:8). So, don’t think that was the issue here!

I didn’t mention this last week, but some commentators have blamed Bathsheba, saying “she came without any hesitation and offered no resistance to his desires.”  hmmm…  The person with the power here is David, not Bathsheba, and in chapter 12 of Samuel, we find that David is held solely responsible for the sin by God (12:9).

At the beginning of this morning’s Reading, we see that after Bathsheba’s time of mourning has passed, David sends for her and makes her his wife.  This is nothing new for David – he’s added wives before, and so she is simply another.  But, for many, what David did was an act of heroism:  He has taken into his harem the poor, pregnant wife, widow of one of his fallen captains.   It was not unusual for a king to take a widow to wife immediately after the death of her husband. It was viewed as charitable, since the king would provide for her provisions and protection.

“Look at the way he stands behind his men!  If they are killed in battle, he will take care of their widows!  What a great King!”

Right?

The Bible clearly points out that this displeased God!

Since Adam & Eve sinned,we have attempted to cover it us.  We fall into guilt and estrangement from God and from our fellow man!  We are embarrassed by it, and we try to put our fig leaves in place to cover it up.  And when that fails, we hide!

Unlike Nixon, Clinton or even Martinelli, David seems to have gotten away with his shenanigans.  His cover-up was very effective and culturally appropriate.  No one is pointing the finger at him for what he had done.  And it looks like he’s gotten away with it.  A whole year has passed.  The baby has already been born…

But during this time, David is suffering from the guilt!  One of the Psalms written about how he felt during this period is Psalm 32:

… When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was turned into the drought of summer.

But even though David knew what he had done was wrong, he still hadn’t dealt with it!  David knew the stress and agony of living a double, false life.

Even in his deceit, David was still leading the worship of Yahweh. You can imagine the tension going on inside of him. He was the judge of Israel. So, during that time God just wrings him dry. Until he is finally ready to face the real issues in his heart.

And so we read that God sends Nathan to speak with David.  We don’t know how long Nathan took to prepare this message, but his approach was nothing less than masterful!  He confronts David with his actions, brings him to acknowledgement and repentance, and stayed alive in the process!

Remember, David is the judge of Israel, and he has, so far, gotten away with murder and adultery… No one knows… and so he thinks he’s being told a real story, to pass judgement, when really, he’s being hung out to dry by his own tongue.

“There were two men in one city, the one rich and the other poor.  The rich man had a great many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb 

A little ewe- remember – David was a shepherd, and had probably, at one stage, had his own little pet lamb. So he immediately identifies again with the poor man and this one little lamb.

I remember we had a pet lamb once, Mum & Dad named him LambChop… you can imagine my horror when I worked that one out!

and so, this poor man had bought and nourished this little ewe lamb; and it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom, and was like a daughter to him.

it was dear to their hearts, something special, just like Cecil the lion…

and so the parrable goes that a traveler 

just a passing fancy, like a look over the parapet at a naked woman, no love, no commitment, just someone going by… a little like the dentist that just wanted to hang a great head on his Wall to boast to his friends about… until his next great hunt…  

came to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take from his own flock or his own herd, to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him; rather he took the poor man’s ewe lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”

Then David’s anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan,

“As the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. And he must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion.”

Most of us are umpires – we jump at the opportunity to call strikes on someone else.  It’s so easy to apply God’s standard to others – but we dodge its application on ourselves.  Isn’t it wonderful when you can find somebody who is worse than you?  You can vent upon them the spleen, the wrath, that you feel about yourself. That is exactly what David did.

He had been a shepherd. He had had a little ewe lamb. He knew what it was all about.  Then here was this totally callous person, this rich man with flocks and herds, who grabbed this poor little ewe lamb, all the poor fellow had, and took it for a wayfarer, not even for his mother-in-law or some important visitor.

He is pronouncing judgment on himself, and he doesn’t even realize it.  He’s strict about applying the law in THIS case!

And then, once he has him where he wanted him, Nathan comes in with the punchline:

“You are the man! 

Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. I also gaveyou your master’s house and your master’s wives into your care, 

Remember that harem I mentioned?

and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these!  Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. 

Notice, no mention is even made of Bathsheba – this is ALL on David!  You used treachery; You used deceit; and You used pagan enemies. Collatoral damage – all the men that Uriah was leading at the time… it wasn’t just one man on his conscience!

And yet Nathan says “you sinned against God”.  Why God? Because David failed to accept and believe God’s promises:

if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these!

What does repentence look like?  While it’s difficult to describe, it’s easy to recognise.  You know it when you see it!  And there is no mistaking it here with David:

I have sinned against the Lord!

That’s a short response.  No excuses. No qualifications.  Guilty as charged.  David didn’t say “well, we all mess up once in a while” or “well, I didn’t expect it to go that badly?” or “but I had legal permits for hunting a lion, I just didn’t realice it was Cecil… well, except that we tried to destroy the GPS tags”…

No, he takes full responsibility for everything, including the consequences.  Accepting responsibility is liberating. Yes, it’s hard to admit you were wrong. But it demonstrates strength, courage, and a commitment to personal excellence. It’s respectful. By doing so, you demonstrate that you care about yourself and others.

And David was forgiven!  He should have died for this, as he says in his own condemnation of the rich man!  But even though he will not die for his deeds, he still doesn’t get to escape the consecuences.  Unfortunately, many times, even though we have admitted our mistakes, we still have to live with the consequences.  Most of us think that God’s forgiveness is escaping the consequences, but that’s not usually the case. Even when we’ve admitted we’re wrong, there are often still consequences that we are going to have to live with.

And so we have Psalm 51:

  1. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your lovingkindness: according to the multitude of Your tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
  2. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
  3. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
  4. Against Three, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight: so You are justified when You speak, and are clear when You judge.
  5. …
  6. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part You make me to know wisdom.
  7. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
  8. May be to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which You have broken may rejoice.
  9. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
  10. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
  11. Cast me not away from Thy presnece; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.
  12. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation; and uphold me with Thy free Spirit.

This is why David is a man after God’s own heart!  Because he acknowledges, heartfully, when he has screwed up and offers true repentence!

Sermon: We all make mistakes sometime

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Lectionary: 2 Samuel 11: 1-15

The story of David is not about a saint. He had many faults, numerous sins throughout his life. As John Walton writes,

“God has not given us the Bible with the intention that we put the heroes of the faith up on pedestals of awe and reverence. In contrast, we find that the characters portrayed in the text are shown to share many of the human weaknesses with which all of us struggle. … We cannot view them as superhuman. … Instead, their stories are in the Bible because God worked through their successes as well as their failures. … They are part of God’s story.”

God had plans for David, who was “at times an instrument and at times an obstacle”.  I like the fact that the Bible tells it like it is.  We read about these heroes, but not just the great things they have done.  We read about their failings, their wrongdoings, their dark sides.  And there are lessons for us to learn.

Today I want to talk about one of David’s better known mistakes – his affair with Bathsheba and then his attempt to cover it up, by having Uriah murdered.  Yes, of course there’s murder in the Bible – we find it with Cain killing Abel, with Moses killing an Egyptian before running off into the desert, and now we find David plotting a murder to hide that he got another man’s wife pregnant.

Here was a man God had anointed as a youth – the hero that had defeated the mighty Goliath.  General over Saul’s army, and of whom it was said “He is a man after God’s own heart.”  But yet not perfect.

Our Reading this morning starts with setting the context:

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

Why, if kings of old went out to battle, was David at home?  Well, this battle was close enough to Jerusalem that David decided to stay home and have Joab report to him daily on the battle (it was only some 40 km away).  Maybe David was starting to feel his age, or nursing an injury or an illness.  Maybe he was over-confident because he felt that his trusted men had everything under control.  Or maybe he had become complacent, after so many victories.  For whatever reason, David left himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The first problem that David has is that he is idle – after waking up from his afternoon nap (which he probably needed), instead of getting back to work or focusing on affairs of the state, he wanders aimlessly around on the roof of the palace.  How do we stay out of trouble? One way is by keeping ourselves busy and occupied.  I spend a lot less time spending money, if I don’t walk idly through the mall!  “I’ll just go window shopping” she says.  Except then something catches our eye, and before long window shopping has turned into real shopping.

There is an old German proverb that says “Idleness is the beginning of all sin”, just like the  Russian proverb that states “Idleness is the mother of vice.”  The Irish say “Poverty waits at the gates of idleness.”, and I remember hearing as a kid “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”  Most cultures agree that idleness is not a good thing – it can get you into all sorts of problems.

We should be clear about what idleness is and what it isn’t.  Resting is not being idle!  Our bodies need rest – it’s vital for our health.  Resting for rejuvenation is not idleness!  Resting when we are sick and need to recover is just what the doctor ordered!  Idleness is that state of being where we are not occupied in meaningful things.  It’s slacking off or being lax, and when we have nothing better to do, we wind up in mischief.

Having a nap was not a bad thing… but there was no need for David to wander around aimlessly.  There was business to conduct, the country was at war.  Both rest and work are necessary, as well as having time for family, hobbies and other pursuits.  But there is a problem with idleness – which is why many of the youth programs today focus on getting our at risk youth into sport or other activities, so that they will not get engaged or caught up in gangs and crime.

And because of David’s idleness, he runs into temptation.  We all run into temptation, on a regular basis.  We walk past Gelarti or La Italiana in the mall, and the ice-cream calls out to us!  We can either choose to keep walking, or we can let our desire take over.   David’s on his rooftop and sees a beautiful woman bathing on the rooftop below.

An aside here. If you wonder about bathing up there in front of God and everybody with a higher vantage point, remember that the rooftops of houses in ancient Israel were flat and served as additional living and working space. The ancient Israelites also had water gathering and storage systems on their rooftops designed to trap dew and rainwater and carry it into cisterns through pipes. I doubt that any of us remember life before indoor plumbing, but these rooftop systems were the next best thing.  The water would also have been left out in the sun during the day, so that by evening it was warmed.

And so, David’s desire gets him in trouble: being tempted is not wrong.  But how David handles this temptation definitely gets him into a huge bind, where one lie leads to another!  Instead of letting it be, David inquires to find out who she is – and the response should have been enough to warn him to stay away.   She is a daughter of a powerful man (Eliam) and the wife of one of David’s mighty men (Uriah the Hittite).  She is also the granddaughter of one of David’s closest advisors.

But that didn’t stop him either.  He ignores all the warning signs.  And sends for her… ending up in bed together – committing adultery (which was punishable by stoning for both of them!).   David sins prior to even sleeping with Bathsheba, because Jesus said:

You have heard that it was said “You shall not commit adultery”.  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Instead of shutting down the temptation, David lets it run wild, until it takes over him.

And one thing leads to another… before you know it, we’ve moved from lust to adultery, to lies and manipulation, and when plan A doesn’t work (i.e. getting Uriah to come home from battle and sleep with his wife so he will think the child is his), then plan B fails (even getting him drunk on liquor doesn’t work), then David moves to plan C (having him killed in the line of duty).

David had been on solid ground – chosen by God.  But he got careless and he didn’t even know it.  Just like a sheep that sees a tempting mouthful of grass over there.  Then another one a little farther, and then another… and another.  Before you know it, he’s lost or in the sights of a predator looking for an easy meal.  With each successive lie, David takes another step closer to the edge… until he’s over the edge with murder. The snowball effect, it started so small.  But now, he’s tumbling down the rocks.  He’s crashed and burned.  And the last thing he hears is the devil singing in his ear “another one bites the dust”.

It’s hard to find someone else in the Bible who could break so many of the 10 Commandments at one sitting!  As far as I can see, David managed to at least break 4 in one go:

  • You shall not murder
  • You shall not commit adultery
  • You shall not steal
  • You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife

So, I want to quickly share with you some thoughts on how we can use this example from David’s life in our own:

#1: You’re dying in the present if you’re living in the past!   David had already defeated armies and nations: the Philistines, the Moabites, the Edomites and others.  And so, instead of taking his place against the Ammonites, he leans on the victories of the past, and doesn’t have a vision of the future.

#2: When we are out of the way of our duty, we put ourselves in the path of temptation.  David should have been out on the front lines, but instead makes the mistake of staying in Jerusalem where he takes on a moral defeat.  What are you supposed to be doing?  Have you got a clear path cut out ahead of you?  Or are you just drifting along waiting for live to happen for you?

#3:  We will also fall in that one are of our life where our passion is the strongest and our principles are the weakest.  There are certain temptations that one person will struggle with, while another person won’t.  I gave up smoking cold turkey, without thinking twice about it – because I had only smoked because of the social aspects of it.  It was no big deal to quit.  But I know of many others for whom drugs, alcohol or smoking are their Aquiles heel.  On the other hand, I had to continually safeguard myself against impulse spending.  I don’t need more things!

#4: What we don’t resist in the mind, will soon become manifested in our thoughts and actions.   One part of psychology looks at Neuro-Linguistic Programming, (NLP for short) a name that encompasses the three most influential components involved in producing human experience: neurology, language and programming. The neurological system regulates how our bodies function, language determines how we interface and communicate with other people and our programming determines the kinds of models of the world we create. Neuro-Linguistic Programming describes the fundamental dynamics between mind (neuro) and language (linguistic) and how their interplay affects our body and behavior (programming).  What we think about is what we will say and do. 

#5: The power of your example should always exceed the position of your authority.  No matter what position you have, you should always strive to set an example of excellence.  Set the standard of leadership, holding more authority from your example than from the power of the position.

I hope that this story of David helps you focus on what is truly important in your life and the example you are setting for those people that are watching you.

Sermon: Boasting in my Weakness

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“Boasting in my Weakness” – Really?

LECTIONARY:

  • 2 Corinthians 12: 2-10

A teacher said to her students in class one day,

“Boys and girls, there is a wonderful example in the life of the ant. Every day the ant goes to work and works all day, a busy life. And in the end, what happens?

Little Johnny replies, “SOMEONE STEPS ON HIM.”

We live in an era in which life is a constant struggle. Everyone  wants to be healthy and strong; nobody likes to be sick, weak, depressed or worried. And yet, we face problems and tragedies; we struggle to live up to expectations – whether our own or those imposed by others.  We’re not quite who we think we should be. Just like Paul in his letter to the Corinthians.

Take a moment and put this in context: this letter to Corinthians was not written in a vacuum. When Paul wrote this letter (which by the way is his 4th letter, not the second), he didn’t pen in the chapter and verse designations. Those were added much later in history. So chapter 11 and chapter 12 are one continuous thought.  In chapter 11, Paul writes about the suffering he has endured because of the name of Jesus. He tells the Corinthians that he has been imprisoned for preaching the gospel; he has been whipped on several occasions; he had been beaten with rods. He tells them that on one occasion the Jews stoned him; and left him for dead. But he survived (probably with deep lacerations and broken bones.) Paul was shipwrecked three times, spending one night in the open seas. He experienced intense times of suffering and yet found strength.

It is apparent as you read this part of 2nd Corinthians, that some in the church in Corinth were questioning Paul’s authority as an apostle. “Not good enough.”  So in Chapter 11, Paul tells about all the things he could boast about, both good and bad, that make him an apostle. But in Chapter 12 the tone changes, because he is not living in the past.  Our past history and our past glories are all fine and well, but the real question is “who are you today?”.  Paul is writing this letter to the Corinthians when he is no longer in sparkling health and strength.  Who keeps singing “Glory Days” by Bruce Springsteen?

The church in Corinth has these “super apostles” or “big shots” that were criticising Paul. Paul responds, admitting that he was not a trained speaker, (2 Cor. 10:10), implying that the so-called super-apostles were trained speakers. One of their favorite criticisms of Paul seems to have been that he was not very impressive in presence or speech.  Paul warned the Corinthians against the pretense that knowledge can create. Toe to toe with these orators, Paul would fail. In many respects, his writing also lacked sophistication and talent.

And yet Paul says, he will boast about his weaknesses.  We feel unhappy and worried about our weaknesses, but somehow he has accepted his weakness in a positive way and so he is able to boast about it.  And he even accepts that he needs it long-term. In order to remain focused on God, rather than himself and his exploits, Paul has this “thorn in his side”. He prayed repeatedly and yet the thorn remained in his life. I don’t think that ‘three times’ means Paul said three prayers but that he spend three seasons in prayer pleading with God to remove this from his life.  And yet he has an unanswered prayer.

  • How many times could we cite that we are thankful for our unanswered prayers?
  • How often do our prayers tend to focus on making life easier and softer and rarely are for the kind of difficulties that would challenge us and make us grow spiritually.

None of us wants to really be moved outside of our comfort zone, and so we react to life’s situation by rejecting the difficulty.  Paul, for all his abilities and mighty use by God, could not escape the fact that he was human, and thus inevitably susceptible to weakness.

Paul doesn’t like it.
He can’t change it.
And God won’t remove it.

Had Paul focused on the injustice of this torment in his life, he could have become a very bitter man, consumed by how unfair this harsh and excessive situation had become for him.  But Paul not only accepted his negative circumstances but he also expresses his joy and happiness over them.

  • What is your hurt story?
  • What behavior keeps you from where you need to be?

I hate looking weak or insufficient. I particularly loathe being wrong, especially when the mistake I’ve made has public ramifications. What will people think?  God forbid that someone realise how far behind I am at work, or that I get upset and short-tempered with my daughter when I’m tired, or that I can’t seem to get things right in my marriage, or that I don’t think quickly on my feet and always come up with the perfect rebuttal three days later!  I get frustrated by these deficiencies and perceived weaknesses – I’m inadequate and useless.  And so, since I don’t like to feel this way, I adopt a fake persona that I hope others will see (or that they will at least pretend to see, because I pretend to see the fake persona they put forward).

We live in a world where all the photos of models in magazines are Photo-shopped to perfection, where there’s a special model for hands, and another for backs and another for legs.  Where there are body doubles for actresses in Hollywood for those close-up shots or for the action or dance scenes – each one showing a perfection that perhaps the actress doesn’t actually have.

Boasting in weakness goes so against the way the world operates today. We don’t boast to our peers about our weaknesses or in a job interview. Typically, when we’re asked to focus on our weaknesses in an interview, we are trained to say – “Well, I would say that I’m stubborn, and I just don’t give up until I’ve finished the project that I’m working on to successful completion.”  or “I care too much about my work, and don’t have a good work-life balance.” – or whatever we think the perfect answer to the question is.

In our conversations with our friends, we don’t say, “Hey! Turns out I’m really bad at empathy and I’m totally self-centered. Isn’t that great?”

So, let’s each take a moment to reflect – what is your greatest weakness? What are you truly ashamed of?

  • I’m self-centered, frigid, insensitive and withdrawn;
  • I speak too loudly and sometimes have inappropriate social awareness;
  • I hate confrontation and so don’t deal with issues in a timely manner;
  • I don’t take criticism well;
  • I shut down and reject others;
  • I ride rough-shod over other people’s feelings in order to get what I want;
  • I can’t handle change and am stuck in a rut;
  • I take things personally;
  • I can’t say no and am always overloaded;
  • I’m condescending and treat others badly;
  • I have poor leadership skills;
  • I manipulate others;
  • I hold on to hurt feelings and dwell on them;
  • I overreact  …

Each one of us has something that we try to hide and pretend isn’t there. And if it’s a habit that we’re trying to break or a type of reaction that we know is wrong, whatever you do, don’t label it as “SIN”, so passé!  No one “sins” anymore… No one is a “sinner”.

Let me put it this way – the Bible says if you know what is right and you don’t do it, it’s sin – so, when you’re on that diet for your diabetes and you know you shouldn’t eat that chocolate bar and ice cream, that’s sin – not necessarily for someone else, but for you.  Because you know that it’s bad for you!  And yet you insist…

For how many of you, has ignoring and trying to hide this weakness, bad habit or character flaw actually worked?  As much as we may hate it, ignoring our weakness doesn’t make them go away. How many of you notice a character flaw in another person and say nothing, because you’re polite?  You see someone faking it and you go along with the charade, because you want them to go along with your charade?  They say there’s “nothing wrong” and you say “okay”, because it’s the easy way out.

If I took the time to actually ask, and they answered me honestly, I might have to do something about it!  I might then have to care for this person later, and ask how they are doing again… and then hear the truthful answer!  And it’s so much easier to just accept the “nothing wrong” and “okay” and carry on as if nothing had happened.

But that’s not who we are supposed to be!  We’re not supposed to be shallow and callous people, living on a surface, pretending that the weaknesses don’t exist.

When I don’t have enough love in my life, God reminds me that God is LOVE – it’s unlimited! I may be frigid and uncaring, but when I’m filled with God’s love there’s more than enough to go around!  I can be filled to overflowing – because God created me to be His vessel.  It doesn’t matter how much love I have, the question is “how much love does God have?”And so, it is when I can truly say “this is my weakness” that I allow God to shine through!  When I finally accept – “this is how I am”, I’m wonderfully and perfectly made, and God just wants to shine through all the cracks in my character, then I can truly boast in my weakness.

When I don’t have enough patience, God reminds me that He is PATIENCE – unlimited…

When I am filled with anger, God reminds me that He is goodness and kindness… unlimited…

I would invite all of you, during our coffee time after the service, to take a moment and share with someone your weakness, (yes, that one that you are SO ashamed of) and how God can shine through you, in spite of yourself!