Pentecost A 19 2011

Face to Face

Introduction

 Have you ever thought about what it would be like to meet God?

There was a song I really liked last year by the band, the Fray; it was called “You Found Me”. There have been a lot of songs lately where God has crept into the secular music on the radio – but this one was really intriguing, here is how it starts:

I found God

On the corner of First and Amistad

Where the west

Was all but won

All alone

Smoking his last cigarette

I said, "Where you been?"

He said, "Ask anything".

Where were you

When everything was falling apart?

All my days

Were spent by the telephone

That never rang

And all I needed was a call

That never came

To the corner of First and Amistad

Now, the Fray are not a Christian band, they do not even seem all that religious as people by a standard definition. But this song is really deep, about how lost and alone we feel and how we all have questions we would ask God.

A Prophet like Moses

The Bible records that there has never arisen another prophet the likes of Moses – why? Because Moses spoke to God face to face; Moses actually knew God.

There are a couple of times when Moses goes up a mountain to have a chat with God and comes down all glowing and translucent; which is pretty much what is said about Jesus when he goes up the mountain and talks to God.

Moses was 120 years old – but his sight was not dim, he had all his faculties, nothing about him was aging… he simply had finished what he was set out to do by God, and so he died. It might have happened when he was 20 or 220 – it would not have mattered.

It didn’t matter because he was so in tune with God that his life was merely a reflection of God’s plans for us.

With the Kids – Keeping in Tune

The tin whistle played incorrectly causes cats to run in fear and dogs to howl in pain…

What is the difference between being in tune and out of tune?

What does it mean to be in tune with God?

Second Hand Paul

Paul once referred to himself in a very Shakespearean way as a man born out of time, a man born too late for the place he was supposed to be. He said this because more than anything else Paul felt he was born to be an apostle of Jesus.

Along the road to Damascus one day he had a vision of Jesus – he “saw” Jesus. And perhaps this did not make up for spending three years out doing ministry with him, but it changed Paul forever. In a sense, he felt he had seen God face to face.

Now, vision is another word for dream… we really don’t know what Paul saw – whether it was a conversation with Jesus, or God pointing a finger at him and like the Ghost of Marley in A Christmas Carol – but it changed Paul forever.

Before that time Paul was an arrogant religious official who persecuted people he did not agree with. After that time he wrote things like we read today – things about how much he cared for people, things that seemed genuinely humble… he really was a changed man.

The thing is this – he did not see God face to face. At least, not ion the way we are told Moses did. Paul had a different experience of God, one very like you or I do. He saw God in a dream.

I have had moments where I thought God was speaking to me; sometimes inside of me, sometimes in a dream, sometimes through circumstances or the people who are speaking to me.

I also read the stories of the faith, I go to church services, I sing hymns, I hang out with people who are religious and want to talk about their faith…

And through it all I find that I don`t actually have to meet God face to face or converse on a mountain to ‘hear’ God.

There are just moments where God shows through the ordinary things – moments that make me aware of how I should live and how much I am loved. Moments that change everything much as Paul was changed that morning on the way to Damascus.

So what is it all about?

I know we hear it a number of times – but it bears repeating. There is a simple answer as to what God would say to us if speaking face to face… In fact, Jesus summarized it:

Love God, Love neighbour, Love self.

Back in Moses day God tried a more complex set of rules – we heard them a little while ago – the Ten Commandments – which in fact were followed up by over 1000 sub clauses.

It’s a little like being a parent. When you start out you think if you regulate everything – if you create a rule for everything – you will keep them safe. Then later on you come to realize that the best you can do is hope you instilled in them the right values so that when they make their own choices, they do it in tune.

Well –here is a more mature statement from God – following all the rules will keep you safe – but so will concentrating on the basics… and at its most basic level life is about loving God enough to treat the world the way God would – it is about loving your neighbour enough to always be looking out for them and placing their needs high on a list of priorities, and it is about loving yourself in such a way that you would always try to be in tune with God’s way of living.

This is what our faith hinges on …

I have been very inspired lately by the “Occupy” movement. It seems to me in a grass roots sort of way that they are taking the more mature approach of not focusing on one demand – but of saying, life isn’t being lived the way it should be… we don’t have a society where the very basic principles Jesus talked about are honoured… so how do we get there….

Conclusion

That is for us to figure out… there are no easy answers as to how to live a mature faith – but the thing is, we have been given all we need to go out there and do it on our own.

We don’t need to see God face to face in order to get our lives lined up with God. We don’t need Jesus speaking to us at the foot of the bed in order to know what is right and good…

We just need to remember what we already know, and live it beyond these walls…

Pentecost 16 (A) 2011

Responsibility

Introduction

Anyone remember the song, “He’s got the whole world, in his hands… he’s got the whole wide world, In his hands…”?

Usually we think of that song as referring to God, I don’t know, it was written that way or something; but I want to suggest that it is really about us… we have the whole world in our hands, that is the responsibility we have been given, and more than that, the whole world is holy, it is sacred, and it is a pretty awesome responsibility…

It is also a responsibility we share… WE have the whole world in our hands…. It is not up to me, or you, but us… this is one thing we all have in common, we all need to make the world a place of love and peace and hope… and we all need to work together…

But how? I want to suggest that it is by recognizing our need to cultivate our spiritual side, and then by recognizing that we all have responsibility that has been placed on us by God.

The Ten Commandments (with Kids)

Object: A coloring book

Do you remember when you first started to learn how to color? If you were like most children, you probably coloured all over the page without staying in the lines. I imagine that some of your pictures looked a lot like this one (show picture coloured without staying in the lines). And your choice of colors probably wasn't very good either. You might have coloured the cow purple! I've never seen a purple cow, have you?

As you got older, your pictures probably looked more like this one (show a picture coloured in the lines). You began to stay in the lines and your color choices were much better too. There aren't any purple cows in this picture. This picture is much prettier than the other one, isn't it?

These pictures remind me of the way some people live their lives. God gave us the Ten Commandments to tell us the things that we should and should not do. Some people don't pay any attention to these guidelines that God has drawn for them. They just do whatever they want to do. Often their choices are not very good. They are like the child who doesn't stay inside the lines on the coloring page. They think their life is beautiful, but when God looks at it, He sees that it is just a big mess.

There are other people who read the Bible and follow God's rules. They try to stay within the guidelines that God has set. Oh, they may still get outside the lines at times, but most of the time they make pretty good choices. When God looks at their life, He is pleased.

Do you want your life to be like this one (show the messy picture) or do you want it to look like this one? (Show the pretty picture) Let's pray and ask God to help us.

Dear Lord, help us to remember that you set boundaries for us. Help us to stay within those boundaries so that our lives will be pleasing to you. Amen.

Towards the Goal

What is your spiritual resume? Have you been, to quote a Christmas tradition, Naughty or Nice?

Paul writes that he has every reason to believe that he is better than all the rest in terms of doing what God wants. His resume is filled with sacrifice, and commitment, and passion… he has singlehandedly created the church of which we all, 2,000 years later, are still a part…

But really, it counts for nothing. Really, the question is, what are you going to do next.

Perhaps more to the point, Paul seems to be saying that we should never be content, that we always need to hunger for more, to do more, to be more…

Of course, Paul only makes that point because he knows he does not have to go it alone.

I did a funeral yesterday and one of the son and laws read a gospel passage and commented on it. When I heard what he was going to talk about I had not idea what he would say – for a funeral he chose to tell the story of Jesus going to the well and meeting a Samaritan woman and confronting her about her five husbands and current boyfriend… then he goes on to offer her the living water…

I was totally unsure how he could make this into a funeral reading – but he went on to talk about the amazing love and constant invitation of God. Here was this woman, a Samaritan, and outsider, someone who was either unlucky in love or not easily satisfied… and Jesus was treating her as an equal and offering her God’s presence in her life like he would anyone else…

You see, Paul had a lot to boast about, but he knew that it really meant nothing, that we are all equal in God’s eyes, and that because of that, we all, each and every one of us, have a part to play…

The Vineyard of Violence

This is the third week in a row that the Gospel passage is about a vineyard… perhaps there is something important about this…

Most people agree that the vineyard is a stand in for the place we are asked to be, the work we are asked to do, it might even mean the whole world… and we are told stories about the rightful wages of workers in the vineyard, about God’s intention for the vineyard, and finally about how we can go off track in the vineyard…

You see, sometimes we forget that we are doing all this for the greater good. Sometimes our lives get so focused on our own needs that we would do anything to “get ahead” in the world. Sometimes we forget what our responsibilities are…

We don’t realize it anymore, but Jesus is actually quoting scripture back to the religious leaders… he is weaving together Isaiah five where God plants a vineyard and expects grapes but discovers that they have all gone wild, with Psalm 118 which talks about the people rejecting the stone but God making it the cornerstone.

It is not the pleasantest of passages, but it is a good reminder, a wakeup call to the fact that we all fall short of what is expected of us – and because of that, we might even overlook the most important things in our world.

Conclusion

The table of God is open to everyone. Sure, we are supposed to colour between the lines… but like my youngest daughter, we often get tired of that and just colour any old way we want… But this community, and the unity of God’s people, gives us courage to try again – to try and live with the responsibilities of being the agents of God in the world.

And once more, we are sent out to make a difference…