Please join us to find a place of prayer and rest in a busy week. From intimacy in prayer God is able to do many things.
Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives May you never give up praying. When you pray, may you keep alert and be thankful. Pray that together we may make the message of the mystery of Christ as clear as possible. Amen (Based on Colossians 3 and 4)
I don’t know about you, but for me the story of Abraham and Isaac takes on a much gentler tone in what we have this morning; the servant of Abraham goes gently to find Isaac a wife. Sarah has died and Isaac mourns the death of his mother for a number of years. The servant reports that for this reason he has gone to find a wife for his master’s son. Abraham has been greatly blessed and all his wealth falls to Isaac his only heir. He has come to see if there is a suitable young woman to be given in marriage to Isaac. Abraham’s servant clearly has a faith and a trust in the Yahweh, the LORD. He asks the LORD that a young woman would be provided in a manner of his choosing, it talks about him speaking this in his heart asking the LORD and Rebekah fulfilling his request. His prayer is answered in the coming out and hospitality of Rebekah. The scripture recounts the blessing promised Rebekah and the consent of Rebekah to go. She was asked if she would leave her household and become the wife of Isaac and she consented.
The scripture then recounts the seeming melancholy of Isaac walking in the field on his own in the evening. Then seeing one another, there is the acceptance of Isaac of Rebekah as his wife, and the taking of Rebekah into his mother’s tent. Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. Rebekah was a comfort to him. Genesis 2 states that the way of men should be, a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Sarah never got to see, as we’ve noted before, the fulfilment of the promise in her son Isaac. Hagar did. Ishmael fulfilled the requirements of the law in terms of taking a wife and prospered. Isaac prospered to repeat the sins of his father Abraham and Rebekah, the folly of Sarah. Read on!
Isaac seems to be a detached individual, walking in the field on his own in the evening. But maybe that’s just me. My heart says that having survived the trauma of his father trying to kill him, he was profoundly affected and maudlin. But who knows? There is much to trouble us in our separation by history from this story and it is hard to see its value to us now as scripture. We must take from it what we can and trust the truth in it that God is good and accommodates Isaac’s folly as we search for Christ in its telling. Many have seen Isaac as a type for Christ and note that he remains in the land, prospers and is the longest lived of the Patriarchs. God also does not change his name.
And then the psalm equally distant from us in history and in some ways troubling but a psalm we might interpret for the Church, the Church being the daughter here, “O daughter, consider and incline your ear. Forget your people and your father’s house. “
As the church, we’ve been called; called from sin into forgiveness, the old has passed away and we live in the newness of grace; we have left our father’s house and cling to the King. We are the Church because of our repentance, our turning away from our old lives. The king sees this and desires our beauty.
“O daughter of Tyre seek your favour with gifts; the riches of the people with all kinds of wealth,” speaks to us I think of the inclusion of the Gentiles into the church. Also the psalm speaks to us of the hiddenness of the glory of the church in that the princess is decked in her chamber with gold woven robes. Her glory is for the king; it’s a concealed beauty. And then it says,”… in the place of ancestors you o king shall have sons. You will make them princes in all the earth.”
This is the promise, the provision, the increase that will be the Church. And we know that the Church will be celebrated in all generations, its purpose, to bring praise and glory to God. Maybe this interpretation is a stretch but, in our time, and in our place what are we to make of it as scripture? We are to search the scriptures and find Christ, to find testimonies of Christ, his incarnation, life death and resurrection (John 5:39“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.” Jesus says. And in his resurrection, Jesus taught, Luke 24:25-26… ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiahshould suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’)
In Romans, I see a rhetorical exploration of the human condition, the human struggle. It talks to us of our conscience, talks to us of the word of God speaking within us, talks to us of the light within each and every person that guides and directs us, holds us to account. It talks to us about the law, how the law is good.
And then it talks to us about the counter to the law within us, saying how the desire to do the good lies close at hand but not the ability. Having started off saying, I do not understand my own actions it ends up saying, wretched person that I am, talks about the inmost self, delighting in the law; talks about another law being at war with the law of my mind; of knowing the truth and yet not being able to act according to the truth. It talks about the struggle, the struggle of humanity to do good and the examination of the law that causes us to know guilt and shame. All this human effort is not good news, it is good but leaves the individual bereft, lost, confused by the contradictions in themselves, the very contradictions we find in Genesis. The contradictions we find in today’s stories of forced adoptions of single parent children up to the 1970s in the UK where evil was done by some in the name of good, yet not all acted for evil intent, but the outcomes were the same. In this case we choose not to allow for the distance of history we have decided that it never was right.
The good news is that we’re delivered from the inner turmoil through Jesus Christ who brings peace and makes sense of all the mess, by naming the power of sin and taking it to the cross, defeating death. The answer for each of us is gained through keeping a short account in Christ, listening to our hearts, not in our ability to name our sins and reform ourselves through penance. Any solution we as people think we have come up with becomes a tyranny, a lie and kills us; death reigns again. The LORD speaks directly into our hearts, you are a new creation in Christ.
In Christ we are rescued and perfected, saved from our own self-improvement, our own atoning despair. And the peace we come to know by giving up self-help is the peace of Christ who says to us, “Come to me. All you who are weary and are carrying a heavy burden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
The yoke being the discipline of trusting in the work of God alone, the way of Christ, and the burden being the truth of Christ that we live and find to be a place of still waters and green pastures. It’s freedom. It’s freedom from the oppression of the law, it’s grace.
What leads up to this saying of Jesus are sayings that tell us that it’s hard to accept this good news especially if we are invested in the old ways and not the message of grace. We don’t really know what we want when we allow the ways of the world to cloud our judgement. We have to undo our knowing and rest in God the perfector of our souls, walking in gentleness and humility as he did and loving one another as he loved us. We need to listen and trust even to our own loss.
The passage says, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We wailed and you did not mourn.” Jesus contrasts his teachings with John the Baptist’s way of austerity and highlights the criticism he’s received for being a drunkard; he speaks to me of the hiddenness of this message of grace, the hiddenness that we saw in the psalm, which is the actual beauty of the Church. This beauty can only be seen from within, and recognised by those who walk the same path.
The work is a hidden one, made visible in the life we lead but not always apparent and a source of much trouble. It is a cause for us to delight and is to be enjoyed despite this, knowing that we are saved from strife. Our saviour is humble and our saviour is gentle. The tyranny of the law has been overcome in him and we are called into the abundance of grace, freed from slavery to sin. Through turning to Jesus, every part of our lives is redeemed, piece by piece. Our gospel is good news; in our stumbling we grow, in our taking up of the cross and in hardship our character develops as we endure, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Francesco Cozza, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Genesis 21:8-21 Psalm 86:1-10 16-17 Romans 6:1-11 Matthew 10:24-39
Psalm 86 says; For you, O Lord are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you. Further; Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant; save the child of your maidservant.
God is steadfast and compassionate. He is to be trusted and he stands with us. We know this daily in the lifegiving presence of Jesus. In his accommodation of us in our trespasses, the peace of forgiving and being forgiven.
In Abraham, we see the story of God making good the failings of Abraham and Sarah. Hagar was property, abused and used to bear a child for Abraham and Sarah, before the promised child Isaac was born, after the promise of children when God give new names to Abraham and Sarah.
Yet God accommodates Abraham’s lack of trust in this story and honours the child of Hagar, Ishmael. He would become a nation.
Sarah’s hateful jealousy drove Abraham to send Hagar and the child Ishmael into the desert to die. Abraham trusted the voice of God as he would when that same voice would ask him to also kill Isaac.
Hagar learned to trust God as the God who provides. God spoke to her and the promise of Abraham became hers too.
Ishmael was spared the abandonment of Abraham as Isaac would be spared his knife by the Angel of the Lord who spoke from heaven. Hagar was given water to save her son, Abraham a lamb in exchange for the sacrifice of Isaac.
Hagar would see her son married. Sarah died before Isaac was married to Rebecca. Rebecca was barren. And the story continues, the cycle of deceit and God’s blessing.
God is steadfast in his purpose, only good.
Show me a sign of favour the Psalm says, Hager was favoured. God in his ways is to be trusted to be good. Genesis shows us people are not. Despite this God makes good the fickleness of the human heart.
In Romans 6, we have the good news of Jesus, the seed of Abraham, the fulfilment of the promised blessing to Abraham.
Romans 6 bears reading again and pondering. Abraham was enslaved to sin but reconned righteous by God. We were enslaved to sin, freed now to walk in newness of life.
Our faith is that Christ’s death is our death. Christ’s resurrection is our resurrection. Why? Only death can separate us from the slavery and dominion of sin. In Christ we have died. In the resurrected Christ, death no longer has dominion over Christ as it did in his life. All die except for the exceptional few taken up into God’s presence. He carried his full humanity into death though he could have commanded legions of angels to save him. Death could not hold him who was fully God and knows no death. In his resurrection, Jesus is revealed as fully God.
This Jesus who was crucified, died once and for all, raised by the glory of God, to live to God. We are called to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ.
The power of this message is anticipated in Matthew by Jesus.
This is not an easy way. Jesus’ death was cruel and his life an offense to the authorities and powers that took him to his death, to the cross.
The glory of the light of the resurrection expresses to the authorities their weakness and exposes the principalities and powers for what they are, vanquished. They work their way in humanity exercising dominion yet in Christ we are freed from that dominion. Look around. Take note. Name the powers. You may be subject to their wiles, but you are free from their power.
There is nothing they conspire to do Christ will not expose through the lives of his servants even to death.
Truly the way of Christ makes us vulnerable and is dangerous for us. But death is defeated.
The voice of God that speaks to us in our hearts brings us to our death and the new life we gain turns the darkness to light; the whisper into a proclamation.
Death is judged and evil ends in total destruction of the person, body, and soul. This is to be feared; our loss of humanity.
God feels every suffering of the creation he has formed, even the loss of the sparrow’s life, and knows us deeply, even to the number of hairs on our head. He is with us and for us.
How are we to acknowledge God in the way Jesus asks us to when our very lives might be lost as a result as we expose the works of darkness, the violence and pride of the system and the power of family alliances: the corruption of status.
We are not promised peace but the sword as everyone turns against us. The cross is a tool of the state to punish and rule by fear and we are not to fear it. We are to embrace it. This is no platitude but a serious call to acknowledge God. This is not a comfortable gospel. We pledge our allegiance to Christ, Jesus our only hope and reject the system.
Do not fear, the system may cause us to loss of status, separation from family and a bleak future. The miracle is, in this we find life. We are free. Free indeed.
Song Sparrow from Birds of America (1827) by John James Audubon (1785 – 1851), etched by Robert Havell (1793 – 1878). The original Birds of America is the most expensive printed book in the world and a truly awe-inspiring classic.
Today we are able to declare with the psalmist, “The counsel of the Lord stands forever. The thoughts of his heart to all generations.” And why? Because we are followers of Jesus, Jesus people, a community of Jesus formed for his glory. Together let us build one another up, encourage one another and admonish one another. In the Church, the body of Christ, local and catholic, the poor are fed, the naked clothed, prisoners are visited, and all have a job of work to do. Are we doing enough for the persecuted?
The Genesis story reassures us that the thoughts of God’s heart are to bless all the families of the world. Abraham is immersed in the practice of his world, visiting oak groves and setting up altars. But his passion is the promise that he has received. He has heard God say, his family is to grow. He has no children and he is old. His wife is barren. Still he trusts. This trust is what he puts weight on and binds him to the Lord.
The Psalmist teaches us “…the word of the Lord is upright and all his works done in faithfulness.”
Whatever we hear from God, do we trust in his faithfulness to fulfil it? Sometimes in the depth of our despair, experiences of injustice and ill health, often all we can do is trust God’s promise. And all that can be done for us is that in the company of others, in the care of others, God is made present, by a silent sitting together.
The cry of our hearts is why? Why must you suffer? Why is there so much pain? The comfort of God, our God who by his spirit dwells in us and stands with us, can only be, and is, sensed as hope. Hope based on a trust in God’s word spoken to us. As a follower of Jesus, Jesus is the answer, the way, the truth and the life. It may be a while before we come to know this.
In Romans 4, Paul seeks to answer the question, can we trust that we are redeemed? He asks in the face of division, in the face of pain, in the midst of persecution and suffering? Can we trust that we are set free from the slavery of oppression, entering into the glory of God as promised. In the face of the works of principalities and powers can we trust? Can we trust that we are cleansed of all guilt and shame? The psalmist says, the Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He frustrates the plans of the people. Is this true?
All miss the mark? The world is organised around this certainty and the certainty of evil.
The nations work by creating laws. Religion works through laws. Communities work with laws. The law is a fetor, a binding of peoples, to make things work. The law opens our eyes to transgressions and there are consequences. The law brings wrath. This is not the way of Jesus.
We can’t put our trust in a nation, a priesthood, a system. Abraham received his promise for the world through faith, trusting in God’s grace. The people of Abraham were given the Law in Scripture, but Paul tells that this was not what made them a nation, or Abraham the father of many nations. It was faith reckoned as righteousness. If we think by rules and regulations, God’s purposes will be fulfilled, history testifies against us.
Abraham hoped against hope he would have a family with Sarah. No distrust made him waver, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised, Paul tells us.
And so Paul says, if we have heard the word that Jesus was raised for our justification, we can stand on this word fully convinced. Jesus our Lord is raised from the dead. He was handed over for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. We are redeemed by the righteousness of faith not law. This is the way of Jesus.
We are called to trust in the Jesus we hear about in the good news of Matthew, Jesus who dies, who defies convention, who saves with his body and the word that we are to love, God, our neighbour, even our enemy. Love ourselves!
Jesus sat with Matthew the tax collector and many others, transgressors of the law. He, in the face of scandal, stood with those who hoped against hope they were forgiven and restored in following Jesus. He was their physician. And then the need of a religious leader caused a commotion. He joined the unholy throng, centred around Jesus. The person he most treasured, his little daughter was dead and his trust was, Jesus could restore her to him. Lord have mercy. What he trusted was not the work of a physician. He had a hope against hope that Jesus would restore his daughter. As they walked through the throng to his home, one who had been failed by the physicians, trusted that Jesus was Messiah, the anointed one in whom was healing in his wings. She and grasped the wings of Jesus’ prayer shawl. Her faith drew the power of healing from Jesus. Jesus acknowledged her as a daughter, and drew near to the commotion around the house of the leader. Jesus took authority and in the quiet of the girl’s room, he reached down to one who was asleep in death and restored life. Jesus met her in her need. And this is the promise we are offered as followers of Jesus. One day we may sleep in death but one day we will rise with Christ to new life.
I believe we need to know we are restored today with the first fruits of this new life. I believe the need to know we are restored stirs each of our hearts. And as we trust in the face of all discouragements, that we are forgiven, our failings and falling short are healed and we grow. As we reach out to God who seemingly passes us by but notices us and names us; Jesus, who acknowledges us, respects our dignity, who takes our hand and raises us to new life, we can hope against hope that everything in our lives brings glory to God in the end.
“Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord. The people he has chosen as his heritage.” This includes the church; it includes us! Jesus forgives us. Jesus heals us. Jesus, our Lord raised from the dead, handed over to the authorities for our trespasses is raised for our justification that we might be born again and grow up. Hallelujah!
Grace and peace.
Art Work:
Wesley was born in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh into a fifth generation Christian family of Hindu and Muslim descent. He belongs to the Lucknow school of painting. His paintings reflect this influence and that of the Chughtai school of painting that flourished in India at the turn of the century. Wesley made art based on both biblical and secular themes. He used water colours, oil paintings, miniatures and wooden carvings.
Wesley’s painting “Blue Madonna” was used for the first UNICEF Christmas card, while five of his paintings were exhibited at the 1950 Holy Year Exhibition in the Vatican. He is also known for designing the funeral urn for Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes.
“The bright glow of light on the back of his shoulders directs us to the radiant countenance of Jesus. He is moving away from us but over his left shoulder he is listening to those walking at his side. In this painting the artist’s fingers took over to define his own face more closely than anywhere else in his work. This is virtually a self-portrait. The woman suffering from haemorrhage is cloaked in black. Her hand reaches tentatively towards Jesus’ shoulder and is backlighted by the brightest spot in the painting. Again, we trace the convention of light from the body of Jesus providing both the physical and the spiritual illumination and power for the scene. This time, it is the figure of the woman who absorbs the light which blocks it from the viewer. Others who are with Jesus are illumined by his light. Only the woman, who takes so much of his power into herself, is shown in dark silhouette. Jesus is surrounded by many kinds of people, all with different needs. We see a lame man with a crutch, a man wearing the brass armband of a slave and an older woman holding a sick child on her shoulder. Children of all ages edge the path and reach out to Jesus. Jesus seems to be walking into darkness but behind him the sky is gold. The canvas is incandescent with joy and life and hope.” From Frank Wesley: Exploring Faith with a Brush by Naomi Wray
We are here to listen, to discern the truth, to find a truth to live by. We stand, we listen.
In Adam I believe humanity is fallen. Each of us succumbs to sin- we fall, we get up, we learn, we grow. In life we are born into the innocence of Adam and grow up into Christ, each without exception. We miss the mark our hearts long for each day; the Light shines in the hearts of every person. There is guilt, there is shame. When we allow space for despair, it is filled by darkness, but the darkness cannot overcome the light. Every sin is an invitation to the evil one, sin sits at the door of our hearts. We pray lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.
In Christ is life and breath. In him our being finds its Alpha and its Omega, its beginning and its end. In Christ death is no more, there is no longer guilt, no longer shame as we stumble, and surely, we stumble, Jesus holds us. Jesus is Lord.
Stir in me, stir in me, Holy Spirit arise in me, new my soul rise-up in me, clean and pure and Holy, I was taught to sing.
The breath of God creates and forms. From dust we were formed and in common with all to dust we will return. This is sure.
Christ is our daily bread, given to all, broken for all, a life poured out for all. Without the drawing of God, we are lost, our humanity is dead. The Spirit needs-must invade our reasoning, invade our imagination; we dream and have visions; a vision of one body; one body birthed on a cross; one body begotten in the beginning, revealed as we listen and hear of Christ’s death resurrection and ascension into heaven. All are called into this body seated at the right hand of God.
All that has happened is that you have gathered to hear; to listen, to sense together with others a longing, a thirst. A thirst quenched in Christ. Jesus is alive, here now ascended to the Father in-the-midst of his people. You can’t follow him on your own, but he meets you as a friend. There is a hunger to gather; to be together, to know one another. Maybe we have nothing more in common.
This truth is a powerful truth revealed as we listen. No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. To proclaim Jesus is Lord brings ruin in the ways of the world; you become a target. To stand with Christ, to align with him, to make his truth our measure. How can we doubt those who declare Jesus to be Lord; numbered, marked out by their declaration; standing together in an absurd truth; an absurd utterance.
Space is created so that mighty deeds of God are proclaimed and enacted, acted upon. From the heart of God we prophecy. We know his voice and we no longer call any man our teacher. We prophecy against injustice and lies. There are all manner of manifestations of God but declaring Jesus to be Lord brings peace and love and not violence; a narrow road. God’s Spirit is given for the common good as we step out into worldly obscurity ad trash our reputations. There is one body. There is one spirit. A body breathed into life by the spirit.
The spirit rests; rests on each one of us.
The portion of Christ exceeds that of Moses; not to seventy is it given, but seventy times seventy and more, numbered in Christ, forgiven, restored, poured out.
From his people, from the Church many thirsts are quenched. The church gathers in many camps, but you can’t be the church alone; there is only one church, and we are in it together.
The church is recognised when hearts are gathered, in a death to self, a blessed poverty; a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a heart for peace: two or three who love. The church brings life and water flows for all the world’s redemption. Humbly we come and draw water from the wells of salvation, we sang, a little flock. But in Christ we are many- a host and one heart, one mind are we, revealed and scorned
Maybe in this and in our reading our hearts burned as they did for the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Maybe as you have listened to friends and engaged ideas and experiences something stirred. There are reasons and reasonings, explanations. We can analyse and form rules. But when we encounter God in bread and wine, water and breath, then we know intimately. Then we are transformed; 200 years of modern Christianity dissolve and we become church
A young man once asked me to come and speak with him. He wanted to save me from God; he wanted to confound me with his truth, show how I was deceived. I read him a poem I had written for him. It began, The god you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either.
Master Eckhart a German mystic of the 13th Century prayed, God rid me of God. This is a stage in the journey all of us must go through, maybe several times as we peel away our certainty. God finds a way, through tongues of fire, through babbling tongues. Pentecost heralds dreams and visions, sighs deeper than words that birth love, that flows out for all. As we journey from Adam to Christ all becomes poetry, we appear drunk, in the breaking of bread, in the drinking of wine.
As the poet George Herbert says in his poem Agonie, Love in that liquor sweet and most divine which my God feels as blood but I as wine. Truth is revealed.
“In that day you will say: “Give praise to the LORD, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted.”
Daily Readings from Lectionary
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