How do we know that we are loved?

Readings for The Second Sunday in Lent, 20th March 2011 can be taken from Genesis 12:1-4a Psalm 121 Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 John 3:1-17. [ Matthew 17:1-9..(if not used two weeks ago) features in the older lectionary]



During this early part of Lent we focus on the need to REPENT.
Christians talk about this a lot.
Turning away from sin,
asking forgiveness
saying sorry: to God and to those we have sinned against.
It is an important idea.
More than an idea, it is something that needs to happen,
we all know this

We could make many observations
and no doubt will.
I want today, however,
to just put together this idea
with what the Bible readings offer us,
because today the Scriptures are filled with hope
and we have the most famous bible verse
for Anglicans, and indeed all Christians, which reminds us of this

God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son
so that everyone who believes in him
may not perish but have eternal life
John 3:16

These words that we know so well
contain in a nutshell
all that is good, true, hopeful and profound
about what God is doing in our lives and the world.
At the heart of it
we are reminded that our God is the God who LOVES
that everything is done out of love, because of love
in order that we might be loved and that we might love better.

Jesus invites Nicodemus to be 'born again from above'.

This process of being "born again"
is difficult for Nicodemus (and us) to understand.
What is interesting about it
is that although we often see ourselves
as passive receivers of God's grace
of this 'being born again'
[that is, we sit back and God does it to us]
there is more force in it than that
"You must be born again", says Jesus.
We have to submit to it, to desire it, to want it!
Repentance is like that
it requires that we invite its cooperation
that we want to repent
we want to be born again.

It will not just happen.
we need to invite cooperation
we need to decide that we are going to make this happen.

This is not neat and tidy,
and maybe we would like it to be more so
but that is what sin, repentance, prejudice and reconciliation
are like.
They are not black and white
but grey and less grey,
grey and greyer.

And the mystery of reconciliation, being born again,
repentance
is not so much bought and sold
as entered into
and lived out.
It is this that Abram is invited into
when God says:

Set out from your country. to a new land that I will show you
I will bless you , and in you all the earth will be blessed

This great message of hope and promise
is the journey of faith
which we are called to as individuals
but now also as a nation.
But it does not
and will not
just happen.
We have to set out and invite it.
We have to be born again
We have to repent.

This week

• Where does God call you to make a new beginning
• -----by rejecting what you have done wrong in the past (repentance)
• -----by opening yourself to the Spirit of God (being born again)
• -----by embracing a new spirit in your life (reconciliation)
• Is there one thing I can do this week to make something happen to unfold God's working in my life?

Free at last

Readings for Sunday 27th June the 5th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8 in the season of the year

• 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 and Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20 •
• 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21 and Psalm 16 •
• Galatians 5:1, 13-25 •
• Luke 9:51-62

It is for freedom that we have been set free
this inviting gambit that Paul sets out at the beginning of the 5th chapter of the letter to the Church in Galatia
is deceptively simple.
But it is worth clinging on to.
Most of us find it slips away all too easily.
It is not so much that we are enslaved
or locked up in prison
or even that we find our rights curtailed ny the State
(although all those things can be true)
but rather that we actually surrender our freedom.
This idea is perhaps graphically illustrated in a person like Nelson Mandela
who was imprisoned (as we know) for political reasons in apartheid ridden South Africa
What ever we may make of Mr Mandela's particular cause,
it is his decision whilst in jail that he would no longer carry the burden of imprisonment
that points us to the reality of this truth of the Gospel.

It is for freedom that we have been set free.

Mandela came to realise that as long as he hung on to the bitterness and hatred
of his captors
that the rocks and stones that he was being required to smash
were indeed smashing him.
The prime example of this sort of attitude is Jesus himself
who could have condemned those who condemned him
and justifiably

Yet he steadfastly refuses to do.
We hear Jesus saying....Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.

The key
It is for freedom that we have been set free.
This seems to be a key to understanding
how we lose our freedom
and become diminished as persons.
We lose sight of what we are doing.
Nelson Mandela regained sight of what needed to happen
and reclaimed his freedom.
But look at those apostles in those little vignettes today
Realising that they have been given power by Jesus
.....when they face opposition from people who disagree
their response is ....Should we use our power to zap them?
Jesus will not be sucked into this sort of vortex.

or to those enthusiasts caught up in the thrill of the moment
who want to throw everything to the wind
and make grand gestures.
Jesus says.....True freedom comes not from grand gestures
leaving home, making loud proclamation,
fine sounding phrases
But True freedom comes when
realising the consequences
you embrace the future
and the difficulties.
When faced with challenge and barrier
to those things we have found fundamental
instead of turning round and backing off
we keep our shoulder to the wheel
and press on.

True freedom,
and it is for freedom that we have been set free
will have consequences.
it requires commitment
it requires that we not give it away

it will change our hearts
and grow the fruit of the Spirit
(this indeed will be a test of whether or not we are on track)
So much of what we hear as 'gospel'
does not seem to foster: patience, goodness, kindness, self-control, faithfulness, gentleness

which are the hall marks of true freedom.

Some ideas, then, to explore this week

Where is God calling me to be free?
Have I allowed myself to be enslaved by hanging on to attitudes of bitterness and hatred that far from satisfying me are actually destroying me?
How do I need to open myself to the ministry of reconciliation which might set me free for this?

Talk to Jesus about one area of your life where he is calling you to be free?
What do you need to do to begin today?

I once was lost

Readings for the 4th Sunday in Lent, March 14th, 2010. Joshua 5:9-12, Psalm 32 2 Corinthians 5:16-21,Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

God's unremitting action towards us is to bring about reconciliation.
To draw us closer
To unite us to each other.
In a world that is at times harsh and difficult
we turn to God
because God is already there showing us the way back to wholeness.
The Hebrew Scripture readings through Lent remind us
that people are slow to understand this about God.
They are constantly wandering off and separating themselves from God.
This indeed is a major theme, almost from the beginning of Creation.
And God moves to bring us back.
So we read one of these accounts in the passages for this week. (Joshua 5:9-12)
The theme is familiar, and recurrent.
We are called back by God, into fellowship with God.
It is not the first time, and it will not be the last.
And we are invited into the story of Jesus, par excellence, often called
The Prodigal Son.
I always note when talking about this masterly story
that it is a story about God
rather than about the two sons.
It would be better called something like The Reconciling Father.
This Father, who is of course God, is always ready to meet us at our lowest ebb.
This is an important point to grasp.
False expectations
We often think that in order to encounter God
that we have, as it were, to be on our best behaviour
but the Bible tells us
both in the Old and New Teastaments
that it is when we are desolate
when we are empty
when we cannot of ourselves
come to God
that God comes to us.

It is when we are hanging on the cross
that we are most open to knowing God.
This isn't easy to grasp
though maybe we understand the truth of it
better than we think.
As I reflect on my encounters with God
it is precisely at these points
when I am most sure of who God is for me
and what God does.

Experience
The good thing about the parable of the Forgiving Father
or as we call it the Prodigal Son
is that we don't have much difficulty placing ourself somewhere in the scheme of things.
Whether it be as that young man who desperately runs at life
and is ravaged by it
and ends up desolate and in despair
not knowing what to do.
Or whether it be as that self-righteous one
who sees the waistrel come back after having had a whacko of a good time
and being treated as though nothing had happened.
(This is of course not a true appreciation of the situation)
Well, we often think of ourselves like that.
So we can place ourselves in the story.
And of course as we see the forgiving Father
standing on the hillside
longing for his child to return
many of us know the pain of that too.

Reconciliation played out
As the story of reconciliation is played out
we see it abounds in multi-various forms.
And we note how it happens.

1. Reconciliation happens sometimes when, often in our desperation,
we choose to act differently
The youngest son decided to put his pride to one side
and to come on home.
The opportunity thus created
the Father readily welcomes him back.
But the Father could not do so unless the son provided him
with the opportunity

Is there something in our life that needs us to pay
attention and create opportunity for reconciliation to happen?

It may be as simple as going to see someone,
or ringing, or saying sorry.

2.Reconciliation happens when we make ourselves open for it to happen
That Father stands on that hillside day after day and longs for the son to come home.
This is an image of God, of course, but it is also something of a pattern for us to follow.
Are we ready to let reconciliation happen
when it will happen?
So often we want people to stew in their own misery (and perhaps we want this for ourselves)
we feel hurt and rejected
and often even the prospect of reconciling
seems difficult.
Will we be opening ourselves to more hurt?
will we be rejected once again?
will the reconciliation be short-lived?
will we be exploited?

And yet the Father stands waiting day after day.
In those places in our life where we know there is a need for healing, restoration
for reconciliation
Are we prepared to let it happen?
Can we put aside our own hurt
and allow the greater drama to transpire?

3. Reconciliation is always wider than we imagine
and entices us to greater reconciliation than we immediately conceptualise.
This story is not just about the father and the Prodigal
it is also about the Father and the older son
and the older brother and the younger brother.
Again we resonate in this story
because this is often close to our experience.
Our sibling relationships are filled with fear and jealousy
doubt and insecurity.
I am ever grateful and mindful of the fact that my own parents
tried as hard as they could
to love each one of their children
and not to allow us to say in that childish way
"Love me more!"
The older son is in need of reconciliation
He cannot bear this brother

Hear the bitterness of the words:
"This son of yours..." he says to his father
and the father has to remind him
"This your brother was lost but now is found, was dead but is now alive"
The father, too, I suspect
and the older brother need to be reconciled
Does the father hear the older son's great hurt
at having to stay at home
it is easy to blame him as a caricature
but we can just allow that there is always more going on
and that reconciliation is very much a two way street.

This week

Where is God pointing you to be reconciled?
Where are the places in your
life where we have to say:
This has gone on long enough! Things need to change.

Pray carefully for:
The courage to act differently,

to move away from bitterness towards reconciliation.
Seek to deliberately construct opportunities for openness and healing.
Always be on the lookout for more from God than we asked for or imagined

JESUS, you are more for us than we imagine or deserve

Grant me the courage to live differently
give me opportunity and desire to be made whole
let me live expansively in your Spirit
rather than narrowly in my smallness
for you are my Hope
you are my Joy
you are my Life

Life together

Readings for Sunday 23, 7th September are: Exodus 12:1-14 (or Ezekiel 33:7-11)Psalm 149 (or Psalm 119:33-40 ) Romans 13:8-14 Matthew 18:15-20

What a lot of people don't get about Christianity

is that it is about living together

How do humans live with God, and how do they live with each other?

While there is no doubt that religion can seem to be remote and ritualistic, this dimension only makes sense when it connects to life

Nowhere is this truer than in the Eucharist.

 As we gather together to worship and share Bread and Wine we are recognising that good experience of God

Is as fundamental as the food and drink we share

That God is present to us in the ordinary stuff of life

So we expect that that the key stuff that we talk about

Should not only just sound good in theory it should be practical in application

Matthew’s advice about how to deal with disputes

Is sound and practical.

It emphasises discretion and forgiveness. 

It has about it mutuality and care

What else would we expect?

Apart form anything else it also says we should try.

A lot of reconciliation doesn’t happen because we can’t be bothered.

We would rather ignore conflict 

Than be reconciled.

Pride, embarrassment, arrogance, wilfulness

All stand in the way.

Christian principles suggest

That we should at least try

It won’t always (or ever) be easy

But we are called to try, to engage seriously

In the practical implementation of the gospel

This week

• Where do need prompting to be reconciled 
  
• What do I need to do? What precautions/supports are there that need to be applied?
  
• Are my strategies genuinely kind, patient, forgiving and loving?
  

IF I FORGET LORD

THAT I AM NO CALLED TO BE SELF-RIGHTEOUS

THEN GENTLY PROMPT ME.

ALWAYS ENCOURAGE ME TO BE HUMBLE AND KIND

FORGIVING AND LOVING

And much fish

This Sunday, 22nd April is the Third of Easter and the readings are Acts 9:1-6, (7-20); Psalm 30; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19

There is a confluence of feast days this week, St George's Day (which is important to some of my parishioners!) on April 23 (also my mother-in laws birthday!) ANZAC Day (important in Australia as a commemoration of the First War) and St Mark's Day both of these latter on April 25.

I have written recently about some aspects of this week's gospel narrative (here)

There is in this passage a mixture of the historical and the symbolical
this is not to denigrate either of these important aspect of literary style.
Quite to the contrary, they rather work together
to give us a more complete picture.
John's gospel always seems to offer a richness
which is worth pondering on as there is usually more there than meets the eye.

There are two simple things immediately apparent
The first is (as noted in my earlier commentary)
that John is providing the logical development and conclusion
to the story of Peter's betrayal.
Peter, who has betrayed Jesus
not once but three times
is given the opportunity to make it up
....not once but three times.
At the very least, this shows the way God deals with us
not just matter of factly
but with care and consideration
attending to the depth of the restoration
that is needed
and not just going through the motions, however thorough.

There is also an abundance of material flowing out of John's pen (or quill I suppose)
which is providing the closure of his treatise on the gift of eternal life.

We see being concluded in these final chapters of John
what is posited in the opening chapters
that the Word made flesh
is drawing people
in their human lives into the relationship with God
we called abundant and eternal life.

The mystical fish that are caught...153...
sometimes taken to be all the nations of the world
a sign of the universality of this eternal life
that is being offered:

God so loves the world
not just a select handful of initiates
or one tiny little nation

we sometimes miss some of this important symbolism.

But if we bring the two together
we recognise that nor is it just about understanding the mystery of faith
it is struggling with how this is worked out in our lives.
It is not secret mystical knowledge - Gnosis
It is the fleshliness of our lives
it's the emotional trauma we get into
because of failure, weakness, betrayal

This is the world in which the Divine Word has been made flesh.

The very ground in which God's salvation will be worked out
is not mysticism
it is life.
Not that we should treat this lightly
or even assume that we understand it terribly well.
We often muck it up.
Or run away from it.
We need to plummet its depths,
with Jesus for sure
and encounter the woundedness of the risen Christ
as we also open our own woundedness up to him..

This week
Where is God inviting me to be deeper?
Where do I need to allow Christ to meet me and restore my life?
Can I pray for courage to attend to the most difficult depths and to allow Jesus to bring eternal life to me there?

Lost and found

Readings for the 4th Sunday in Lent, March 18th, 2007. Joshua 5:9-12, Psalm 32 2 Corinthians 5:16-21,Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

God's unremitting action towards us is to bring about reconciliation.
To draw us closer to himself
To unite us to each other.
In a world that is at times harsh and difficult
we turn to God
because God is already there showing us the way back to wholeness.
The Hebrew Scripture readings through Lent remind us that people are slow to understand this about God.
They are constantly wandering off and separating themselves from God.
This indeed is a major theme, almost from the beginning of Creation.
And God moves to bring us back.
So we read one of these accounts in the passages for this week. (Joshua 5:9-12)
The theme is familiar, and recurrent.
We are called back by God, into fellowship with God.
It is not the first time, and it will not be the last.
And we are invited into the story of Jesus, par excellence, often called
The Prodigal Son.
I always note when talking about this masterly story
that it is a story about God
rather than about the two sons.
It would be better called something like The Reconciling Father.
This Father, who is of course God, is always ready to meet us at our lowest ebb.
This is an important point to grasp.
False expectations
We often think that in order to encounter God
that we have, as it were, to be on our best behaviour
but the Bible tells us
both in the Old and New Teastaments
that it is when we are desolate
when we are empty
when we cannot of ourselves
come to God
that God comes to us.
It is when we are hanging on the cross
that we are most open to knowing God.
This isn't easy to grasp
though maybe we understand the truth of it
better than we think.
As I reflect on my encounters with God
it is precisely at these points
when I am most sure of who God is for me
and what God does.

Experience
The good thing about the parable of the Forgiving Father
or as we call it the Prodigal Son
is that we don't have much difficulty placing ourself somewhere in the scheme of things.
Whether it be as that young man who desperately runs at life
and is ravaged by it
and ends up desolate and in despair
not knowing what to do.
Or whether it be as that self-righteous one
who sees the waistrel come back after having had a whacko of a good time
and being treated as though nothing had happened.
(This is of course not a true appreciation of the situation)
Well, we often think of ourselves like that.
So we can place ourselves in the story.
And of course as we see the forgiving Father
standing on the hillside
longing for his child to return
many of us know the pain of that too.

Reconciliation played out
As the story of reconciliation is played out
we see it abound in multi-various forms.
And we note how it happens.

1. Reconciliation happens sometimes when, often in our desperation,
we choose to act differently
The Son decided to put his pride to one side
and to come on home.
The opportunity thus created
the Father readily welcomes him back.
But the Father could not do so unless the son provided him
with the opportunity
Is there something in our life that needs us to pay attention
and create opportunity for reconciliation to happen?
It may be as simple as going to see someone,
or ringing, or saying sorry.

2.Reconciliation happens when we make ourselves open for it to happen
That Father stands on that hillside day after day and longs for the son to come home.
This is an image of God, of course, but it is also something of a pattern for us to follow.
Are we ready to let reconciliation happen
when it will happen?
So often we want people to stew in their own misery (and perhaps we want this for ourselves)
we feel hurt and rejected
and often even the prospect of reconciling
seems difficult.
Will we be opening ourselves to more hurt
will we be rejected once again
will the reconciliation be short-lived
will we be exploited?

And yet the Father stands waiting day after day.
In those places in our life where we know there is a need for healing, restoration
for reconciliation
Are we prepared to let it happen?
Can we put aside our own hurt
and allow the greater drama to transpire?

3. Reconciliation is always wider than we imagine
and entices us to greater reconciliation than we immediately conceptualise.
This story is not just about the father and the Prodigal
it is also about the Father and the Older Son
and the Older brother and the younger brother.
Again we resonate in this story
because this is often close to our experience.
Our sibling relationship are filled with fear and jealousy
doubt and insecurity.
I am ever mindful of the fact that my own parents tried as hard as they could
to love each one of their children
and not to allow us to say in that childish way
"Love me more!"
The older son is in ned of reconciliation
He cannot bear this brother
Hear the bitterness of the words:
"This son of yours..." he says to his father
and the father has to remind him
"This your brother was lost but now is found, was dead but is now alive"
The father, too, I suspect
and the older brother need to be reconciled
Does the father hear the older son's great hurt
at having to stay at home
it is easy to blame him as a caricature
but we can just allow that there is always more going on
and that reconciliation is very much a two way street.

This week
Where is God pointing you to be reconciled?
Where are the places in your life where we have to say:
This has gone on long enough! Things need to change.

Pray carefully for:
The courage to act differently, to move away from bitterness towards reconciliation.
Seek to deliberately construct opportunities for openness and healing.
Always be on the lookout for more from God than we asked for or imagined

JESUS, you are more for us than we imagine or deserve

Grant me the courage to live differently
give me opportunity and desire to be made whole
let me live expansively in your Spirit
rather than narrowly in my smallness
for you are my Hope
you are my Joy
you are my Life