Taking our godliness seriously

Ruth and Boaz (the stylistic work of Polish-Iraeli artist Shlomo Katz see here for more)

Reading for Pentecost 23, Sunday 8th November 2009 (Proper 32) Ruth 3:1-5, 4:3-17; Psalm 127; Hebrews 9:19-28; Mark 12:38-44

There is certain profound gentleness about this week's readings.

The story of a woman who finds a genuine life partner. And who against all odds becomes the mother of a great man.

And the gentle reassurance of the woman whose generosity is seen by God; even though she gives little in "real terms" she gives everything she has in hers

and God see this

and we recognise it and so we are heartened.

In the middle of this there is something of a sterner reminder

that God abhors hypocrisy

and that there is about life the mystery of sacrifice

which tests us to the very core of who we are.

The writer to the Hebrews spells out in great detail

that sacrifice is at the core of what our relationship with God is all about.

Getting it straight

Now we need to understand that there is a common misconception about sacrifice

and that is that it is essentially about the taking away of life.

This is not necessarily or particularly so. ]

In fact if we look at the detailed instructions about sacrifice in the Hebrew scriptures ]

we see that a lot of it is not about animal slaughter at all

There are all sorts of sacrifices of grain and produce which do not involve bloodshed.

In fact if we look at the word sacri-fice

we can see that it is about making (the fice part of the word) things

sacred or holy (the sacri part of the word)

Christ died that we might be made holy

In fact the writer of Hebrews uses the idea of Christ entering into God's presence

(going into the most holy place)

so that we too might enter into that presence

Simple reflection

The story of Ruth is an interesting but gentle tale.

It seems a simple love story

yet it needs also to be read in the context of the sort of ethnic tensions

that still exist in those lands we call HOLY today.

Ruth was not a Jew she was what today we would call a Lebanese, or Syrian, perhaps even an Iraqi.

Yet her faithfulness to her Jewish mother-in-law

and her willingness to do what needed to be done

saw a simple little tale become an object lesson in the all accepting love of God.

The Jews were racked by ethnic division then as now.

And yet we read of one the greatest heroes (in backwards order)...his father was Jesse, his grandfather was Obed, who was the child not of a Jew but of a Moabitess.

David was the great grandson of an outcast.

Be careful about what you hear.

There is more than meets the eyes.

Likewise in the letter to the Hebrews

it is the call for us to be holy

and the permission to enter the closest presence of God that we need to hear.

Not just the bloody sacrifice of Christ.

So obsessed are we about guilt and sin that we fail to hear that there is cause for rejoicing.

Christ died, so that we could be close to God.

God is close, not far.

Don't push him away

Finally

A simple tale that we all know to be true .. the rich can afford to be generous

But do we also pay attention to the great warning

God is not looking for who gives the most either in real dollar terms or even proportionately.

God looks at the heart and despises hypocrisy.

The hypocrisy that judges others and fails to critique oneself.

THIS WEEK Where is God inviting me to be tolerant?

To step outside my prejudices and to be more accepting?

Where do I hold back from drawing close to God?

Is there a time and place to be quiet and listen?

Is there an opportunity to serve God through care for others?

Where in my life am I most hypocritical? Where can I change and be more honest?

Jesus-His Crucifixion

During this season we are thinking about Jesus and his life and meaning today's theme is about the crucifixion. Some readings are here:Isaiah 53:3–6Psalm 89:39–461 Peter 2:22–25Mark 15:33–39
If you want to follow the Revised Common Lectionary then readings can be found here

How might it be if we lived without the burden of sin?
What would our world be like?
So often we excuse our bad behaviour by suggesting we have no other choice,
because we are just like that
Sinful.
But what if we were not.

We present a mask, often,
because we don't like what we believe we are;
and we certainly don't want others to encounter it

What we need to realise about the Crucifixion,
is that it is about God seeing us as we really are.
We may not like it but
There is nothing about us that Jesus does not love
We often find this difficult to believe.

What we see on the cross is that
God loves us
in a way that often we cannot love ourselves.
Often our greed, our sensuality,
our passion, our self-centredness
disgust us.
We often don't love or like ourselves.
We are embarrassed and ashamed by our mistakes and our frailty
So we are often self-deceptive,
we think of ourselves as different from what we really are.
We certainly try to present an image to the world
that is not what we are.

The message of the Cross is that there is nothing about us
that God does not love.
He loves us so much
that he will not allow us
to be destroyed
by the sin and corruption
that would seek to separate us from God,
or cause us to think and believe
that we can be separated from the love of God.

This is what is happening
on the Cross
everything about is laid upon Jesus.
God's love for us is so great
that we are totally identified
with his own Son.
The net effect for us
is that everything that would separate us from God
is destroyed in the Body of Christ.
Lies, hurtfulness, shame, mistakes...
St Paul tells the Corinthian Church
that it was for this purpose that he who is without sin
Became as sin, and put sin to death in his own body.
What ever power sin might have held
before the Cross
it no longer holds.
He himself bears our sins
in his body on the cross.
so that free from sin we might live for righteousness.

What is asked us of us
is to have faith in this sacrifice.
We are free from our sin.
Put aside the self-indulgence
that we cannot escape sin
We can...through faith in Jesus.
Nothing too big, nothing too small!

God loves us so much
that we do not have to live with the burden of sin.

So let us live that way

Over the top

The readings for Sunday 25th March . Lent 5 (formerly known as Passsion Sunday) Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8

This story (John 12:1-8) in which a woman pours strong perfumed oil over Jesus, spikenard (here), always reminds me of an incident with our eldest child who one day aged 2 or three sprinkled a whole bottle of perfume over herself and through the house. The perfume was aptly name Poison

It helped me to appreciate a number of things:

• How quickly kids learn to emulate their parents without any fear of consequences.
• The difference between perfume and scent (not immediately obvious to men...other than by cost)
• And how children remind us of our stupid attachments. She was having fun...but I mindful of the cost noted how this could have been better spent on the poor!!
  

Yet is is not difficult to understand what is being said here. God is extravagant.
God pours out on us the costliest perfume there is...Jesus
And the "smell" totally fills our life and transforms us.
We can be scandalised by the waste and extravagance
but in the end...the gesture, the passion, the statement
are more important than the meanness
which we are so often given to.

This story is "over the top", extravagant, passionate...even poisonous
Because God is like that..."over the top" and passionate.
John's narrative invites us to share God's life
in the way that God shares life with us.

We use the word Passion to describe the climax of this story.
It is a word that is oft used and abused.
Our world almost uses is as a synonym for lustful.
Our "passionate" relationships
are filled with bodily heat, and risk
of daring and bravado.
Passion puts us in a place
where we usually do not like to be.
(Certainly not after the age of 30!)

As we go back to the linguistic roots
we discover that Passion
does not mean "hot steamy sex" at all
it means suffering
So this is why we refer to the stories of Jesus's arrest and crucifixion
as The Passion.

Connection
If we think this through then we understand something fairly important
about God, about our call to be like God,
and about the challenge to be passionate.
And it is that LOVE and SUFFERING
are so intimately connected
that they can't actually be separated.
If we are to Love Passionately then we will
we will Suffer.
The great theme of John's gospel
is that God Loves us
his people and his creation
so much so that he will give us a Son
who will be the total expression of his love for us
More than this, this Son
who is God's great gift
will be poured out over us, over the world, over those who believe, over humanity
with the same extravagance
that we witness in this story
of the most precious ointment
just being flung about
as if there is no tomorrow.

Do we get this?
or do we like Judas
stand back and see not the invitation to throw ourselves into life and love
and say...What a waste?

it is "a waste" certainly
but there is also a sense in which you cannot love any other way!
If you are to love
then you are to love passionately
if you love passionately then there will be pain.
This pain, this suffering
will in itself be redemptive
and open up our lives to a new way of being human.

This is risky and powerful stuff.

We need to scrutinise our own lives and relationships:
Are they passionate? Do we want them to be?
Where do we spend more energy protecting ourselves, holding back
so that we might not be hurt?
Are we afraid to share our thoughts, to discuss and admit our failures?
Can we admit weakness, say sorry, risk rejection?
If passion means suffereing then it will mean all these things.
We are not her talking about the relationships with acquaintances and people we don't really know about
this is about the relationships we want and need to work.
Do we wonder why things have gone cold, have we lost the means of being passionate,
the courage to risk being hurt or to be criticised.


This week
Where is God calling us to confront our own meanness in our human relationships? Can we open ourselves to being more passionate?

Pray for confidence to trust God's promises that through the Passion and Death of our Lord and Saviour, even though this means suffering, there is also redemption and a new way of living

JESUS, you love us passionately
as you are anointed with an extravagant gift of love
so you also anoint us with the passionate gift of your life

Grant me the courage to live passionately
give me the desire to live life as you show us how to live
let me live expansively in your Spirit
rather than narrowly in my smallness
for you are my Lover
you are my Passion
you are my Hope

Proceeding with caution

Ruth and Boaz (the stylistic work of Polish-Iraeli artist Shlomo Katz see here for more)

Reading for Pentecost 23, Sunday 12th November (Proper 32) Ruth 3:1-5, 4:3-17; Psalm 127; Hebrews 9:19-28; Mark 12:38-44

There is certain profound gentleness about this week's readings.
The story of a woman who finds a genuine life partner. And who against all odds becomes the mother of a great man.
And the gentle reassurance of the woman whose generosity is seen by God;
even though she gives little in "real terms"
she gives everything she has in hers
and God see this and we recognise it
and so we are heartened.
In the middle of this there is something of a sterner reminder
that God abhors hypocrisy
and that there is about life
the mystery of sacrifice
which tests us to the very core of who we are.
The writer to the Hebrews
spells out in great details
that sacrifice is at the core of what our relationship with God is all about.
Getting it straight
Now we need to understand that there is a common misconception about sacrifice
that it is essentially about the taking away of life.
This is not necessarily or particularly so.
In fact if we look at the detailed instructions about sacrifice
in the Hebrew scriptures
we see that a lot of it is not about animal slaughter at all
There are all sorts of sacrifices of grain and produce
which do not involve bloodshed.
In fact if we look at the word sacri-fice we can see that it is about making (the fice part of the word) things sacred or holy (the sacri part of the word)
Christ died that we might be made holy
In fact the writer of Hebrews uses the idea of Christ entering into God's presence
(going into the most holy place)
so that we too might enter into that presence
Simple reflection
The story of Ruth is an interesting but gentle tale.
It seems a simple love story
yet it needs also to be read in the context of the sort of ethnic tensions
that still exist in those lands we call HOLY today.
Ruth was not a Jew
she was what today we would call a Lebanese, or Syrian, perhaps even an Iraqi.
Yet her faithfulness to her Jewish mother-in-law
and her willingness to do what needed to be done
saw a simple little tale
become an object lesson
in the all accepting love of God.
The Jews were racked by ethnic division then as now.
And yet we read of one the greatest heroes
(in backwards order)...his father was Jesse, his grandfather was Obed, who was the child
not of a Jew but of a Moabitess.
David was the great grandson of an outcast.
Be careful about what you hear. There is more than meets the eyes.
Likewise in the letter to the Hebrews
it is the call for us to be holy
and the permission to enter the closest presence of God
that we need to hear.
Not just the bloody sacrifice of Christ.
So obsessed are we about guilt and sin
that we fail to hear that there is cause for rejoicing.
Christ died, so that we could be close to God.
God is close, not far.
Don't push him away
Finally
A simple tale that we all know to be true
.. the rich can afford to be generous
But do we also pay attention to the great warning
God is not looking for who gives the most
either in real dollar terms
or even proportionately.
God looks at the heart
and despises hypocrisy.
The hypocrisy that judges others and fais to critique oneself.

THIS WEEK
Where is God inviting me to be tolerant? To step outside my prejudices and to be more accepting?
Where do I hold back from drawing close to God? Is there a time and place to be quiet and listen? Is there an opportunity to serve God through care for others?
Where in my life am I most hypocritical? Where can I change and be more honest?