Declaring for God

During Lent & Easter we will be paying attention to some of the Psalms. Today, (March 11, Lent 3) we look at Psalm 19

This is a beautifully structured psalm.

Everything about creation speaks of God.

The Psalmist (who may or may not be David) tells us that every day

when the sun rises and blasts the earth

we see a sign of what God has done and is doing

The core of the psalm

Then at the heart of the psalm we are given some teaching about the Torah..the Law

Remember that the Law is

not about the instructions, the rules, the legislation & laws

but about how we order and live our lives

In fact the psalm tells us about the nature of the law

It is indeed Law-this wholistic way of life

it is decrees- what is declared to be true

Love your neighbour as yourself, forgive without end

it is precepts or principles and structures…take up your cross, those who want to lead must also serve, don’t lay up for yourself treasure on earth but in heaven, and

there are certainly commandments – we know for example about the 10 commandments ..don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, worship only God

& there are ordinances. Human society has rules and laws…don’t move your neighbours fence posts!

But perhaps of interest is this expression..

The Fear of the Lord…not about being frightened of God’s ways

but rather understanding that we are human and God is God

so often in the scriptures we see that we get into trouble

when we get this wrong.

While we see this is the Bible

let’s not imagine  that we don’t do this!

The Reward

We read that living like this brings reward

We are REVIVED, we become WISE, we are filled withg REJOICING, we are ENLIGHTENED, and this is how we know PURITY and RIGHTEOUSNESS

A pretty impressive list of rewards and benefits

Better than wealth

sweeter than honey!

The Benefits

What this wonderful psalm tells us is the benefit of all this

is an understanding about how to live our life well

to be kept away from error and the trouble of our enemies

and keeps us living well and innocently

There is a deep prayer that the way we live, pray and work will be acceptable

It is the invitation to build our life on the rock which is God

and to know God’s salvation and hope for our life.

May your words, your law, and my thoughts and meditations

build me on my Rock and my Redeemer

--------------------------

Take time to sit outside and enjoy the weather?

•                Give thanks to God for the beauty of creation

How can I live a better life?

•                It’s not about rules, it’s about the way we live.

•                What one thing could I do this week to better express the call to live righteously, obediently, faithfully. 

Core faith

Readings for Sunday 11th March 2012, Third Sunday in Lent: Exodus 20:1-17;Psalm 19;1Cor 1:18-25; John 2:13-22
While there is a lot of traditional reading in the scriptural reflections
the law of the Lord is perfect reviving the soul....The Ten Commandments....Stop making my Father's house market place....God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdomThere is in all the readings a serious confrontation
of our complacency
and lack of faith.
There is here an invitation to re-imagine
our relationship with God.
Is this, we might ask, what God is asking each one of us to do right now?
Both as individuals and as a parish, perhaps even as a nation, and as a world.
One of the things that saddens me about elections
and political processes
is that we settle for considerably less than this.
Each time we assent to the doctrine
"Politics is the art of the possible!"
We are letting go of idealism and imagination.
Where, I want to ask, is the vision, the optimism, the hope?
And we so often settle for second best.


The Ten Commandments

Despite the fact that we often look at the Old Testament
in a negative way
and claim for ourselves
a superior "New" Testament.
We miss two important points:
1. We fail to see that the covenant of promise
which God makes with us
as summarised in the Ten Commandments
is a radical departure
from what had always been and what we somehow imagine
is the way of the world.
They set before us
a God who is personal
that is, he is "I" not "It"
who calls us not into some supernatural cabal
but into personal relationship.
God is not a power to be harnessed
for our own benefit
like some sort of witchcraft or magic
but rather an invitation to live life
in a powerful and holy way
which is what we are intended for.
What ever "ism" we may choose to use as a god
to run our life: captitalism, racism, sexism,
nationalism, materialism
God will not simply submit to being a sort of "guiding principle"
which some how imbues these other gods o with power
God stands aside from that,
transcends that
challenges and ultimately defeats
all these other gods.
The God of the Sabbath shouts out loudly
against being simply "useful"
and reminds us that God is interpreted
in God's own terms
and cannot simply be packaged.
"As God", one commentator puts it, "refuses to be 'useful'"
so the social commandments remind us,
"our human counterparts are not objects and commodities to be used"(Brueggeman in Texts for Preaching)
This is radical and important stuff!

The Cross
What Paul reminds us is that the Cross continues this tradition
of confronting us with the need to be rightly-oriented to God.
We so easily get it wrong.
Our energies are spent in money-changing,
instead of God-nurturing.
This critique is at the heart of Paul's message.
Everything we do is to be seen
through the truth of the message of the cross.
The Cross says God is not aloof from pain and suffering,
and that love is not about hearts and chocolates
but about death, forgiveness, and pain.

We don't get this. We want it to be otherwise.
So Paul is pretty blunt.
This is foolishness and a stumbling block.
It is what binds Christians together,
and also what sets us apart.

What to do?
This week you may like to take time
to be with God
and to open up your cross-life to him.
If you are not sure about what this means
then ask God to help you understand it more.
As you reflect on your life
ask yourself the question
"How does the Cross speak to me about this?"
My sickness, my grief.....My lifestyle, my sin
What is God seeking to draw from me at this time?
How might I respond?

Lord make sense of suffering and pain for me
Lord help me to know more of what it means
to stand at the Cross
and to boast only in that.
Lord let me love you more

Sticking to faith

During Lent & Easter we will be paying attention to some of the Psalms. Today, (March 4, Lent 2) we look at Psalm 22:23-30

We live charmed lives here in Australia

Many of our woes are imaginary,

we have good healthcare, good  food

a justice system that works.

Many people in the world,

and throughout history have been denied

what we take to be

basic rights.

These things are not perfect, but pretty good for most of us.

Our relationship with God is often caricatured  and characterized as fanciful and unrealistic.

It often seem to me this is superficial

and is done by people who do not understand

that we try to approach God,

we struggle with the religious

in order that we may understand life

and ourselves.

As St Augustine says (see last week)

our prayer to God is

Let me know you, that I may know myself

This Psalm that we look at today is an important one.

Psalm 22  , it is noted is quoted more often in the New Testament than any other Psalm

Principally, we hear Jesus  speaking it

from the cross

My God, my God  why have you forsaken me

and we hear other heart-wrenching stuff

“I cry out but you do not answer…I am attacked on every side by mad cows, lions and dogs”

This resonates with me. I feel like this sometimes

As though God is not there, as though my enemies are winning and I am losing.

This is is real human stuff

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me

And the section we read today

invites us to move beyond this.

All the woe is true

but there is more to it than that

(this is what Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens don’t get….I don’t want to belittle their scepticism, but I do want to suggest that to people of faith like you and me

there might be more here than meets the eye

Let us not be trite,

Christian faith is not about escaping the harsh realities of the world

But rather trusting that there is more in the promises of God

than the mind alone can comprehend.

So the Psalmist says:

Trust the promises of God.

What is happening to Jesus on the Cross at the greatest moment of despair

is that at the point when ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING

is stripped away

there is and only GOD!

This is really hard!

Yet it is true.

We are invited to remember

the promises of God are true

Trust God!!!

Praise the Lord!

he does not despise those who are at the bottom of the pile

(he calls them the poor and the afflicted)

Let’s hear….God doesn’t  despise you…or me

We often feel like things are not working

but we are invited to trust.

What is God promising to you:

Security, healing, hope

There is also a greater promise…..

that if we trust this process

…faith in God rather than trust in humanity

…will spread to the rest of humanity, throughout and into the world

Psalm 22: 23-30

You who fear the Lord, praise him!
  

 All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
   

stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! 
For he did not despise or abhor
   

the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me,
   

but heard when I cried to him.


From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
   

my vows I will pay before those who fear him. 
The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
   

those who seek him shall praise the Lord.
   

May your hearts live for ever!


All the ends of the earth shall remember
   

and turn to the Lord;
and all the families of the nations
   

shall worship before him. 


For dominion belongs to the Lord,
   

and he rules over the nations.


To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
   

before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
   

and I shall live for him. 


Posterity will serve him;
   

future generations will be told about the Lord

Singing our hearts out

During Lent & Easter we will be paying attention to some of the Psalms. Today, (February 26, Lent 1) we look at Psalm 25

When I was a very young boy

I used to sing on my way home from school

as I came home down the back lane 

I would sing all sorts of things

at the top of my voice.

And I did that

until one of our neighbours

said to my mother

“I love to hear Stephen singing his heart out”

Being 8 or 9 I never did it again!

When we think about the Psalms

we know of course that they are songs

and that they are prayers, and poems.

What we are trying to do

is get in touch with our heart.

In this world that is not always easy to do.

8 year old boys  may have difficulty

when confronted with their own emotionalism.

Men can be rather like too.

But probably all of us are so affected.

What is really happening in our hearts.

So this Psalm begins:

To you Lord I lift up my soul.

It is an attitude of openness to God.

St Augustine reminds us that when we worship, when we pray

when we come to God

We are not so much trying to tell God what we want

but allowing God to show us who we are

and what is going on in our life.

St Augustine says:

Noverin te, noverim me

Let me know you, that I may know myself

And so this Psalm begins with that expression of trust

I do trust you, God,

to deal properly with me.

The Psalm lists some the things that which probably

and properly concern us:

our enemies, our shame, God’s will, the truth

our past, what is right…and God’s promise

What does the Psalmist say about these areas of deep concern…

Make me to know your ways, teach me your paths

The key to this is not solving problems

but rather to allow God   to show us “God’s way”, “the truth”

(One looks at the present political machinations

and recognises what happens when we think

we know what’s best, and the depth of the heart)

This is the deep song of our heart.

Some of it is joy, and some of it is lament.

But the key lies in opening it up to God.

Don’t stop singing.

I was pleased when S got married

that when she was telling me why D thought

our family was strange

“You sing at each other all the time!”

I notice he does it now too!

The promise in this Psalm is that God is merciful, kind and loving

That God is faithful to his promise to us.

So we don’t need to be frightened of what God might do or want to do

All things are working together for good.

God does not want us to perish but have eternal life

The way that God is leading is the way we need to go.

We don’t always get it,

but faith enables us to trust God.

Because God (unlike you and me and a Gillard or a Rudd)

is good and upright.

Psalm 25 1-10

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. 


O my God, in you I trust;
   

do not let me be put to shame;
   

do not let my enemies exult over me. 


Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;
   

let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.


Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
   

teach me your paths. 


Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
   

for you are the God of my salvation;
   

for you I wait all day long.


Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love,
   

for they have been from of old. 


Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
   

according to your steadfast love remember me,
   

for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!


Good and upright is the Lord;
   

therefore he instructs sinners in the way. 


He leads the humble in what is right,
   

and teaches the humble his way. 


All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
   

for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.