21 Lent 2

LENT 2

John 3:1-17 (Sermon 2: “Salvage: the Business of Lent”

Genesis 12: 1-4 (Sermon 1: “Faith is a wonderful trip”)

Romans 4: 1-5 & 13-17

Psalm 121

PREPARATION

The saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

And also with you

We have come here, not because we have all the answers

but because Christ Jesus has made us scholars in his school.

We have come, not because we are better than others

but because we know that God does not reject sinners.

We have come, not because our lives always run smoothly

`but because by faith we walk together towards a promised land.

We are here to worship a God who never wearies

and to praise a Saviour who is always optimistic.

Whether we have arrived here today

eagerly or languidly,

joyfully or disconsolately

our trust is in God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our help comes from the God

who made heaven and earth.

God will save you from all evil;

God will sustain your life.

The Lord will be with us

in our going out and our coming in,

from this day forward and for evermore.

PRAYER

Loving God, we thank you that for all who walk by faith there is always light for those who truly want to see, and enough bread for those who want to be profoundly nourished. In this wayside chapel, please stabilise our faith, and enlarge our love. May we who pause to worship you here, be happy in serving you as we encourage our fellow pilgrims on the long road ahead. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen!!

CONFESSION AND FORGIVENESS

With quiet confidence in the grace and quiet power of God, let us confess our sins and accept renewal.

Let us pray.

God our Holy Friend, we admit to each other and to you, that we are creatures in whom good and evil are unevenly entwined.

Sometimes we set out to do what seems good, only to later discover that we have been manipulated by evil from within us.

At other times we have been afraid of our weakness, yet have achieved far better than we expected.

Sometimes we have relied on our education and worldly wisdom, only to find out how foolish we really are.

At other times we have trembled at our own ignorance, yet have acted in far wiser ways than we thought possible.

Some times we have pretended to be thoughtful and altruistic, yet in fact we have sought nothing but self interest.

At other times we have been appalled at our inveterate selfishness, yet have managed to treat others fairly and kindly.

God our Holy Friend, we place in your hands the tangled web that is our lives. By your relentless and patient grace in Christ, forgive and remove all that is sinful, untwist that which is tangled, free that which is knotted, mend that which is broken, and bring balance and harmony into our experience. In the name of Christ Jesus our Saviour,

Amen!

FORGIVENESS

We have not been born to condemnation but to salvation. In Christ there is forgiveness and healing for all who are ready to seek, and knock, and ask for grace. In his name I declare to you: Your sins are forgiven!

Thanks be to God!

PRAYER FOR CHILDREN

Dear God,

help us to trust you every day,

so that worry may not get its claws into us,

nor fears rule our prayers or our actions.

Just let us trust you, trust you, trust you,

and then trust you yet again.

In Jesus’ name we make this prayer.

Amen!

PSALM 121

When I look up at the ancient mountains

their huge strength steadies my trembling.

The strength of God who spun the galaxies

and shaped this planet our home.

You can never stumble out of God’s care,

for this Lover never falls asleep.

The One who looks after you is awake,

always alert to the children’s cries.

Your God utterly cares for you,

closer than your right hand.

Even the fiery sun will not harm you,

nor the face of the moon beguile you.

God will keep you going in the hard times,

treasuring your inmost being.

Whenever you leave for work in the morning,

or return home tired at evening,

Your God will be always there for you,

this very day and forever.

Slightly amended from “Australian Psalms” page 81

Ó B D Prewer & Open Book Publishers

NEW BIRTH

Birth is never easy,

not for the baby,

certainly not for mother.

Birth is a travail

of blood and tears,

a pain-joy like no other.

Birth is an ending

of speechless darkness

and unrealised limitation.

Birth is a beginning

of the new world

and the songs of liberation

Birth is not possible

without the gift

of profound maternal pain

Yet it’s not our doing

but the Spirit’s blessing

as free as springtime rain.

© B.D. Prewer 2001

COLLECT

God of Jesus, wonder-full Friend, open the shutters of our lives that the Wind may flow through. Resuscitate us. Regenerate our precious likeness to God which is becomes deformed by the glittering trivia of this egotistical age. Lure us out of both arrogance and apathy. Let us be willing to bear the pangs of rebirth, not counting the cost. Bring us out of the dark night into the light and joy of your kingdom. For your love’s sake. Amen!

SERMON 1: FAITH IS A WONDERFUL TRIP

Genesis 12: 1-4

Romans 4: 1-5 & 13-17

Faith is a puzzle to many.

One way of understanding faith is to use the example of Abraham, a patriarch honoured by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. [One might hope that with such a common hero shared by three great religions, we might be friendly with one another. Tragically it is not so. However, that tragedy is not the theme of this sermon. Rather my theme is that of faith.]

The apostle Paul is fond of using Abraham as an archetype of faith. So is the writer of the letter to the Hebrews. Today I will, like a small child trying to tread in the footsteps of a parent, attempt to follow their example.

SOME DISTORTIONS

There is much misunderstanding and distortion surrounding the idea of faith. You will have encountered them, and so have I. For many people faith is a kind of magic by which we can bend the world to our wants. Here are a few such distortions. I repeat: what follows are gross distortions!

Faith is the secret force that will compel your children to become Christians? If the children of Christian parents spurn the church, it is considered to be because those parents did not have sufficient faith.

Faith is all you need to save a shaky marriage. Forget self analysis. Forget looking elsewhere for help. No person who has faith need resort to marriage counselling.

Faith is the antidote to all kinds of illness. Throw away your pills or crutches and live by faith and all will be well with you and those you love. If a family member suffers from asthma, cancer, depression or schizophrenia, it is because there is lack of faith.

Faith will enable you to be prosperous and successful. This is openly preached and privately practised. You will hear it boldly from the lips of some of the television evangelists (so called). I have also heard it less openly when attempting to counsel certain parishioners.

Faith will enable you to avoid accidents and natural disasters. You will be safe from cyclone and flood, fire and road trauma. I recall one lay preacher who regularly drove a long way on a most dangerous road to lead worship. He covered the distance in less time than any other driver. As he put it: “I have faith that I’m on the Lord’s business, and so I put my foot to the floor and drive like Yehu! Nothing can harm me.”

Faith means being able to go on mission for the Lord without any stipend. Much is sometimes made of those who take no salary but exist on the gifts of “those whose hearts are moved to give.” Let it be frankly said that most of these “faith missioners” make sure that a widest possible range of Christian friends know about their situation. Let it be sadly said that while a few without ‘good connections’ struggle to exist, some end up with a real income from twice to ten times that of any ordinary priest or pastor.

One of the sad results of the propagation of distorted notions of faith, are the casualties that are caused by it. There are numerous ordinary people, caught up in disaster and deprivation, who added to their already heavy load, bear a burden of guilt and despondency. They blame themselves for “lack of faith”. If I sound somewhat impatient when talking about the false ideas of faith, it is because I have spent much of my life trying to encourage and rehabilitate people who have suffered much from the cruelty of those who boast of their superior “faith.”

There are more distortions than these few I have mentioned today. I have discharged a little of my frustration, and I hope lifted a some of the burden from a few hearts. Let us now move on to think positively about faith.

FAITH IS A TRIP

If we take Abraham as an example, then faith is a lomng trip, a journey. And when we talk about Abraham, don’t forget Sarah. Sarah is the heroine of the story. Abraham would have achieved nothing without her, yet sometimes he treated her shamefully. Together with their flocks and tents they set off into the unknown.

To their neighbours they were complete fools. To their wider families, deluded fanatics. To the scholars of that highly cultured centre of Ur, Abraham and Sarah were country hicks with neither the brains nor the education to separate truth from fantasy.

But Abraham and Sarah went on the trip of faith.

And what did they have to go by? Nothing but this conviction that God was saying to them:

“Go from your country, and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation........ and by you all the families of the world shall be blessed.”

Faith was putting themselves into the hands of God, willing to go on a journey into the unknown, wherever God would lead them.

Faith was trusting God against the anxiety of uncertainty. There would be many difficulties. The troubles would not magically fade away, mistakes would be made, there would be moments when faith would seem extremely fragile in a rough existence. The promise that they would be the forebears of a great nation must at times have seemed like a ridiculous dream. At times they would doubt and misread the signs of God’s will. But they kept on the journey and reached the promised land.

They went by faith and in time, a very long time (for Abraham and Sarah would not live to see it) they did become a great nation and through them all was world received the great blessing Christ Jesus.

It’s very similar in the Gospels. Faith is leaving lesser things behind and going on a wonderful, though at times dangerous, trip with Jesus of Nazareth. The faith of the disciples was brittle and flawed, but they journeyed with Jesus. The future was not clear, but they believed it would one day become clear.

For the disciples faith started with a journey, faith ebbed and flowed on the journey, and it was shaped and enlarged on the journey. Their faith trip would take them into the dark chasm of the valley of the shadow of death and even through its darkness and tears, that same valley would become a highway of hope.

None of them were saved from misunderstanding, abuse and suffering. They did not become popular and prosperous. In time they had to face situations worse than their imagining, and confront powerful people and forces that once would have filled them with dread. But as they journeyed on in faith they found the strength and wisdom necessary for each challenge and each trial.

As they travelled they discovered that although good times came, like going downhill on a smooth path in calm, sunny weather, faith actually grew more on the uphill climbs, and when storms roared into their faces.

THAT’S HOW IT IS TODAY

I do not believe things have altered. Faith is going on a wonderful trip with Christ Jesus, not certain where it will lead us, but sure that in Christ’s company things will work together for good.

If we stay put until we have all the answers, we will never have faith. If we refuse to move until we have constructed for ourselves a neat understanding of Jesus, or an adequate definition of God, then we will allow life to slip through our fingers without ever finding faith. It is by stepping out on the road with that little, scrappy yet precious faith that we do possess, that we will find the greater faith for which we all long.

Sometimes in Sunday School the children sing a quirky little song “Faith is like a muscle.” Its theme is that if you use it, it grows. If you don’t use it, you lose it. When I first heard that song, my pompous, adult mind snorted: “Humph! What a banal, trivial little piece of religious nonsense.” But the more I thought about it the more I realised the writer had caught something profound in a most simple image. Repentant, I now salute the writer.

THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS CLEAR

I want to emphasise that the route of this trip is not always clear. We come to hard country and have nasty falls. Often we wonder whether we are even still on the right road. Well I certainly do wonder, don’t you? But we keep on stretching ahead believing that there is a purpose and value in every step we take.

From time to time my wife and I have done some modest bush walking. There are times, especially in the more barren highland country, out on button-grass plains, when we wonder whether we are our right track, or maybe lost on a kangaroo trail. Have we made the right decisions? Are we heading towards success or disappointment? But when we ascend the next rise and stop for a rest, we look back and see how definite was the path, winding its way across the plains, on which we tramped in faith.

For me the life of faith has been like that. By the grace of Christ I have kept going even when I wonder whether I have lost the faith (some would say ‘lost the plot’) I once had. And as I look back, and see how wonderfully Christ has led me by faith. I confess to you that my faith is still fragile, but still travelling with Christ on the road; I believe things will work themselves through to a bright conclusion beyond my achieving.

John Henry Newman, that remarkable, sensitive, convert to the Catholic Church in the 19th century, in a time of grave questioning and difficult decisions, wrote the hymn we know as “Lead kindly Light” A few generations on, my soul still resonates with his words:

So long your power has blest me

Sure it still with lead me on.

O’er moor and crag and torrent

Till the night is done.

Like Abraham and Sarah, our faith is a trip into a new future that God has in store for us. Like the disciples, we share the journey with the Spirit of Christ Jesus, who opens the Scriptures to us as we walk along the road.

SERMON 2: SALVAGE: THE BUSINESS OF LENT

John 3:17

God is not interested in condemnation and destruction. God is intent on salvage and reconstruction.

“For God did not send his Son into the world in order to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” John 3: 17

I see it, the Christian church started out very much aware of this wonderful good news. However, often on the journey through the centuries it has often lost the Gospel under the detritus of legalism and judgment.

Wearisome laws and duties and penances (penances both priest imposed or self imposed!) have often supplanted liberty. Anxiety and fear have ousted joy and confidence in the abundant grace of God to cover all our sins and bring us into the life which is abundant.

Legalistic and judgmental religion is a disaster. It is not being true to Christ but is in fact a denial of his mission on earth.

“For God did not send his Son into the world in order to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” John 3: 17

REPENTANCE AND DISCIPLINE

There are indeed disciplines to learn as one follows Christ through the uneven landscape of this twenty first century. There are time s for rebuke and radical self assessment. There are situations where to be faithful and true involves suffering.

I would be both a fool to myself and a false shepherd to you of I gave the impression that evil did not matter, or that our sins are irrelevant peccadillos in the sight of God. Evil is a vast contamination of humanity, our sins alienate us from happiness and perpetuate much human misery.

Traditionally Lent has been used as a time for repentance and renewal.

It is reasonable and faithful to God when Lent has been so observed as a time for putting our bridle on our desires, a time for a radical spiritual check up. It is fruitful when Lent is grasped as an opportunity for aligning ourselves with the determined faith of Christ Jesus as he steadfastly made his way towards Jerusalem and the horrible cost he was to pay for his trust in God.

Repentance is a painful but wonderfully healing process, self discipline with Christ holds joys which rampant self indulgence can never equal. A flabby Christianity can be much more of a daily burden than the freely-welcomed disciplines of a well honed faith.

ON THE POSITIVE SIDE

However, when disciplines and penitence are prescribed, and become religious duties. When condemnation and punishment take an upper hand. When anxiety and fear are allowed to either sneak into our souls, or stomp like storm troopers into our religion and dispossess us of peace and joy, then things have gone horribly wrong.

The Gospel is much better than that. Underwriting all else is the salvaging love of God, whose passion it is that not even one the children of earth should perish.

“For God did not send his Son into the world in order to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” John 3: 17

Our trust is not in whether we have repented enough, or fulfilled our Christian obligations enough, but on the pure, unadulterated love of God. Gods grace is always the foundation of faith. And when that foundation is in place, anxiety and fear of failure, lose their power over us. God is our secure place.

As the Psalm for today says:

“My help comes from the Lord

who made heaven and earth.

God will not let you foot be moved.

He who keeps you will not slumber.

RESCUE AND HEALING

“For God did not send his Son into the world in order to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” John 3: 17

Saved? The word salvation is widely used in our expression of Christian faith.

I like to remember that originally its meaning included both rescue and healing. The rescue bit is most important. Jesus came on a rescue mission for the whole human race. He comes to rescue us from evil and its grim consequences. The word salvage is spot on... But the healing side is just as important. The word salve, an unguent or healing ointment, comes from the same root.

Jesus is the greatest salvage and salve expert of all time.

He did not come to some people saying: “You a lot are a useless heap of trash. You are not worth saving.” Nor did he say to others, “Maybe there is hope for you if you if pull your socks up, and do this list of moral and religious duties each day.” Jesus came with a free, liberating love for all. That is basic. As John tells us

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

The whole world is the focus of God’s unlimited, inclusive love.

Salvage and healing are primary. Salvage and healing are Jesus’ thing! Not condemnation.

Face up to Lenten disciplines by all means. But even more, let it be a season when we allow God in Christ Jesus to continue his salvage and healing work in us.

THANKSGIVING

We thank you, living God, for the gift of faith.

For the faith of simple people who in the midst of uncertainties walk with a quiet dignity.

For people of high IQ and authority, yet who by childlike faith walk humbly with their God.

. For some with many doubts who nevertheless commit themselves to the small faith they do hold.

For those tentative souls who in a crisis discover their faith is larger than they thought.

For kindly folk who never seem to waver or question, yet who do not deride those of shaky faith.

For those special members of the church who have been your agents in increasing our faith.

We thank you most of all for your holy Son, Jesus;

for the courage of his faith which always worked in perfect harmony with his love

and who through his faithfulness has won for us a place in your eternal glory

Blessed are you, Giver of every good and perfect gift.

Amen!

FOR OTHERS

It is a blessing to have others praying for us. It is also a blessing to when we pray for others.

Let us bring our prayers to God.

God of infinite wisdom and intimate friendship, we ask that we may not squander opportunities either for increased faith or larger service of our fellows. Please send the regenerating breath of the Spirit to those for whom we now pray.

To the very old and infirm, who fear that they are no longer of any use to friend, neighbour,

or even to their God, send your Holy Spirit: