Worship Sun 30 June: Change?

Having travelled over the water to the region of the Gerasenes in last week's readings, this week, Jesus fixes his face towards Jerusalem and continues his travels.
During worship, we also took a peek into a day in the life of 'Miriam', receptionist at the 'Jerusalem Excuses Bureau' via a monologue done beautifully by Ursula B.                                   

READINGS:
Ps 16; Gal. 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

Let’s pray:
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer, Amen.
I suspect that by now most of you know I quite like movies –
because over the time I've been here as your minister,
I've tucked a variety of movies into my sermons.
One of my favourites is a childrens’ movie called ‘Up’.
The two main characters are a very grumpy old widower named Carl and a young boy called Russell, whose Dad has left his mum and started a new family.
In both cases, the characters are undergoing grief and loss,
struggling to fit into the changing world around them.
A strange friendship eventually develops between them,
as the wee laddie looks to the older man as an adopted Grandpa –
wanting love,
wanting reassurance.
Meantime, Russell reminds Carl
of the promise of youth,
of adventure,
and of the adventures he and his wife had dreamed of having together until other things got in the way.
Grudgingly, at first, the old man begins to look out for the boy,
who’s young life has been spent looking back to when his dad was still around, and wishing there was some way to impress him.
Basically, Carl and Russell are different sides of the same coin:
they need each other.

The neighbourhood that Carl lives in has changed dramatically over the years –
and he hasn’t.
In among the steel and glass skyscrapers,
his old, wooden house,
with its white picket fence,
stands as a rickety monument of resistance.
He’s lost in his memories.
He can’t move on.
This is where he’s always lived.
This is where he and his wife had lived.
Despite the best efforts of the developers
to relocate him to plusher, more comfortable,
more modern surroundings that will improve his quality of life,
his face is resolutely set to the past, looking back:
he will not move
and he will not change.
Well, that's what he thinks, until the developers change tack
and begin to make life difficult for him, after Carl accidentally injures
one of the workmen who’d damaged his lettterbox.
Deemed a public nuisance, a court order is issued ordering Carl to go to a retirement home.
Carl's determined this is not going to happen.

Going through his photo albums and reminiscing about the dreams he and his wife had,
Carl comes up with a plan.
They had always wanted to travel –
especially to South America to see the great waterfall named ‘Paradise Falls’
After a day spent shopping, he comes home.
In the quiet of the night he begins to blow up great balloons, tying them to his roof...
eventually the roof is covered in balloons;
he’s devised a control system,
he has his trusty map and compass,
and readies himself to go ‘up’ into the heavens
and on to adventure.
The old house, if it makes it, is set to land by the side of the falls,
where Carl plans to live out the rest of his life.
But of course, this is a movie, and things don’t go to plan.

Just as he cuts the last of the ropes holding the house down,
he realises wee Russell is on the porch trying to sell some cookies for the Boy Scouts.
Too late, the house rises...
up,
up,
and away:
now two of them headed for South America and the waterfall.
After many adventures,
including dealing with Dug,a very distracted dog,
they return home,
changed.
Transformed.
The old man is now able to look forward –
and so too, is the boy.
Carl is welcomed by Russell's mum into their home –
he now has a new family,
the wee boy, an adopted Grampa.
And the dog, who’s joined them for the ride home...
well, is still as distracted as ever.

The story has a happy ending –
and it’s also a story that has tears.
It’s a tale of people whose lives are initially facing the wrong way:
both Carl and Russell look back to what might have been
By the end of the story, they now look forward –
grounded in the present,
with hope for a happy future.
To get to that point, however, has not been easy.
There’s been pain, frustration, betrayal,
weird talking dogs...
it’s been costly –
there’s been a great amount of change –
but, it’s only with change that there can be transformation.
Both walk into their new-found, hard-won freedom...
and as they’ve been transformed,
so the lives of others around them also change and transform.

It is for freedom, that Christ has set us free.
‘But Lord, there’s this thing...’
‘Come and follow me,’ says Jesus.
‘But Lord, I need to just tidy up this wee matter first...’
Our gospel passage shows us Jesus:
we see his mind made up,
his face resolutely looking toward Jerusalem.
The journey will be good in places,
difficult in others,
and almost immediately,
having been begged to go away from the area of the Gerasenes last week,
Jesus is once again not made welcome by another group of Gentiles.
And, even as they travel, squabbles are breaking out among the disciples
as to who will be the greatest among them –
they’re jockeying for power,
especially James and his brother John.
And perhaps it’s these power games in play that makes them react in the way the do
to the lack of hospitality that Jesus is met with.
‘Let’s smite 'em, Lord!’
Perhaps they think this show of force will win the brownie points
in the battle for higher rankings in their group.
They’re wrong.
They’ve learnt little.
They’re rebuked soundly.
Instead of leaving death and destruction in their wake,
they choose the way of peace,
the way of love –
Jesus leads them away from the fight,
away from the old way of doing things,
the old way of understanding how power works.
For all that they follow this radical new rabbi with his radical new teachings,
James and John are still working within the old system...
they haven’t really moved on,
haven’t really changed that much...
and perhaps a little like Carl and Russell,
are, at this point,
a little bit stuck.

It’s only as Jesus remains facing forward,
making his way to Jerusalem,
to the Cross,
and to Resurrection,
that James and John along with the other followers of Jesus,
will be able to understand what freedom in Christ is:
what it really means to be a follower of Jesus,
what the joys are,
and what the cost might be.
It’s only as the wind of the Spirit blows through their lives in that upper room,
that they find that they too, can move from looking back
to facing forward –
their lives, literally, physically, turned around,
grounded in the reality of the present,
and finding the hope in their hearts once more –
looking ahead,
making plans,
working together to share the good news of God’s love,
working together to bring in God’s kingdom.
They were stuck.
Now ...they’re free in Christ
They’ve undergone pain, despair,
lived in fear,
lost much...
learnt much –
like putting aside their egos and the desire for worldly power.
And, living into that freedom,
having been transformed,
so the lives of others around them
also change and transform –
in Jerusalem,
and onwards,
outwards,
and eventually, around the world.

It is for freedom, that Christ has set us free.
‘Come and follow me,’ says Jesus.
Which way are you facing?
Are you looking back to what was,
or forward, to what could be?

Let’s pray:
Holy and Gracious God
We give you thanks for the gift of life
for the gift of your Son
for the gift of the Holy Spirit
Lead us through the trials
the suffering and sorrow
the challenges and struggles
the tired times and dark places
Lead us
with grace
with love
with peace
Fill us
with hope
with patience
with stamina
Transform us
in your image
in your Son
in your Name
Transform us
to grow
to understand
to see
Transform us
that we
can be
made whole
And in wholeness
may we be
the hands and heart of Christ,
agents of change 
and transformation in the world. 
Amen.*
                  [prayer via Terri C Pilarski]

Food for the journey: bite-sized mid-week reflections

A prayer for the week: 

Gracious Spirit, 

Inspirer of all; 

eternally breathing Life into all of creation;

endlessly giving, 

endlessly comforting...

Free me 

from all that distracts and disrupts me

that I might be still in your presence,

and to hear in the silence 

your whisper,

breathing life into my soul, 

restoring me, 

and calling me by name. 

Amen.

Worship, Sun 23 June: 'What is your name?'

READINGS/ Psalm 22.19-28; Luke 8.26-39

SERMON ‘What is your name?’

Let’s pray:
may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

I know I've shared the following story with some  of you over coffee before today, so if you've heard it, bear with me!

It was the first year of high school.
In fact, it was the first week of high school.
Out with the old uniform, in with the new;
out with the old teachers, the old classrooms,
even the old way of teaching –
in with the new:
we were to be guinea-pigs for a new way of teaching.
Everything, shiny and new –
and we were still just young enough
to be bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed and eager;
we weren’t yet quite at the ‘look bored and be cool’ phase.
We rejoiced in giggling at the name of the Head Teacher –
a long, thin, beanpole of a woman who was very, very serious:
we knew this by the way her hair was pinned in a tight, neat, dark grey bun,
and by the way her glasses perched at the tip of her nose...just ‘so’.
We discovered, in that first, fresh week,
that Mrs G. would take us for something called I.S. – Integrated Studies.
This would be taught along with a variety of other, more traditional subjects.
Compared to them, I.S. was all very...‘fluffy’.
And, in that very first lesson, Mrs G. talked about names.
‘If you had the opportunity to choose your name, what would you call yourself?’
We were 12.
Some of us hadn’t ever thought about this –
quietly content, and just plodding along wearing our name.
Others hated their given name, didn’t feel it was ‘them’
and had other names already picked out.
Some just thought the whole thing a bit silly, and just clowned around,
trying to come up with what they thought was
the silliest – or perhaps rudest – name.
But Mrs G. looked into mid-distance, thinking of her chosen name
and talked dreamily of sparkling sea,
and of crisp white sails on a trim yacht... with the name ‘Esmerelda’.
A name none of us would ever have dreamed of choosing –
a name some of us thought belonged more
to the wicked witch of the west than a yacht.
There were many giggles.
To this day, I’m not quite sure what the point of the class was:
perhaps it was about identity...
but it was all a wee bit of a loss to most of us after we heard the name ‘Esmerelda.’

‘What’s in a name?’ asks Juliet, in Romeo and Juliet.
Well, everything.
It’s often the first piece of information we receive about someone –
we first exchange names before we tend to give any other verbal information.
To offer your name is the first step in breaking down a social barrier,
it’s a part of who we are:
the most basic part of our identity.
It’s why, in some cultures, there are whole rituals around the giving of a name...
and back in the day, some even thought that to give your name to readily
was to give away some of your power –
better to keep the barriers up, than find yourself powerless.
There’s something important about a name.

Our gospel passage this morning is both about barriers and names.
It takes place immediately after the story of Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee.
It’s a story about a fearful crossing by boat –
a boat that I suspect wasn’t called ‘Esmerelda’ –
and it paints a picture of sheer terror.
Just as a wee reminder:
the disciples, most of whom are hardy fishermen and very used to travelling by boat,
are mightily afraid that this will be their time of reckoning –
the storm is too great,
and they’ll be overcome.
It’s a story about outer turmoil –
the powerful elements of nature pitted against frail humans.
In amongst the rain, and the spray of waves, there’s a lot of fear.
And then, all is calm:
the power of nature stopped with the power of a word from Jesus.
It’s an action which has the disciples asking:
‘who is this that even the wind and the waves obey him?’

So, having had this experience, filled with a mix of fear and wonder,
they make it to the other side of the Sea –
and find themselves in the territory of the Gerasenes.
They’ve crossed a boundary.
They’re in Gentile territory now.
They have barely landed,
and even as they walk on the beach feeling the sand crunch underfoot,
even as they adjust the damp clothes that remind them
of what’s happened out there on the water,
the disciples watch as a naked man almost immediately appears before Jesus.
If the storm on the Sea was, in part, about outer turmoil,
the encounter with the man as they land is very much about inner turmoil.
Here is an anguished soul.

Now, with our 21st century sensibilities and our better understanding
of medical science and the human brain, and such,
we might feel more comfortable in thinking that the man
had some kind of mental health issue than think about evil spirits.
Whether you want to go down the route -
of severe mental illness,
or demon-possession,
or whatever,
clearly, the point here is that this man is not well.
And his whole identity is consumed with this.
When Jesus asks the man’s name
the only way that the man is able to define himself
is by what it is that’s ailing him –
by what it is that is causing him to be the way he is;
by what it is that’s tormenting him.
It’s taken him over completely:
there’s so much happening within him that he’s overwhelmed.
His troubles are indeed ‘Legion’,
and he has been utterly broken.
And what I find so fascinating by the use of the name ‘Legion’ is this:
for those who lived in the ancient Roman world,
that name meant something akin to what we might think of as a ‘battalion’...
A legion was a unit of about 6 000 highly trained Roman soldiers...
an occupying army.
The man who approaches Jesus is, essentially, under occupation by his troubles.
He’s in his own personal prison
and no longer knows who he is –
no longer has his own name,
his own sense of identity...
he’s been taken over.

There’s mention of him at some point having been chained and guarded –
presumably by the townsfolk for their, and his own, safety...
but he can’t be contained –
he’s hell-bent on self-destruction
and his demons, his illness, drive him away from the safety net of human companionship.
This take over has cost him his house,
his dignity.,
his life:
it’s as if he were the walking dead –
he spends his days away from the townsfolk actually living in the tombs:
a haunting, haunted creature who lives under a brutal occupying power indeed:
‘Legion.’

From somewhere deep within,
this man who is in completely dire circumstances,
somehow knows that the man who has just got off the boat
and is walking along the beach has power –
power that he's not afraid to use.
For all the strangeness and behaviour of the troubled man,
for all that he may appear quite fearsome,
the fear here is coming not from Jesus,
but from the man who approaches him.
We assume he’s seeking help, perhaps,
given that he’s approached Jesus but, I’m not so sure.
Just as his illness has driven him away from the townsfolk,
perhaps the man is trying to drive Jesus away?
The ‘legion’ wants to keep occupying –
to stay in control, after all, of this one that they’ve reduced to almost a wild animal.

‘What’s in a name?’ asked Juliet...
Identity.
The very first thing that Jesus says to this hardly recognisable human being is:
‘What is your name?’
And by doing so, shows that he recognises that here is a person...
The question is the beginning of Jesus calling the man back to his full humanity -
To his self,
and to his identity as one who
is precious,
is of value,
and who is a beloved child of God –
whose name is known by God.

What about the pigs?
Well, so often when we hear this story, we get a little focused on the pigs...
Sure, it’s probably bad news for those
who were looking after the pigs –
they may have just lost their job,
and their boss may have just lost
a tidy source of income...
nothing to sell to the actual occupying
Romans now.
It's not such great news for the pigs, either.
But in the wider arc of the story, the pigs are a bit of a sideshow:
the main attraction is Jesus
and a mightily troubled man
restored to God,
and restored to himself.
We find him clothed.
We find him calm and in his right mind.
He sits at Jesus’ feet, no longer tormented.
Free at last.

Over time, the townsfolk have become used to the man and his strange ways.
They’ve tried to just get on the best way they could and put up with him.
When they come from the town to the beach,
after the swineherds have told their story to anyone who’ll listen,
what they see is a scene of total transformation,
and it doesn’t fill them with joy –
they’d tried to control the situation:
they’d tried to chain the man hand and foot.
They’d failed, and had resigned themselves to just trying to ignore the whole situation.
Maybe it'd go away in due time.
And now they see power –
a power they’ve never had,
a power that’s released the man,
and they are terrified.
Echoing the disciples who had been terrified in the boat,
you can almost hear them whisper:
‘Who is this who can command the spirits?’
Jesus is not welcomed with open arms –
they beg him to go...
and so he does.
And while the man asks if he can come,
he has a different calling:
instead of following Jesus as he travels with the disciples,
the man stays within his community.
He will still be a disciple.
He will spread the good news –
‘Return home and tell how much God has done for you,’ Jesus instructs him,
and so, he does:
he tells all over the town –
there’s no one who does not know what’s happened to him.
If the townsfolk thought things were awkward before,
things have just got a lot more tricky:
by staying, he is a constant reminder.
This was the wild man,
the naked guy who lived in the tombs...
and through God’s power,
here he is, restored.
Every time he goes to the village square,
every time he goes to the market,
every time he passes by the local inn,
or turns up for a community meeting,
the fact of his very being among them
is a witness to the power of God in Jesus...
of God’s power to restore,
to make whole,
to transform.

We never learn his true name,
but that doesn’t matter – God knows it...
And God knows our name.
What are the things that occupy us –
that occupy our time,
that occupy our attention,
that take hold of us in such a way
that we feel overwhelmed...
that we feel like we’ve begun to lose a sense of who we are?
Think back to Jesus.
Hear him asking:
‘What is your name?’
Hear, in that question, him calling you back to yourself –
your true self –
the one who is known by God,
and loved by God.
In amidst the strange, busy world in which we live,
listen to that voice asking you:
‘What is your name?’
and hear yourself answering:
‘Beloved,’
because you are.  Amen.

Food for the journey: bite-sized spiritual reflections

Psalm 8
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth! 
You have set your glory above the heavens. 
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger. 

When I look at your heavens, 
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established; 
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them? 

Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honour. 
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet, 
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field, 
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 

O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Here we see the Psalmist gobsmacked by God in what is a fabulous song of joy and acknowledgement the God and Creator of the universe... loves us.
Sunday was Trinity Sunday: a day where we try to fathom the mystery and magnitude of the limitless, eternal God with our finite, limits of language.
Beyond complex doctrinal formulations, let's catch hold of a little of the Psalmist's wonder at God's love.

The picture is of an ancient Celtic Christian symbol for the Trinity:
one unbroken loop with three distinct sections.
Imagine yourself in the centre of this image surrounded by the love of God:
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
How does it feel to know you are surrounded
by the love and care of God?
As you go about your week, remember that God delights in you

Worship, Sun 16 June: 'Delight!'

Trinity Sunday: a day where all sorts of examples are used to explain what really can't be fully understood, for God just won't be put into a box...
In the end, beyond all the wrestling with words,
and attempting to distil the Divine into some kind of formula, perhaps we just embrace the complexity of mystery, and the simplicity of love...
So, some thoughts on several passages from scripture.

READINGS/ Psalm 8; Proverbs 8.1-4,22-31; John 16.12-15
   
SERMON
Let’s pray: may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts,
be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

‘O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
when I consider your heavens, 
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars which you have set in place,
what are we that you are mindful of us;
that you care for us?’

The words of the psalmist, in Psalm 8,
cut to the very heart of any discussion about difficult doctrine –
especially on this Trinity Sunday.
As you hear, as you read, the words of the psalm,
what you see is someone completely gobsmacked by God:
the immensity,
the awesomeness,
the creative genius of God –
a God so amazing that,
even as the psalmist tries to fathom God’s works, God’s creation,
they’re left dumbstruck.
Even just to get a glimmer of the vast handiwork of God causes the psalmist
both to spontaneously wonder, and, to be left lost for words;
not fully able to comprehend just how incredible God is.
It’s as if the psalmist,
whose mind is just being blown away at the thought of what God has done,
can’t quite believe that this astonishing God,
so capable of flinging stars into space and arranging the planets,
should even be bothered by such a tiny, inconsequential thing...
as a human being.

The psalmist sees the God of the big –
concerned with the weighty matters of
adjusting mountain ranges,
measuring just the right depth of the seas,
ensuring the sun shines at just the right radiance,
and the moon spins properly on just the right orbit.
Harder, so much harder to see the God of the small:
the God who created forests and fjords,
lochs and leviathans playing in the sea
is the same God who created us
and, not content with just creating us
cares for us,
loves us,
and gives us a place of honour within the wonderful creation
that was spoken into being with the inspiration of the Spirit –
or, as Proverbs calls the Spirit: wisdom.
And in the act of creation we see God’s delight:
the Spirit, rejoicing in the whole world and delighting in us...
human beings.

In our gospel passage, we see God’s love in Jesus –
in the conversation he’s having with his followers:
one of the last conversations he’ll have with them.
His love is shown in the way he’s trying to prepare them for his leaving of them physically –
it’s a hard conversation,
and they’re really not in the place to hear it.
They just don’t get it,
but even so, Jesus is trying to lay the groundwork for the future:
he knows that, at this point, they’re not quite able to bear it,
to understand his teaching about this Spirit of truth who will come –
the Spirit who will come and help them understand more about God,
but still, he tries.

Unlike the disciples, as we hear, and read the passage
with our knowledge of the death and resurrection of Jesus,
we can nod and agree with him – and affirm –
that whatever Jesus says and does comes from the Father: they are one.
And so, too, with the Spirit,
who is one with both Father and the Son...
Three,
yet One.
One, yet three.
However, like so many theologians down through the ages,
we can easily get ourselves into great tangled doctrinal knots.
and, we can get so caught up in trying to untangle the knots,
that we lose sight of the wonder of God –
of the God who delights in us,
and whose care and love astonishes our psalmist.

Theology is important,
and the most important starting place for doing theology is to remember that,
for all our attempts to try to explain God,
God can’t be put into a box.
Perhaps, what we can see,
what we can understand,
is less about doctrine and more about relationship.
We’re used to the notion of Father, Son, and Spirit;
we can build on that relational aspect of God, as a helpful basis.
It was the great 5th century African theologian, Augustine of Hippo
who used love as building blocks to understand the nature of God,
for he saw that what links all Three as One is love.
God as One and then as Three seen in:
God as the one who loves,
God as the one who is beloved,
and God as love itself ...
The very core of God being love and energised by love:
a love that dwells within community,
a love that looks to the other,
a love which looks out -
generous, sharing, spreading love.
But still, it's all pretty theoretical - big ideas that are not so easy for us to grab hold of.
What's a more tangible, practical way for us to get to know the mind and nature of God?

Jesus.
For us, Jesus is love made into flesh and blood and bone -
Jesus shows us what love looks like.
As we see God through the lens of the life of Jesus,
we see relationship resembling that heavenly relationship -
not a private solitary thing but something that is lived within community, joyfully, creatively.
If we want to know what God looks like –
what God thinks,
and feels,
and wishes,
we look to Jesus who points us to love –
that is at the heart of who God is,
of why God does anything.

Recently we were talking about time: the now and not yet.
Now, we see in part:
in the fullness of God’s time, we shall see God face to face.
Now, there’s still mystery, and questions, and seeking:
then we shall know fully –
for then, we’ll be able to bear it,
having spent our lives here and now preparing,
as we learn to love and serve God,
as we follow Jesus who showed us love
and how to love...
We love God and neighbour, energised by the Spirit of love.

Beyond the great doctrinal complexity that is the Trinity –
which in the end is just a human way of beginning to try to work out God, there’s simply this:
God is love –
and lives within a divine and loving heavenly relationship – Father, Son, Spirit:
One, yet three.
Three, yet One.
God is love –
and wants to be in a loving relationship with us.
God is love –
and through the Word and by the power of the Spirit,
called the world into being.
God is love –
and in Jesus, and through the power of the Spirit,
calls us his children,
and ...
delights in us.

How astonishing that the God who made air and atoms and energy,
constellations and quasars and the entire cosmos
not only notices us,
not only loves us,
but delights in us.
Now, really, no wonder that blew the psalmist’s mind – because it certainly does mine.
As we go about our lives this week, hold on to one thing –
beyond doctrine, hold on to delight:
that God delights in you.
May that delight fill you with wonder,
may it move you to do wonderful things,
to reach out and love those who nobody wants to love;
to speak up in love for those who nobody normally sees;
may that delight cause you to stand up against injustice,
to wipe away tears from those in sorrow;
to be present when others have walked away.
May that delight give you the energy you need
to keep going,
to keep seeking,
to keep following,
to keep living and laughing, and to keep loving:
loving God, and neighbour, and yourselves,
for you do it in the name of God:
the Lover,
the Beloved,
and love...
Amen.

Food for the journey: mid-week spiritual nourishment

Sunday was Pentecost, where we remembered the birth of the Church.
We also had a pulpit swap, with the Minister heading across to Douglas Valley to share in worship
at both Douglas and Rigside churches, while Mr Bill Love, the Douglas Valley Locum and Interim Moderator came to visit with UCPC.
The readings for Sunday were: Acts 2: 1-8, 12-21; John 14: 15-21
and Mr Love's sermon was titled: 'The World set on  fire'

As we think of Pentecost, and the fresh wind of God's Spirit at work, some questions
to help your reflections and prayer....

This week, we think of God’s spirit at work in the world in new and extraordinary ways.
Allow that spirit to transform you in new and extraordinary ways.

                                          In what ways have you stopped trying new things?
This week, try to develop a new skill, or use something you are good at
to make a difference to someone else. Perhaps paint a picture, pop in to see a vulnerable friend,
bake a cake, carry out the DIY for someone who struggles, think of the opportunities that arise.

In what ways can you deepen your relationship with God, 

by seeking to use your gifts for God and for others?

Think of those gifts that you have been given by God.
How can you use them in service of church and community?
Identify ways in which you might offer yourself to service within the church and community.
Look around you: where do you see the skills gap? What is missing?
How can you help?

And, to finish, a prayer:
O God,
You are Spirit;
You are wind;
You are breath.

You meet us in the wonders of creation,
in the awe of wonderful things,
in the terror of fearful things.
You blow among the fallen leaves,
the broken branches,
the whining pain
and the whirlwinds of delight.

Your wind gently touches our brow
with comfort and caress;
your forgiveness raises us to life;
your challenge disturbs our tidy piles
and spreads opportunities before our eyes.

Gentle Spirit, breathe on us your life.
Strong Spirit, open our closed doors to your compassion;
Universal Spirit, inspire us to sing and sigh for justice;
Spirit of Jesus, teach us to walk,
to work, to pray, to live, to love,
your way.

Awaken our dreams,
expand our visions,
heal us for hope,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

written by Prof. Bill Loader, a Minister in the Uniting Church of Australia, 
and former Professor of New Testament at Murdoch University

Worship Sun 2 June: Chains and freedom - Acts 16

Sunday morning worship this week brought with it our quarterly formal Communion.

We continued to spend time with the apostle, Paul, during his stay in Philippi.
If last week, we could 'learn a lot from Lydia', and reflect on being open to God, this week we thought about freedom and chains as we encountered a female slave, a prison warder, and saw both Paul and Silas imprisoned...


Rather than one longer sermon, we had two shorter reflections.
The first, 'Prisoner 17', was a 1st person narrative looking through the eyes of a prisoner in the jail where Paul and Silas had been sent.*
The second, 'Chains and freedom', teasing out some thoughts and questions from the text.

READINGS/ Psalm 97; Acts 16.16-34

REFLECTION ‘Prisoner 17’*
The longer you stay in prison, the harder it is to keep a sense of who you are.
Every day, they try to take away a piece of you.
It starts with your name:
me, I’m ‘Prisoner 17’,
not a name, just a number to be counted,
just another body to be kept in line.
Conform to survive – that’s the message.
The harder you fight against the system,
the longer you try to remain who you are,
the more they try and break you.
It can get pretty dark in prison:
not just physical conditions –
shut away from daylight –
but there’s a darkness that seeps into the heart as time goes on;
the loss of hope, the growing despair that this is all there is,
and this is all there will be;
there’s the darkness that seeps into your soul, too...
sometimes a loss of faith,
often a growing cynicism.
Prison knocks away your softness fairly quickly –
you harden up,
toughen up,
and if you don’t,
you crack up.

When the new prisoners turned up, bets were made: who would crack first?
I had my eye on the two missionaries.
They'd been beaten black and blue.
I bet they wouldn't last the night.
But I lost my bet.
Those guys should have been groaning in agony.
The jail was buzzing with just how harsh their flogging was.
But they had a whole different way of doing time.
Where others would have crawled into a dark corner like beaten dogs,
these two somehow found the strength to sit up,
propping themselves against the stone walls, gingerly inspecting the damage.
Where others would have cursed their fate, these two just looked at each other,
shrugged their shoulders, and even managed a wee chuckle.
When they were offered drugs and alcohol to numb their pain, they smiled and shook their heads.
When the usual grub-infested prison fodder came, they gave thanks.
I’ve been in this prison for a long time, and seen most things,
but never anything like that.

As the hours dragged on, they found out my talent
for being able to get things in – or out – of the prison: all sorts of things.
Favourite food, plonk, knives, even escape tools.
Paul wanted hymn books.
Well, that was weird.
Perhaps they planned to drown out the noise of trying to dig a tunnel?
But no, not that –
they... just wanted to sing...
And they seemed oddly confident:
as if they knew something was going to happen.
Well, hard-bitten as I am, this certainly piqued my curiosity.

Even as bruised and battered as they were, my word, their singing...
there was certainly nothing wrong with their lungs,
and they didn’t seem particularly bothered about keeping us all awake –
prisoners and jailer alike, even if it might mean more beatings.
It seemed there was going to be no sleep for any of us – and the strange thing was...
I don’t actually think any of us minded.
Rough and cracked as their voices were, there was something about the singing that lifted us –
lifted our spirits,
lifted our hearts,
lifted me in such a way that I was shaken to the core –
felt whole
felt like me, not a number;
felt... that God had not abandoned me;
felt that love of God which had seemed so far away,
for far too many years...
and realised it was me who’d closed my heart;
that God had always been there, but I’d been too busy being bitter, angry, resentful –
letting all of that wrap ‘round my heart like chains.

But then I realised it wasn’t just me that was somehow shaken to the core:
the whole prison was shaking and I thought the walls would fall down.
And so they did.
Stones came loose,
and so did shackles.
And still the singing.
We sat there, all of us prisoners, transfixed, listening to Paul and Silas...
even though we could have run away.

In the aftermath of the wall collapse there was a stillness –
peaceful, calm.
And then the sound of worried, hurried footsteps:
the jailer.
Odd.
I actually had some sympathy for him:
he was terrified.
If we’d escaped, he’d have been done for.
He saw the fallen wall,
fell on his knees,
pulled out his knife –
better he die here, than be publicly executed.
And in the dim light of that place,
among the scattered stones and loosened shackles,
Paul’s voice rang out once more, not in song, but in sympathy:
letting the jailer know that we were all still here –
that he wouldn’t get in trouble.
That night, they saved his life.
He washed their wounds,
wanted to hear more about the sort of god
who’d knock down prison walls at the sound of a song.
That night, they saved his life,
and his soul,
and saved his family too.

As for me:
I’m not sure why I didn’t run away –
would have been nice to see the sun and sky,
to feel the grass underfoot,
to taste olives and drink wine.
But, I’d seen the outside world –
and it wasn’t a touch on the freedom of Paul and Silas.
I didn’t run away because...
I wanted what they had.

We're all in our little prisons –
addiction, prejudice, loneliness, resentment, or whatever it may be.
That night my prison door was open.
Maybe I could find redemption,
even if it meant someone going through a whole lot of muck to bring it to me.
In the meantime, they seemed to chat a lot about some guy called Jesus;
sounded like a cool story...
maybe I'll see if I can find out more*
[*rewritten, based on a piece from 'Roots'/ 'The Philippi Redemption']

REFLECTION 2 ‘Chains and freedom’
Last week, our intrepid disciples arrived in Philippi.
There, they met Lydia, a wealthy merchant
who was looking for more depth,
more meaning to life...
looking to fill what seemed to be a God-shaped hole in her heart.
We heard how Paul shared the story of Jesus with her,
we heard her response:
a giant ‘yes’ to God – and then sharing the story of Jesus with her household;
of all of them being baptised – that great symbol of welcome into God’s family.
And, after all that, we heard how Lydia invited the disciples to come and stay at her house:
providing welcome and hospitality to those who had been strangers,
but who were now brothers in faith – spiritual family.
And, as we heard earlier in our reading, the disciples are still in Philippi.
'The adventures of the apostles continue in this wonderfully detailed story 
of exorcism and outrage, 
mob scenes and courtroom drama, 
liberation and celebration, 
with Paul and Silas at the centre of the action, 
and God very busy at work everywhere.'  [Kate Matthews]

If I had to squeeze this episode from Acts into a nutshell,
then the phrase that comes to mind is ‘chains and freedom’.
There’s the unnamed slave girl released from a demonic spirit in the name of Jesus;
there’s a jailer liberated from fear;
and there’s Paul and Silas, already spiritually free
but here, set free from imprisonment in the aftermath caused
by the slave girl’s owners, who create a stooshie as they realise
that the woman they were exploiting is no longer going to be so useful to them.

It’s a dramatic story that can leave us with as many questions as it does answers.
For instance:
What happened to the slave girl afterwards?
Sure, we know that Paul has released her from her inner shackles –
free in mind and spirit.
But, she’s still the property of the slave owners.
And, perhaps, in a more difficult situation, in one sense,
given that she now no longer is going to make as much money.
We, as listeners to the story, have to live with this odd ambiguity:
knowing that, at this time, slavery was real,
and, that Paul doesn’t use this moment as some kind of great teaching opportunity
to demonstrate the evils of slavery as an institution.

Moving on from this troubling part of the story in Acts, another question pops up.
Thinking now of Paul and Silas in prison,
and of the walls tumbling down at the sounds of their hymns of praise,
we meet a jailer so terrified of his bosses,
that he’d rather kill himself than face them.
‘What must I do to be saved?’
is a very pertinent question indeed:
''Why would a mistake on one’s job be seen as so horrific that he would invite death, 
rather than face the consequences or shame of admitting to a mistake? 
Is this kind of pressure self-imposed or a product of a hostile political environment? 
It’s clear that the shadow of the empire looms large here; 
Rome is mentioned numerous times in Acts 16.'  [Jennifer Kaalund]
It seems that jailor, too, needed salvation.
Had the prisoners escaped, he would have faced execution.
But it’s the relief of realising that the prisoners haven’t escaped
that creates a spiritual dimension to his question of what to do in order to be saved.
What must he do?
Simply: believe in Jesus.
The story of Jesus is shared with the jailer, and, as with Lydia and her household,
they come to faith,
they are baptised,
and, as the verse 34 states:
they are filled with joy
because they had come to believe in God.
Joy.
Because to know God is to know true freedom –
the freedom that, even though in prison, Paul and Silas knew –
knew so well that they were able, in the face of dire circumstances,
to sing songs of praise to God.

There are so many things that can chain us:
literally, as in the ongoing blight that is human trafficking.
But also, spiritually and mentally...
fear can take hold,
we struggle to find peace,
we struggle to find hope...
it’s almost too easy to get so caught up in bad news stories
that we lose sight of the everyday goodness of people –
of small acts of kindness happening everywhere around the world that never make the news.

In our story from Acts, we have an interesting commentary on institutional power:
the power of the slave owners who had the law on their side;
the power of Rome who had the world at their feet.
In the end, however, what we see is what real power looks like:
the power that can free a soul from mental and spiritual chains,
the power that can cause fear to turn to joy,
the power that can cause prisoners to sing songs of praise.
The power that can break down prison walls
is the same power that can cause institutions and empires to crumble –
for this power comes from God and God’s power lasts forever.

Living a life of faith can be challenging:
Jesus never promised us that it would be easy –
but he did promise us that he would be with us in the midst of it all –
the joy and the pain.
Shortly, we’ll share in bread and wine,
and, as we remember the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus,
and, as we learn to rely on him,
we can find comfort, and, find hope:
for nothing is strong enough to hold us captive, or bad enough to separate us from God.
We don’t have to be chained –
we don’t have to be prisoners –
to fear, or anger, or disappointment, or ...
whatever it is that holds us down
and wrecks the fulness of life that Christ has called us to.
What must we do to be saved?
Simply...
believe in Jesus,
the One who frees us,
the One who has the power to fill us with deep, deep joy
even when the going gets tough -
especially when the going gets tough,
for God has the power to transform our very lives.  Amen.